Two hundred and thirty-four years ago today the promise of America was summed up in one of the greatest single sentences ever to be written:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men 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.”

It is a sentence that will stand the test of time and will forever inspire hope in the hearts of those who are subjected to the dark realities of oppression.

But most Americans, myself included, are surely an embarrassment to the great men who risked their very lives to pen those inspiring words. On this Independence Day, reflect on their passion and how they might apply it if they were with us today.

There are many avenues where those ideals can be profoundly applied, but we must first find the strength to declare our own “declarations of independence” from the relentless grips of comfort, apathy, ignorance, and pride. I worry that the British were a much less formidable foe.