We
want freedom - but what is freedom and what’s its price?
Security is what we also want - but what will it cost us?
And when security costs us freedom, is that a price we’ll gladly pay?
Or when freedom can’t provide security for all – what then can we do?
Freedom and security seem locked in perpetual tug of war.
There was celebration in the streets when South Sudan became the newest nation
in 2011.
After a long and bloody civil war, the people of the South finally were free.
With
peace and freedom finally at hand their expectations knew no bounds.
Just two years later neither independence nor freedom seemed as beautiful.
Reality set in, for there wasn’t much a tiny devastated nation could really
do to ensure security of food and income and to provide a better life for
all.
In recent months the fighting that once raged between the North and South
is now a war within the South, a complicated war where people blame each
other.
and fight and kill in hopes of wresting a better freedom from the rubble.
The Arab spring began in 2010 and gave new life to desires of freedom and
democracy,
to people long suppressed by leaders who thought that they knew best
what the nation and her people needed to succeed.
But people yearned for freedom and travailed against the forces of security.
Freedom was at hand, and the promise of democracy.
But the price exacted for such freedom came with insecurity,
and expectations that were no match for the reality of economics,
political and religious division.
And so the tender leaves of springtime have seemed to wither on the vine.
Hope was in the air and cause for celebration in Ukraine
when independence and freedom came when Soviet communism collapsed in 1991
and then again in 2004 when the orange revolution ushered in democracy.
But neither freedom nor democracy could gratify
the expectation of prosperity for all.
Now the peace is fractured as people are divided against their revolution
and there is another revolution to return to the security of Russia.
Maybe that’s all revolutions ever are –
revolving and revolving – ever spinning ever seeking
without securing peace, and freedom and justice for all.
I’ve seen it all in prison
with men and women deprived of freedom
for violating the security of their victims and community,
for satisfying their wants and needs without regard, without respecting
freedom.
And in confinement they ache and wait for freedom
counting down the days and hours and minutes for the gates to open.
But when freedom comes the exhilaration of that moment
soon is overtaken by the harsh and painful reality of
homelessness, joblessness, friendlessness, and emptiness.
Then all too often the unquenched desire to survive and have a better life,
or any life at all causes far too many to breech the security of others
once again trading freedom for attempting satisfaction in the moment.
Freedom is as universal a desire among humans as the need for air,
and so is the desire and need for safety and security.
Without security freedom doesn’t seem to flourish.
Without freedom, security becomes oppressive.
Freedom is always open to the possibility of people taking license
to violate the common good of the community, the security of others.
Security offers safety to those whose freedom is at risk
from those who abuse their freedom at the expense of others.
Security and freedom are a tender balance, and sometimes in a tension.
Some people choose security over freedom – for a time
because security is the god who will protect them.
At other times some people choose freedom over security
because security has become a tyrannical god of oppression and control.
The god of freedom takes her place within the public square.
People and societies only thrive in freedom
when they have a clear and strong moral compass by which they chart their
course.
Without that moral compass libertinism and anarchy inevitably result.
With this, the god of security must once again be invoked.
Like grace, freedom is not God
but is God’s gift to us for becoming all we are meant to be.
And like the moral law, security is not God
but is God’s gift for the common good of the community.
We cannot have one without the other,
for without the moral compass of the law, freedom leads to excess and abuse;
and without freedom, the law becomes a tyrant that cannot be satisfied.
Grace and law are meant to be in harmony – as are freedom and security.
THE
CORACLE is published weekly as a reflection on faith and life.
It is available free by subscription. The name CORACLE - refers to a
small leather boat that was typically used by Celtic monks during the 8th and
9th Centuries. One of the most famous was St. Brendan the Navigator who
undertook a missionary voyage of faith. Without navigational maps and
instruments he trusted that by waves and wind and current, God would bring him
to the place and places where he was meant to be. Yet far from being
fatalistic, his voyage was the deeply spiritual account of a man’s journey in
surrendering to the will of God and trusting God to guide and protect him from
danger and disaster. Brendan’s voyage became famous as an ideal for the
Celtic monks of Ireland who dared to venture into unknown and wild places in
order to spread the gospel. Setting sail in their fragile coracles was at
once a courageous act of faith and a profound expression of their passion to
follow Jesus Christ no matter where the journey would take them or what the
journey would entail.