In a couple of days, Americans will be celebrating the two hundred and twenty sixth anniversary of our declaration of independence from England.
Unfortunately, for many of us, if recently-past Independence Days are any guide, the emphasis will be on celebration, rather than commemoration. We’ll go to our ball games, and barbecue our hot dogs and burgers, and in the evening, we’ll watch the fireworks, without giving any thought to the real meaning of the day.
I hope that, given the events of last September, we will cherish the day and what it represents a little more, now that we’ve had a recent sharp taste of how fragile our freedoms can be. And I hope that we all spend a little more effort this year on truly commemorating–that is, remembering and honoring with a ceremony–the event, and not just celebrating it.
The Jewish people have a valuable tradition for such a purpose. During Passover, they don’t simply get together with friends and relatives. They sit down to dinner and they tell the story of what they are celebrating–the liberation of the Jews from Egypt. Everyone reads the story, and everyone is involved, and no one goes away from dinner in ignorance of why they gathered.
We can do the same for the Fourth of July. It is instructive, and educational (particularly for those who haven’t seen it since high-school civics class, if then) to read aloud Jefferson’s work of genius, the Declaration of Independence. In so doing, we will be reminded of the offenses committed by the English king, and the reasons that we forged our own nation.
(Sadly, some similar offenses are now being committed against the people and the states by the new royalty in Washington, and many might be struck by the parallels, particularly those made newly homeless out in the hinterlands of the west by hamhanded federal edicts from the distant forest managers in the nation’s capital.)
Read it, and reflect. Thank the founders who solemnly pledged “their Lives, their Fortunes, and their sacred Honor”–who sacrificed so much, and actually underwent bombardment by true explosives, so that you can enjoy your barbecued ribs and potato salad, and the benign burning of colorful chemicals launched on rockets.
But this month contains not just an anniversary of national independence. In less than three weeks, on July 20, it will be a third of a century since life first went forth and strode on another world. For the first time, if only briefly, life broke the shackles of its homeworld’s gravity entirely.
Let Arthur Clarke describe it:
Five hundred million years ago, the moon summoned life out of its first home, the sea, and led it onto the empty land. For as it drew the tides across the barren continents of primeval earth, their daily rhythm exposed to sun and air the creatures of the shallows. Most perished ? but some adapted to the new and hostile environment. The conquest of the land had begun.
We shall never know when this happened, on the shores of what vanished sea. There were no eyes or cameras present to record so obscure, so inconspicuous an event. Now, the moon calls again ? and this time life responds with a roar that shakes earth and sky.
When the Saturn V soars spaceward on nearly four thousand tons of thrust, it signifies more than a triumph of technology. It opens the next chapter of evolution.
No wonder that the drama of a launch engages our emotions so deeply. The rising rocket appeals to instincts older than reason; the gulf it bridges is not only that between world and world ? but the deeper chasm between heart and brain.
Several years ago, I and some other people decided to create a ceremony to commemorate this event, and the life forms down the ages that ultimately caused it to happen.
It’s not necessarily scientific to believe in a teleology–a purpose to the universe. But we can’t be scientific all the time. If there is a point to evolution, perhaps humanity is the conduit through which life will burst forth, joyously, to help the vast universe come to know itself.
If so, this ceremony tells that story. So if you believe that this is an event worth commemorating, and celebrating, go to the website, download the ceremony, and make plans to gather with friends and tell the story of how and when life first ventured away from the place of its birth.