March 3, 2022

 

I think it's time to tell you a story.

 

I still can't go into every detail. There's so much in my mind and heart, I need more time to sort that all out. But so very many friends have literally prayed me to this place, I have to thank you.

 

I fell and broke my shoulder on October 27, 2021 - on my morning walk! How many horrific health stories start with a fall? The trip to the ER put our minds to rest - no surgery needed - huzzah. Just physical therapy, because hello! Shoulder.

 

Three days later, both Dale and I presented with covid symptoms. How many people do you know who were exposed to covid in a hospital? We tested positive two days later, and as my breathing quickly became an issue, I was admitted to Park City's IHC facility on November 3, 2021, because there weren't any beds available at IMC.

 

I was life flighted back to IMC and intubated on November 22. With the inevitable slowing down of body functions that accompanies sedation, I developed a bowel obstruction that required life-saving surgery.

 

Except when covid has weakened your body, the sutures leak, and you go into septic shock. Suddenly, Dale was wondering if I would live, if I would function again - even cognitively, or if he should start planning a funeral.

 

That's when the fasting and prayers really intensified. After nearly three more weeks on a ventilator, I came to, almost completely immobile and helpless. It was a week before Christmas. The only explanation for my survival was Divine Intervention. Clearly, God wasn't finished with me on the planet yet.

 

For two weeks, IHC's patient services tried to find a skilled nursing facility that would take me. Because my kidneys had failed because of the sepsis, none would take me because of my immobility. How would they get me to a dialysis center?

 

At first, we were heartsick when the only place that would take us was in Roy - 45 minutes from home. Little did we know how God's hand was in that as well. We learned that this particular SNF, and its sister facility in Bountiful, were the only places in a 4-state area that had in-house dialysis. They had the ability to use a Hoyer lift to get me to dialysis down the hall, versus across town.

 

I was admitted to Heritage Park on January 6, 2022 for rehabilitation. I had to learn everything over again. Literally. Everything. How to breathe, talk, swallow, eat, sit up, stand up, walk.

 

Thanks to more fasting and prayers, priesthood blessings, and the help and support of family, friends, and angelic health care workers, I was discharged on February 23, 2022, and came home. I hadn't seen my home for nearly 4 months. It will be months before I can approach the Laureen of October 26, 2021. But as of today, I don't have to rest after I brush my teeth anymore, and I am rocking the stairs.

 

I have never felt God's presence in every second of every day the way I have in this 4 month experience. I've come to think of it as my personal Liberty Jail winter.

 

The hardest thing I've ever had to endure happened on the most sacred ground I have ever walked. God used many people to serve me, and He allowed me to serve Him as well - in testifying of Him every chance I got.

 

Those of you who have fasted and prayed for me - I will never be able to thank you properly. Just know - you are part of a cloud of witnesses to God's goodness, His love for His children, and His healing power. Jesus Christ succored me through this experience so all of us can know that miracles still happen.

Fear - A Reality Check

From my journal March 14, 2021

I’ve seen more fear in my world in the last year than I have in my entire life.  It’s been an extreme challenge, and caused me to spend a fair amount of time thinking about what fear does to a mind. Just a few important ones to consider: 

1. Fear can block rational thinking.  Fear is the emotion triggered by the limbic fight-or-flight response.  The fact fear can shut down the reasoning frontal cortex is a simple matter of cause and effect.  But because God is so big on honoring personal will, is it possible for a person with a deeply held value system - who constantly taps into it through personal practice - to block the fight-or-flight response?

1. 2. Fear can override compassion and charity. Prophets who have been given the discouraging and often life-threatening assignment of preaching to dying societies always preach about faith, hope, and charity. I wonder - is charity particularly important in a dying society because fear is so rampant?  Is it possible that practicing charity can help override fear?

1. 3. Fear can trigger anger.  Fear is a primary emotion; anger is a secondary.  Fearful people can be easily manipulated to become angry people, and angry people can be easily manipulated to violence.  Fear can be a powerful weapon in the hands of power mongers. Is it possible that practicing controlling anger can help lessen this trigger from fear?

