Happy 4th of July!

At church yesterday our bishop talked about choices.

The ones that make us better, the ones that make us worse.

Isn’t it so awesome we can choose so many things in life!?

How we interact with people. How we choose to see them. What we choose to do each day. Who we will connect with.

I read something else (Richard Rohr) about how the point of this whole life is to make connections.

Which brings me to today: The 4th of July.

And those of us here in the United States trying to go after “the pursuit of happiness.”

(Isn’t it so beautiful that the “pursuit of happiness” is proclaimed as a right we have? I love thinking about that phrase!)

I know there are so many things we get wrong. There are so many of us with our fighting gloves on right now.

But there is so much good out there too.

People making the choice to seek to learn from others and to find common ground. People who know that truly, in their “pursuit of happiness,” that true happiness comes from making others happy rather than focusing on ourselves.

So today, as my heart swells with gratitude for this country where I live and the founding fathers who had the foresight to set it up the way they did (I know they weren’t perfect, but they did some good things!), my heart also swells for those ancestors who went before me who made conscious choices to make the sacrifices they did for their posterity. I am thankful for the choices I get to make that will hopefully benefit my own children and grandchildren.

Sending so much love on out today to everyone out there whether in the U.S. or not, may you find so much happiness and joy in the connections that surround you and the daily choices that we can learn so much from!

Happy Birthday America!

Stories about others who used their choices for good:

Doing the Impossible

Creating a Bold New Heritage

What I Learned from “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”

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