The Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays.
I love the music of John Phillips Sousa.
The fireworks. 
The parades. The patriotism.
The fun personal expressions. 
The feel-good feeling, short-lived as it may be, that all is well after all,
Then comes July 5. “ Drying out” day.
For anyone not familiar with that phrase, Urban Dictionary says it refers to getting sober after a drinking spree. In my case, that means sobering up after the spree described above.
The “sobering” motivation came this morning as I was reading a meditation that quoted Dorothy Soelle (1929-2003). Soelle was a German professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Here’s what she was quoted as saying: “It is no longer enough to be personally decent and inoffensive. It never was enough, incidentally.”
Huh? If attempting to be decent and inoffensive myself isn’t enough, what is? For years I’ve been comforted by what my husband would say when I pondered what, if anything, I/we could do about a particular political policy. He would say — one thing we do that can make a difference, our vote!
Now I wonder if that’s “enough.”
Yesterday among the July 4 art work 
and memorabilia that I display each year in my entry hall, is a fact sheet that includes the following: “Five signers (of the Declaration of Independence) were captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army. Another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War. They signed and pledged their lives, fortunes and their sacred honor.”
More than enough.
So far I haven’t been able to answer what that would mean for me.
Any suggestions?