1. 4. Fear inhibits connection.  Fear turns every other child of God into a soulless ‘It’ - an ‘Other’ who is so different from ourselves, we can’t possibly see anything in common with them.  In the absence of fear, we can more clearly see all others as sacred like ourselves - with thoughts and feelings and fears and phobias like ours.  Is it possible that in practicing seeing others like ourselves, we can inhibit our fears?

1. 5. Fear erodes faith. It has been said that faith and fear can’t co-exist, and I believe it. Fear is walking on water towards a Savior we very often can’t see, yet keeping our eye on the waves beneath our feet; faith is walking towards a Savior, and with an eye of faith, keeping our eye on a beloved Face which we WILL see with our physical eyes one day. 

I can tell I’ve spent a good part of this last year in the stages of grief as I’ve mourned how successful the fear campaign has been with people all over the world. I’ve experienced denial that fear is driving any of the dramatic changes we’ve seen, and optimistically hoped that reason would eventually prevail. I’ve experienced anger at what has felt like a complete abandonment of common sense, common interests, and common values.  And I’ve finally come to an acceptance that none of these problems will be solved without Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the solution.  Even those who don’t want to recognize Him as the Son of God and Savior of the world would do well to consider His teachings as solutions: reason, compassion, charity, overcoming anger, connection, faith in unseen goodness. 

We’re all walking on a pretty stormy sea now. Take a chance - look up from the waves and into the dearest Face I know.  “Fear thou not; for I am with thee:  be not dismayed; for I am thy God...” (Isaiah 41:10)

Fear - a reality rant

From my journal - March 7, 2021

I started to pay closer attention to the unjust actions of corrupt government about twelve years ago. It’s been a very interesting journey.  I’ve learned a lot about the subtle ways the very desire to self-govern is being eroded in the U.S. 

Because so many have lost the historical context of what self-government is even supposed to be, which is at the heart of the American experiment, my fear that we are losing our desire and ability to do it has often been dismissed and disrespected.  It hurts to have people you love and respect treat your fear as irrational. 

With that as context, you might imagine the consternation I’ve felt in the last year.  I am told I am an uncharitable person to disrespect the very real fear of people who are afraid of dying of a virus that has proven to have a 99% survival rate.  To me, fear of a virus with that survival rate is the very definition of an irrational fear.  

Until just the last few years, the United States I have lived in my whole life has been a place where individuals could decide for themselves whether they wanted to take precautions for their own health. Those who feared getting sick - rational or not - could do something about it.  Their fear - rational or not - had nothing to do with using compulsory means to change the way anyone else lived their lives.  The fact that it’s considered selfish and even reckless or cruel to do this now, a year into “flattening the curve,” would suggest that MY fear has been the most rational. 

I work very hard to not allow myself to be offended, but I’ve got to tell you - I am now officially offended that my fear of the last twelve years has been dismissed, and even mocked and derided for being irrational, while at the same time those who may have been germaphobic to begin with are treated as if their fear has genuine merit.

I respect the precautions of more hand washing, more attention to improving my own personal immune system, and staying home when you’re not feeling well.  All other precautions?  I can’t respect any of them because of the outlandish inconsistencies in implementation. But I’m made to comply with these inconsistent policies, and from the look of it, the reason is to assuage others’ fear.

I’m PARTICULARLY offended when over a hundred illegal immigrants were released into Texas last week, who tested positive for the virus! This - at the same time I’ve just spent the last year being denied the unalienable right of AIR, all in the name of calming others’ fear. Well, what about MY fear that we are losing our freedom?  How seriously can I take this if illegal immigrants who have the virus aren’t quarantined before being allowed into the U.S. at large, while at the same time, people are policing each other about keeping a mask up over the nose, and families are being kicked off planes because a terrified little child doesn’t want to keep a mask over his face for a 4-hour flight?

What of my fear that power-hungry people have seized the opportunity of a crisis - as they always do - and have used fear to get us to comply with an important loss of individual liberty?  Naomi Wolf has written recently of her concern that “emergency” powers - once taken, are historically NEVER relinquished. And lest you think this is a partisan issue: Naomi Wolf is a Democrat. 

Self-government means that not only are we capable of making the best choices for our own lives, but that we’re capable of allowing other people to do the same - even if their choices look completely different than our choices. 

