Daily Lesson for July 3, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is Psalm 133:

133 Behold, how good and pleasant it is
when brothers dwell in unity!
2 It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down on the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down on the collar of his robes!
3 It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion!
For there the Lord has commanded the blessing,
life forevermore.

We head today into the long July 4th weekend when we pause as a nation to think on what America is what it means to be an American.  As we shoot off our fireworks on Friday, the rockets' red glare will remind us that the flag was still there; and in that moment we will do well to pause and to remember that for which the flag stands - "one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Much consideration has been given to those words "under God" and those ideals of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".  What is often left unconsidered is the hidden word, tucked between: "indivisible".  I drive around my town and I see on the backs of bumpers another word "Secede" and I walk through my neighborhood and see another flag altogether: the "Stars and Bars" of the Confederate flag, and I think how unforgotten and how meaningful that word "indivisible" would have been when our Pledge of Allegiance was first penned six score and one ago.  On the heels of that fateful war when the cost of winning our nation's soul was the red blood of 600,000 men, that word "indivisible" would not have been so blithely lost.

I see another war brewing.  They call it a "culture war" - for now.  It is in many ways still a war for the soul of our nation; it is again a war about the meaning of freedom and to whom it is extended, and again a war about the meaning of the word republic, and how free any man is or is not in a democracy. It is only a culture war - for now.  But make no mistake, it is a war which is already exacting its toll on our people in blood and in spirit.

We would do well this weekend to remember the word "indivisible", to think on its meaning, and to pledge ourselves again to its cause - which means, we must pledge ourselves again to one another as brothers and sisters.  For as Dr. King once said, "We must learn to live together as brothers or we shall perish together as fools."

At the end of Ken Burns's documentary Civil War, it is said by someone that that war could still be lost.  That is true.  But if it can still be lost, it can also still be won.  Let us on this 4th of July pledge ourselves to ensuring that it will be one and that this one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all might long endure.