Because this is the celebration of the 250^th birthday of our nation, I was thinking about what a conversation would be like if George and Martha Washington or the Jeffersons visited my home. They would be amazed with my washer and dryer, my dishwasher, the electric stove, the vacuum cleaner, my iPhone and computer.

They would be amazed that I, as a widow, own a house with central heating and cooling, a car, a lawn mower, and dozens of tools and trinkets to make life easier. Jefferson would love my books, especially the ones on history. Even my bathroom would take their breath away. When I tell them that every home in the United States can be furnished with a flushable toilet, they simply can hardly believe it.

Our forefathers had no concept or even the possibility of our present-day living conditions. It would even be 100 years before the light bulb and telephone would be invented. The people who wrote our Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights could not have imagined our present electrical, plumbing, and communication systems. It would be more than 200 years before the first personal computer would become a possibility. And that computer has no semblance to the one I’m working on today.

Twenty-one years after that significant July 4, Willis Carrier, an American engineer and inventor, developed the air conditioner. I’m quite sure that people thought he was an unrealistic dreamer to believe that homes throughout the U.S. would enjoy this benefit. But today when it’s nearly 100 degrees outside, I simply turn on the air conditioner.

Quite a few people in 1776 thought that even the concept of a new nation, governed by the people and for the people was an impossibility. Although most people living in 1776 were very unhappy with England’s taxes and authoritarian rule, only a few people had the strength and courage to believe that we would become a great nation, independent from England. We are far from a perfect nation, and since each of us as citizens is not perfect, the nation will never be perfect. But we must always be willing to become “a more perfect Union.”

It was a Puritan pastor/leader, John Winthrop, who said in his 1630 sermon that the U.S. colonies were to be “as a city on a hill.” President Ronald Reagan often said of American exceptionalism that we are as a “shining city on a hill.”

We can only become this “shining city” if we follow Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 22:37-39: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We must also remember what the Lord told Solomon when he was dedicating his great temple in Jerusalem: “Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14). May each of us be a part of this healing process.

We can only become this “shining city” if we follow Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 22:37-39: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself.” We must also remember what the Lord told Solomon when he was dedicating his great temple in Jerusalem: “Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).