Liberty (and the crashing kite)

I spent a few weeks just outside of Washington DC last year on a work assignment, and decided to spend a day seeing the sights of our Nation's capital before heading back home to Montana.  On the side of the Robert Taft Memorial Bell Tower, was the above inscription (Liberty has been the key to our progress in the past and is the key to our progress in the future.  If we can preserve liberty in all its essentials there is no limit to the future of the American People).  Compared to the Washington and Lincoln memorials, the Robert Taft memorial is a bit obscure and off the beaten path (it's tucked in the trees between the capitol building and Union Station), and you don't hear an awful lot about Senator Robert Taft, but I found this statement to be rather profound and insightful.
Liberty, which can also be referred to as freedom (of choice, of religion, of government), has so many levels and meanings.  How well I remember being 18 years old, and wanting freedom to mean I could do whatever I wanted and be happy as a result.  Yet, the more I did what I thought I wanted, the less 'free' and happy I felt.  In a struggle to be 'free' from God, commandments, rules, guidelines, and restrictions, I had really missed the bus completely.  I was like a kite wanting to be free from the string, altogether unable to understand that it was the string that was allowing me to fly!  And like a kite cut free from the string, I was doomed to fall to the ground.
So what is Liberty?  How can we be truly free?
When God created this earth (what, you mean it wasn't a big bang and evolution?), and put plant and animal life upon it, He did so with a plan.  And a central part of that plan was Free Agency (the ability and responsibility to choose) for His children.
So like Peter Parker (spiderman), we have a great power bestowed upon us and a great responsibility.  The power to choose for ourselves what we will do every day, how we will act, how we will treat others, and whether we will strive to change for the better.  But it gets a bit tricky (of course, can't be too simple or it might not be fun!).  Since we 'choose' what we will do, we also accept the consequences of those choices (whether good or bad).  And our Nation was set up after a similar manner.  The laws governing our Nation, our States, and our local communities give us choices.  The law says, don't steal, don't kill, don't make fun of President Obama (some of these are easier to follow than others...) and if you CHOOSE to obey the laws, chances are you will not see a negative consequence.  However, if you decide that freedom to choose (liberty) gives you the right to take the life of another (or his car, wallet, etc..) then you also choose to loose other freedoms/liberties.  Like freedom to go to work in the morning.  Or freedom to travel, collect guns, be a professional snowboarder, or any number of other things that you cannot do from behind bars.
Now that example was a bit more extreme than most of us will likely encounter personally (but if you have been there, you know how real that loss can be).  Even the 'little' choices we make can have a huge impact on our future!  Choose to use vulgar, offensive language and soon you have a hard time thinking happy and positive things! And just try sincerely communicating with God when your mind is filled with vulgarity, it's worse that trying to make a phone call after dropping your cell phone into a port-a-potty that should have been emptied weeks earlier!  Choose to 'steal' time from your employer, or complain constantly about how much you hate your job, and you will likely find that either you don't have a job to complain about (or steal time or anything else) from or you wonder why your peers are getting promotions, raises and bonuses and you are not!  The choices we make, make us who we are!
Now the BEST part is, WE CAN CHANGE!  We can change who we are by beginning to make better choices.  We perform regular self-inspections, and pick out those areas that we need to change or improve, and begin to make different choices to become who we truly want to be.  We can become who God wants us to be.  And luckily, we are never too young or too old to make wonderful changes in our lives!

A little Liberty Math for you:  Liberty + Bad choices = less liberty!   Liberty + Good Choices = More Liberty!

 '...if we can preserve liberty in all its essentials there is no limit to the future...'