Our minds are turned to freedom these days. We pause to contemplate the beginnings of our nation. A beginning that was wrought by a need to be free. To be free from tyranny, to be free from oppression, to be free from taxation without representation, and to be free to worship God. We need look only to the Declaration of Independence to see that the founders of this nation were seeking to establish a nation of freethinkers who create the oft mentioned “city on the hill.”

Sadly, like any human endeavor, the new nation, conceived in liberty soon found herself in the mire of slavery, in the mess of war, in the sadness of division and oppression. A nation founded on freedom over the years seemed to lose its luster and to become many out of one rather than one out of many.

Like most human entities this new nation seeking to be a noble example of freedom became ensnared in the mire of opinion and causes. This nation became overwhelmed with the thought that freedom is the ability to do whatever we want. Unfortunately, this has often led to what one philosopher has called the war of all against all. 

The freedom to do what ever we want always leads to conflict. What I want to do may be directly in opposition to what you want to do. When this happens how are we to know what we are to do? How can either of us practice our freedom, our God given freedom if there is always the chance of conflict? 

Perhaps the problem is that when we think of freedom, we think too small. We think of freedom as being on the right side of history, we think of freedom as the right to have whatever we want, we think of freedom as the right to say or do what we want. We think of freedom as something that is reinvented whenever something new comes along or whenever someone comes up with a new idea. But even the framers of our new nation knew that freedom was much more than this. 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.

The founders of this nation knew that freedom was a gift from God. That each of us created in the image and likeness of God are endowed with the desire to do what is right, what is true, and what is necessary to be happy in this life and in the life to come. Our nation was born not on the right to do what we want but to do what we ought. To do what makes it possible for all to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.

As we ponder the founding of our nation, as we reflect on the freedom, we celebrate this week, let us pause to consider what freedom truly is. Let us reflect on the right to do what we ought to do, to do what makes us all truly free. Let us consider the dignity of every person, to respect the diversity that makes us strong, to listen with empathy to those who have been deprived of freedom, and to work joyfully together to end oppression, discrimination, and hate which are all insidious attacks on freedom. As we ponder freedom this week let us remember what the author of the Declaration of Independence wrote, that we are all created equal, and that from our generous God we have all been given the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and let us then do as we ought, so that all can live these rights to the fullest. God Bless America!