Freedom is Only Part of the Story

I am fortunate to be involved in a number of very interesting conversations.  Sometimes I go into a conversation knowing it is going to be a good one and other times I did not see it coming at all.  Such was the case recently.  I was with a number of folks I like---a group of Quakers.  I am used to Quaker gatherings where there is no “program,” no particular agenda.  Often nothing remarkable is shared.  But sometimes, the comments are thoughtful.  My recent experience was a mixture of the two.  What I took from it was a thematic focus.

The focus was the idea of freedom.  Of course, that is a common idea.  Almost everyone I know would claim to know what freedom means.  I would agree that folks do have a general idea about freedom.  But I also think freedom is a pretty complex idea and that it has some nuance that perhaps the general public does not recognize.  To this point, I suspect most folks would define freedom as the ability to do what you want.  So let’s start with that definition.

No doubt, most of us want this kind of freedom.  It is nice when we get to do things we want to do.  Not many people want to be forced to do something we don’t want to do.  I am sure we have been in those situations.  Certainly, there was some of that as a kid.  Growing up on the farm, I “had” to do things I did not want to do.  Most of the time, we do these things—but with some grumpiness.  It did not kill me, but I still did not want to do it.

As I pursue this line of thinking, I also am aware I sometimes do it to myself.  I don’t need someone else forcing me.  For example, in most cases of delayed gratification, we are postponing a present preference for some imagined better end goal.  Working with college students, I see this all the time.  In the moment they would rather be hanging out with friends, playing on the computer.  Instead, they study so they can get a good grade and a good job.  At one level, they really don’t want to do it, but they accept their own advice that it is good for them that they study.

Thinking further about freedom leads me to conclude in society, freedom is usually seen as a political issue.  America is the “home of the free and the land of the brave,” as the saying goes.  For the people I know, this means other countries cannot come in here and tell us what we have to do.  We fought a Revolutionary War to get rid of England so we could be free and self-determining.  That’s the party line I was taught.  Now we like the English and British, but we still don’t want them here in this country telling us what to do.  We prefer “being free.”

This logic makes sense to folks like me.  But then, I also know some folks who are just like me.  I have African American friends who have not always felt so free.  Young guys in their cars after dark are especially wary of being stopped by the police.  They worry about things I don’t even think about because my skin color is not black.  They are not as free as I am.  In that vein we also know women generally make about 70% what men make for the same kind of work or even the same job.  They are not free to earn what they are worth.   

Since spirituality is an important aspect of my life, I realize that freedom takes on a different tone in the spiritual context.  In my theology there is no doubt that God created human beings with a great deal of freedom.  But I also recognize freedom can have its limitations.  One big one is no one is free not to die.  Simply saying, “I don’t want to die,” has no bearing on whether I will die.  This one feels more like predestination than freedom.  Furthermore, when I think spiritually, I also believe freedom has some boundaries.  For example, two people in a relationship cannot have absolute freedom to do whatever they want to do.  One person’s freedom can cancel out another’s freedom.  

Now that I am in the spiritual realm, I go to what is a key issue for me, namely, community.  Community is important in the major spiritual traditions.  Community is how we talk about our life together.  Community includes individuals, but it cannot survive individualism, if by that everyone gets to do whatever he or she wants to do.  My balancing word for that is responsibility.  Healthy communities and good teams need responsibility as much as they need freedom.  Responsibility is other-centered, just as for Americans, freedom is self-centered.  Those two must exist in balance.

Responsibility means I put my own self-interest aside for the sake of community.  I am willing to say that freedom is only part of the story.  Responsibility is the rest of the story.  If I were to offer a critique of contemporary American society, I think we are more concerned with freedom than we are responsibility.  We are worried more about me than us.  Oh, it is easy enough to worry about “us,” if “us” is only the folks who look like us.  

Spiritually, we recognize and accept that “us” includes everyone in the human race.  If I thought this way, some of the issues that we discuss under the rubric of freedom would have to be addressed differently.  I think of issues like guns, borders and the like.  I also realize issues like this become political first and, perhaps, only the spiritual.  And when that happens, the story gets told in a different way. 

Wistfully, I wonder how Jesus would tell the American story of freedom---if he were around?