Thoughts on Freedom

Freedom requires courage.

We are never truly free until we can look into a mirror and evaluate ourselves with honest eyes. We must know both our strengths and our faults to understand our limitations. Why do we need to understand our limitations, though, aren't we discussing freedom?

A caged bird might long to take wing and soar the skies but cannot. In a similar manner, a penguin might wish to fly but cannot. The difference is that one was created to fly and the other was not. Understanding our limitations is freedom, in a very real sense of the word. The penguin who understands what he was created for happily dances in the water and lets the other birds take the sky. He doesn't exchange the goodness and bounty of the open ocean for a life of pining away, watching the gulls, or jealous sulking.

Is this to say that we cannot dream? No! We are dreamers by nature, we need our dreams to challenge us to higher heights or - for those of us who are penguins - to deeper depths. As a girl I dreamed of flying - Top Gun was my favorite movie and I had my sights set on attending the Naval Academy and never mind that women were not allowed to join, that my eyesight was sub-par. I knew I was supposed to be a pilot. Now I am a mother and, while I am still free to remember my girlhood dreams fondly and even pursue a pilot's license, I am not allowed to indulge in the idolatry of regret because freedom requires seeing the landscape before us rather than constantly peering behind us.

So then, freedom also requires truth and freedom without truth is no freedom at all. Truth is frightening, though, and truth about ourselves is the scariest of all. Where do we find the courage for this undertaking, this quest? What force can compel us forward? What power can convince us to uncover the Mirror of Truth and gaze upon that heartless surface? I know of only one.

Who, but the person who understands that they are loved and accepted, can face the truth about herself?

Courage requires love.

The love that courage can stand on is rock steady. The love that courage requires sees a person's faults and doesn't love that person in spite of them but because of them. Our faults make us who we are, too, because what are faults but misdirected strengths? (Don't confuse 'faults' with 'sins' as that is an entirely different matter.) Perhaps this is our primary purpose here on this earth. Perhaps this is how the Kingdom of God sneaks into the world as gently as a sleeping infant and as inevitable as springtime after winter. Perhaps it is our purpose to love those around us so completely that it is nothing to say, "Yes, you are boorish and pushy but that's just because you haven't figured out where to direct all that passion yet. I love you." Perhaps it is our job to love with a love that doesn't excuse sin but understands why it is there, "Yes, I see you drinking and squandering away your life with drugs but that is because you have lost your way. I love you."

If we can love the people around us as God calls us to do, then the Spirit will be faithful to work within them the courage to peek at Truth. Who knows? Maybe they, too, will be set free. We will never know unless we are willing to put ourselves aside and provide a foundation of love for fledgling courage to stand upon.


Freedom requires love.