Happy Interdependence Day

According to Google AI, “Independence is the quality or state of being free from the control, support, or influence of others. It represents the ability to make your own choices, support yourself, and govern your own affairs. This concept can be applied across several different aspects of life.”

And yet, as Maya Angelou reminds us,

"The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.”

So, the questions comes up for me

Is the man free who is stopped and arrested because his skin is brown and he looks Hispanic?

Is the woman free who works beside a man who is paid more to do the same work?

Is the soldier free to publicly express his disapproval of the government he has sworn to serve?

Are you free from the influence of your employer, your partner, your family, friends or community?

Maybe we have been looking at this all wrong. Maybe we were never meant to be islands unto ourselves. We have the innate capacity for self-determination, but we’re always in relationship with others. Perhaps the healthiest vision we can embrace is not independence alone, but interdependence, which invites us to stand stronger together.

Google defines interdependence as “a relationship where two or more people, things, or concepts depend on each other to function, survive, or succeed. Rather than being completely isolated or overly reliant (codependent), the entities share a balanced, two-way connection.”

To me, that is what the American dream really is: interdependent collaboration towards a world that works for all.

 In her 2024 inaugural poem, This Sacred Scene Amanda Gorman wrote:

We gather at this hallowed place

Because we believe in the American dream.

We face a race that tests if this country

We cherish shall perish from the earth,

And if our earth shall perish from this country.

It falls to us to make sure that we do not fall,

For a people that cannot stand together cannot stand at all… 

She reminds us: 

… what defines a patriot

Isn’t just our love of liberty,

But our love for one another—

… while we all love freedom,

It’s love that frees us all.

Then comes the invitation:

Only now, approaching this rare air,

Are we aware that perhaps the American dream

Isn’t a dream at all, but, instead, a dare:

To dream together.

In the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

He challenged the nation to continue the unfinished business of building a government "of the people, by the people, for the people" – a task that strives not simply personal freedom but for shared responsibility. It calls us to protect one another's dignity, honor and humanity by working together for the common good.

Perhaps that is what we celebrate on the Fourth of July—not merely independence, but the ongoing pursuit of a society where every person is free because we have learned to stand stronger together, to dream together, to love together.

Happy Interdependence Day.