Freedom From…
Freedom To…
A hypothetical situation in South Africa: white and black in confrontation. The white acts with authority, superiority, power, distrust, fear bred by a background of ignorance. The black acts under pass laws, with no control of his environment, knowing slavery, weakness, pride mixed with hopelessness. The white strikes. The black, not giving in to Hatred, smiles. The white strikes. The black, not giving in to Despair, offers the hand of peace.
Which one is truly free?
As disciples of materialism we see a natural connection between freedom and our rights. As pursuers of the easy life, we are blind to the connection between freedom and responsibility. [Aaargh, how can he mention that word in a college newspaper??!!] We confuse freedom with removal of constraints. We confuse individuality with independence. We misunderstand what’s at the heart of our desire to be free and in so doing we lose sight of the whole purpose of freedom.
Most of us want to be free to rage all night, free from social restrictions on sexual expression, free from parental prohibitions, from partners’ demands, from oppression, from others’ expectations, from laws which limit how we can treat our own bodies.
Now it’s not that there’s anything wrong with these wishes, but they’re all surface-level things which don’t really touch our inner longings for meaning, friendship, wholeness, peace, significance. You see it’s not that our view of freedom is too grand, but that it’s too shallow. We don’t aim deep enough: we think that these surface freedoms will alleviate our inner striving and satisfy our heart’s desires, but our hearts remain empty.
Those with more insight (who often aren’t the “wise” people of our world, but those who have learnt through suffering) know that the real chains that bind us are loneliness, guilt, fear, anger, hatred, addictions, insecurity, our success orientation with it’s accompanying fear of failure, memories of past rejection, memories of punishment, of rape, of abuse by parents who suffer the same emptiness. These are the controlling powers in most of our lives. These are the things from which we desperately need to be freed.
But there’s something more than this too. It’s not enough to be freed from all these things, as though “being free” were an end in itself. Freedom has a purpose: we are not just freed from things, we are freed to things. To what? Freed to make choices, to act justly, to heal wounds, to be who you were designed to be, to carry other people’s hurts, to help free those around us, to live abundantly, to serve, to love.
These are high ideals, and can’t ever be achieved while we’re gagged and bound by our own slaveries. But being free has no meaning if it isn’t marked by such ideals. A friend of mine put it this way “You’re not truly free until you’re free to love in all situations”.