I may have talked about this before, but if I can’t remember, chances are neither can you. I am indebted to The Blarg’s recent post for generating my thoughts as stated below.

Freedom. I believe it can be conceived of in two primary ways. Firstly, there is “freedom from.” We may conceive of freedom as the state of being free from a variety of perceived encumbrances: commitment, responsibility, rules, limits, norms, morality. Secondly, there is “freedom for.” In this manner, “encumbrances,” such as commitment, limitations, etc., are seen as an opportunity to focus our energies on being completely and unreservedly free for devotion to a beloved object, be it God, a spouse, friend, or calling. I consider it no accident that the word “love” crept into that last definition. Love, when defined not as a fleeting feeling or attraction but instead as an act of lasting commitment, must be freedom for…devotion to the beloved, commitment to vows, sacrifice of self, and denial of those things which compete with love for the beloved. Love driven by “freedom from” will eventually find commitment a burden and, as indeed it is, a limitation, and the desire to be free from the beloved eventually asserts itself and commitments dissolve in favor of freedom for whatever the almighty self desires.

A wise professor once discoursed on the subject of Adam and Eve’s choice in the garden. They could live at the center, seeking to live within the confines of God’s directives and love, daily choosing not to leave him, not to know firsthand the choice offered by that seemingly wise and tempting fruit tree. Or they could live at the periphery, seeking to push limits and experiment with what life free from the love and direction of God felt like. In the end, they experimented with being free from God. They ate the fruit, they crossed the outer boundary of the garden, and they never returned. They broke faith, and lost a degree of love and closeness with the Creator God which men and women will never again experience in our earthly lifetimes.

Likewise, we daily choose how to use the freedom we possess. Are you freed for something, or seeking to be free from something? Seeking to live as deep inside love as possible, or seeking to experiment with its boundaries?

This entry was posted on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 12:04 pm and is filed under From the nation of Indig. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.