This Fourth of July perhaps we should begin a new tradition to go along with the bar-b-ques and fireworks. Most of us have heard of the Declaration of Independence but few of us have read it or maybe we have read it, years ago, in grade school.

Who can argue the beauty and poetry of these words expressing a deep truth that acknowledges the importance of a life lived in liberty.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Consider the word “truths”. This is evidence that the sentiments of this great document are not theories to be questioned, nor possibilities, nor political ideologies. Truths are above and not altered by circumstances. They are above the earthly and temporal. They exist on a plain of the eternal.

“Self-evident” reflects the belief system known as natural law. Natural law is placed above government and must be recognized by government as inalienable and cannot be taken away.

“Endowed by the Creator” is intentionally non-specific, and fails to acknowledge any one God or religion over another and is evidence of the idea of a person’s freedom to choose their own religious beliefs according to their own inclinations, separate from government instruction.

The Declaration of Independence is an amazing document written with great forethought in an era when liberty was a new and longed for ideal expressed with great conviction. President Lincoln described the birth of independence so well in his inaugural speech:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Let us all take some time this Fourth of July to read those great and powerful words that so eloquently defined the ideals of a new nation. Ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, endowed to all and inherently inalienable.