Sermon by Elisabeth Hathaway, MA, PhD
July 6, 2003

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness….

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America…by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States....

-The Declaration of Independence

This is from the text of a unanimous declaration adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, marking the ultimate goal of the American Revolution and the establishment of the great American experiment of democracy. It was signed by the representatives of the thirteen states, among them its primary authors, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams. July Fourth, Independence Day, has been the foundational patriotic holiday celebrated in our country ever since. It seems fitting on its anniversary week to look a bit at the history, to wonder about the central focus it holds on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and to see how these affect us today as Unitarians-political citizens and spiritual fellows both.

Americans, represented by the Whigs-the Patriots, the rebels-were at war with England at the time, determined to become independent, separate and equal. The Loyalists, the Tories, represented the ties to the British empire, and urged a reasonable reconciliation, a resumption of the status quo. The focus of the justification for separation from the British presented in the Declaration underscored that the citizens in the colonies felt oppressed by British rule, recorded that they had duly petitioned for redress in the most humble terms, making repeated petitions, answered only by repeated injury. They declared: "A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people." Freedom-life and the pursuit of happiness-they considered their Natural Rights, the protection and safety of which they declared was the responsibility of government, but the rights themselves were granted by a higher authority, natural law, safeguarded by God. The Declaration was a political document, a political act, grounded in a spiritually based certitude.

What did the Patriots mean exactly by these term-Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness-that they used as the guiding principle of effective and palatable government in the Declaration? And how do they relate to one another? Life, according to the Patriots seemed to mean, on one level, literally breathing, not being killed by the British, not being denounced as traitors when espousing their rights as equal citizens. When Jefferson hesitated with the final decision to declare Independence he is reported to have agreed for the sake of being united, saying, "yes, we must hang together." Franklin is said to have replied, "We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." Many had already died. But Life also meant access to growth, livelihood, self-determination. Britain was sometimes referred to as the Parent country, with paternal control over its colonies, not allowing them to develop the abilities and strengths needed to manage themselves. The final paragraph details the acts a separate and equal nation must be able to engage in to exist, to Live, successfully as a political entity. Life then is intricately intertwined with Liberty, Independence, which meant, for the authors of the Declaration, a Continental government, the establishment of the United States as a distinct political entity. This legitimately separate political body would then, in the words of Thomas Paine, the author of the pivotal Common Sense that was published that same year, put them on their way to "material eminence as a nation," insisting that "Independence is the only bond that can tie and keep us together."

Those wrestling with these vital concerns and doing the hard work of creating a viable government were astounding, really, in their capacity to address the substance of designing an entity that would actually do what they thought a government ought to do. The Declaration was followed quickly by the Articles of Confederation, and in 1787 by the Constitution, which together crafted the substance of the government, and then in 1791, came the Bill of Rights, in Amendments to the Constitution. These documents identified the murky issues and strove to clarify them, most significantly the assertion of a religious foundation, and the corresponding necessity of the separation of church from state. The first amendment, as we know, establishes that the government can make no laws "respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," nor "abridging the freedom of free speech or of the press," peaceable assembly, or petitioning the government for redress of grievances. This right of free speech and worship was after all one of the principle reasons many emigrants left England for the New World. They were escaping religious persecution, seeking an environment which would allow them choice in how to think and worship, which would allow them unrestricted expression of ideas and not deny them livelihood, rights or community because of who they were as identified by these choices.

In the delicate balance of power and protection constantly in play between an individual citizen and a sovereign government, the founders recognized the inherent tension between a government designed to establish and maintain a protected state, and the infringement of that state upon the rights and freedoms of its individual citizens. They assumed a higher authority than the king in their justification for independence, yet insisted on a system contained in the worldly relationships of men. Paine clarified this in Common Sense: in these new United States King is not God, but God is not King either, Law is King. This central emphasis on the legal system addressed the need to represent and protect individual citizens, however natural their rights may be in the ideal. Law in fact is meant to safeguard our freedom. As unwieldy, unjust and corrupt as the legal system can seem at times, perhaps this was the only truly democratic option: Law is hard to change or effect, but not quite so hard as King or God.