Self-government means we’ve outgrown the first-grade tendency to tattle to teacher, pointing to our neighbor at Table 1, and shouting, “He’s doing it wrong!”  My apologies to the more mature first-graders everywhere. 

Self-government means we realize that freedom means we have to give each other room to learn from our mistakes by doing it wrong, because WE need that room ourselves.  

I need to change my answer.  I’m not offended; I’m heart-broken.  I’m heart-broken and stunned at the widespread ignoring  of logic which has been necessary to bring us to this one-year anniversary of two weeks to flatten the curve. I mourn that the United States of America’s beautiful experiment in self-government seems to be lost.  All rational evidence points to the curve being flattened a long time ago. But the more contagious virus - irrational fear that a healthy neighbor can kill you - may never be flattened if we don’t turn our frontal cortexes back on. It’s the only thing that will override fear, and the only thing that will save our liberty.

Swords or plowshares?

I spent much of Sunday afternoon weeping. I’d come downstairs from studying and intermittent dozing to find Dale watching the 25th anniversary of Les Mis on a PBS beg-a-thon, with Alfie Boe. 

I have loved Les Mis since I first read the Cosette and Marius love story in 9th grade French, which compelled me to plow through the unabridged edition the next summer. The musical just added to my love of this story. Particularly, Dale has sung “Bring Him Home” and brought me to tears, at the piano, as his accompanist. But Alfie Boe’s rendition completely undoes me. THAT’S the way God gave this perfect piece of music to the inspired composer. Parenthetically: in an interview after Boe was a guest of the Tabernacle Choir, he called the piece a “diamond in his pocket.” Indeed. If I close my eyes, it’s 2012, and I’m in the Conference Center again, hearing Boe perform this priceless piece of art, which only exists in time. The only year of Dale’s 16-year tenure in the choir when I selfishly kept tickets for all 4 performances for myself. What can I say? I like diamonds. 

I’ve finally been able to embrace this embarrassing fact: I cry at beautiful things.  I’m not embarrassed that I love beauty, but rather, that my tear ducts just can’t stay out of it anymore.  Tears streamed down my face as I made dinner during the beg-a-thon break, as I considered the timeless, and ergo timely themes of this magnificent novel, and the beautiful adaptation as an opera. And Jared and Denise Carman - I continue to mourn not teaching this novel to your students this spring.  

Les Miserables is the kind of novel that makes me say there is no such thing as fiction. Good fiction, well-written - a story, well-told - is simply a fresh new way of telling the truth about the human condition and eternal principles. Sunday afternoon, the timeless and timely themes caught in my throat, and flowed down my face. But because of current events, they won’t leave me.

A hardened man is told for so long that he’s irredeemable, that he believes it - until a Christ-like man points him to THE Redeemer, and he is redeemed.  From desperately stealing bread to save loved ones, to years as a hardened convict, this man manages to sink even lower with one more petty theft.  Finally, at rock bottom, he finds THE Rock, realizes he owes a debt for his redemption, and begins to build a life again.

Meanwhile, a young girl callowly gives her innocence to the man she thinks she’ll spend her life with, only to discover she’s been toyed with for sport. She’s left an unwed mother, and eventually sells herself to provide for a child who is neglected and abused by the lowest of humanity.  The fruit of repentance from the hardened criminal is real and poignant, as he gives his life to becoming a father to the broken women’s little girl. Years later, he saves the life of the man she loves. This is the man he prays over, begging God, “If I die, let me die... let him live.”  This prayer - the original name of “Bring Him Home” was “The Prayer” - signifies the beautiful fruit of repentance - of conversion - in spite of the miseries of the man’s life.

But apparently, I’m not finished weeping. Angry young men prepare to die to have their voices heard, the injustices of life filling the cup of their indignation to overflowing - with violence. They’re almost innocently surprised that any of their militant number would actually lose their lives in their uprising, and tenderly consider each fallen man as a martyr to a holy cause.  Am I watching the news? Or an artistic performance?  

And finally, the penitent man, who has born sorrows his entire life, is finished. The young woman whose child he raised comes to take him in death. And these are the words that I will never stop weeping over, truth and beauty combined in this one nearly perfect lyrical, musical passage: “To love another person is to see the face of God.”  

