This weekend is a good time for sparklers. People ignite them and watch the blinks fly like a swarm of fireflies escaping from a skinny gray stick. There are fireworks too, that zing across the sky with enough pop and sizzle to turn night into day, if only for the duration of a child's scream. 

 

The celebration is all about freedom. Liberty is the linchpin of human interactions. It chops like a cleaver between domination and companionship, fear and trust, slavery and employment, abuse and marriage. 

 

It is easy to harangue governments whose power gets out of control, and ignore our own tendency to manipulate. A few years ago in church John crafted a Declaration of Independence from Ego. He held up the original Declaration, or rather a photocopy, and described the contents. Apparently the largest portion in the middle is an exhaustive list of King George's efforts to strong arm the colonists. It was not pretty. John asked us to become congress members for a moment, and describe our own practices of domination. None of us are immune. Finally we were all invited to put our own John Hancock at the bottom. 

 

Loosening my grip on what I expect my family to do, or not do has been excruciatingly slow. Still if I wanted complete control, I should have opted for a set of mannequins. But how much fun is that? Last time I glanced in a store window display no one was smiling.