What has the effect of all of this been in our world, on us as individuals? The example and symbolism of this bold and decisive Declaration has reverberated throughout the global community ever since. On the one hand it was considered successful, admired by many, sparking other similar revolutions and an era of cataclysmic change, and in fact is the foundation of the icon of the American hero. Echoes of this heroic assertion continue to this day, illustrated in our international role as political and financial superpower, enacted in conflicts like those with Iraq and Afghanistan, in the brilliance and practices of companies like Ford, Coca Cola, and Microsoft, in figures like Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, John Wayne and Jacqueline Onassis….This is the story of America, the land of plenty, the land of power, ingenuity, wealth and success, the melting pot immigrants from all over the world will suffer to reach or die trying. Our standard of living is high, our language universal, from a certain perspective cultural restrictions are relatively few, education and aspiration, the myth goes, are available to those who work hard enough to get to them. On the other hand, a more critical or cynical view might suggest that while the revolution presented a rhetorical morality and ostensible democratic values of all men created equal, the participants, mostly wealthy and privileged themselves, were perhaps motivated by other powerful agendas. Some men, to paraphrase Orwell, are more equal than others. This is America, the land of opportunity for those who have the wherewithal, where tycoons and CEOs seize the day while their opponent is down. This is the land of the Patriot Act declaring an axis of evil flowing on a river of oil, of elders and children with no health care or heat, of illegal immigrants working migrant jobs, of double wage-earner households able to rent but not own, and of Hollywood or sports stars of the week giving away Humvees as party favors.

We must ask, are we as citizens of this country, free? It is hard to feel freedom tangibly. The Patriots, the rebels, felt their political and economic subjugation deeply. But for those of us raised and nurtured in relative freedom, its appreciation is often more fleeting. Freedom follows enslavement, the feeling of liberty is most clearly felt as a lack during its absence, or as a liberation and epiphany after its absence has abated. However, even for those of us who have not lived through revolution or civil war or genocide, think of the more subtle, personal issues of freedom, independence, separation, and control that we come into contact with on a regular basis. For some, this has directly to do with laws and government. The huge news story this week was of course the landmark and astonishing Supreme Court decision overturning the Texas sodomy law as unconstitutional because it violated the privacy of gay individuals. Justice Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion that homosexuals "may choose to enter upon this relationship in the confines of their homes and their own private lives and still retain their dignity as free persons." Of course this ruling has been criticized scathingly in the uproar of conservative tumult, being called "silly" and dismissed as a social or political interest group agenda rather than a ruling that protects the rights of free citizens. Justice Scalia, when denouncing it in the dissenting opinion, said the decision "effectively decrees the end all morals legislation," as if that were a bad thing. Again, the eternal and thorny problem of the division of church and state. Very few would argue that morality should not be at the heart of the rules and laws which guide and govern us. A culture must be spiritually grounded to effectively hold the interests of the whole and the individual in balance. So how does this work? Which religion will provide for the happiest citizens, the freest world? From my perspective this is a problem that Paine, with his emphasis on inclusivity, and, I need to say, the Unitarians, with their emphasis on non-dogmatic universal wisdom teachings, have deftly addressed. As persons we follow our own beliefs, as citizens we are guided by and mindful of our collective laws and actions. I can see how literalists want to choose their religion and endorse it as right, their religion supports their sense of their justness as personal entities. But what of political entities, respecting other personal entities? The trick is to uphold values with enough specificity to be believable but not so much that principles become constricting, rigid, dogmatic and literal. The flip side of this dilemma is how to offer freedom without having it become a free-for-all of permissiveness and chaos. I hope Scalia is correct, that morality legislation is on the decline. I don't call laws that dictate to me my personal choices "moral" I call them dictatorial, restricting, and against my personal values…I guess immoral.

