What does freedom feel like?
I was sitting at a table one evening recently with
my husband, my stepdaughter and son-in-law, and my two grandsons, when my heart
all of a sudden gushed, "I give thanks for being adopted by this
family." We happened to be eating in an Ecuadorian restaurant along the
very international street of Central Avenue in the
not-as-white-bread-as-it-sounds city of Minneapolis in the
still-blue-despite-Michelle-Bachman state of Minnesota. One of us was born here
(my stepdaughter); the rest of us hail from Tennessee, Oregon, Ohio, Ethiopia,
and Thailand, respectively. Only two of us (my stepdaughter and my
husband) are related biologically. My spur-of-the-moment gratitude reminded me
of something a campus minister once said to me: Regardless of where we
come from, at some point in life we have to adopt our families.
This is true not only of kin but of country; wherever we come from, at some point we have to adopt our place in this world.
On May 25, 2012, the Scottish National Party launched its campaign for Scotland to become an independent country. The leader of the SNP (who is also First Minister of the Scottish Parliament), Alex Salmond, during an interview on BBC radio was asked, "What will freedom feel like?" He of course could only answer from a pre-independence perspective. I've been mulling over my response as a white European-American who was born in the South in the Jim Crow year of 1960, who at the age of 11 read "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" by Dee Brown, and who celebrated Bicentennial Sunday, July 4, 1976, by signing a replica copy of the Declaration of Independence while serving on a church work camp on St. John's Island off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina.
What does freedom feel like? Being adopted, taken in, welcomed, given a sense of belonging. It also feels like adopting a place as one's own, partaking of its cultural highs and lows, practicing being a gracious guest and host, remembering its collective sins and working to leave things better than they were—at personal cost to myself.
Freedom is an exhilarating enterprise, but it's also a heavy burden. It brings a sense of pride which cannot be imagined, as well as the temptation of hubris that too often thwarts its very essence. True freedom is when you can take it for granted—it's the air you breathe. Only like the wind you cannot capture it; trying to do so out of irrational fear or for "reasons of national security" leads to unhealthy consequences like war. Freedom never makes things safer, nor is it supposed to. Freedom means risking my life for a better quality of life for others—not just my blood relatives or fellow citizens, but my adopted family around the world.
This is true not only of kin but of country; wherever we come from, at some point we have to adopt our place in this world.
On May 25, 2012, the Scottish National Party launched its campaign for Scotland to become an independent country. The leader of the SNP (who is also First Minister of the Scottish Parliament), Alex Salmond, during an interview on BBC radio was asked, "What will freedom feel like?" He of course could only answer from a pre-independence perspective. I've been mulling over my response as a white European-American who was born in the South in the Jim Crow year of 1960, who at the age of 11 read "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" by Dee Brown, and who celebrated Bicentennial Sunday, July 4, 1976, by signing a replica copy of the Declaration of Independence while serving on a church work camp on St. John's Island off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina.
What does freedom feel like? Being adopted, taken in, welcomed, given a sense of belonging. It also feels like adopting a place as one's own, partaking of its cultural highs and lows, practicing being a gracious guest and host, remembering its collective sins and working to leave things better than they were—at personal cost to myself.
Freedom is an exhilarating enterprise, but it's also a heavy burden. It brings a sense of pride which cannot be imagined, as well as the temptation of hubris that too often thwarts its very essence. True freedom is when you can take it for granted—it's the air you breathe. Only like the wind you cannot capture it; trying to do so out of irrational fear or for "reasons of national security" leads to unhealthy consequences like war. Freedom never makes things safer, nor is it supposed to. Freedom means risking my life for a better quality of life for others—not just my blood relatives or fellow citizens, but my adopted family around the world.
Lindsey, hope you don't mind but I'm quoting your final paragraph in our mission trip devotional this summer. I'll give credit to you, of course! -Sarah Bigwood (Valley Community Pres.)
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