Lotteryist Week 17
I am writing this during Fourth of July weekend. Knowing my excruciatingly slow progress from keyboard to web site, it may be Labor Day before it is posted. But there is always the hope (and this whole blog series is about the triumph of hope over experience) I will be efficient and timely.
Fourth of July – one of our most unabashedly and most unashamedly patriotic holidays. I love Fourth of July. When my children were young, every Fourth of July we would go to the Post Office and read the Declaration of Independence. I loved reading out loud those first words, “When in the course of human events…” And I always wanted to shout the last words, “we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
Due to no effort on my part I have been, my first breath was of American air and my first cry was the raised voice of an American citizen. In the lottery of life, I won being born an American.
Being born a citizen of the United States of America is a privilege. A privilege is something I do not choose nor do I earn, but something bestowed upon me through no will of my own. This privilege does not make me special. It is not a right of pride. It makes me humble. It is a responsibility.
So in this lottery of life, who bestowed upon me this privilege? Some would say Fate. Some would say happenchance. I say God.
Again, that God choose this privilege for me does not make me more blessed than a single one of his other children. As I read the Holy Writings of my faith, I read that he wants the best for all his children. It is his ideal that all, no matter where they live, live in an environment of dignity. Many countries have worked hard to establish the environment. I am not such a chauvinist that I believe that the USA is the only good place to live. That some of his children do not live in such places, is a problem of mankind’s failure. It is not the design of God.
The Declaration also states we have inalienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We often interpret pursuit of happiness as the pursuit of pleasure or the avoidance of anything that is unpleasant, uncomfortable, or disagreeable. Which brings me to the responsibility part. In the time of Washington, Jefferson and the rest of those men – and women – who risked lives, fortunes and sacred honor, the pursuit of happiness was working for the common good. Individual pleasure, while not denied, was not the vision. The vision was finding what allowed people as a whole to live prosperous and industrious lives.
Every Fourth of July I ask myself; do I spend my days and resources only on what gives me pleasure or am I working for what is good for my whole community? I make fun of myself about all the great unselfish things I would spend the money on if I won the big lottery. But the truth is, I won a big lottery decades ago. I must ask myself – how am I spending my winnings?