July 4th - Independence Day

Fort McHenry - Baltimore, Maryland

Acts 22:28 “And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born.”

We live in a world where every word is analyzed and every thought found to be offensive, offending at least one person in a group. I’m not perfect by any means, and I don’t know the terms that are politically correct these days so I’m sure I unintentionally offend someone somewhere at some time or another.

The other day I read a story about a Red Cross poster that offended one woman and she made a viral fit asking them to take down the offensive poster saying it was racist. They quickly apologized and took down the poster so they could continue their good work for people of all races.

Why do people feel entitled to make a statement that THEY are right and YOU are wrong? Why has the world been spinning lately to the sound of racism, sexual orientation, political correctness and almost mass hysteria when the God word is spoken?

I am a very sensitive person and when someone offends me I more than likely turn inward instead of unleashing cruelty on the offending person. I think to myself, they have to live with themselves on a daily basis and it must get awful lonely living a life looking to see what offends you in every second of the day.

People will say it is a freedom that soldiers died for but if these soldiers knew that this is what was going to be made of their country, would they do it again? Would they die so people had the freedom to be ignorant, self-serving, and greedy? Freedom of Speech I don’t feel was intended to be a freedom of being offended by everything someone speaks under the sun. 

Things that were intended to be ‘free’ are not free. Sure I have a roof over my head, but it’s not free, nor is the gas, electric, water and food. Did you know that in some states it is against the law to catch rainwater and use it to water your lawn? Rainwater - it falls freely from the sky, but the greed in the depths of pockets tries to control who and what you can use rainwater for! My brother owns his home and has to pay a ‘rainwater’ tax! 

While the Powers That Be claim they want God in the equation, there are those who are moving to take God OUT of the equation and rewrite the history that we’ve come to celebrate on this Independence Day - July 4th.

The Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4th, 1776.  Can you imagine if these words were the truth of today?

“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.”

Endowed by their Creator. My how times have changed and the majority no longer believes in a Creator, or they believe in their own creator. We’ve lost sight of what this nation was built on and have become our own creators with our own rights. 

Freedom of Speech, I do not believe, meant that we could call people raving idiots because we feel like it. Right to Bear Arms – surely did not mean that we can shoot whomever we want and whoever didn’t agree with the world that WE created, we have a right to kill! What does the Declaration of Independence even mean these days? 

We say, God Bless America but what does that truly mean to each individual? We became free but enslaved the Negro. We freed the blacks and now enslave the refugee who seeks freedom for their families. We speak freedom but, in a nutshell, deny many the freedoms we speak of.

While we have cookouts, attend firework shows, and proudly fly our flag, do we remember or do we forget just what it is we’re celebrating? Do we stand behind our country and its leaders or do we flex our right of Freedom of Speech and denounce anyone who doesn’t fit our bill of standards that we’ve set for OURSELVES? Are we the people willing to run the country? Yes, we the people are willing to run the country…right into the ground so other countries can sit and laugh.

“One nation under God” should be “ONE WORLD UNDER GOD!” That would make me much prouder if we all just got along. 

Carrollton, Texas

Quotation Saturday ~ Fourth of July!

Fort McHenry - Baltimore Maryland

Acts 22:28 “And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born.”

FOURTH OF JULY

“The most elusive and ultimately impossible act of liberation is freedom from sin and self, and no document or declaration of man regardless of how exquisitely penned can do that. Such an astonishing act of liberation could only have been penned in one place: the cross.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Years ago, a group of good, wise, brave, God-fearing men stood up to claim and defend the human right for independence. Those men are now dead. Their work is not. But if good, wise, brave, God-fearing men fail to stand up in their stead, that independence will cease to exist.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich

“Freedom is the atmosphere in which humanity thrives. Breathe it in.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich

“To celebrate the Fourth of July meant something definite in those days.”
― Carol Ryrie Brink

Annapolis Maryland

PATRIOTISM

“They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country.”
― Bertrand Russell

Texas

FREEDOM

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”
― Virginia Woolf

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.”
― Nelson Mandela

“Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.”
― Stephen King, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption: A Story from Different Seasons

Fort McHenry - Looking at the Francis Scott Key Bridge

INDEPENDENCE

“I'd rather die my way than live yours.”
― Lauren Oliver

“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”
― Jane Austen

“To find yourself, think for yourself.”
― Socrates

“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice."
[Stanford University commencement speech, 2005]”
― Steve Jobs

Texas

CELEBRATION

“People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state--it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle.... Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.
Source: The Wisdom of Heschel”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel

“Celebration is an act of impressing sadistic someone residing in you.”
― Santosh Kalwar

“Life is a celebration. Free your mind to find the liberation.”
― Debasish Mridha

“So much of life is in the smallness of moments...but they are harder to mark. So we need the grander celebrations and occasions. People like to feel significant”
― Ally Condie

Annapolis State House

Freedom...

