Happy 4th of July!

There is so much that is going through my mind at this time about this holiday. When I think of the Star-Spangled Banner's last line, "O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave", more often than not, I imagine we think of the soldiers, those brave people who are fighting wars for our country. Yet as I reflect on the events that happened during the Founders' time, the signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave; George Washington, Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry, James Madison, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Frederick Douglass were brave. In modern times, Mother Teresa was brave. Gandhi was brave. Martin Luther King was brave. Aung San Suu Kyi is brave. Are we brave?

One of my favorite mentors and modern founders in America today is Oliver Demille. He wrote a great article about public virtue. The stories that are in that link (<---back there, the public virtue link, yeah, click on it) about the people who pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor were brave, and I cry every time I read these stories. I want to be like them. I hope you will take a moment to read it. It is so so so so good! I am so grateful for the Founders of this great country who paid the price to BE people of virtue in their own lives, who set the example for me that I gotta know what I know, and there is no faking around it. I can't claim to be a freedom-loving person if I am not respecting the freedom of my husband and children and neighbors. I can't be good in office if I'm not a good person in my own life. I can't commit to people if I can't keep commitments to myself. I gotta be good FIRST!

Let us be brave, wise, good and FREE in our own lives first. I so promise it will help us to be better everywhere else. To thine own self be true... #truerwords

Carry on.

xoxo,

Leah