Summer arrives.....
“I
suspect that it wasn’t wholly coincidence that the Declaration was proclaimed
in early July, for in that day everyone lived much closer to the land than
now. And man with his footing in the
soil has little patience with outside interferences in July. He’s too
busy with natural problems to be
very tolerant with man-made ones...The Declaration is a document well
remembered. But there is another
declaration, unwritten except on sweaty faces, to be read by anyone who looks,
in July. It says the same thing as the
written one, and it says it year after year, on farm after farm. I see it every
day now.... Independence seems
to me to be a very personal quality, a matter of the mind and the emotions and
the whole approach to life. It is a
positive matter, rather than a refusal to knuckle down to some outside
force. And it involves many of the broad,
indefinable generalities-- liberty, justice, honor, integrity. It is more than
a matter of politics or even
of social organization. Independence
means to me the right to make what I can of myself, to think as clearly as my brain
will allow, to be as much of an individual, an entity, as I can. It means my
right to make a place for myself
in human society, but it doesn’t mean that society is somehow obliged to make a
place for me. It means that I shall face
the consequences of my own folly and not that some town or state or nation
shall shield me from them. This is
somewhat old-fashioned; I know that. But
the pendulum of fashion, in human behavior as well as dress, has its swings,
and returns again and again to the point where individual responsibility is
again in good repute. Independence means
obligation as well as rights. The right
to work, and the obligation to work at my full capacity. The right to earn,
the obligation to
save. The right to worship as I please,
and the obligation to abide by my best beliefs and instincts...These are not
new ideas. They are so old they are worn
smooth with repetitions. They stem from
ancient tribal days. They happen also to
be embedded in the Declaration of Independence....
Hal
Borland in his book This Hill, This
Valley.
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“We
have this treasure in
earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to
us.”
2 Corinthians 4:4 (RSV)
James
S. Stewart in his book
King Forever shows us how to climb out of depression as he illustrates this
verse of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians:
“And if one day I am feeling at the end of my tether, disappointed and
defeated and terribly unlike the Christ who has commissioned me to be His
witness, then that very experience by emptying me of self, gives God a chance
to fill me and lays me open to resources which in my strongest hours I could
never have developed. In fact, it is
when you have sunk right down to rock bottom that you suddenly find you have
struck the Rock of Ages. And then men
begin to take knowledge of you
that you have been with Jesus.”
And Audrey Mieir set in
stirring verse how to courageously face life’s crucibles with prayer:
Forgive
me Lord I prayed in
vain
That
you would spare me grief
and pain.
But
now my blinded eyes can
see these things were meant for me.
Don’t spare me failure if this is what is best for me. Don’t
spare me sickness if this will make me
call on Thee. Don’t spare me loneliness. For I recall Gethsemane. Don’t spare
me anything that you endured for me. Don’t
spare me troubles if this will bring me close to Thee. Don’t spare me heartache.
You bore a broken heart for me. Don’t
spare me suffering for I recall your agony. Don’t spare me anything that you
endured for me but give me strength to follow Thee.
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