The Road to Freedom (Part 3)

Thus began my journey with my good friend. I could not believe that I had lived my whole life just on the other side of freedom. I felt some sense of loss at this, but that was entirely clouded over by my excitement. There had existed all my life a place for which I should have longed, and I was finally on my way there!

In the beginning it was easy. The slope was gentle, and the grass was soft, and I was being driven by the excitement of what I thought would be a brief journey. Everything I saw looked beautiful and wonderful to me. 

At first I said, "I have never seen grass so green and so soft. I think that , if I were not on my way to freedom, I should like to spend some time sitting in it, and admiring the way that it blows in the wind."

"Yes," replied my friend, "the base of the hill is fair, and easy for the eyes and feet, but no beauty is as compelling as the beauty of Freedom!"

After some time had passed, the scenery began to change. The grass became more sparse, and rocks and boulders began to sit along the ground in its place. This I also marveled at.

"What a world this is! There is so much that I have missed by sitting in my valley. I have never seen any rocks that sparkle as these do, and I think I love the grass all the more here for its rarity."

The hill had also begun to grow steeper, and this I marveled at too.

"It is such a joy to walk uphill. I never realized how dull and flat my valley was."

"Your sense of wonder makes my glad," said my friend, "but do not love it here too much. We are journeying to a far greater place."

After this , huge crags loomed up before us, which would have made me weary had it not been for my amazement, and my eagerness to make it past them to our final destination. To make it past this we had to use all of our strength. We had to jump to reach the next ledge, and then pull ourselves up with our arms, using our feet to push once they could find a place. Though my eagerness did not depart, it was challenged. Every time I made it onto a new ledge I would lay facedown on it, sapped of all my energy. Once i had rested a while, I would look up, hoping to see nothing in front of me but a descending hillside. This, however, was some ways away.

Finally, my friend and I climbed one ledge that seemed to push us especially hard, and beyond our limits. After this, we lay for a considerable amount of time. Exhausted, but still not discouraged, I finally began to rouse myself.

"Shall we go now, then?" said my good friend.

"Yes," I managed. "Let's go." Reminding myself that I had no need for extra energy, since Freedom was waiting for us on the other side of this hill. I mustered up the extra bit of reserve that every body keeps for itself in case of an emergency, and rose to my feet, prepared to climb another crag.

At this point my eyes had become so accustomed to the sight of another ledge that I had almost forgotten about the possibility of anything else. This made things all the more shocking when, once I found my bearings on my feet, I looked straight ahead and saw a blue sky.

To try to explain the joy that this view brought to my heart with words would be like trying to explain love using math. It will suffice to say that the joy was very great.

This joy, though, was very short lived. As I stood at the top of that fateful hill, heart pounding with adrenaline, and began to lower my eyes ever so slightly to behold Freedom for the very first time, I saw something exceedingly unexpected…the peak of another hill.

Perplexed, I sought to question my friend and traveling companion to solve this riddle, "Are there more mountains in the land of Freedom?" I looked to him to receive his answer, but his eyes remained fixed on the horizon. 

"Freedom, my friend, is just beyond this hill." 

The Road To Freedom Part 2

I wasn't always on this journey. I wasn't always on any journey. There was a time when I was content to sit. When my good friend first found me, I was in the valley that I called my home. I don't remember anything before being in this place, I simply remember being there. I would drink the water from the stream that flowed through my valley, and I would eat the fruit from the trees. There wasn't much, but at the time I didn't want much. 

The water was not great, but it quenched my thirst. The fruit had no flavor worth loving, hating, or remembering, but it did satisfy my hunger. I thought of neither life nor death. Nor did I wonder what lay beyond the hills. In this place I had no trouble, and felt no loss--sitting, eating, and drinking.

One day, as I was sitting in my valley, I heard a loud, laughing, bellowing voice, "Ha! Just one more peak lies between me and freedom!" He sang, almost, as he walked and spoke to himself.

Startled, I turned and looked, amazed that another person had made his way into my home. Up until now, I had never been anything but alone. I did not know whether this man was a guest or an intruder, since I had never known either. Feeling dumbfounded in this novel situation, I said the only thing I could think of,

"Excuse me, sir, what are you doing here?"

At this the man laughed all the harder, and seemed all the merrier. I think it was the first he had seen of me. 

"Ah, my friend," he replied," what are you doing here? Why are you sitting? Why are you content when freedom is just beyond this hill?"

Just beyond this hill? I thought. I had never thought of anything but my valley, and I had certainly never thought that freedom, of all things, was just on the other side of my home. Had I really lived my whole life just sitting in my valley while freedom was waiting within a stone's throw of me? But wait, I reminded myself, what is freedom?

"Freedom?" I asked, "I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean. This is my home."

