Fireworks!

Sitting at the park last night with my family, I thought of how blessed I am to live here, in this town, in the United States of America. It was a perfect night, clear and cool, chilly, in fact. I wished I had brought a jacket. Fireworks were going off all around us, but we were waiting to see the big show, over at Arvest Ballpark. And, around 10:00, it began. Each burst seemed to be a little more spectacular than the last, until the grand finale, and it was over.

This has gotten to be a tradition for Matt and Dawn, the children, and me, each year to walk over and watch the fireworks. I love living in a small town, where I can walk freely through the streets, where, each day at noon, I hear chimes from a near-by church play a hymn. It’s all a part of America; it’s a part of a being free.

As I watched, I thought of our national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner, by Francis Scott Key. I could imagine the writer being on board a ship, straining to see, through the smoke and bursts of rockets, (and, I understand, the lightning and rain of that night)  whether our flag still flew over Ft. McHenry. The flag looked different then, with fifteen stars and fifteen stripes. However then, as now, it represented the valor, determination, and raw courage of Americans who valued freedom above their lives.

As we, as a Nation, go into another summer, may we keep the patriotism of the Fourth of July brightly burnished in our hearts. Let’s be watchful, not allowing freedom to be eroded a bit at a time. In the words of an Irish man, John Philpot Curran,  “The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.” 

Freedom! It was bought by the blood of many patriots and we should value it highly. Next year at this time and the year after and the year after, may Old Glory continue to wave “o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”