As the show concludes, the same stirring music from the end of the first half is reprised. In the first half, the lyrics speak of angry men changing the world by demanding blood for injustice. Now, the lyrics set to the same music speak of “climbing to the light,” and promise that “even the darkest nights will end and the sun will rise.” There is allusion to this beautiful Millennial verse in Isaiah 2:4: 

“And he [Jesus Christ] will judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

The message is unmistakable.  The first half of the story seems to imply that only fighting the injustice that IS mortality will change the world and create a utopia. The beautiful conclusion corrects - brilliantly, artistically, with the same stirring melody, and this message: the only power that will change this world is the pure love of Jesus Christ.  

Whittaker Chambers wrote an incredible autobiography, “Witness,” recounting his life as a Soviet communist spy in the U.S. State Department during the 1920’s and 1930’s. He read and reread “Les Miserables” as a child - as young as 8 or 10! - and his exquisite writing is a brilliant illustration of his repeated exposure to such high literature.  

In his book, Chambers bears witness of his journey from the darkness of communism into the light of faith. He asserts that “Les Miserables” was the book that convinced him communism was the only way to change the world: an ideology of division, force, and the promised lie of a utopia that could never be achieved, because it can’t bear to acknowledge the only perfect Bearer of Peace the world has ever had. 

Then, incredibly, Chambers also writes that “Les Miserables” was also the book that convinced him communism was not just wrong, but evil -  and that only in a world with freedom and free will, could humanity ever CHOOSE to love their neighbors as themselves. 

Considering this beautiful story of humanity, on Sunday afternoon, I tearfully concluded that Victor Hugo agrees with Whittaker Chambers. For the record - so do I. 

Happy Anniversary to Me

        The Salt Lake Temple is about to close for 4 years. I didn’t think I felt as deeply about the loss of this temple for a time until the last few times I’ve gone this year.

There is a spot right inside the actual temple - a grand hallway outside the first ordinance room that I will never forget. It’s maybe what the foyer into the personal Holy of Holies in my heart looks like. There are gorgeous newel posts and a bannister on the stairway at the far end, and a stunning stained glass window on the landing. There are exquisite chandeliers and paintings, beautiful woodwork and ornate trim. 

I remember the first time I stood there - on December 8, 1979 - the day I received my endowment.  My naive, inexperienced 23-year-old heart wanted to burst that I was finally entering the House of the Lord, and that particular spot has taken my breath away every time since that day. I’ve realized as I’ve attended this year that it’s taken this 40 years of wilderness to feel like I even begin to understand better what it really means to be prepared to “enter in.”  

Every time I have ever gone to the Salt Lake Temple, that vantage point still makes my heart leap - I am entering the House of the Lord!  I can’t do it justice to try to explain it, but you know I’ll try. There’s absolute joy and anticipation in it - and gratitude - but there’s another thing.  

As a kid and beyond, I’ve had dreams of being in various temples that I didn’t recognize at all.  Because my dream temples have been similar to the temples I’ve actually attended, and because the dreams have recurred over many, many years, I’ve wondered if I’m remembering something from before this life. Every time I have one of these dreams, I get excited (in my dream), and start to pay close attention, hoping to remember details. 

What I felt in the dreams with the temples-that-aren’t-temples-of-this-earth was remembering.  I truly believe that part of what took my breath away on December 8, 1979 was recognition and remembering.  

Part of the 40 years of wilderness experience since that day has included: 

 - Fear and nervousness of the unexpected in the temple

 - Fear and nervousness of forgetting 

 - Reluctance to take the time to go to the Temple regularly

 - Chagrin at recognizing how easy it’s been for the destroyer to talk me out of going to the temple

 - Understanding that in order to make a deeper habit of attending the temple, perhaps I didn’t even dare write my plans on my calendar for his evil minions to see

 - Growing appreciation for the simple beauty of the way God’s plan for His children is taught in the temple 

 - Deeper gratitude for being taught directly by my Creator, Father, and God, through the power of the Holy Ghost, in His holy temple. 