"Home? No, my friend, this is no man's home. Though you may live here, you belong with freedom. You can see that this water is flowing in the same direction that I am traveling, and I can tell you that it is a mere trickling compared to the body that it fills, and these trees are mere saplings of the great orchards in the land where I am headed, and where you belong. Have you never dreamed or desired that there could be more than this?"

Truthfully, I had not. I had neither joy nor want in my valley, and, until now, I certainly had made no use of imagination. But at his voice, and by the spirit of his words, I found all three being awoken within me: joy, want, and imagination. My trees seemed puny, because I could not feast, and my stream seemed meager, because I could not swim in its water. 

I didn't realize it at first, but during our conversation I had begun to follow him, and I found myself starting up the hill at his side. After a few moments, I was startled by a sound, which I realized was my own voice muttering a new refrain:

"Freedom, freedom, freedom."

"The Road To Freedom" Part 1

"Just over this next hill," said by good friend. "We are on the road to freedom! We've only a bit farther to go."

The road to freedom! I could not think of anything so invigorating as the idea of arriving at freedom. I also couldn't think of anything that sounded more impossible. But this is the way of ideals, and ideals are what really matter.

We had reached the peaks of countless hills until now, each of them promising to be the end of our struggle on the road to freedom, but I was slowly beginning to learn that it wasn't about obtaining freedom, it was really about pursuing the promise. At the base of every hill a man must believe that there is freedom on the other side, and at its peak he must know in his heart that freedom truly does lie just beyond the next peak. I learned that I must believe things that I know to be false in order to steadily continue down the road before me. I called this hope: to believe in my heart that reality is in unity with my deepest desires, and to continue pressing on--even when I know that that is impossible. 

And so, my friend would always say, "Just over this next hill, then we will see freedom with our own eyes." At which point my heart would swell, and we would both believe that what he said was true, and with the glowing smile of what I now called hope I would say, "Yes, friend. Just beyond this hill."

The Second First Breath of Lazarus

I live my life with a defibrillator on my chest.  And it is always on.  It sends its charge, and my heart beats.  It wakes me, and I am made alive.  You might think that what I mean to say is "it wakes me, and I am kept alive."  That is not what I mean to say.  I am not kept alive.  From moment to moment my body wants to die, and with each moment it tries to.  Death is the only thing my body knows how to accomplish, and it pursues it with a mighty zeal.  But each breath I take is sweet, because each breath I take is the first breath of salvation.  Each breath I take is sweet, because each breath I take is the second first breath of Lazarus.  I am not always preserved, I am always saved.  I am always resurrected.  

Jacob (A rediscovered work in progress)

Jacob loves children's stories.   The kind that begin with “Once upon a time,” and end with “And they lived happily ever after.”  He envies their simplicity and their finality.  Nothing is more appealing to him than a true arrival--an arrival at self-realization, or at happiness, or at purpose.  He loves to read the words “And they lived happily ever after,” because he too wants to live happily ever after.  The characters in his favorite stories do not reach their conclusion through death; they reach their destination and realize it for the rest of their lives.  He does not believe in heaven or hell.  To him, truth and condemnation only exist as far as the integrity or inconsistency of his own personality exists.  He wants to know himself.  In college, he changed his major seven times, each time hoping that he would find the personal and intellectual love of his life, a soul mate for his mind, the perfect bride to his inner person.  Still, he broods over his own mediocrity. 

“My parents were loving, my teachers were encouraging, my friends are supportive.” he says. "And yet, what am I?”  

It is Wednesday morning and he has just finished shaving.  It is common on a Wednesday morning to find Jacob staring at himself in the mirror.  By this day, the fourth of the week, his reflection begins to look familiar, but familiar is not good enough.  He plants his feet at shoulder width, places his hands firmly on either side of his porcelain sink, closes his lips resolutely, and stares straight into the eyes of his reflection.  

“Jacob,” he asserts, he will not back down, “your name is Jacob.”

Next, he waits.  He thinks that if he stares long enough, and with enough purpose, his reflection will concede and become himself.  He imagines himself not only staring, but speaking, speaking with such eloquence, such conviction, that anyone, even he, would have to lay down his disbelief.  But these words always remain in Jacob’s head, even when he is only confronting his bathroom mirror.  

He has waited and stared for 2 minutes now; he lets go of the sink, loosens his jaw, releases his stare, and walks out of the bathroom.  There will be no epiphany today.

Feathers and Razorblades

As she spoke and walked, she tripped over the words that fell out of her sentences.  She would never speak with enough force to push the heavy words out, so they fell straight down to her feet.  Some words are like lead.  Everyone who met her loved the sound of her voice, because it came out to meet them with feathers and dandelions--but they never noticed her broken toes, bleeding shins, and bruised knees.  

"I love your voice," they would say. "Why, every word is a feather.  I wouldn't mind if I stopped hearing at all, and simply sat in the way of your speech, having my ears caressed by your words.  It tickles them in the most delightful way."  

