Independance Day (July 4th) Message

Today we celebrate the 249^th anniversary of the birth of The United States of America, through the signing of the Declaration of Independence by representatives from 15 states. The declaration begins:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” 

Just over 100 years later, in 1886, the people of France gifted the US a sculpture known as “Liberty Enlightening the World.” It was a gift to both honor the centennial of the country’s birth, and it’s recent ending of slavery. During fundraising for the pedestal, poet Emma Lazarus wrote the poem most associated with the statue. The statue had been compared to the Colossus of Rhodes. Emma envisioned a new Colossus, free of the Old World of Europe. She titled it The New Colossus.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

As we celebrate this Friday, let us remember the high principles upon which this nation was founded, and rededicate ourselves to embodying them.

~ Rev. David Robinson