When Freedom Binds.

I am all for celebrating freedom, and not just on the 4th of July. Freedom is a privilege not afforded to all. The question for all of us who have been afforded freedom is, are we stewarding it well, especially in these times.

244 years ago, the United States of America was founded. We are today by definition, a flawed democracy. We are not the top of the list in terms of most democratic (we sit at at #25) (1). Still, we are among the 96 of 167 countries with a population over 500,000, ruled by democracy (2). We proudly sing that we are the “land of the free”. Freedom. What does it mean? On a normal day? In the midst of a pandemic, in the midst of economic crisis, in the midst of injustice?

Abraham Lincoln defined democracy as a “rule of the people, for the people, and by the people” (3). But has our democracy taken on an independence of its own such that when we say “for the people” we mostly think of ourselves and not the masses? Is our concern truly how “the people” are affected by the decisions we make, both individually and corporately, or are we mostly concerned about how the decisions affect us.

Clearly in the midst of pandemics, economic crisis and the face of injustice, something is not working. But few of us are willing to examine whether the something that is not working, is us. We jump on bandwagons headed in what we hope to be the right direction. We want change, we want to be part of the change, but too often we do not want to change ourselves. We do not want to admit that just maybe we do not have all of the answers, and that just maybe, no one does. We do not want to assume that others are doing the best they can. We do not want to admit it when we realize we were wrong, and we do not want to let it go when we realize others are.

Today is a day of grace and it is a good thing, because we need a lot of it. For ourselves, and for “the people”. We are a flawed democracy because we are a democracy made of people, all of whom are flawed. Still, we live in the land of freedom and with freedom comes responsibility. We must seek to do our best, for our sake, for the people’s sake. We differ in terms of what we feel is “best”, but we should be able to agree that without some level of respect for each other, our crises will continue to escalate. We cannot individually or collectively solve the complex, but we can individually and perhaps collectively, work towards moving the complexities to a more manageable place. How? With a little more. More giving, less taking. More listening, less talking. More doing, less wishing. It costs nothing to put yourself in another’s shoes, though if you stay there long enough, it will likely end up costing you something. In America, we are free to live for ourselves, but this freedom can bind us. A man left to himself is a very small thing. But a man who lives for something greater than himself, this man becomes part of something greater. May we be bound by something greater than ourselves, and in doing so find greater freedom.

1. Wikepedia Democracy Index- The Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index map for 2019.

2. Desilver, Drew. Despite Global Concerns about democracy, more than half of countries are democratic. Pew Research Center. May 14, 2019.

3. Https://www.toppr.com