A couple of weeks ago, I sat with a group of ten men inside a maximum security prison and talked about what freedom means to them. Every man was in the middle of serving a heavy sentence, some having already done a couple of decades worth of time. Freedom was a concept that resonated deeply, stirring up both hope as well as sorrow, but was a reality that none had physically felt in a long time. Several guys talked about how they felt like they had let freedom down, not recognizing its full value until it was too late. Others had discovered that it meant far more than being physically free, now experiencing great joy and relief in the internal freedom that they had found amidst their incarceration. And yet all agreed in their longing to be released, to be entrusted with another chance at walking into liberty with no bars, locked doors or security guards to hold them back.
Since sitting in that circle and hearing these men talk so honestly and vulnerably about something that I know I take for granted every day, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what it means to be free. Wars have been waged, lives have been given, stories have been passed down over centuries, and songs continue to be sung about this innate desire we all have - freedom.
Recently, Phillip and I went to see the movie ‘Harriet’ which portrays the life of Harriet Tubman, a hero in American history who dedicated her life to the freedom of the slaves. She knew the value of freedom because for many years she had lived without it, and she was willing to give her last breath to set her people free. She was a visionary and her vision was liberty.
“God has shown me the future and my people are free; my people are free!”
- Harriet, the movie
I think it takes great courage to believe in freedom when an aspect of it has been taken away from you. It also takes wisdom to steward it well when you are privileged enough to have it. But before either courage or wisdom are walked out, we need to have a vision for freedom.
“Until our children learn to deal with what is going on inside of them, they simply cannot learn to manage freedom.”
- Danny Silk, ‘Loving Your Kids On Purpose’
I read this line from Danny Silk’s book a couple of days after returning home from being with the men at SCI Frackville. They immediately came to mind again as I read this over and over. How we manage our external freedom is directly connected to how we steward what is going on internally. Hopefully we’ve been raised in an environment that allows us to learn this early on, but many times that is not our story and decades can pass before it is a concept that we are actually able to live out in health.
Right now, Phillip and I are preparing to have our first son in February who we’ve named Freedom Alexander, and as motherhood approaches it has caused me to ponder all of this more seriously. I want our son to be raised not just knowing that he is free, but knowing how to steward that freedom. We all have this deep-seated knowing that it is our right to be free so we demand it with all that we have, but when it’s finally given to us how often do we betray this most divine of gifts? If we’re honest, do we now stand holding onto the remnants of an abused relationship with freedom, or is our gait marked with integrity as we extend our freedom to the benefit of the world around us?
I’ve never not known freedom. From my privileged upbringing being born with white, European skin into a family full of love with parents who believed in me and always championed my dreams, to encountering spiritual freedom at a young age where I came to know a God who loves me and has divinely purposed me for this time in history. Yes I’ve known injustice, pain and betrayal, have had to overcome fear and hurts, anger and lies, but I’ve never not known freedom; I’ve never not had a choice. Even here - in ‘the land of the free and home of the brave’ - I wonder how many people could actually describe their life as being one that is free, for this state of being does not just begin and end with our physical reality but encompasses every part of our beings. As I heard recently in a conversation around prostitution and the sex industry, for many people trapped in that cycle of sexual exploitation, it came about as a choice-less choice. They had no other option.
If we look at our lives honestly, are we stuck in any places simply because we have no other option? Or have we created environments in our relationships or work places where those around us are faced with no other choice because of an element of freedom that we have stripped away from them? Are we championing freedom and managing it well, or are we operating in control and manipulation and abusing the very thing that was created to release us?
The last words that Harriet Tubman uttered were, “I go to prepare a place for you.” She gave her everything in order to see her fellow man live in the freedom which she knew they were created for, and I hear in those words a challenge to all of us: are we going to do the same?
Harriet Tubman, who rescued enslaved people via the Underground Railroad and also led U.S. troops in a raid that freed hundreds during the Civil War.
