Liberty and Justice for All…I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s when we recited these words every single day.

Today I am pondering what it means to pledge ourselves to liberty and justice for all. I am a big fan of actually knowing what a word means when I use it and of course it was those amazing teachers I had growing up who didn’t just tell me what a word meant but told me instead to look it up. Implying that I knew where our class dictionary was and knew how to use it. Well here is what that great book compiled by Daniel Webster said it means to pledge ourselves to something.

pledge verb: to promise the performance of 

So think about this. Every day that we uttered this pledge at school in the morning, we were saying aloud into the void, to the atmosphere around us that we promised the performance of…liberty and justice for all. Stunning.

Public schools gave me such a love for my country. Obviously, the leaders who established them wanted me to share in the responsibility of this American promise to perform liberty and justice for all throughout my lifetime. When I stood with other people at a basketball game and together we put our hands over our hearts and uttered aloud this pledge…as a body we were saying, “We promise the performance of liberty and justice for all”. It must have been a really important thing for our founders and those who established this pledge of allegiance to America’s flag to leave us with our mission statement, our declaration of being. They must have wanted us to know it so well that whenever we saw the white stars on that navy blue background neatly squared up into the upper left corner next to the 13 red and white stripes, our senses would come alive and remind us who we were. They believed that WE the people would need to know this pledge in our bones. Committed to memory so deep that when we interacted with the ALL, we would easily commit to perform liberty and justice. Wowsa.

liberty noun: the quality or state of being free (you really need to check out the word’s synonyms)

Every day when I uttered this promise to perform…I was saying aloud into the void, to the atmosphere around me…”I promise to be free.” TO BE FREE. I promise to be free and I promise to grasp that if you are an American, you ARE free. You are free to chart your course in life apart from a king’s edict. You are free to earn and keep your money to spend as you desire. You are free. But those writing this pledge also knew that to be free, meant that we had to commit to justice, for ourselves as well as for others.

justice noun: the process or result of using laws to fairly judge cases, redress wrongs, and punish crimes

Every day when I uttered this phrase promising to be free and know that the others around me are also free, I was also expressing the caveat that to be free would require all of us living with a commitment to justice – creating fair laws for the people, to redress wrongs and punish crimes because not to live under this banner would mean that no one would be able to be free.

So much is there. So much in this pledge that we repeated every day. The pledge that also opens our sporting events and important meetings. What wisdom the original writers had to have possessed to have made something so critical, so specific and so broad at the same time. Not mention so enduring! As I look at America today, I see a lot of us still committed to being free.

free: I looked up this word and there were just too many gems not to copy and paste them here.

a: having the legal and political rights of a citizen. For many African Americans, celebrating the Fourth of July as the day Americans became free from British rule feels inapplicable since our ancestors were not free.—Christen A. Johnson

b: enjoying civil and political liberty, free citizens, a free country

c: enjoying political independence or freedom from outside domination a free nation

d: enjoying personal freedom : not subject to the control or domination of another

Living as a free people is the inherited gift that we will always be trying to understand better in a world full of billions of people. Today as I write this and think about the millions of times I recited this pledge to be free and and pledge to be so within the laws of America to keep myself and others free, I am beyond thankful for the life I have lived as an American. I have been as free as anyone can be to live and choose my way in the world.

I believe that to continue to pledge my allegiance to America and its flag, I must continue to grasp that this is a pledge of performance, an ongoing duty to both understand my country’s history, its laws and what it means to be a human being living here. This knowledge and awareness is my motivation to advocate for others. It always has been and to think that it was born in this pledge, first learned in Kindergarten.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Imprinted in my soul, these words return to me as I consider everything.