Best wishes to all Americans who read this post for a very happy and safe celebration of our nation's Birthday! In the Mid-Atlantic area, i is picture perfect weather. Many people in the Philadelphia area have headed for the Jersey shore. Yet here in the city of Brotherly Love, it is very pleasant indeed. In a way, July 4th is a time of thanksgiving for the blessings we have received as a country. Recently, Sister Neville and I visited the Liberty Bell shrine in downtown Philadelphia. We joined a long line of visitors who waited patiently to see the bell with the quotation from Leviticus: "Proclaim liberty through all the land." The bell has a famous crack which has marked it as a symbol of American freedom. To some the crack may resemble a scar rather than a beauty mark. Symbols are like that--they speak without words about truths that run deep in the foundation of our national life.
Yet the bell's crack is a flaw. It testifies to the truth that we are all flawed, good but not perfect. We do not yet "have it all together." That's OK. Together as a people we can proceed ahead with each person's gifts making up for what another may lack.
In a religious sense, we pray for a liberty from the worst oppressor: sin. May God deliver us from our sins, big and small. They are the cracks which divide us in life. May Christ heal our "cracks" and unite us for the good.
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