Liberty

July 4th Fireworks

in Palos Heights

Palos Heights, like other small towns (I know, officially, it's a city) has a 4th of July tradition. Somewhere west of Lake Katherine, starting at 9:15 P.M., the fireworks begin. This year the booms and brilliant displays lasted only 15 minutes.

A Canada goose honked loudly as it sought what security it could find. A lone swan paddled near the shore – perhaps finding solace in human company.

People, many people, had parked their vehicles where they could find spots on nearby side streets and walked, sometimes several blocks – carrying blankets or folding chairs. After a great, if brief, show, hundreds of people gathered their blankets and folding chairs and headed back to their cars.

What’s it all about, this thing called liberty? While 1776 is important in the birth of the United States, that isn't what this little blog post is about.

Paul wrote of a more universal freedom, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

Where the Spirit of kindness is, where truth, patience, good-will, and respect prevail – this is true freedom. For me, this is also what the annual fireworks celebrate.

Indepence Day

Canada celebrated a sort of Independence Day July 1. But their departure from British rule in 1867 was gentler than had been that of those rebellious American colonies some 90 years earlier.

Maybe both Canada and Great Britain had learned something about the value of a peaceful parting of ways in the interim.

My sister and her husband, my Minnesota cousin, and I drove into Chicago for the July 3 fireworks display.

We found dinner at Taste of Chicago, listened to the Grant Park Orchestra, and oohed and aahed at the fireworks bursting over the lakeside treetops.

What does Independence Day mean today? I like to view it in broader terms – that it’s mankind’s independence from peer pressure, marketing skills, drug culture, materialism.

I believe mankind has a wonderful legacy of learning to lean on the Almighty – both for important and less important life decisions. That there’s a universal intelligence that cares about His/Her creation, and is constantly speaking to each of us with specific good, useful, and productive ideas.

If this is so, we don’t have to be dependent on selfishness, greed, ignorance, or fear for making individual or national decisions.

This is the Independence Day celebration I love to participate in.

Hundreds of thousands of pedestrians
exit Grant Park after the fireworks