Several years ago, after a particularly rough patch of wilderness, things started to open up for me, and I couldn’t stop thanking Father for how He had wrought a mighty change in me. One night, as I was thanking him - again - for this great miracle, I felt, rather than heard these words: “I gave you as much as I could, for as seldom as you’re in the temple.” Please hear this: there wasn’t a hint of rebuke in this simple, loving statement of fact.  It was at that point I started making a more sincere and diligent effort to be in the temple more often.  This has taught me that even in this, there is a natural law, with natural consequences attached. No wonder apostles and prophets have referred to the temple as the Lord’s “university.”

More glorious than any other happy consequence of being in the temple more often is how I’m able to feel more and more the craving to be there.  As more storms have come in the wilderness, it’s become ever more instinctive to run home - to weep and mourn for my trials and earth stains, to feel comfort from heavenly Parents, to be strengthened to go back out into the wilderness, with power to go in the name of the Savior and do His work. 

The sure provisions of my God attend me all my days;

Oh, may Thy house be my abode and all my work be praise;

There would I find a settled rest, while others go and come;

No more a stranger nor a guest, but like a child at home. 

(Isaac Watts, My Shepherd Will Supply My Need)

In that one particular spot in the Salt Lake Temple, I will forever hear these words. Whenever I hear that beautiful hymn, in my mind, I’m in that sacred, exquisite spot just inside the Salt Lake Temple - my temple - the temple where Dale’s and my kingdom began - where the eternal organism of our family was born, one week later. 

Going to the temple is to give us the taste - the reminder - of home, and to give us the desire to be forever at home - in our original home.  The two most important invitations: come - and remember. 

The Gratitude Experiment

November 1, 2019

In spite of the natural ebb and flow of living, seasons of waves can still catch you by surprise. Oh, who am I kidding - they can completely take you under, right?  Some of the worst waves for me are the internal ones. Even more than when I have physical pressures of too many things on my calendar, when I’m battling “with principalities,” I can barely tie my shoes. 

This was the condition of our fair heroine a few weeks ago. Though I have never - ever - EVER even remotely felt suicidal, there was a Saturday night, mid-September, when I wished there were an office - with paperwork that could be filled out - to officially Give Up. It was time to say my prayers before bed, and I couldn’t think of a thing to say to my Heavenly Father, whom I adore, except, “help me help me help me!”  I wasn’t sure if I should. Or even could.

Then I remembered the talk Elder David A. Bednar gave in October 2008 general conference (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2008/10/pray-always).  For the record, I just remembered a  talk he had given; I had to look it up to tell you WHEN he gave it. In it, he told about a general authority staying with his family when Elder Bednar was the president of then Ricks College. The Bednars had just lost a very dear friend, and were feeling a great need to ask Heavenly Father to bless and be with the friend’s family.  That night, as the general authority and his wife joined the Bednars in family prayer, the general authority unknowingly challenged the family that night to say nothing in their prayers but expressions of gratitude.  Elder Bednar talked about what a great spiritual exercise it was for his family to only make statements of gratitude in this particular prayer, at a time when they so desperately wanted to plead with the Lord to bless and be with their friends. 

This incident wafted through my head on that fateful September night. I decided that would be an excellent spiritual exercise for me, right this minute.  I knelt by my bed, and racked my brain to think of what I was thankful for, besides the usual list of suspects: a loving husband, two incredible children, a warm, comfortable home, a job I loved, opportunities to serve.  As I proceeded, the list deepened: 

 - I was grateful I could go to bed and feel differently in the morning. 

 - I was grateful for second chances, and second millionth chances. 

 - I was grateful God would give me strength beyond my own to try again.

 - I was grateful tomorrow was Sunday, so that I could be filled up again with the strength, and peace, and joy that I needed to do His will. 

I went to bed a much happier camper than the pre-prayer me - so much so, that I decided to have a similar prayer the next morning. 

 - I was grateful for Sundays.

 - I was grateful my taking the sacrament told both Father - and myself - that I was seriously All In, even though I knew I’d made a mess of many things the previous week.

 - I was grateful that a night’s sleep really did make everything look different.

 - I was grateful the Holy Ghost had given me such a brilliant idea to say nothing but thanks.

