Listening to a message in church today, the pastor spoke about the sense of freedom someone achieves when they let go of anger and judgement and open themselves up. He offered that when this happens, you are free to choose, choose how to manage emotions, free to choose what to consider and how to understand, and free to choose what actions, if any, to take. As a therapist, and as someone who has had therapy, I know this is true, whether one follows a religious tradition or not.
Delving into this topic further, I found two definitions of freedom. And noted, this is a word with a lot of baggage in our culture at this time. Google’s definition is “The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint… The absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government.” And Merriam-Webster’s online definition is similar, “the absence of necessity, coercion or constraint in choice or action.”
Right away I noticed that the definitions I found define the external expression and experience of freedom. Or, put another way, the expression of freedom in community, in society. The freedom that the pastor described in about a sense of internal freedom.
The importance of freedom within a community, in society, or in a culture is critical, no question about that. However, I contend that the experience of an internal sense of freedom would improve the expression of freedom in community. To make that point, here is a quote from John O’ Donohue, an Irish poet, author, priest, and Hegelian philosopher, “If we become addicted to the external, our interiority will haunt us. We will become hungry with a hunger no image, person or deed can still.” (O’ Donohue, John, Anam Cara, p. xvi, New York: HarperCollins)
What if, as a people, we cultivated the interior, spacious freedom from anger and judgement and then reflected on how to act in our communities and society? What would our world be like? Quite different, and I think in a positive way.