For Wilshire Baptist Church
I sat down to write something about our neighborhood but put on the brakes because it’s the July Fourth weekend and perhaps there is something to say about this season of liberty and freedom, and what it means and doesn’t mean. And then I went backward in time because I was interested to see what has changed. I found a post from this same week in 2016 and decided while the earth has orbited the sun nine times since then, we inhabitants of the planet haven’t changed so much.
July 5, 2016:
I have plenty of fun memories of July Fourth celebrations: swimming at the Thompson’s, hotdogs and burgers on the grill, sparklers and bottle rockets in the open fields near our house before Richardson got big and the police started watching. I also have memories that are less ideal and in fact puzzling.
Like the July Fourth when I was working in Waco and a few of us decided to go see the big fireworks show at Fort Hood. I don’t recall anything about the show, but I remember driving into the Army base and passing a windowless building with a yard that was fenced and topped with barbed wire. Behind the fence were a dozen or more men just standing around. It took me a moment to realize this was the stockade, the jail for the base, and then the irony hit me: at one of the world’s largest military posts, where men and women train to preserve and protect freedom, there were men who were not free. They were imprisoned behind barbed wire for breaking laws and violating freedoms. I wondered later if they could see the fireworks, and what they thought as they saw or at least heard them? I also wondered if the graduate student from China who was with us and who grew up in the confines of communism had similar observations?
Some years later while living near Samuel Grand Park in East Dallas, we walked to the park to watch the fireworks from the Cotton Bowl stadium. We came upon a neighbor standing outside in the dark, and when we invited him to walk with us, he took the cigarette out of his mouth and said, “Seen one firework show, you’ve seen’em all.” I should explain this man made his living traveling to state and county fairs with a mobile fried chicken stand, so no doubt he had seen plenty of firework shows. Still, I marveled at his total lack of interest and emotion.
How is it that people become so estranged from the joy of independence, so indifferent to the gift of freedom? I admit I am so free to do whatever I please that it’s easy to take it for granted. I still enjoy the annual celebration, but it’s easy to forget freedom is lacking in many corners of the globe and must be vigilantly protected and actively maintained here at home.
I’m not talking in a military sense but more in a community sense, where freedom only happens when it’s given as much as it’s received. The giving of freedom to each other is difficult because it requires courtesy, respect, patience and healthy amounts of give and take. That type of freedom sharing comes from a different place than the courthouse. It comes from a spark within each of us that is planted by something greater than us.
Much of our national friction comes from our attempts to strike a balance between allowing those freedoms that come as naturally as the air we breathe while not ignoring the freedoms of others. Often the result is a narrow gauntlet of laws that must be navigated – like the laws that say I can’t celebrate my freedom with firecrackers in my own front yard because I might accidentally burn down the home of my neighbor. It’s a small price to pay for public safety, and it helps set the stage for community celebrations.
Back to the present:
Tonight we’ll walk to the downtown Garland square to experience “Red, White & You.” There’ll be vendors, games, music, food and of course fireworks. We’ve been before and it’s always a good time. It has a way of debunking the notion that if you’ve seen one firework show, you’ve seen them all. Every celebration is unique, especially when you factor in who you are with and where you are. Community is always a big part of the show.
One year, as we walked home from the celebration, we were reminded again of the true source of that spark of freedom we all have. As firecrackers popped and flared from backyards and alleys, the sky above us rumbled and flashed with thunder and lightning. The manmade explosions were no match for the pyrotechnics of the Creator.