I’m as patriotic as the next person, but I’m struggling right now with calling the Fourth of July “Independence Day.” Oh, I understand the history of it all. Sometimes, indeed, “in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another.”

But this year it’s all so different. This year, when our politics are ripping apart families and friendships, and people of all races are finally beginning to see that Black Lives Matter, and scientists keep reminding us that climate change is radically altering our planet, and the global economy is in crisis because a virus is wreaking havoc on the whole wide world, maybe … we should be celebrating Interdependence Day.

Because now more than ever, we are all in this together. And we are only as strong as our weakest link. And a house divided against itself, cannot stand. Sometimes in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for all people to dissolve the walls which have separated them from one another . . . because “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”