This Is Not Freedom

Why July 4th Should Challenge Us — Not Comfort Us

Every year, we light fireworks, grill burgers, and post red, white, and blue tributes to freedom on July 4th. Some of us gather in churches or spiritual centers, where the message shifts slightly — still patriotic, but wrapped in affirmations and metaphysics. “We’re grateful for our freedoms.” “This nation is blessed.” “Let us honor those who protect our liberty.” Subtly, we are being reminded that “Freedom isn’t free.”

Meanwhile, our pets are curled up under furniture, shaking and panting, as the neighborhood turns into a nonstop barrage of explosions, whistles, and artillery-grade celebration. It’s hard to call that “freedom” when half the beings in your household are having a panic attack.

And that’s the thing — it’s all starting to feel a little off. A little disconnected from what freedom really means.

Because let’s be honest — what’s often called “patriotism” in these spaces is really just nationalism in nicer clothes. It’s rooted in borders and allegiance, not in consciousness or universal love. And when we center our spiritual gatherings around a single nation’s pride, we lose the thread of the much deeper freedom we claim to stand for.

The 4th of July has become a ritual of American exceptionalism. And exceptionalism, by definition, excludes.

Patriotism Isn’t a Virtue — It’s a Distraction

This might ruffle some feathers, but here it is: patriotism is not a spiritual value. Not in the New Thought sense. Not in the context of spiritual evolution, unity, or liberation.

Patriotism is about preference. It’s about "my country." It’s about identification with a political construct. Even at its most noble, it’s still rooted in duality — us versus them, inside versus outside, safe versus threatening.

And when we bring that mindset into our spiritual spaces — when we stand up and say “thank you, America” as if America is the source of our rights, our value, our soul’s worth — we’re missing the whole point of the spiritual path.

“Patriotism is not a spiritual value. It’s loyalty to a flag, not freedom for all. And that’s a difference we can’t afford to ignore.”

Look back at the early New Thought and metaphysical thinkers — Emerson, Holmes, the Fillmores, even Thoreau. Their conversations weren’t about defending countries. They were about dissolving the illusions that separate us. They were talking about divine intelligence, the unity of all life, the power of mind and heart to shape reality.

They weren’t writing sermons about the flag. They were writing about the soul’s freedom — the kind of liberation that exists beyond politics, beyond borders, beyond tribe.

Today’s “Freedom” Still Isn’t for Everyone

And yet, here we are — again — celebrating a version of freedom that’s clean, curated, and wildly incomplete.

In spiritual centers across the country, this weekend’s gatherings will feature flags, slideshows, maybe a well-meaning rendition of “God Bless America.” The intention might be love. The effect is often erasure.

Because for many — Indigenous people, immigrants, refugees, Black and brown communities — that “freedom” we honor today never fully arrived.

By adopting patriotic rituals without critical reflection, spiritual communities risk blessing a story that was never true for everyone. A story that still isn’t.

Just look at the injustice that birthed Juneteenth. Two years. That’s how long it took for the news of emancipation to reach enslaved people in Texas. Two full years of continued bondage after freedom had already been declared — not by accident, but by design. It was an intentional delay, a withholding of liberation for the benefit of white landowners, protected by silence and distance.

“Juneteenth doesn’t mark freedom’s arrival — it marks its delay, its theft, and the will to survive anyway.”

That’s what Juneteenth marks — not the clean arrival of freedom, but the brutal truth that liberation in this country has always been delayed, contested, and politicized. It doesn’t celebrate a final declaration. It honors the struggle, the injustice, and the people who endured what they never should’ve had to.

So when we talk about July 4th as the moment freedom was born — let’s be honest. It wasn’t. And pretending it was is part of the problem.

Freedom Doesn’t Belong to a Flag

So what do we do today — right now — instead of falling back on old rituals?

We reclaim freedom as a spiritual principle, not a patriotic slogan.

That means we stop asking “How blessed are we to live in America?” and start asking “Who’s still not free — and why?”

True freedom looks like:

• The right to move toward safety without fear.

• The power to change your mind, your life, your story.

• The ability to speak your truth without punishment.

• The dignity to exist without being labeled illegal, dangerous, or other.

None of this requires a country. All of it requires courage.

So today, instead of fireworks, light a candle. Instead of affirming the nation, affirm liberation — for everyone. Center stories from people who’ve been excluded from the American dream. Sit with the grief. Sit with the honesty. Let this day be a reckoning, not a routine.

Burn the Borders in Your Mind

Let’s talk about where we’re going — or where we could go, if we let go of the idea that freedom stops at a border.

Imagine a world where movement is not criminalized, where refugees are welcomed as fellow travelers, and where the idea of “illegal people” is recognized as the fiction it always was.

“Migration is not a crisis. It’s a constant. To punish movement is to punish life itself.”

Migration is what humans do — follow water, food, safety, family, opportunity, hope. To punish that is to punish life itself.

And yet, we’ve built massive systems to do exactly that. We’ve separated families, built walls, and locked children in cages — all while calling ourselves “free.”

Let’s be real: that’s not freedom. That’s fear in costume.

And fear is a tool. It’s being used — right now — by those who profit from division, who weaponize nationalism, who sell control wrapped in flags.

If we don’t evolve what freedom means, someone else will redefine it for us. Shrink it. Gatekeep it. Turn it into something you only get if you obey.

We have a choice. But we don’t have forever.

Today Can Still Mean Something

So no, I’m not here to ruin your weekend. I’m not saying cancel the BBQ.

I’m saying: Don’t coast through life with your eyes closed.

Ask harder questions. Make room for harder truths. Look around and ask: Who is still waiting for freedom to reach them? Who never got the message? Who’s still being held hostage by the systems we were taught to celebrate?

Let this be a day of vision, not just memory. Of truth-telling, not nostalgia.

Because that’s the kind of patriotism I could get behind — not loyalty to land, but love for people. All people. Not just the ones the myth was built for.

Let’s love wide. Let’s stay awake. Let’s evolve.

This isn’t just about politics. It’s about principle. It’s about the spiritual reality that deeply we are one — not metaphorically, but truly. What happens to one of us touches all of us. If anyone is caged, excluded, erased, or denied dignity, then none of us are truly free.

“Until everyone is free, no one is free. That’s not idealism — it’s reality. That’s oneness in action.”

That’s the energy we need today. Not fireworks — but fire.

Happy Interdependence Day.