At this point, I determined that from then until general conference in two weeks, I would speak nothing to my Heavenly Father except to praise Him and express my gratitude. I would frame every need in a statement of praise, acknowledging the many tender mercies which He had already given me to meet those needs. 

It was two of the very best weeks of my life, and has changed the month that has come after it. 

When Elder Bednar taught about the spiritual work and significance of praying this way, he wasn’t kidding. It reminded me of what the brother of Jared had to do to figure out what to ask the Lord about lighting the barges. 

I love this story for soooo many reasons. For the Lord to directly ask the brother of Jared, “What would you like me to do?” (Ether 2:25) is so instructive about the effort the Lord would like us to put into our communications with Him. And the brother of Jared’s response is even more particularly instructive. Moltening stones does not exactly sound like a quick or easy process.  This incident reminds me constantly, especially when I am stuck in those “help me help me help me” prayers, that I may want to drill down just a little more, and come up with specific things I need to ask for.

But now, deciding to have two weeks of only gratitude prayers, asking for nothing - well - this was another way of moltening stones. 

 - I have a sick friend? I’m grateful that friend can pray for healing, and for patience and comfort in the sickness. I’m grateful Jesus Christ suffered all these things to make it possible for my friend to petition the Lord for relief, and feel His peace and love in the meantime. 

 - I’m confused about direction?  I’m grateful the Lord has given me such powerful tools to receive revelation: the scriptures, the words of prophets - particularly the living prophets - the gift of the Holy Ghost. 

 - I don’t feel strong enough to do a hard thing on my schedule today? I’m grateful that Jesus Christ has done more than make me clean - that He also lends me HIS strength when I make my best efforts. 

Framing all my communications as statements of praise and gratitude was a whole different way of moltening stones. It was spiritual work that was new for me - bracing, but invigorating.  Let me give you a hint: you do not fall asleep in this kind of prayer!  I was so much more engaged, because my mind was working to frame all my words into expressions of gratitude and praise. Within the first few days of this gratitude experiment, I had come to ending every single prayer I offered with these words:

“For all these things - and for everything Thou has done for me, Father - I praise Thee!”

Just to recap - here are only a few reasons this has been the greatest prayer experiment I’ve conducted in quite a little while:

1. The more you see... the more you see. When you start to look around at the blessings, more pop out. We all have tender, darling stories of the Tinies in our lives, thanking Father for noses, toast, or pillows, but seriously - what would we do without them? The more you notice - and acknowledge - the myriad bounties dumped upon your head, you start picking through the stuff, and find even more!
2. That whole thing of teaching yourself to work harder at your prayers. What a blessing to learn how to pray better! I will never say another prayer without being more thoughtful about the way I frame what I say to my Father - my Maker - my God. And since the experiment? I'd say my thanks-to-asks percentage ratio is roughly 70-30.
3. Overall, everyday, general happiness quotient? Off the charts. If you really had filled out paperwork to Give Up, and stuck it on your desk with last week’s catalogs and bills, I promise you this - one week of praying like this would have you digging up that application and ripping it up. Who wants to give up when you’ve got unlimited help from the One with unlimited knowledge and strength? 

Seeing it better, saying it better, feeling it and living it better. That’s what two weeks of saying nothing but thank you did for me.

So here it is, November 1st, and the social media posts of gratitude will begin.  There will be awesome posts to remind us of the many things we have to be grateful for. But if you want an epic month, I’ve got a challenge for you. Don’t just come up with one thing a day to be grateful for. Say nothing but thanks and praise - all month long. Spend this month doing nothing but saying thank you. It’ll change the kind of waves you’re surfing in, I promise. 

Freedom versus Liberty

I had the privilege of speaking at the Independence Day sunrise service in our city in 2019.  I’m grateful for divine inspiration in the preparation, and I ended up using some of the material for a panel I participated in at the United Nations’ 68th Conference on a Civil Society, held in Salt Lake City in August 2019. 

In 1776, John Adams wrote to his wife about the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Of this day, he said: 

“I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

On a day like today, it may seem like niggling to differentiate between freedom and liberty, but allow me to make my case.

