“We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.” ― William Faulkner, Essays, Speeches & Public Letters
Freedom is scary. We always say we want it but I’m not so sure we do. Why? Because freedom takes hard work. It requires training and practice and commitment. Freedom challenges our most dearly held assumptions- sometimes about things we didn’t even know could be challenged. The most recent challenges are to our evolving understanding of gender identity, refugees, and differing faiths. How our republic responds to this stretching will be a tribute to our commitment to freedom or a disastrous erosion of our principles. We are sliding backward at an alarming rate.
Healthy freedom means you have to be a grown up and take responsibility for yourself, your community, your state, and nation, and finally, for the global human family. One must be brave to be free. Freedom is not for the timid even though a free society must protect the timid and guarantee their freedoms. We must be courageous enough to connect with people of different faiths, classes, races, religions or abilities and see us all as citizens. We must allow our assumptions of ‘the other’ to be challenged, and we must be open to change. Most of all, we need free flowing, correct information to function as a republic. And finally, we must enter the fray, be involved in our civic lives, and have pitched battles with those who think very differently from ourselves, all the while holding fast to the greater truth that we are one people.
And if I am being completely truthful, I must tell you that freedom is not safe. I bow to our fore brother, Benjamin Franklin, for this wisdom, who first said: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” ― Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs of the life & writings of Benjamin Franklin
Freedom is the product of those of us who are willing to face our fears, who so believe in its principles that we are willing to risk its survival.
Authoritarianism, on the other hand, is the fall back for the faint at heart, who want easy answers, and personal safety. The seduction of authoritarianism is that it will provide those things for you, even if it is at the expense of others. If you are afraid of freedom, I beg you to find your courage. Risk for what is good and right. Find cohorts who are committing to freedom in the face of fear.
The current administration wants us to be afraid, they want to control information, justice, and even our personal lives. They can do that if we let our fear control us. It is okay to be afraid but we cannot let fear rule us if we are to be the torchbearers of freedom.
strong words for trying times – thank you, Connie