Birthday Reverie

Today is my birthday. I am a year older, and I feel every day of it. But my duties and pleasures today have led me through a range of experiences and emotions which always seem to come back to dealing with my fears. The un-pleasantness of unsought conflict, the reality of serious debilitating illness, and that wrenching ache that accompanies loved ones deployed have been with me today. I have faced them and overcome them for the time being. But the movie selections this night at Briarwood have led me to consider deeper realities from which there seems to be no escape. Rebecca surprized me with a blue ray edition of Casablanca for my birthday. With an attention to detail I had not seen before, I witnessed the heroic act of Victor Laslow as he ordered the playing of the Marseillse to drown out the Nazi militarism of Major Strasser and his fellows. Later, we watched The Fellowship of the Ring, and saw such an unlikely company embark on a seemingly impossible mission against apparently insurmountable odds. Then I thought of the realities of my world. First, of a child protection policy which I am expected to implement even though it calls for me to collect the social security numbers of my friends, my brothers and sisters in Christ. Perhaps the plan is well intended, and perhaps it could bring some degree of security, but I do not believe it is right for free men in voluntary religious societies to keep records on one another and compile lists of sensitive information. Surely there is a better way. Then I considered the willingness of my countrymen in the wake of the attacks of 9-11 to submit to outrageous infringements on personal liberties in the name of security. Certainly we are at war, and the enemies of liberty must be opposed stridently and courageously, but at what point does our voluntary surrender of the presumption of innocence, our willingness to spend billions of dollars without serious question, and our rush to embrace an all knowing and all powerful government, all in the name of security, overthrow the very nature of our Republic? Some of these questions seem so very gray, but at the end, they must prove to be black and white. Liberty is a fragile thing, and an anomaly in human history. It must be carefully cultivated, and our desire for a world of absolute security and little or no risk seems to be a much greater threat to it than all the forces of Islamist fanaticism and financial crisis. Our greatest enemy seems to be ourselves, and particularly our fears of uncertainty and our insatable desire for security at any cost. In this new year, I commit to champion liberty, even when to do so is dangerous and unpopular, and even when it may cost me dearly. I am called by my profession to meet all men upon the level of equality, to measure my actions towards them by the plumb of righteousness, and to part from them upon the square of virtue; and to so circumscribe my desires that my passions may be kept in due bounds with all mankind. Those are responsibilities that I cannot delegate to any government, any organization, any church, or any other person. They are mine alone, given by God, and I must answer for my stewardship of them at the end of my days. To treat others with equity, justice, and decency, to order my own life, and to patiently and quietly (albeit actively) resist encroaching wrong is at the very heart of Liberty, and as I enter my fifty-fifth year, I commit myself to these things anew.

Pro Republica+
Bill+