First - I want you to think of any two-year-olds in your life. It seems their entire raison d’être can be summed up in three words: “I DO IT!” A two-year-old, fairly new to this planet, seems driven from a source deep within them to DO IT. THEMSELVES. This can be extremely vexing to the adults in the two-year-old’s life, in direct correlation to how big a control freak the adult is. At this level, self-governance is just plain messy. Pause here for imagined adventures with dressing, bathing, fixing breakfast... 

As I considered the founding of our country, it struck me that in 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed and presented to England, a toddler nation stepped out upon the world stage filled with centuries-old players, and defiantly announced, “WE DO IT!”  

Alexander Hamilton captures the essence of the idea of the American experiment in the opening Federalist: 

“It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force” (Federalist Papers, No. 1).

The Declaration of Independence boldly asserted that nations could indeed be peopled with men and women who were capable of governing themselves - who intentionally chose what kind of government they would have, and not have that government thrust upon them. 

 It further asserted that human rights come from our Creator - are a part of us - and that because we all have them, we are all equal before our Creator - and among each other.  It audaciously suggested that governments only exist by consent of those being governed, that they are to mostly leave people alone to govern themselves, and that they are subject to being changed or removed if they violate those basic human rights.  In fact - the Declaration put forth the radical idea that the only role governments have is to protect those rights.

From the Declaration: 

“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.”

PARENTHESES: What about those who don’t believe in a Creator? 

Believers are important in a society - because of their belief that the source of human rights is a Creator - and historically - tyranny has only flourished in godless societies. 

That is not to say that everyone in a society must be a believer; but a nation must be able to have both believers and non-believers alike, equally able to weigh in with their world views as public policy is made. 

I repeat: tyranny doesn’t flourish when there aren’t enough believers - tyranny flourishes when belief is prohibited. 

Which leads us to the difference between liberty and freedom.  The two words have nearly become synonymous, and have come to mean doing whatever you want, whenever you want. Because people largely move through their days unhindered, they imagine they’re free - but is that liberty?  What is the real difference between freedom and liberty? 

Liberty is freedom to do good, to act with justice and compassion, and to live according to the most basic natural law of the golden rule: doing to others as you would have them do unto you. 

Liberty is freedom from restraint - where good and noble acts towards our fellow man are not prohibited by law.

Liberty is freedom of self-determination - freedom to develop talents - to become educated. And a true education includes timeless, unchanging principles, which can be tested and measured for their validity throughout the ages. Without this, the educated are ill equipped to preserve their liberty.

Liberty is freedom to accumulate property - and the freedom of being a good steward of that property. It is choosing freely to share the abundance of what your self-reliance has built - and choosing freely to use largesse to help and serve your neighborhood and community - in the ways your conscience mandates, not in the way the state mandates.   

Liberty is recognizing that personal responsibility is inherent in human rights - because liberty isn’t just about rights.  Human rights are inextricably linked to responsibilities. 

Laws don’t exist to restrain or abolish our rights; they exist to protect them.  In the second verse of “America, The Beautiful,” we sing:

“America, America, God mend thine every flaw,

Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.”

I remember walking in this beautiful park a few years ago on the morning of July 5. I couldn’t get over the litter - everywhere. I felt so sad to think we were so far removed from self-government - collectively - that we largely left something that was a personal responsibility to be someone else’s problem.  All of us long to live in a society without litter - but that only happens because people pick up after themselves. And they pick up after themselves because they prefer living in a place with no litter. 

A very wrong idea about the role of government has infected our modern society.  It is that government should do much of what used to be done by individual citizens, churches, local communities, and private enterprises. The idea seems compassionate - we must do for those who can’t. But how often does that become doing for those ... who won’t? 

But what about those who can’t?  Don’t we have to have programs & bureaus to create social safety nets for them?  

The problem with safety nets is they can become restrictive for even those who don’t need them.

You have to practice self-government in a world that offers to do everything for you. So on Independence Day, I have  two radical invitations for you: 

1. Read the Declaration of Independence today - and every Independence Day  - REMEMBER - why it was written.
2. If you CAN do it  - DO IT.  If you SHOULD DO IT.

Channel your inner toddler and remember - you were created to govern yourself - and help those around you to do the same - without the force of law - but with the force of the second great commandment. 

And...

Pick up your trash on your way home!