Happy Birthday!

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

(in part)

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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 to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. 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 new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Happy Birthday U.S.A.! You are a mere 236 years old on this, your natal day. Your history is rich, defiant, and often laced with an attitude of manifest destiny, whereby expansion of this great nation was at the expense of those who were deemed ‘lesser than’. Slowly, over the years you have opened your eyes wider and begun to include versus exclude those to who to you felt superior.

I am grateful to be ‘made in America’ – One Hundred Percent melting pot Americana consisting of the French, the Scot, the Irish and the Cherokee Nation. At least that is what I am told by family.

The mother of my birth had remarkable Native American features. She had dark brown hair (bleached blond in later years), brown eyes and predominate cheek bones that heralded her native blood. I, on the other hand inherited the European coloring, blond with hazel eyes. Of all the biological siblings, four of five have the European coloring and only one, the middle child inherited the native coloring. His children and his grandchildren have also inherited this genetic marker. He has one grandson who looks so remarkably like him, I call them “Me and Mini-Me”.

What are your Fourth of July holiday plans?

A family get together?

Attending a community parade?

Have a BBQ?

Homemade Ice Cream?

Camping?

Swimming, boating, skiing?

Whatever it is you do, be safe. And don’t forget to thank God for the freedoms we enjoy in this nation.

Blessings,

Tamara

XOXO

P.S.  And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  ~ Romans 8:28