"Fireworks"

Tonight is the 4th of July, and while our neighborhood celebrates, our puppy is hiding between a table and the couch.  I'm sure Reggie is confused by our apathetic attitude while our house is (in Reggie's mind at least) under siege!  Fireworks are not much fun if you are a dog.

Driving home from a friend's barbeque, I got to thinking about the 4th of July, which we in the US celebrate as "Independence Day".  And yet, historically the 4th was not the day that independence was achieved.  Rather, it is simply the day independence was proclaimed.  The signing of the Declaration of Independence (and its adoption by the Continental Congress) was only the beginning - in some ways, that was the easy part.  Still to come were the bloody battles, the social and economic chaos, the disintegration of whole communities.  

Perhaps it would be more realistic, more historically accurate, for us to call this 4th of July our "Revolution Day".  Because when you think about it, that is really what we are choosing to mark and remember.  Revolution Day -- I like the sound of that, especially in this year of Re-Birth.  Because it helps me remember to mark and to celebrate every vision, every dream, every goal I can proclaim.  I do not have to wait until it is all achieved - until every dream is fulfilled, every goal is complete, every vision is fully grown.  Indeed, it just may be the celebrations themselves which help to create the reality.  

Where would this nation have ended up (as colonists, perhaps?) without the Declaration of Independence?  Where would any of us be without our own proclamations of faith, or our own declarations of hope?  They may be only the beginning.  There may be battles yet to fight, tough times to weather, chaos or fear to overcome.  Yet we have begun - independence is possible - when we mark, remember, and celebrate our own "Revolution Days".  So I say, pass the sparklers!  It's a good day for revolution!