“Here in America today people will gather in sidewalks to see parades or in backyards to eat hot dogs or in parks to hear music…whatever you’re doing I hope it’s with family, a structure the Lord ordained as a foundational building block of the nation. And I hope it affords you means to behave in Gospel ways and to speak of the Savior to others. Because we live in America, we can still do that. We can assemble freely and practice our religion freely.”
(Elizabeth Prata – The End Time) The Fourth of July is so fun for a kid. It’s a day when the grownups stay home and we all get to play. For some, that means swimming in the lake or at the beach. For others it means parades and cookouts. For just about everybody it means fireworks.
Our family did lots of different things on the holiday. We spent summers at the Cape. We went to the Park and listened to the Boston Pops. We had pool parties with BBQs. But mainly what I remember is our grandparents’ beach house on the Bay, cousins, and all the uncles leaving to go buy fireworks and returning laughing carrying a huge box. Cherry Bombs and rockets and roman candles, and most delightfully, sparklers.
I loved the sparklers. I’d run up and down the beach waving them as I passed all my other cousins who were doing the same thing.
Is there anything more fun or beautiful than colorful fireworks streaking overhead? Jimmy Buffett has a song called, “The night I painted the sky”.
Independence Day
And all I remember
Was a midnight rainbow
That fell from the sky
As I stand on the beach
I slowly surrender
To the child in me
That can’t say goodbye
The rockets in the air
And the people everywhere
Put away their differences for a while
Oh I am still a child
When it comes to something wild
Oh that was the night
I painted the sky
The prominent memory is the family- nuclear and extended, gathered together on the 4th. Fun, family, eating, family, laughter, family.
There’s some negative reactions these days from Christian conservatives when a person even tiptoes over to the rah-rah America side of things. I unashamedly love my country. Though I love America, I know my ultimate citizenship is in heaven. But the Lord birthed me in 1960 in America and kept me alive throughout these 50 odd years and I can’t complain about His ordination of his time and place for my life. It wasn’t China in 645 BC or Iceland in 1828 or Germany in 1944. It was America, 1960. View article →
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Friends, why are you doing this? We too are only human, like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them. In the past, he let all nations go their own way. Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy. Acts 14:15-17
