I've never been much of a fan of holidays....just in general. I would have just let this day slip right past me without even noticing if I could have (with the exception of my good friend's birthday today, she most definitely would have gotten some of my recognition). But my host dad, well, he watches a good amount of television. And he knew what today is for this country of mine. He started planning a party about a month ago. Mostly he was concerned with the food. Hamburgers. French Fries. I decided to make homemade chocolate chip cookies too. And we're gonna do coke-floats (don't worry not the kind with cocaine, the kind with Coca-cola).
But really, I got myself thinking today. Independence Day. American's sure do like their independence. We are a nation that values, above almost anything else, our independence. That's why we are the only ones who still don't use the metric system, or celsius (much to my chagrin now that I am in a country that does). But originally, what were we declaring independence from? From Britain? Did we just hate the British? No. We were declaring our independence from an unjust system, from the oppressive way that Britain had decided to rule over us. We were declaring our independence and our freedom from oppression.
I have almost no patriotic spirit, and I will likely never cheer for America. But this idea of freedom from oppression, this I can get behind. This is a message Jesus would agree with. So in celebrating our freedom, lets not forget those who are not free. And (maybe more importantly) lets try our hardest not to oppress others, not to subject them to the very thing we declared freedom from. We are not the only ones who deserve this freedom, because, remember 'all men are created equal', which means that everyone deserves freedom from oppression.
