A Significant Fast

The rest of the story of the Freedom Fast underscores the importance that a fast must be about something significant in one's life. Otherwise, it is a ritual with little more resonance than a clanging cymbal.

It is a time to pause and reflect on the values that define who we are as a people.

We often get stuck in what Walter Isaacson has called the greatest sentence in the world:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

These words are meaningless unless you pay attention to the rest of the story.

The 27 grievances found in the Declaration of Independence make up the skeleton of the document.

Grievances such as, and you will recognize several of these:

“He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states, for that purpose obstructing the laws of naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of the legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.”

Only a few of the 27 grievances.

Freedom was the end goal, but addressing the grievances was what made the goal possible.

We fast, as the Book of Isaiah 58 reminds us:

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house?

When you see the naked, cover them.”

You may take issue with the how of how we accomplish the work of freedom.

But never forget that together, in this republic, we work for freedom for all people.

Fasting to pause, to reflect, and to serve brings us together to listen, to understand, and to discover.

We will maintain our goal of a more perfect union only when we are prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve that goal.

This is Jim Copple for the Freedom Fast.