Since this is the 'season' of Freedom and Independence, I wanted to share a mediation on freedom by Br. Thomas Merton:
“Freedom of choice is not, itself, the perfection of liberty. But it helps us take our first step
toward freedom or slavery, spontaneity or compulsion. The free man is
the one whose choices have given him the power to stand on his own feet
and determine his own life according to the higher light and spirit
that are in him. The slave, in the spiritual order, is the man whose
choices have destroyed all spontaneity in him and have delivered him
over, bound hand and foot, to his own compulsions, idiosyncrasies and
illusions, so that he never does what he really wants to do, but only
what he has to do.”
From The New Man
I love Merton and have used his teaching on freedom in my time with engaged couples.
Posted by: Tim Sean | July 12, 2008 at 05:56 PM