And so, throngs of men and women lined up in front of her so they could stand in the way of her soft speech, and her words washed over them.  There they stayed for as long as the ecstasy sustained them--but they never noticed the way she winced as words like "love" and "hate" fell like anvils on her broken toes.  No, these words had to be softened before they could reach another person.  

It would amaze a person to find out how many words must be emptied before they can safely meet another.  Some words are knives, others are bread, and still others are atom bombs.  And yet, no one wants to be stabbed, no one wants to be fat, and no one wants to feel the wake of an explosion, so she is always delicate.  She lets knives, and bread, and atom bombs do their worst to her, and once all of the weight has fallen from each of them, they float up, and wash over another person.  

I observed her once, and only once. Never have I seen an audience so filled with rapture. I did, however, notice one thing. Delighted, and therefore distracted, her audience was bleeding out.

It was then that I wondered: would she speak the way she does if she knew that weightless knives still bear sharp edges?  

Albert

There was nothing very peculiar about the weather, the news, or anything else the day  Albert laid and marveled at his clock.  The weather moved toward crispness (just as it always had near autumn), the news was just as full of crime as it was on any other day, and Albert's clock continued to tick, just as it did every other day.  He reflected on his own ups and downs, his busyness and his lulls, and noted the regularity with which all the irregularities of his life had conducted themselves--he also noted that it was now 12:17pm and twenty six seconds, twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine.  As he continued counting ticks and tocks (alternately of course, with the ticks falling on the odd numbers and the tocks on the evens: tick "one," tock "two," tick "three," tock "four") he imagined a supernova that would engulf the earth, and his clock with it.  He wondered if anything else could ever stop the consistency of this beat, for nothing was ever as sure to Albert as the next moment.  He never knew what any next moment would bring, nor did he know the way in which he would respond to any of fate's gifts, and he had no idea (though he thought about it a great deal) how he felt about any of this, but he was always sure that one moment always preceded another.  He was sure that each time a wave ran up the shore it would come as far as its adventure would allow it, then make a hasty retreat back into it's mother, the ocean.  He was sure that each breath he inhaled was the middle child of his lungs, which bore before and after it two outward gusts of wind.  He listened as his clock and his heart monitor synchronized for a moment, then came apart, and came together once again--each only for a moment.  And as he breathed, and counted the ticks and the tocks, he felt an overwhelming peace.  There was very little that Albert felt he truly understood (though he was an intelligent man), but he knew, beyond all doubts, that even when he breathed out for the last time, his clock would keep on ticking, and the waves would keep on dancing.  He was not afraid of his death, or of the ritardando of the beeping that came from his heart monitor.  The moments of his life had been lived in earnest, and to a steady beat; and for this he was glad. 

John 3:19

When I opened my eyes, I saw light spilling from the heavens onto the earth.  It landed on mountains, on oceans, on rivers, on fields, on trash heaps, on laughter, and on tears.  I saw that it was falling everywhere, and rebounding quickly back to the heavens.  And it kept on like this in a steady flow, so that I would follow the light from the heavens to the earth, then back to the heavens. And there was not an inch of earth that was not covered.

What followed was more than I knew how to comprehend.  Almost as soon as I had noticed the light, I saw that I was surrounded by a sea of white canes with red tips .  And indeed, I remembered that I was holding one too.  I spoke to each man, and to each woman, saying, "Open your eyes! The world is full of light!"

But to my sorrow and amazement, every one came back with the same simple response: 

"My friend, you may be right, and you may be wrong, but I can't see a thing."

Revelation

When the light came there was nothing else I could see.  It was strange.  The room went from a dull, quiet grey to a roaring, unmistakable light.  It was like the opposite of waking up from a dream.  I heard a roar, and I closed my eyes, but the light was there too.  My chest was torn open, and my mind bowed down, and the light flooded into both.  It's hard to describe what it feels like to understand something with no knowledge of it, but this is how it was.  It's hard to describe what it's like to die for something only a moment after sitting on my apathy, but this is where the light brought me. 

 I felt like I was going to explode.  I saw the light shooting out of my pores, and still it was pouring into me, filling me, nourishing me, finding all the places that I had filled with darkness.  I thought before that pain could only be found in darkness, but now I found that I was mistaken.  There was pain.  There was pain as the darkness was burned off of my skin.  There was pain, but it was secondary.  It was present, but incomparable to the light.  It was there, but how could I focus on pain when this light was being poured into me?  And so, I sat in it.  And I loved it.  And I basked in the light like a reptile trying to raise the temperature of his blood.  

