Afraid to be Free

The dog next door lives in a crate. He's a big dog and it's a tall crate, but...it's a crate. Not unusual these days. People have been convinced by "them" that dogs feel protected in this cramped space. From my perspective, though, it's an odd trend. Now that zoo keepers have realized the necessity of letting animals out of their cages and into free spaces for roaming, domestic animals have been "rescued" from their meanderings through the house and yard and put into crates.

People, too, seem to be choosing confinement for themselves, whether it be of the physical or intellectual variety. Children are not permitted to go anywhere without supervision; the elderly are more and more being watched by electronic devices that chart their every move. There are "women only" taxies in cities worldwide in order to protect females from groping hands and cameras on street corners that record faces and track behavior.

All of this oversight started benignly; those with a long memory know where it can lead. Women who fought the "gentlemen only" clubs and drawing room chit chat for the right to mingle with men will be dismayed by those who wish to be protectively separated again. The burqua does that quite well, doesn't it? Electronic surveillance of the frail sounds caring until it is misused and more and more people seem to conveniently fall under that description. The night raids of Latin American death squads cleared the streets of criminals, right?

Hunkering down is taking place in the Church, as well. The open windows of the Second Vatican Council are gradually being shut as the hierarchy looks to the past to combat the messiness of the present. Fundamentalists of all stripes are gaining in popularity because they offer a set of rules to follow that allow little freedom of interpretation. The new capabilities and knowledge unearthed by scientists are seen as frightening and disruptive and these, they believe, must be rejected.

Jesus tells Nicodemus that the "people preferred darkness to light...". I think this is true today, not because "their works were evil" as Jesus explained then, but because today we are afraid. We are afraid to make a spiritual decision because in doing so we might make a mistake. We are afraid to be physically free because we are afraid we won't be able to protect ourselves. We see ourselves as puny, defenseless victims in a scary and dangerous world. While technology is enlarging our vision and expanding our outreach, we are retreating into our homes and shrinking the world, instead.

I think this is because we don't focus on who we really are: We are made in the image of God, with enormous brain power and great physical endurance. We marvel at what people are capable of in the midst of an emergency, but, we often fail to remember that this power is latent within us all the time. It is the power of God which we can harness when He and we walk in step together. Light overcomes the darkness.

The Psalms have many images that I find troubling, but the one thing that is evident is that David knows that God is with him and he is therefore a victor. Jesus says that "the Truth shall make you free." The Truth is, that as St Paul says in Romans 8, "we are more than conquerers through Christ who strengthens us."

The Jews worship standing up, with arms and faces raised to heaven. The Evangelicals do the same, with loud cries of "Halleluah!" and praises to the God "who makes all things new." The liturgical churches in the United States, however, are still on kneelers, with heads bowed and spirits hushed.

Freedom is a choice that has risks, but if we are living our lives in concert with the Holy Spirit, we should be able to use all our faculities and all our capabilities. It's time we walked out of Plato's cave and embraced the potential of life.