Being ‘set free’ – “you shall know the truth…”
July 4th weekend
The flood of thoughts that come to me when I think of the "Fourth of July" is so broad and deep that I hardly know where to start sifting and sorting.
Somewhere running through these thoughts is the thread - "the truth of the matter is so much more complex than most Americans know..."
As a youngster I was under the impression that the 'Americans' declared independence from England on July 4th, 1776, and then fought the Revolutionary War with our first President, George Washington as the General leading the war.
Sometimes, just for bedevilment, I ask folks when it was that George Washington served as our President...
It has really messed with some folks when I have mention that I had direct ancestors who fought and died in the Revolutionary War before the Declaration of Independence was ever 'declared,' much less written.
The truth of our freedom as citizens of the United States of America is that it was a long, long process involving much more than the eight/nine years of battles that we call the American Revolution. The process started long before the 'Revolutionary War' began, and continued many years afterward.
It was during the meeting of the Second Continental Congress that the Declaration of Independence was voted in (July 2nd, 1776) and it was that august body of elite white males who formulated the "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union" under which the United States of America was run by the Continental Congress until 1789.
A long process, just barely begun when on the first Wednesday of February, 1789, the electors met to choose the new President of the United States of America, and when on the first Wednesday of March, 1789, the new federal government took power in the national capitol of New York.
So too, spiritually. This thing of 'knowing the truth' and being 'set free' is a process...a long process. The folks who want to think otherwise probably also think that U.S. Senators have always been elected by the general public... :)