By Anna Von Reitz
Yes, the phone and the email have been ringing and pinging non-stop, so fast we can't possibly answer--- calls from all across this country and all over the world, as people joyfully embrace our country and The Declaration of Independence.
Some of them are reading our Declaration of Independence for the first time, and are sobbing out loud, because the true meaning of the words are coming home to them in a new century. They are reading the list of offenses committed by the King and his Government against the Colonists and they are realizing that these evils of Colonialism are still with us in the modern world.
This evil has changed its name, its face, its mode of implementation and its jurisdiction in law, but as they read The Declaration of Independence, they recognize all these same evils and offenses against decency, Nature, and mankind.
When we say, "decency", we imply more than simple fairness and invoke the element of conscience; we go beyond a standard of telling the truth and embrace the notion of eternal truth and the eternal Law of Nature.
Your Granna has been blessed to know The Declaration of Independence since childhood. It was read in total, with ceremony, by the men in my family every Fourth of July. They took turns, one after the other, the old and the young, the rich and the poor, they all stood up and together, they read it.
Even my Father, an American of German parentage -- who nonetheless fought for the Allies in World War II as a member of the Eighth Army Air Force -- was invited to read, and proudly took his turn.
Listening to this as a rapt audience, the women maintained a solemn and respectful silence, drinking in the words as they were spoken, and pondering them in our hearts. The words of The Declaration of Independence paint a vivid story, one that speaks to the conditions of a world that is increasingly remote in time, and one that speaks to Eternity and to the Creator of Nature, the Magnum Mysterium that the Founders of our country called, "Divine Providence".
To say that this outpouring of understanding and joy and active celebration is humbling -- though it is -- wouldn't quite capture the feeling running through us this morning. What we are feeling is upliftment, a thrilling, inexorable pull upward, like that moment when a steady wind first lifts a wing.
This remembrance of who we are and what is important has grown and spread. It's no longer just an American thing beloved by a dwindling number of old codgers. New generations all over the world are catching the drift and understanding that America is not a democracy and we, Americans, don't fight to impose anything on anyone.
We place the choice squarely before mankind, and trust that people will make up their own minds between slavery and freedom, abundance and poverty, ignorance and knowing.
On this glorious day we celebrate freedom.
Not mere liberty, which is a privilege that can be taken away.
On this day, we remember who we are.
Granna is sitting here all by herself, her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren scattered all over the globe, and she is smiling and sipping a Viennese Coffee.
Viennese Coffee first became popular in Vienna, Austria, among the Opera-going crowd shortly after both coffee and cinnamon became popular import products in the seventeenth century.
Most Americans would wrinkle their noses at a drink that is "hot as hell, dark as night, and sweet as love" -- with a cinnamon afterbite and whipping cream floating on top. It's an acquired taste, like pale beer laced with raspberry syrup.
For Granna, it's a celebratory treat. The cinnamon and the coffee work together to boost her metabolism and keep her alert -- two things that her work requires, because she spends a lot of time in sedentary chair-bound pursuits, and is constantly obliged to analyze and observe vast amounts of information coming in.
I sip this secret weapon of the Hapsburg Dynasty and use it to bolster my effort to spread the doctrines of peace, freedom, fairness, and brotherly love that are the true inheritance of all Americans.
I use Maple Syrup -- just enough -- to sweeten this drink.
It's uniquely American Viennese Coffee.
This is what we also celebrate today, our so-called "melting pot", the almost magical way that all languages, all cultures, and all cuisines somehow melt together and offer their blessings to this vast and beautiful country.
America is everyone and nobody, all at once, like a kaleidoscope changing and staying the same, different colors, different patterns, an endless tapestry of diversity and designs, all finding their place, all adding to the whole.
We start our breakfast with French Croissants in New Orleans, have a German beer with a plate of Ranchero Barbeque in Texas for lunch, then end the day in Michigan, sipping Bristol Cream in anticipation of a magnificent Indian Curry dinner.
We have the whole globe, right here, and we never have to leave our borders. How amazing is that, when you stop and think about it?
There is so much, so very much, to be grateful for. Let that gratitude swell your hearts as you watch the fireworks blazing in the night sky and again, when you lay your heads down to rest.
Tomorrow will be what Jim Belcher called "July Fifth".
This is the day when his worldwide family holds a private celebration of a different kind, a somber day of realization, when we take up the duties and vigilance required of us, the burden of self-realization and self-government that protects and underlies the freedom and the blessings we celebrate on July Fourth each year.
July Fifth is what pulls July Fourth into the framework of today and gives it a future. On this day, we contemplate the Flame within us, that eternal fire that set our DNA in motion, that placed the concepts of conscience in our hearts, the same mysterious power that guides and protects and teaches us the values expressed by The Declaration of Independence.
As you celebrate the Fourth of July this year, and as you tread softly into the dawn of July Fifth, thank Divine Providence.
Granna
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