Freedom

 Where is freedom?
What is freedom?

Our forefathers founded this nation for one purpose: to be free. Yet look at the mess today. Where is that freedom? Who is able to touch it? Who is locked up from it?

We are truly spoiled by freedom - my rights, my right to insult, to attack and to hurt and disrespect others. In most parts of the world, it’s about ME ME ME what I want, that’s the fight. But what about caring about each other?

What has happened? We live with a fearful man who is the only one who has freedom - sort of like Kim Jae-ryong of Korea, Putin of Russia,  Xi Jinping of China. Funny, how our free and independent nation no longer is a place of freedom and the person grasping power is dying to be a god which he is not. He once said he has done more for Christians than Jesus. Whew. That’s pure blasphemy. No Christian can support that, if he or she really is a traditional, Biblical Christian.

We think too often of what I want, and not what is better for our neighbor. This coronavirus attack has pulled out the truth about each of us. Do we really care? Are we really worthy of freedom?  The answer has smacked us right in the face. And we can see, by something called a mask, who cares and who doesn’t care about their neighbors. And we watch as so many risk their lives, give up their freedom to take care of self, to be able to save others. That’s a miracle.

We are so spoiled by freedom. We are seduced by lies and then stomp on the ground because we have rights and don’t get them. We have freedom to be us. We think. We can protest, march, sing, yell, and fight for rights. We demand so many rights - that which we think comes freely with Freedom. But what are our rights? Who declares what is our right or not?  How free are we?

Here are some freedoms we claim, good or bad:

• to smoke, to spend, to abuse, to insult
• to invent truth and non-truth, to save a life, to end a life
• to hit, abuse, kill (police or the enemy)
• to cry, to win, to lose, to gamble, to shop, to sing, to smile, to laugh abundantly
• to steal, to insult, to swear
• to scream at NBA refs (guy behind me does that) (do refs take classes on patience?)
• to grab at Lebron or Magic or Messi or any Manning, which does not show respect but invades their freedom
• to gamble, cheat at cards, to drive over the speed limit
• to paddle down the river
• to ride a bicycle down new paths or scooters down dangerous streets
• to build skyscrapers, to remove humans and replace them with “spy things”
• to cover our face in makeup so we aren’t who we are
• to study, to believe, to zap a fly - eliminating its right to life - or even an elephant for the photo
• to slaughter steers, shave wool from sheep (did anyone ever ask them?)
• to harvest wine and make homemade beer
• to spend life on a laptop or I-phone or in a gym lifting weights
• to invade the privacy of others through aggressive media
• to hunt for lion or wolves or bears or to kill any of earth’s beautiful birds and animals
• to shoot each other and into homes without knowing who is in it or where they are
• to protest with placards, with song, with marching, with bombs
• to curse the governor or some political jerk who is tearing down our freedom
• to have affairs and pass on HIV without telling someone
• to kneel or to burn a flag or knock to the ground horrid statues symbolic of horrible histories
• to gamble, to get drunk, to loot or break in windows of small shops to rob innocent victims
• to fix a race, to drug a thoroughbred, to clone a super polo pony
• to feed the poor, to wash our hands or not, to jaywalk, to cry out in pain
• to walk across America to prove something
• to stop freedom of others in order to preserve our own freedom
• to love, to believe, to study, to zap a fly or rob honey from a bee
• to turn away from hospitals those without insurance?
• to smoke marijuana, to Vape funky electronic smoke in one’s face
• to insult, to cry, to hug, to dance, to win, to lose
• to take a walk, to smell the flowers, to dig into the soil, to smile as much as possible
• to go to church or a Mosque or Synagogue, to praise God and ask forgiveness

Then someone, some group, some country, comes along and shoots a hole into freedom.

What is freedom? I asked a few of the people I love. Here is what they wrote:

"Freedom is the ability to do what you want when you want without boundaries."
- Delvin 

"Freedom is Life. You Only Live Once."
- Veronica

"Freedom is emancipation fulfilled."
- Deanie

"Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be."
- James Baldwin

"My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular."
- Adlai Stevenson

"Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better."
- Albert Camus

"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."
- MLK

"Through unbounded love, and caring about others before yourself, freedom can step in and blossom."
- Me

Happy 4th of July 2020.

 ~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com