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| Photo by Tyler Whitehead on Unsplash |
As I contemplate these words on this Independence Day 2020, I am drawn to this first sentence of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. In the list of our unalienable rights, Life comes first.
Before Liberty.
Before the pursuit of Happiness.
Life comes first.
I think this is instructive. Jefferson could have written those things in any order, but he chose this one.
So perhaps as we think about the grave concerns facing our country this Independence Day, we, too, should think of Life first.
Of the Lives we can save by staying home as much as possible and wearing masks when we cannot stay home. Though it may temporarily restrict our individual Liberty and pursuit of Happiness.
Of the minority Lives who for hundreds of years have not been valued equally with the Lives of the majority, so that their own Liberty and pursuit of Happiness has been diminished.
I hope you, too, will take time and consider these self-evident truths. And reflect on your role in bringing the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence closer to fruition as we enter our 245th year as a nation.
As we test whether this nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.
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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Please see specifics on my re-use policy before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.
