Freedom
“Between
the stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our
power to choose our response. In our response lies growth and
freedom.”
Viktor
Frankl
Since
this is the week we celebrate Independence Day in America, I have
been reading about freedom and thinking about our country and our
world. One of the best outcomes of gaining freedom is the ability to
choose one's response to it. Vicktor Frankl knew something about
that. He was in a concentration camp during World War II. He saw with
his own eyes that the people who could somehow find meaning and
purpose in their lives even under those circumstances seemed to be
the one's who survived, if not physically, at least mentally and
emotionally. In that way, they were free. He wrote the book, Man's
Search for Meaning, about his experience.
The
freedom to choose means that sometimes we will not agree with the
choices that others make. We've seen some of that in the Middle East.
I'm pretty sure we would not have elected Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah or
the Muslim Brotherhood to to power, but their own people did. We can
only choose our response to that and accept with grace their freedom
to elect whomever they see fit.
Similarly,
we will not always agree with the form democracy takes in other
places. John F. Kennedy said, “We cannot expect that all nations
will adopt like systems, for conformity is the jailer of freedom and
the enemy of growth.” We Americans sometimes have a hard time
accepting the legitimacy of governments that differ from our own, but
we are not the arbiters of other nations' choices.
As
we watch the bloodletting in Syria, we must remember the words of
Martin Luther King, Jr. “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the
oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” And the Syrian
people are fearlessly standing in the face of oppression and
demanding their freedom. Our own independence was won at great loss
of life, too. Unfortunately, until the last of us is free, that is
likely to be the case.
This
week, we should consider the meaning of freedom—ours and others.
Part of America's evolution is to graciously allow others the same
freedoms that we have—the freedom to fail, to err, to stumble until
they walk, and to choose their own path even when it is different
from ours. Perhaps Nelson Mandela said it best: “For to be free is
not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that
respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
Freedom
is messy business. You only need to catch a glimpse of our current
political process to appreciate that.
In
the spirit,
Jane
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