Sometimes when I take my grateful walk, being grateful is easy. Sometimes the grateful walks become clouded with the thoughts about the news or some recent happenings. Today as I sat at the end of the driveway on the first leg of my walk, I realized that my mixed thoughts centered around what perks we have (easy to be grateful for), and responsibilities (easy to gripe about) that each of us has at every stage of our lives.

         It will not come as a shock that my initial entry into this morass started with my President. The last weeks watching Air Force One flying about the country produced much thought about perks and responsibilities. Certainly the Presidency is filled with monumental perks, but it is filled with even greater responsibilities. The crises of the last few weeks may be far flung, but each one touches all of us, every last citizen.

         Our Founders never intended for the President to be a professional fundraiser or a totally partisan figure. But the Presidency has drifted into such a position. Having access to secure phones and aides while spending most time fund-raising for the party is not being fully engaged in the responsibilities of the office. So many problems on the President’s desk are not getting smaller. They are increasing in size, difficulty, and importance to our people, those people for whom he works and those whose well-being rests in many of the decisions he makes.

         What would happen to any one of us with important responsibilities wherever we are if we neglected them? If we left our desks piled high with problems, our classrooms with students, our homes and our families, our pulpits with congregations waiting, our stores full of customers, or the places we go to volunteer? Things wouldn’t get done. problems wouldn’t get solved, families wouldn’t get fed, and folks wouldn’t be helped.

         In most cases the number affected by our negligence is limited. With the President, the world is affected.                

          `Yesterday the parades and fireworks. Today the talk about freedom. After all it is Independence Day Weekend. I pondered about it all a lot yesterday. I have had the privilege and pleasure of living for 93 of these special days, our nation’s birthday. I have had the responsibility for 93 years to understand and protect the freedom I was given those many years ago by those 56 signers who risked it all on that day in Philadelphia when they put their name to the document that secured the freedom I was meant to have, the freedom to become what I was born to be.

            I pondered what it might have been like to be born in a different country. But I wasn’t. My thoughts went to the memory bank. Oh, my goodness. What freedom I ;have had. As a very little girl I could go places in my dreams. The attic in my grandfather’s house was huge like the rest of the house; it held such treasures to ponder. I could start school at age 4. I could warm my hands and dry my mitten by the pot-bellied stove in the school. I couold explore everything around me. Each year there were new freedoms. I learned and explored. I became an eager student. In my country schools I would watch what the other grades were doing. If it was something I wanted to learn, it didin’t matter what grade it was; I would go join the lesson. I wasn’t restricted. I became a very independent learner. I found games and sports to be places where I could excel. It seemed easy to be passionate about what I could do academically and physically. I was free to explore, to learn, to grow, and to be grateful.

            My high school days were filled with opportunity and freedom. If you had visited my small high school, you might have felt sorry for us. The gym was small, the curriculum was limited, and most of us were poor monetarily. But we were rich in so many ways. We were diverse, circumstances didn’t change expectations, our teachers and coach believed in us. We were free to believe in ourselves. The foundation of independence, self-worth, gratitude, passion for learning, integrity, work, team-work, and so much more were secure. Freedom was our gift and our responsibility.

            And the rest is history–college, a tour in the U.S. Navy, an incredible famiily, a career serving for more than sixty years, and especially the ability to practice my faith.  Ninety-three  Independence days later I can turn on the movie of my life as I did yesterday and smile. My yellow brick road has taken me to such incredible places to do such marvelous things. It has allowed me to follow the main road, to take detours, to sit and rest, or to hurry on.  Only in America, could I have taken the journey that I have. Only in America do we find the documents and founding that allowed me to follow the path that I did. Only in America could we have fireworks at a Statue of Liberty as we did last night. I too, am a lady of liberty. I was born in the United States of America. I was endowed by my Creator with freedom and guaranteed that freedom from my Founders.

            Yes. I am a proud, humble, and grateful American!

← It was on July 4, 1776, that the church bells finally started to ring over Philadelphia. The Declaration of Independence had been adopted. There had been much secrecy surrounding the meetings of the brave souls who risked everything, including the charge of treason, to be in that room that day.