Imani Perry wrote that “freedom and leisure are not the same thing.” Leisure is snack bowls and video games; leisure requires nothing of us.
Freedom, on the other hand, requires everything. It’s a state of mind that centers and orients our state of being. Outside there may not be a visible clue, and that is a subtle joy, the mystery of what dwells in the hidden place, deep within ourselves, where we have the free choice to decide what this life means and how we are meant to live it.
We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness.
Mother Teresa
We exercise freedom in rhythm with our soul and the work of our hands as a movement toward that which calls us. We exercise freedom not in deciding what we do but in how we act upon that which is ours to do.
Thus our work in the world involves building ourselves into vessels for the Living God. The Way of Truth calls us into Light through wonders and mysterious works, which enlighten the paradox of choosing to build our lives upon the living stone dismissed and despised by people but precious and chosen by God.
Jesus said everyone will be salted with fire, which I understand as the trials that purify our purpose and strip away wayward ambition. What remains is seasoning and flavor that is ours to scatter and share.
The essential thing is not what we say, but what God says to us and through us. All our words will be useless unless they come from within …
Mother Teresa
Indeed, faithfulness does not excuse us from trials or troubling times, problems or even pain. Rather, I understand that the source of our faith does not subject us to a spirit of fear, but empowers us with a spirit of love and sound mind. Then we can see the world through a lens of light and discern the conspiracies of this age which sow the gloom of anguish to reap a state of dread and distress.
Living freely is making the choice to serve with our whole being, to spread the grace of understanding that helps us surrender the mediocre and trivial with the unshakeable faith that we are meant for more than ordinary threats because we are saved by extraordinary triumph.
Freedom requires everything because it gives back more than we can ask or imagine.
