I would like to wish you all a Happy Firework filled Independence Day. I just want to say briefly how much I do love this country. When I am driven to be critical it is always in the way that a man is critical of his family home. I cuss the parts of the construction that are poor. I question the foundation and the drainage. I doubt whether the roof will hold out the next storm, but never with the thought or intention of abandoning or blowing up the home, always with the goal of purifying and cleansing. I feel about America as you would feel if you discovered in your grandfather’s things child pornography. It is horrifying and traumatic, casts a dark cloud over my home and family, but I still believe that sunshine is the best disinfectant and that evil is only powerful when hidden.
There are two types of people with regard to America, not the two types that we usually imagine. There are those who received the dream and those who didn’t. Not the ‘American dream’ of upward mobility and financial ease, but the dream of Liberty, the dream of Independence from the power of the State and of interfering busybodies of all stripes, the dream of a government that is accountable to its citizens not the other way around. And there are people of all backgrounds, beliefs, ages, and origins who have received the dream and all sorts of people who have not. Might I suggest that whatever our outward differences or similarities it is into these two groups that we should sort ourselves.
In some places and times in our history the dream has come so close that the dream and the reality were nearly indistinguishable. Now is not one of those times. Now is a time when those who love the dream fear that it will be lost forever and question how much and which parts of the reality should be pared away to preserve the dream. But even the most radical pruning is undertaken for the healing of the plant and must be done so out of love of the plant. Those who don’t love America are incapable of taking any action for her benefit, however sensible or well-intentioned.
We love fireworks in the night sky but let us focus on their true meaning, to light up dark places and make evil afraid. There is no steady state evil. It is always sliding towards its appointed end. Let the rockets’ red glare remind them and us that the dawn is coming. Happy Independence Day!
Independence Day sermon from 2021thought you might like it.
https://comfortwithtruth.substack.com/p/dependence-dayhtml