Freedom and Faith

Thinking about health as I described in the last post has opened a lot of new ideas to me, and some older ones too. I'm starting to think we don't actually originate as much of what goes through our minds as we'd like to think. There are just too many coincidents that seem to speak to the same issues at one time.

Anyway, I was listening to someone talk on the radio about freedom in the Christian sense. This is something that I don't think we often take as seriously as it is presented. Jesus talks repeatedly about freedom and faith. These are probably two of his most prominent subjects. There is countless imagery about it throughout the Bible. And yet, we continually lock ourselves back into chains with rules and expectations. I think the truth is that real freedom scares us. we see a version of freedom corrupt trust fund kids, hollywood stars, and politicians. This may taint us against it, but I think it really just forces us to realize our total lack of security so we look for paper walls to set up.

Of course, one of the virtues of freedom is that it doesn't force us. We are free to think of ourselves as unfree and to act as if we are not free. But I was most struck by this simple sentence, "For freedom you have been set free." It is translated a little differently in other places. But this version in particular resonated along the same lines as the Health topic. For freedom. The purpose of being freed is to be free...nothing else. I'm sorry, as dangerous as that may sound to the security and order that people crave, I can't take it any other way. I am free. Free in truth. All things are permissible for me. And no one has a right to restrict me. Not pastors or priests or politicians or even bosses.

Now I know someone reading this will be thinking the same objections I hear screaming in my head, so rather than try to address them all individually, I would rather illustrate what I mean. We don't live in a society of kings and lords and birthrights, so this is a bit hard to understand for most people, but it works well. A king's family was born with rights. They could freely go places, they could freely speak. They weren't expected to bow or defer to people. Of course this can be abused, but stay with it. Those freedoms were part and parcel of who they were. That of course didn't mean that they should go do anything they pleased. Actions have consequences, noblesse oblige, etc. But even in situations where a prince, for instance, obeyed other authority or limited himself, it was not at the expense of his rights. He limited himself not because he had to, but because he chose to. This is the subtle key that stood out to me. If I truly understand my freedom, I can be fully comfortable in any setting and I can accept limitations because they are my choice, not because they are forced upon me. It's really a change in perspective.

Of course a false perspective is a delusion, so the perspective must be true to be healthy. This is where I was stuck with my friend's health concept. I have to understand the shape of my reality and my freedom to have confidence, i.e. faith, in it. To wish things away is just hollow PMA hoohah and fails in the end when things I can't deny force their way into my constructs.

But what if...just what if, I really was far freer than I ever imagined? What if I really was freed from illness, from fear, from the very laws of time and space? This could be possible, and by my friend's theory, the very act of questioning opens a space by which the cold energy, the counter-entropic forces, could rush in. So now I just need confirmation. That's where this teacher came in and spoke directly to the matter. There was confirmation in my own tradition, in my own faith, which I firmly believe to represent reality...to be true.

Jesus came to set captives free, to heal, to restore. He modeled true freedom. He told us that we simply have to believe that we have been freed to manifest amazing things. Peter walked on water until he wavered in his confidence that he could! Yet, we misunderstand, and return to our own vomit. And in our desperation for security we explain away, we metaphorize, we chop and reassemble what is the absolutely most amazing feat. The thing that the Greeks and Norse looked to the heroes for, the Enlightenment looked to logic for, the Progressives looked to future generations for, the New Agers and Pagans look to spirits for, had already occured! It had already been made possible. The worst thing is that I knew this. I couldn't have articulated it, but you can read my old writings about what I called majik and wonder. But for too long, even I had thrown off my own wonder in favor of the puke pile...but it was killing me.

I don't know what it means, how far it goes, or what happens next, but I believe that there are so many more possibilities than I saw even 10 minutes ago. I am capable of amazing wondrous things. And you are too. It isn't about buying a ticket or following a path. It's about believing what is true and discovering how much truer things can get. As a mentor of mine said, I'm being invited into the Wardrobe. And like Neo, wonderland is about to go bye-bye.