And slowly, I remembered where I was, though the light did not leave, and it did not stop flowing into me.  I noticed the people around me.  Some were staring, others didn't seem to notice me, and still others squinted their eyes, then turned away repulsed.  I felt a surge in my body and I thought either my skin would burst or my skull would break open.  It started in my gut and began to grow larger.  Soon my whole torso seemed to be on fire.  By the time twenty seconds had passed I could feel it making its way up through my throat, and no one had to tell me what I was to do next.  I had two choices: keep my mouth closed and extinguish the fire, or open my mouth and let it consume darkness.  As the fire began to push on the back of my tongue, then on my teeth, then on my lips, I opened my mouth and let the great, white, fiery light fly out of me.  Strangely enough, the light was not depleted at this point, but this action seemed to aggravate the source, causing it to pour into me all the more, and to fill me with a greater fire and a greater light.  The light came out of me with such ferocity that I was blown onto my back and onto the floor.  From my place on the floor, I watched the light as it found the onlookers.  Some it passed over, others it entered, and still with others it bounced off of their chests like sound off the wall of a cave.  This is how I learned what people mean by a hard heart.  

I mourned those whose hearts were hard, but hardly had time for it, because there were also those that had been indwelt by the light, just as I had.  For this I rejoiced.  I saw as the light streamed in through their heads and chests.  I saw as they too died and came to life.  I saw as its force knocked them also to the ground.  And I saw their smiles and heard their laughter as they lay there. 

Many have talked about the light, and many things have also been called light, but the true light cannot be mistaken.  It kills death, and is, therefore, hated by it.  It brings life, and is, therefore, praised by the living.  

Fistfights With a Dream

And so we burned everything we owned.  Because, who cares?  And because why not? And because who are you?  And because we don't need you.  And because if we don't need you, you can't hurt us.  So we learned to drink bitterness and eat disappointment--and every time you failed we feasted.  And we wanted to tear down walls, because we thought if the roof collapsed we would see the sky.  And we did everything you said we couldn't, because who are you anyway?  And who are we?  And why do you care?  And why do we?  And if I knew who I was asking I might get a better answer.  And if i knew who I was fighting, I might strike a better blow.  And because it felt better to swing than to sit, I kept on fighting.  And you kept on failing.  And we kept on eating and drinking.  And we gave questions that couldn't be answered.  And you gave answers that couldn't be questioned.  And we stood in lines staring one another down, waiting for someone to blink.  And we were sure.  And you were sure.  Yet we were right because we didn't blink.  

So, we began to get closer to the sky.  To do this, we tore down one wall at a time.  First, we tore down the wall of need.  You gave us this wall.  You gave us malls, and churches, and clothes, and ovens, and cars.  And so we burned them, and tore them down.  After that we could see the east.  Next we tore down the wall of hurt.  You told us hope, and ideas, and futures, but you never gave them to us.  And when we tore down this wall we could see the west.  Encouraged by our new view, we decided to take down the walls of God and laws both at once.  God gave us laws, and hopes, and needs, and we had never seen him provide for any of those--so we knocked out both at once.  But we should have knocked out the roof, which was made of fact, because when those two walls collapsed, the roof collapsed with them.  And as I lay crushed into a hard reality under the weight of fact, I decided that bitterness did not quench, and disappointment did not fill, and that a staring contest is no way to settle an argument. 

A Child's Perspective on Angels, Demons and Fred Astaire

The first time I saw an angel and a demon fighting over me I thought they were dancing, and I thought it was beautiful.  The way they fight is not the way we fight--but then again, neither is the way they dance.  Or maybe it was just that there's really not much of a difference between dancing and fighting.  Whatever the reason, it was beautiful then, and it is intriguing now.  I thought it was beautiful because no one had ever fought or danced for me before. 

 I would see them as I lay in bed before I went to sleep, and in my dreams.  Sometimes I would see them when I was at the lunch table, and no one would understand what I was smiling at.  Joseph thought that I had a crush on Hailey, since they would often dance, or fight, behind the spot she sat at during lunch.  To be honest, I would not have been able to tell you the color of Hailey's hair if you asked me.  What I could tell you is that angels never trip over toys on the ground, or sticks, or bicycles.  I could tell you that an angel's wardrobe consists of much more interesting things than white robes, and that a demon's skin is not actually red.  I could also have told you that I did not care to say the things I noticed about the demon, because, even then, I didn't want to admit that I was drawn to it.  

One time, Hailey asked me why I was staring at her, and I told her that it was because I had always wanted to know how to dance.  I was certain that she couldn't see what I could see when she blushed, pushed a leaf across the ground with her left big toe, and said that she would only dance with me if I knew how to sing "Dancing Cheek to Cheek" by Fred Astaire.  If I knew then what I know now, I would have told her that "Dancing Cheek to Cheek" is by Irving Berlin, and Fred Astaire only sings it, and that I was not dressed properly for dancing, and that I didn't really want to learn how to dance, I wanted to learn to fight.  But since I didn't know any of those things, I told her that Fred Astaire is for girls, and continued to eat my lunch.