July 4th, 1776: “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union…” What in the world would it have felt like to stand as part of the crowd listening to the first reading of the Declaration of Independence? What in the world would it have felt like to ratify the Declaration and sign your name to it, perhaps with huge letters and a flourish like John Hancock? What in the world would it have felt like to risk your future, your family, your livelihood and your very life on one document?

Sadly enough for history lovers like me, we will never truly know, despite remarkably eloquent letters and documents by Founding Fathers and their families, what it truly felt like to do any of these things; one thing we can know, however, is that for all of this to be possible, the men and woman who staked their fortunes on 1,337 powerful, life-changing words had to believe in what those words stood for and they also had to have a vision for what those words meant when times were hard and things got bleak.

And thank goodness they did, too, because that is why we are here today.

July 4, 2016: “Yo, we the dudes, in order to, like, come together….” Have you ever wondered what a modern-day phrasing of the Declaration would sound like? It’s not something I like to ponder too deeply, but it’s an amusing exercise. Beyond the semantics of the words themselves, though, I wonder how this century and this generation would frame the message of the Declaration if it was up to us to make the same call that the Founding Fathers (and, by extension, their families and eventually the American population) had to make. Would we be willing to put our lives on the line, our necks almost within the nooses that King George threatened our Forefathers with because we believed not only in powerful words but in what those words could mean for our children and their futures? What’s more, would we be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to see those words become a reality?