Freedom isn’t Free
I’ve grown very tired of everyone saying freedom isn’t free.
The reason is, well, it’s because I don’t know where it came from and quite frankly, I think that some guy named Sal could be responsible, like maybe he started the whole thing after one too many beers at a 4th of July picnic a few years back and all of a sudden it’s become our unofficial national freedom slogan and it’s in our songs and on our bumper stickers and tee shirts and it causes us all to get a little verklempt, like we’re supposed to somehow get it if we say it.
Of course freedom isn’t free any more than bondage is pricey. What we do know is that every battle of every war that has ever been fought from the beginning of time to this moment has erupted to defend freedom or to earn some type of freedom or simply to fight for the right to freely exercise this or that and throughout the ages we just keep fighting and we think we’re closer, so much closer to real freedom, but we’re really so far away because we’ll never truly be free.
I do have a point, and I promise to get to it.
You see, it’s really some cosmic irony that no matter how I want to define free — you know, free to be you and me, free to worship, free to dance, free to vote, free to exercise my freedom — well, I really shouldn’t even try to get my arms around the word because it means way too much and it really should find its true definition in a global sense, you know, for humanity as a whole.
I say this because we all know, without saying it, that our brothers and sisters of various races and backgrounds and creed and culture, in our own backyards or across the oceans are dying a little and often a lot each day because they’re caught up in persecution of the physical kind or the spiritual kind or the emotional kind and they’re oppressed and entangled in that very pricey bondage that should cause all of us to realize the true shackles that encircle this planet we walk on. And this causes me to wonder if you or I can honestly enjoy any freedom if we know that another member of humanity isn’t liberated within this large globe of prisoners.
I know, I know, this is heavy stuff that travels over and beyond borders and maybe flies in the face of true patriotism. I realize these are not issues that we can tackle all at once like some sweeping army from the North. Nor do I think we should give up our celebration of certain freedoms we enjoy. I just know that it’s not always about patting each other on the back at picnics with some guy named Sal as we get choked up and say in unison freedom isn’t free, and, oh, pass me the chips; or even as we take a moment of silence and rightly honor our service men and women (who by the way are doing amazing things and, yes, even dying for us in yet another freedom battle).
No, it is about each of us living out the rest of the year and crossing enemy lines and freeing prisoners by befriending someone whose gaze is slightly downcast, someone who knows the chains of loneliness or poverty or maybe someone who just needs a little dignity in his or her life and is desperate for the true release found only through the combination of love and companionship and fellowship and community. We can deliver one person at a time and maybe offer an appetizer for what the true feast of freedom will look like someday.
And you know what? We do it for a reason, because there was once this man, who well, he actually still very much is. He’s explained it before that the type of freedom he’s selling — it is free; he paid it once and for all and he’d do it again if he had to, for me and for you, over and over if he needed to because his love is deep and wide and cavernous really. It’s as free as anything will ever get in this world and it’s all about living freely and helping others do the same, and we can deliver it and just bring it with abandon. Maybe we could all do that. Just one person at a time.
Now that type of freedom is worthy of a slogan.
j. jacobson
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