Today at our friends’ 4th of July party, the children were asked to name some of the founding fathers. Several names popped out: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams. One name not mentioned was Samuel Adams, John’s older cousin, and the man who was known as the father of the American Revolution.

The man who thought up the Committees of Correspondence in order to help the colonies keep in communication with one another as they shared common grievances, ought to be given more credit for the huge role he played in inspiring the Americans to prudently throw off the yoke of tyranny and establish a new government. In an address he gave at the State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, Samuel Adams compared the course they were taking to that of the Reformers who threw off “the yoke of popery.” It’s an amazing oration, and here is a small portion of it:

Our Fore-fathers threw off the yoke of popery in religion; for you is reserved the honor of levelling the popery of politics. They opened the Bible to all, and maintained the capacity of every man to judge for himself in religion. Are we sufficient for the comprehension of the sublimest spiritual Truths, and unequal to material and temporal ones? Heaven hath trusted us with the management of things for Eternity, and man denies us ability to judge of the present, or to know from our feelings and experience what will make us happy.

…The hand of Heaven appears to have led us on to be perhaps humble instruments, and means in the great providential dispensation which is completing. We have fled from the political Sodom; let us not look back lest we perish and become a monument of infamy and derision to the world…Our glorious Reformers, when they broke through the fetters of superstition, effected more than could be expected from an age so darkened: But they left much to be done by their posterity. They lopped off indeed some of the branches of popery, but they left the root and stock when they left us under the domination of human systems…and decisions, usurping the infallibility which can be attributed to Revelation alone. They dethroned one usurper only to raise up another. They refused allegiance to the pope, only to place the Civil Magistrate on the throne of Christ, vested with authority to enact laws, and inflict penalties in His Kingdom. And if we now cast our eyes over the nations of the earth we shall find, that instead of possessing the pure Religion of the Gospel, they may be divided either into infidels, who deny the Truth; or politicians, who make religion a stalking horse for their ambition; or professors who walk in the trammels of orthodoxy, and are more attentive to traditions and ordinances of men, than to oracles of Truth. The Civil Magistrate has everywhere contaminated Religion, by making it an engine of Policy; and Freedom of thought and the right of public judgment, in matters of conscience, driven from every other corner of the earth, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum…

Not one to mince words, in the same speech he also gave his unfettered opinion about those who preferred their chains to their freedom, and the challenge he gave so eloquently resonates with the same force today as we see so many of our fellow citizens enjoying fireworks and a three-day weekend, who are oblivious to the dearly-bought liberty they have squandered for their comforts and entertainment:

If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.

Here are a few other Samuel Adams quotes to chew on:

He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of this country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.

It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.

It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.

I’m glad you asked.

• Kept children quiet so Daddy could sleep after working into the wee hours
• Had trouble keeping them quiet as they wanted to keep exclaiming over hearing mountain lion noises
• Had trouble keeping dog quiet because he didn’t like mountain lion noises
• Lost one of her helpers to nasty sickness that appears to have a very long incubation time
• Lost two of her helpers to Daddy, who has hired them to do testing for his company
• Watered almost entire garden before eating breakfast
• Cooked apple crisp for firefighter son and his colleagues
• Hung a load of laundry on line in continuing quest to find ways to cut back in this uncertain economy
• Unsuccessfully tried to keep tight rein on children who were supposed to be doing school
• Gave up and made them pick up that which she had been told had already been picked up
• Kept barking orders throughout the day to move sprinklers outdoors so that we have some green space all around the house
• Made lunch for everyone, including special orders for invalid and low-carbing hubby
• Vacuumed
• Made apricot butter in the crock pot, and continued washing the dishes she dirtied
• Cleaned out toy basket and dress-up clothes, attempting to hide all that went into the garbage bag
• Made appointment for hair cut
• Drove to store in smoky, Mordor-like conditions to buy new oscillating sprinkler, praying that it works better than the old one, and vanilla ice cream to go with apple crisp
• Delivered apple crisp to empty fire station, put it and ice cream in fridge and freezer, leaving note, and noticing the fancy shish-ka-bobs waiting to be cooked for the evening meal, finding out that her son prepared them and wondering where he learned to cook like that
• Made fruit smoothie for invalid
• Fixed noodles alfredo with onions, garlic, and portabella mushrooms for dinner
• Watered in back yard and sprayed deer fence (pew!) all around to keep flowers from getting eaten…swept deck of messy silk tree debris and cobwebs
• Talked to firefighter son on phone
• Talked to husband about serious things, talked to children about serious things
• Read a chapter of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader to little boys
• Edited magazine articles
• Wrote a blog post
• Snooze

The Sleeping Embroiderer by Gustave Courbet

I hope you will understand if I haven’t returned an email. I will do my best to get to it by the end of the decade.

For the past few years we have enjoyed many of the songs of Indelible Grace, which began as a music ministry of Reformed University Fellowship. They have taken some great reformed hymns and rewritten the music, which some people may find as sacrilegious as writing in a book (gasp!) We like some of the songs a lot more than others, but we really like having the rich, meaty hymns get a new hearing. A few of their arrangements were used on Jars of Clay’s Redemption Songs, and I love Anne Steele’s Thou Lovely Source of True Delight on that album and on IG’s first album. My friend Lisa may like the IG version of O Day of Rest and Gladness, and On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand is on the same album.

I think that IG’s music might appeal to those who find indie music appealing. I am all for more creativity from every corner. The traditional corners for music, literature, news, and film are filling up with cobwebs and other nasty things that accumulate in dark places. Time to sweep some of that ickiness away by opening the windows, wielding the brooms (no nasty jokes about how my other vehicle is a broom!), and filling up the emptiness to overflowing with lots of beauty from hearts that belong to Jesus. Sing, write, play, sew, cook, garden, read to your children…and don’t give your attention to the mediocre drivel that wastes your time and energy.

Songs from Indelible Grace’s new album can be heard here. You can listen to samples of the songs I mention at the links above. There are also lead sheets and lyrics, as well as some hymn stories and biographies of hymn writers, at their site.

If you want some truly edifying entertainment with a healthy dose of affirmation thrown in, hop on over to American Vision’s website and read the dozens (so far) of answers to Gary DeMar’s request for homeschooling success stories. One of his antagonistic correspondents went a little too far, saying that homeschooled students are capable of little more than menial work and that their parents are “unemployable retards.” Also, remember to pray for us California homeschoolers as today was the day the L.A. district court heard oral arguments in their reconsideration of the case which made waves for homeschoolers in the golden state a few months ago. They will have a decision on this in coming weeks, so I hope you will intercede on our behalf, asking the Lord to move the hearts of the justices to leave the homeschoolers alone and stick to the issue at hand.

As the world turns upside down and inside out, this poem, written by Steve Turner, makes perfect sense out of the senselessness we are swimming—or drowning—in. I haven’t seen Ben Stein’s movie yet, but I understand that in it rationalist Dawkins ends up trying to explain the origins of life on Earth by A.D. (Alien Design). Wow.

This reminds me of the misattributed Chesterton quote: “He who does not believe in God will believe in anything.” Good quote, except he didn’t say it. What he did say, via Father Brown, is almost as good though: “It’s the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense.” The evidence is all around us, both of the loss of common sense and the existence of our Creator God.

We believe in the rejection of creeds,
And the flowering of individual thought.

A lot of good it has done us…don’t you agree? Not.

See also: Creeds are Crucial and Statement of Faith.