The wild card in this polarization between politics and religion is of course economics. The American rebels were outraged by taxes that were being levied, they were upset that American lands were being given away to loyalists in Great Britain, or annexed to Canada to take them from the rebels. They were, for the most part, land owners, slave owners too, themselves, with savvy understanding of their own interests, and the financial interests of the nascent country, with all its vast and enticing resources. They wanted their fair share, and more perhaps, of the pie, and felt the crown was taking more than it ought, given the paltry return in protection and support it was affording the colonies. This was part and parcel of imperialism as far as England was concerned, and the nerve of the colonists to challenge the economic balance was considered inconceivable. The fact is a political entity is also an economic one. Money was a major issue. Perhaps more major than philosophical principles such as freedom and democracy, which can be espoused but not so easily counted as gold, or crates of tea, or barrels of oil. Was money the real unspoken God, supreme even to Law? And what is the substance of political efficacy today, the core around which political success revolves now? This week there was a story on NPR describing the flock of fledgling democratic hopefuls for the upcoming presidential campaigns, saying we are now at a decisive point in the process. Determinations of long-term success will likely be made at this juncture. What could this vital time be? A pivotal panel debate on energy policy or health care? A straw poll on the relative strengths of the potential candidates? Well, sort of. This week marked the end of the financial quarter. Candidates will be considered viable dependent on how much they have in their contribution coffers. The incumbent President is reported to have amassed 30 million dollars thus far, more than all the democrats combined. What would Jefferson and Franklin say? Have the ideals of democracy become perversely bastardized into a plutocracy-which is a government by the wealthy, rule by people who have power and influence due to wealth, or at best, perhaps a plutodemocracy, in which control is held by people of wealth rather than the common man. Do we really have one person one vote, with all persons being equal, all persons voting? And is that what was really intended? Freedom, as it is expressed in our political arena these days is more a power than a right, exercised by an increasingly entitled, privileged and small group of people. There is an inscrutable complacency in the American public which makes democracy a difficult and unwieldy system. Is it apathy or disenfranchisement?

Which leads us to the final element to consider: happiness. Did Jefferson and Franklin and Adams mean to imply that if the values and ideals of the Declaration were upheld all people could or would be happy, as well as, or because of, being free? Certainly they meant that without these natural rights it is difficult to pursue being happy. Our democratic cum capitalistic culture has come to equate access and thus money, financial power, with happiness. But does money buy happiness? Certainly we pursue it as if it could. A recent New York Times article on the subject cites that the battleground of happiness is a "constant chase that both animates American's daily lives and ties them in knots," and that the resulting culture wars and ravenous consumer culture underlie our great unhappiness. The article quotes Emerson, writing far before the current soaring increase in American depression, as saying "our people are surrounded with greater external prosperity and general well-being than the Indians or the Saxons yet we are sad but they are not." Sadness, depression, hopelessness, leads to apathy and withdrawal, which can be seen as complacency; certainly to reap the benefits of a democracy one has to be willing to participate, and American citizens have astonishingly low political participation rates. But to participate implies hope as to the outcome.

Psychologist Martin Seligman, has written extensively on happiness. He asserts that the problem with happiness is that "we want to feel entitled to our positive feelings." Imagining happiness is a god given right, and should thus be easy, we seek shortcuts to this sought after feeling-examples he provides are drugs, chocolate, loveless sex, shopping, masturbation, and television-imagining they will satisfy us but they do not. He writes:

The belief that we can rely on shortcuts to happiness, joy, rapture, comfort, and ecstasy, rather than be entitled to these feelings by the exercise of personal strengths and virtues, leads to legions of people who in the middle of great wealth are starving spiritually. Positive emotion alienated from the exercise of character leads to emptiness, to inauthenticity, to depression, and, as we age, to the gnawing realization that we are fidgeting until we die.

