I’ve always thought of history as something that happened to people I never met in places I never visited during times past.

But we are all living history today as much as those who lived yesterday. No one has written our story yet, but someone will.

Now always matters, and not only for ourselves. Told or untold, our dramas make a difference. Indeed, our actions, passivity, heroism, or indifference will influence future generations before they can read.

We often hear about the value and virtue of gratitude. Counting one’s blessings lets us recognize what is splendid, touching, and fortunate in our lives.

The just past Independence Day reminds us this is only the first step. Many note that our good fortune leaves us with a debt to repay. Among them was our 16th President.

At a Gettysburg cemetery during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln said:

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Death, the thing we don’t want to think about, tends to spur attention in solemn moments when we are overwhelmed by it. Lincoln’s eloquence near a battlefield drew motivation from the carnage of a war that troubled and aged him.

Are we motivated to preserve the freedoms our long-gone ancestors fought and worked for? I hope so.

Being a good citizen involves more than voting. It means we must read about unpleasant events and recognize we have been passed the torch of maintaining the liberty for which other individuals gave their hours, loves, and lives.

In 1946, in the aftermath of WWII and the Holocaust, Eleanor Roosevelt spoke of our failures — the shortfall of humanity to take action before the worst happened. She understood the human tendency to look away:

I have the feeling that we let our consciences realize too late the need of standing up against something that we knew was wrong. We have therefore had to avenge it — but we did nothing to prevent it. I hope that in the future, we are going to remember that there can be no compromise at any point with the things that we know are wrong. We should remember that in connection with all the things that we do here, or in connection with anything at all in the world.

Such work is never completed, and humanity needs us to lend our heads and hands. As we reflect on Independence Day, we all might ask, how can I improve the well-being of men, women, and the planet on which we live?

In words close to the following, John Stuart Mill wrote this in 1867:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

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The first photo is of a Bald Eagle Along the Mississippi River in Illinois in April 2023. The second is a Texas Sunset in June 2023 with a Shelf Cloud Moving In. Both are the work of the artist/photographer Laura Hedien, with her permission: Laura Hedien Official Website.