Raison d'être

July 2, 2017

We do not celebrate our patriotism this week. No, we celebrate our independence. Independence is not a feeling, nor a love of something familiar. It is not the flying of colors, nor loud proclamations, nor beating of chests. It is instead quiet courage. It is fearsome capability. It is unrelenting resolve. And it is the will to stand up for what is right, not what is popular. Independence neither submits to the authority of another, nor bows to any aggressor. Two hundred forty-one years ago today, the Second Continental Congress voted at Philadelphia to adopt Richard Henry Lee’s resolution for our independence from Great Britain. It did so remembering why we came to this place – to escape religious persecution, to be free of economic ills, and to chart our own course for ourselves and our families – paying dearly with blood and toil for what we held to be our inalienable rights. Those rights trampled, we paid once more to rescue them, and in so doing demonstrated to the world that a new form of government based upon a shared compact of ideas was possible. When over a century later America came to the rescue of that world, she did so with a humble and reluctant strength, sharp intellect, steely determination, and with the overwhelming power and might of all her resources, both natural and human.

Let none of us forget that when tyrants rant and shout, America does not listen. That when rulers pull their citizens into darkness, America does not follow. That when the worst instincts of man crawl forth, America pushes them back. For without our constitution and fortitude, we are nothing. We are not of this land – no, we have simply bestowed it with a higher purpose – and are thus stewards of it and of that for which it stands – independent, benevolent, and hopeful for a future worthy of the resolute intellects and indomitable spirits of our founding fathers, who like angels in the whirlwind, imbued us with God’s grace, bounty, and obligation.

This week, we celebrate our independence. A Happy Fourth to all.