Flag Day, Father's Day and the Fourth of July
The summer holidays are especially linked to our Christian heritage, though perhaps not as obviously as some of the others. I thought Flag Day would be out...nothing very spiritual about the stars and stripes! But I was wrong. (And besides, it's not really a holiday per say-nobody gets it off. All most might do is put out the flag...)
Flag Day was born in 1777, not long after the war for independence began, when Congress selected the "Betsy Ross" flag to represent the new nation. The Christian link-not until 1954, when President Eisenhower signed into law the addition of the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance on, yes, Flag Day. Of course, this refers to the Christian God and, from what I have read, was a clear declaration of our differences with athiestic Communism, which was threatening to spread to both hemispheres.
Father's Day,like Mother's Day, began long ago in churches (Christian churches by the way) in the Spokane WA area. It is no coincidence that the God of the Bible is referred to as "Father". It is this member of the human family that apparently best represents the nature of God.
And finally, the 4th of July and the Declaration of Independence. Three times the document refers to God..."the laws of nature and of nature's God", "...that they are endowed by their Creator (with a capital C!) with certain unalienable rights...", and ..."with firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence..." Yes, the primary author, Thomas Jefferson was a deist and the words used reflect that, but the signers included several Christians and they all had input to the language, making some 80 changes to Jefferson's original document. But regardless, any reference to God is the one in the Bible-regardless of theological differences.
As I mentioned when I first began this series, our holidays provide a rich history of many things that are good to remember-not the least of which is our profoundly Christian cultural background.
posted by Rob | 10:04 PM
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12 days before 9/11/2001 when our country was attacked, Jonathan and I were mourning a loss of a much wanted pregnancy and child, our 3rd. When 9/11 happened, it was as if our grief was robbed away, that it was to petty for us have in the midst of the country's grief, so we packed it away and looked to the future. My body did not tolerate the loss of the child well and for over a month my hormone levels told my body it was still pregnant, even if the child we loved was long gone. Somehow though, with in a few weeks of 9/11 we conceived the red-headed smirky-smiled Danielle you now know. God graced us with her, and she was born, 9 months after 9/11, 2 months after what would have been her sibling's due date, on Flag Day 6/14/2002. She's our symbol of freedom and healing. A bittersweet gift, because if I had not experience loss I would not have experienced the Joy of her.
So, we've technically celebrated Flag day for the past 7 years in a very different way than most and with different meaning, and yet looking toward our source of hope and faith and freedom. God Himself.
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