Sabbath Devotional :: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

July Fourth, at its best heart, should be a reminder to us all of the importance of liberty, equity, justice, and fairness for all.

We have never achieved that type of society, but at its best roots and with some necessary pruning, July Fourth can and should be a day where we celebrate the change makers, dreamers, and advocates (past and present) who are working to help our societies fully realize and embody these ideals.

I believe the best spirit of July Fourth is to lean into creating a better society for everybody, a society where everybody can fully show up and be treated with dignity.

If we expand and modernize one line of the Declaration of Independence (and its application), we are left with this principle:

These three truths speak for themselves. One, among the most important rights that everybody has are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Two, everybody matters and is created equal and should be treated as such. And three, these rights cannot and should never be taken away from anybody.

In 1945, the UN (largely led by Eleanor Roosevelt) drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These three rights were expanded to thirty. For brevity, I’ll combine and only list a few here:

All human beings are free and equal and should be equal before the law in every way imaginable.
Everybody is entitled to be free from discrimination.
No one shall be held in slavery or tortured or endure inhumane treatment.
Everybody has the right to asylum and nationality.
Everybody had the right to marry, have a family, and own things.
Everybody has the right to freedom of thought, expression, religion, and belief.
Everybody has the right to work and to rest and to education, culture, and art.
Human rights can’t be taken away from anybody.

This list inspires me to be and do better. We have been and still are falling pretty far from having created this society, but the idea of what that world would really look like is awe-inspiring and motivates me to try to be better.

I’m pretty sure this society would be quite literally heaven on earth — Zion, the Beloved Community. And yes, we have a lot of work to do to get there.

I love holidays that enable us to look back and assess and examine and think critically about where we have been, the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between. Even more so, I love when I can strip holidays down to the most micro of levels.

For July Fourth, I’ve found myself pondering if I look at this best core of the day, what would it mean for me? If I truly boldly advocated for the fullness of these thirty rights (and perhaps more that now seem needed), what would change? What policies would I support? What community efforts would I champion? Where would I show up? How would I show up? With whom?

During a closing argument in law school, I cited the idea that everybody has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in a case that really centered on poverty.

That’s where my mind has turned this year. Bryan Stevenson said, “The opposite of poverty is justice.” That’s where my mind is. If we truly celebrate the core themes of July Fourth, I think we would turn to Mosiah 4, and perhaps, specifically, Mosiah 4:19.

The celebration of the pursuit of justice, equity, liberty, and fairness provides us with a wonderful opportunity to think about how and where “we can lift where we stand” and do our part in creating the Beloved Community where these principles abound.