Community Connection ~ June 29, 2025: Celebrate Freedom

The 4th of July, the American holiday synonymous with freedom, is this Friday! Millions of people in this country will celebrate with fireworks, food, and friends. But we’d like to offer you the opportunity to reflect on freedom in a slightly different way and on a slightly different day, and there is a historical story to back us up! 

Did you know that John Adams thought American independence would be celebrated on July 2nd? Riding high from 12 out of 13 colonial delegates voting for independence, he wrote a letter to his wife correctly predicting the parades, games, and illuminations to come…on “The Second Day of July 1776.” But it would take two more days for Congress to adopt the Declaration of Independence - after making a staggering, yet unsurprising 86 revisions - and that’s the day history remembers. You can read more about this fascinating corner of American history here.

All this to say, July 2nd is a great day to think about freedom! Set aside some time to consider what freedom looks like to you, or to think of some things you’d like to be free of, along with what you need to do to make it happen. We like to imagine it as fireworks before and after they explode - the rockets are the things you do, or change, and the bursts of light and color are the freedom you create in the world. If you’d like to make this thought experiment more concrete, we made a template for you! Just print it out and write your ideas in the different shapes. You can even color it if that makes you happy.

By the 4th, you’ll be ready to celebrate along with everyone else (hopefully with fewer revisions to your ideas than Adams and his peers received). And as you watch the fireworks take flight, you can see your own freedom illuminating the sky.

What does freedom mean to you? Share with us on Facebook or Instagram.