(First published in my email newsletter on July 4, 2024) 

Happy Fourth of July, fellow citizens!

On this day celebrating independence and freedom, it occurs to me that not all the freedoms available to us are encoded in the founding documents of our nation. Therefore, I propose the following additions:

 ~  You have the freedom to respond to all persons with an open heart. You are free to respond to hostility with kindness; to fear and suspicion with an open hand; to bigotry and condemnation with your head held high.

   ~  You have the freedom to imagine a different world, one that you would feel comfortable living in. You have the freedom to work towards it.

  ~  You have the freedom to forgive. You are free to believe that your fellow humans are just as flawed as you are, and just as perfect.

  ~  You have the freedom to smile, to laugh, and to sing. You have the freedom to dance, move, stretch, to extend your miraculous body into the great container of the world.

  ~ You have the right to be exactly who you are. You have the right to find out who that is. You have the right to change, to become who you want to be, to metamorphose into a newer, different, and greater entity than you have been.

  ~ You have the right to be authentic. You have the right to be yourself, even when the great solid block of stone that is your spirit changes its shape with the passage of deep geologic time over and over and over again.

   ~  You have the freedom to fly away in your thoughts and feelings, to let your spirit float on the wind like a cottonwood seed and soar off into the wide, wild universe of which you are such an integral, necessary and constructive part.

   ~  You have the freedom to sweep the floors, dust the cobwebs, clear the clutter, and clean every corner of your safe haven and sanctuary, however humble or grand it may be. You have a right to fill that space with beauty, serenity, and grace. You have this freedom even if that abode exists only within your mind.

   ~ You have the right to feel everything that your body feels, as if your body were extended out to be as large as the whole universe, feeling itself.

   ~ You have the freedom to love. This is inalienable and absolute. It requires no permit, sanction, identity card, dispensation, nor any abstract document to exercise this right. And it grows stronger with exercise!

   ~ You are free to love those you love with all of your love, to love those you don’t much care for, to love even those you hate. They, too, have a story.

  ~ You have the freedom to love people who do you wrong as well as those who do right by you, and to love those who aren’t all that concerned with you one way or another, thank you. You are free to love people who are different from you, no matter how vastly they may be so. You have the right to love folks who you do not understand, and those who do not understand you. You have the right to love all creatures just because they exist, just because, like you, they found themselves miraculously born into this strange, vast, and unbelievably wondrous world.

  ~ You have the freedom to love yourself, for that is the heart of your ability to love all others.

Have a great and safe holiday and all the days to follow!