Again the hazy separation of morality from happiness, happiness from politics and spirituality. Seligman has studied happiness across cultures and countries, and has found that perceived happiness is only minimally affected by identifiable external circumstances, such as country of origin, money, social context, health, religion, gender, education, and climate. At most these external factors can only correlate with about 8 to 15% of variance in happiness. Living in a wealthy democracy, not an impoverished dictatorship, was the single most influential external factor. This would be gratifying for the founders, and is not a big surprise. Participating in a religious practice, we will all be happy to hear, also has a moderate correlation with happiness, as does being socially active and in good marriage or a positive committed relationship. More money, once the gross national product exceeds $8000 per person, has no correlation with increased happiness or life satisfaction. Nor do good health, getting lots of education, being a different race or gender, or living a different place. So if external circumstances can at most only moderately affect our perceived level of life satisfaction, what can affect our happiness significantly is what we think and what we do. We will be happier, healthier and more successful, he found, to the extent that we can have satisfaction about the past, hope about the future, and optimism in the present. We can increase optimism through practices of awareness, gratitude and forgiveness, developing our strengths and virtues, and ultimately on developing an embodied experience of authenticity in our lives. The details of what he has to say about each of these aspects are fascinating, and I recommend reading his recent book. He ends with almost an addendum, perhaps an apology given his identified persona as a scientist, on the vital importance of meaning, and being connected with a larger reality than our own singular existence. The Patriots, writing the Declaration, fit well with this research: they were working from their strengths, grounded in virtue, on something vitally meaningful, with commitment to the present and optimism for the future. This perhaps was they way in which their political vision provided their happiness.

What can all this mean for us as individuals now? Beyond an historical event or document, or theory about happiness, I am interested in the meaning the Declaration of Independence holds for each of us. What is its personal impact. Here is where the questionnaires come in-I want to thank all of you who responded to the e-mail, and addressed your experience of freedom and happiness.

So. What did we all say? There was loose consensus on what "freedom" means to us. Generally, we related it to being able to take responsible and reasonable action, including having thoughts and feelings, without unnecessary, undue or interfering constraint, internally or externally. In terms of specific political, financial, and emotional freedoms, there is much to say but to summarize here, overall on average we feel most free spiritually (average 8 of 10), which says a lot I would think for the freedoms allowed in our culture, and perhaps for the experience of Unitarian Universalism, as well as for the positive impact of our fellowship here. Interestingly, there is a relatively low feeling of freedom politically among us (average 5 of 10), given that we live in the "freest" country in the world. I imagine the founders would be dismayed by these findings. Emotionally, a similar level of moderate freedom is felt (6 of 10). All but one person said their happiness directly correlates to these questions about freedom, meaning the freer they feel the happier they are. I offer, and Seligman might as well, that while this suggests a considerable amount of felt pain and constriction among us, it also leaves room for hope, as the emotional is the realm most accessible to our conscious control. The responses showed that we are a very psychological group! Which means that while we tend toward pessimism, as do most Unitarians according to Seligman, we have a combination of an enhanced objective grasp on reality, as well as positive potential for increased awareness, which can lead to increased happiness and efficacy, even in the political realm.

The responses from the questionnaires underscore that beyond the ways in which our political freedom may be limited, we struggle on a personal level to be free in many regards. Developmentally we struggle to be free of the eventual necessary burdensome control of our parents or family, we often struggle for freedom of thought, freedom to act, freedom from the structures of a formative religious experience. As mature adults we can struggle to be free of a restricted socioeconomic place in the world, an abusive or dissatisfying relationship or living situation, the tethers of our history of origin, traumas we have suffered, our own seemingly unattainable desires, the bondage of our own expectations and judgments. As we get older we usually struggle to be free of our angers, grudges, fears and hurts, our internal limitations, the restrictions of the inner despot. This is personal, as well as cultural. The dynamics of the American revolution can be held as an example of a symbolic separation from a sort of parental over-control. Indeed, America has often been criticized as an adolescent nation, formed in rebellion and troubled separation, never fully maturing, acting reactively with high hubris. Can we as citizens mature beyond our country's image? I believe so. And in so doing we can assist in the maturing of our country. Further, I would submit that to the extent that we are unable to do so, we are limited in our ability to increase our own life satisfaction, as well as in our ability to positively influence our country's political character, domestically and internationally.

The Founders ended their Declaration with the powerful sentence "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." This is freedom-the clear statement of our considered Truth, the assurance of a just cause, the confidence in a larger righteousness, the support and constraint of a principled community, the assurance of a shared risk of life and fortune, and the reassurance of a personal commitment to one another. May we as independent citizens honor their work, follow their optimistic examples, and take satisfaction from continuing their efforts.

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