My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office-holders. ~Mark Twain
***

Today is the Fourth of July and as I sought out the reasons we celebrate the day, I found a lot of bitterness and angst.

We are supposed to be celebrating our freedom, with these words ringing in our ears: “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”. 
Is this true? Do we treat all men, or women for that matter, equal? Does our nation even believe in a Creator? Do we still have freedoms?
 

I’m not a political person, never was and never will be. I’m not anti-American either but I don’t place my hand on my heart and pledge allegiance to a flag, where the words go on to say, “One nation under God...” I put both hands together and prayer to that God, and that people will wake up from their years of sleep and honor and respect the ONE creator. A flag did not give us ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’, the last time I checked.
 

A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbours. ~William R. Inge

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”. What?  Does that mean the government rules the nation and leaves us in the unemployment lines, seeking welfare, raising taxes and dragging our feet and hearts and souls to get out of the abyss we have climbed into?
 

My country is in shambles, we have senators upon senators running the show, many who bare their body parts and seek out prostitutes on a regular basis and think that either they are all powerful and can get away with it, or that they don’t give a crap about the institute of marriage that they signed up for, ‘until death do us part’. It was part the Earth gentlemen not your legs!

These men were voted into office, by like minded people. People have all just thrown  morality out the door. You see, people vote them into office because they look good, sound good and make false promises. They know this and vote them in over and over again, only to spew hate and have a tabloid frenzied party when they don’t do what ‘the people’ wanted.

And we’re proud of this?

When I googled ‘Why we celebrate the Fourth of July’, what came up was parades and firework events, neighborhood block parties and whatnot. What? No talk on American Revolution? No reason why we should honor and respect this ‘freedom’?

The flag to me is to honor and respect the men and women who fight on a daily basis for our country. The very country who, when tight on funds, wants to hold back money from the soldiers, because they are expendable?

My final thoughts on the matter? God...Bless America.

He loves his country best who strives to make it best. ~Robert G. Ingersoll

 

To him in whom love dwells, the whole world is but one family. ~Buddha

Freedom

FREEDOM
The pen is mightier than the sword…

How often have you heard that one? To me it is a mighty mantra and I put it to good use. Whenever I want to lash out at someone, instead of verbally abusing the situation, I sit down and write. Often times its just me babbling, but more times than not my pen becomes a sword while I watch a storm (story) brewing beneath the surface. With the blade sharpened it even becomes a mighty tool in the machinations of my work.

We writer’s have a freedom that every human being should have, but too often they would rather lash out in a verbal attack, not knowing that their pen is mightier. Writer’s can take the red, white and blue to new levels.

The red is the crimson that boils under the skin, painting a woman’s cheeks a soft hue. The blue is the battered bruising that a conflict can cause or the shade of sadness that creeps into your heart. The white is the glorious purity of a whimsical soul that has been allowed to soar amid the fluffy clouds creating the mystical lure to drink in the reader.

The flag stands for something to our country America. But what the symbol exudes is our freedom that was well earned through the bloodshed of men, the bruising of ego and pure love of a land that was/is worth fighting for to keep all of our constitutions words alive.

Words! Did you read that? It was words that brought about our Constitutional Rights. It was then followed by actions to make the rights of a nation stick like gum to asphalt. Sometimes they can appear a little gummy and uncertain, but in the end when all is said and done, the Law becomes a firm adhesive in forming a nation.

Just as writing will bring about an unwavering adhesion and will cling to you no matter where you go in this world. Words will build you a structure, shape and mold a story, bring you to move into action, so you become published while a nation stands in awe of your work. You raise the flag of freedom. You praise the country you live in, then you thank God for giving you the best gift anyone could ever receive, and that is the talent of writing.

So what are you waiting for? Let the Freedom of Writing take hold of your psyche allowing you to move into action as the cause and affect leap onto your keyboard. You will mold, shape, structure a tale then through action cause it to be released into the world on its own wings, watching it fly like the beautiful eagle.

Our fathers’ God, to Thee,

Author of liberty,To Thee we sing;

Long may our land be brightWith freedom’s holy light;

Protect us by Thy might,

Great God, our King.