Star Spangled

This was first sent out as an email to friends and family, then I thought it was blog material so here it again –
As many of you know, and the rest of you are about to find out, I am a real big fan of patriotic holidays and the fourth of July is one of my favorites. I have a flag dress & I wear it to vote and on every conceivable patriotic day like tomorrow. I have a batch of cd’s, akin to Christmas music, that I pop into the stereo, all with patriotic anthems and songs sung by all the great singers. Tomorrow, on July 4th, dressed in my flag dress, I will play my patriotic music, fly my flags (I have quite a collection) and barbeque. Apart from the dress, this is probably not much different from most of you. Mostly though, I will remember the great thing that happened when the United States of America, 13 states at the time, declared independence from Great Britain in 1776. Whenever I read the Declaration I cry. It is so moving to me that men, yes men, could take such audacious steps toward freedom. Yes, arguably it was faulty, for not including, from the very beginning, both genders and all races, but had it not happened, faulty or otherwise, we might not know a world, ever, with any true freedom for any gender or any race. Think about it.

I pray. You might pray. You might not. I’m female. You might be black. The point is we are free to pray or not pray. Next to Christmas and the birth of my Savior, I think the Fourth of July is next in my book of great days.

Here are a few of the first lines of the Declaration of Independence (if you want the whole text it is all available on http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/index.htm God Bless America and God Bless you.

Now, when I wish you a happy fourth of July, you know just what I mean, Karen

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world…….