Perspectives

‘I love a parade …’

By George Pasek
Posted 7/11/19

On this Fourth of July, it was bands, horses, cloggers, warriors, fire trucks, hot cars and the Marine Corps mounted color guard in Cody. Washington, D.C., had flags, fireworks, tanks, bands and the …

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Perspectives

‘I love a parade …’

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On this Fourth of July, it was bands, horses, cloggers, warriors, fire trucks, hot cars and the Marine Corps mounted color guard in Cody. Washington, D.C., had flags, fireworks, tanks, bands and the Lincoln Memorial. In London, one parade was 1.5 million people, from Portland Place to Whitehall right down Regent Street … wait … that was the Fifth of July.

It was all about liberty. “And the truth shall set you free.” (John 8:32)

We Westerners take our liberty seriously. Actually, we tend to believe that liberty in our land is boundless. But my liberty ends where your liberty begins, and vice versa. This is easy to figure out between you and me, but add one more person … it gets complex! Hey, add several million summer tourists to the population of Wyoming. Now the complexity of knowing our boundaries is staggering.

Humans have devised commandments (at least 10 of ’em), ordinances, rules, regulations and SOPs (standard operating procedures). Our histories are full of disagreements about those, too. Our native intolerance of differing views pushes us toward rudeness and worse.

The prophet Micah instructs us that God requires three things from us: justice, mercy and humility. Jesus identified love of God and love of neighbor as self were expected of people. And we aren’t very good at it.

I have a hunch: that we seldom remember that our only comfort, our only hope, our only security, our only liberty is that we with body and soul, both in life and death, are not our own, but belong to our faithful Savior Jesus Christ. (A paraphrase of the Heidelberg Catechism of 1536.)

 

(George Pasek is the interim pastor of Union Presbyterian Church in Powell.)

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