July, in Utah anyway, is awesome.
You see, while the rest of the country has just one patriotic, star-spangled parade and festival-filled holiday, we get two!
Today, is Pioneer Day. The day we celebrate the 1847 arrival of “the pioneers” who had trekked some 1300 miles west fleeing persecution and mobs in search of religious freedom.
For two of the four weeks that make up July, life here in the Beehive State is filled with parades, fireworks, barbecues, pageants, concerts, and festivals that make it almost universally one of the best parts of living in Utah in the summertime. It’s as if everyone instinctively knows that it is time to celebrate. And why not? It’s a holiday for heavens’ sake!
The kids are convinced we are celebrating covered wagons, painted horses, rodeos, and of course, after church today, pioneer children who walked, and walked, and walked, and walked…and walked some more. In the words of my three year old: “Why did they like walking?”
Good Question, Julia.
Time for daddy to write.
The thing is, today is different…or at least it should be. It’s not enough to just “celebrate” another obscure state holiday. The most important thing I want them to learn, for each of us to remember today, is that the call given to the saints we now call pioneers, was no different than the one given to us, now.
The covenants, promises, blessings and Spirit that motivated them to leave everything behind, to sacrifice it all to follow the Lord are available to us still.
Whether we realize it or not, there is not an equivalent demand for modern day “pioneers” as there was when the saints followed the Lord’s prophet across the plains. The reality is, today, that demand is far greater. The only way to truly honor the pioneers, to celebrate their service and sacrifice, then, is to do the same:
To live with the same commitment. To keep our own covenants with the same conviction. To live in faith over fear; willing to give and offer freely whatever the Lord asks of us.
When we can look back and say that we too have given our all, and then, a little more… then, we honor the pioneers. Then we stand with them…for we will have walked in their shoes.
Today isn’t just about handcarts and covered wagons either. Today we celebrate those who have shown us who we can become…who we have been invited, and yes, even called to be.
The Pioneers we remember today leave to each of us then, this one simple question:
What will my legacy be?
The answer to that question, makes all the difference.
In a way, Julia answered her own question…before I could even answer-
“Why did they like walking?…’Cause I like walking too.”
Maybe she understands more than I thought.
utahdad
