This is Independence Day Weekend – the time when many of us pause from our all too busy lives to celebrate the nation’s independence and the freedom to exercise free will that it affords.
In addition to the traditional markers – family picnics, parades, fireworks, weekends away at the beach, mountains or similarly restful and fun filled getaways, it is a time to ponder what freedom and free will mean in our lives.
During my three decades in social welfare, half of which I spent working on behalf of homeless people, I became acutely aware of how high on a pedestal we have installed FREEDOM in our culture and national psyche. In the case of those homeless persons suffering serious mental illness, we have become acculturated to their right to choose outdoor living to more normalized living indoors. I don’t advocate otherwise but observing the extreme personal cost of that choice profoundly impacted my understanding of how many freedoms each of us here in the USA are blessed to enjoy.
Lessons about our freedom to exercise free will continued to mount in the latter half of my first professional career during which I traveled internationally working to enhance social welfare systems around the world. Freedom looks very different in countries where the citizens have limited or no freedom and struggle hour-by-hour, day-by-day to gain them. I came to treasure my freedom to exercise free will even more having met people too long subjugated without freedom, people denied the right to move about freely, people too afraid to express and perhaps even to form their opinion for fear of retribution.
Long fascinated with the myriad dimensions of human behavior, I came to think of my first career as a long and fruitful emersion experience in the public face of freedom. I saw in depth how our actions and inactions reflect our exercise of free will and how our free will too often competes with each others to prevail.
In my second career working with people to find the peace inherent in resolving emotional and spiritual challenges, I am surrounded by the interior face of freedom – the soul’s freedom to exercise free will. Many are surprised to learn that their soul had a plan for this lifetime that precedes birth; surprised to discover that the choices they make have been influenced by the outcomes of choices made long ago in prior lives. Most are relieved and comforted by their new understanding that underlying contemporary choices lays a labyrinth of core beliefs shaped in trial and error over numerous lifetimes.
Speaking of freedom, most who journey to past lives find that they are relieved of doubt about the choices they face day to day and relieved from the fear that “this is all there is.” They come to realize that the soul’s freedom to exercise free will has set in place the context, setting, characters and plot in the drama of their life.
As I sat delightfully entertained by the a fabulously beautiful and exciting fireworks show at the National Mall in D.C. with the Capitol towering behind and the Washington Monument aglow under the display, I celebrated the collective freedoms that we cherish as well as my personal freedoms. I celebrated the choices my soul has made for this lifetime that has brought me to live in a country that honors freedom and which has established mechanisms to advance the pursuit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Whatever your tradition for celebrating Independence Day and our collective freedoms, take a few minutes this holiday weekend to honor the choices your soul exercised that likewise enables your pursuit of happiness. Our freedom to exercise free will is one of our most precious gifts – I hope you cherish it, honor it, and above all never take it for granted. It doesn’t exist everywhere! In the words of Kahlil Gibran “Life without liberty is like a body with spirit.”
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