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Reflection for July 11th

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When in the course of human events . . .

There's a Gospel episode in which Jesus meets a man afflicted with a speech impediment. Jesus touches his tongue and the man begins to speak plainly for all to hear. Like many other episodes of the Bible this one has something profound to say about humanity and human history.

For it seems we human beings have been inspired by our Creator to say something loud and clear about what it means to be a truly human community. Yet we've rarely been quite able to enunciate it. Down through the ages we've articulated one civilization after another - the political systems of ancient Egypt, Rome, China, India. But all have been somehow flawed, never quite equitable to all, often dependent on absolutism and violence for stability. It's as though, like the stammerer in the Gospel, we have been trying to express something politically sound and beautiful and haven't been quite able to get it out!

Which seems to describe the condition of the American Continental Congress in the period from 1774 to 1776. Oppressed by an aristocracy and wealthy oligarchy in London, its members came together periodically to express their grievances and plead for more equitable governance. Something indeed was percolating within them, yet they insisted they had no desire to break with England. "We consider this a family quarrel," they said. "We wish for reconciliation. Though charged with rebellion, we will cheerfully bleed in defense of our Sovereign in a righteous cause. What more can we say?"

They wanted greater freedom and justice but still within the old wineskins of the British Empire. Even as late as June 7, 1776, long after Concord and Bunker Hill, they kept tabling a resolution on independence to deal with trivial items like the compensation of a ship owner for damages done by the congressional navy. In other words, politically they remained victims of a pathetic stammer.

But on June 9, 1776, when news arrived of a formidable British fleet and army en route to New York, their stammer gave way. The resolution on independence suddenly took precedence over all prior minutiae. And on July 4th, 1776 they finally broke out into a prose - traceable to the Bible - that will be forever memorable: "We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations upon such principles. . . And for the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

Forever memorable! For once such a Declaration has been uttered, it must echo down through history in ever more sublime ways - as in the addresses of an Abraham Lincoln and Julia Ward Howe's Battle Hymn of the Republic and the oratory of a Martin Luther King. And in the poetry of a London cockney prophet, William Blake, who in his poem "America" brought out in even more explicitly biblical terms the deeper significance of the American Revolution: The morning comes, the grave is burst, the sinews reviving shake, inspiring move. Let the enchained soul, shut up in darkness, rise; his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open . . . For Empire is no more, and now the Lion and the Wolf shall cease. The stuttering is over. But of course - now - all that remains is for our deeds to match our words. For once spoken, such a Declaration of truths held to be self-evident must sit in judgment upon us forever.

-- Geoff Wood