Can Freedom Inspire Us Once Again?

More and more the freedom our nation was founded on no longer inspires the best from us. We see this reflected in just about every aspect of society. The motivational impact that freedom once provided has been replaced by the materialistic goals of acquiring wealth and power.
      It's as if freedom is now perceived as nothing more than a smoother means for attaining materialistic goals.
      We intuitively know that freedom is something special. We give it lip-service on patriotic occasions; or when it is expedient to impose it on foreign cultures; or, sadly, if there's a buck to be made. On the other hand, we enjoy what legal freedoms we have, and understand why immigrants want to live here. When we look at nations that do not have freedom, we pity what their citizens lack, rather than appreciate what we have.
      For the most part, we take freedom for granted. Why? Because our understanding of what it is has deteriorated over the decades. We equate it with the free market, our right to speak and vote, or follow whatever religion that we choose. We appreciate the open road, the freedom that the television clicker to give us, the unlimited resources of the Internet.
      But is that all there is to freedom?
      If so, it's no wonder that such a perception fails to inspire us as we rush to work, rush back home, and give a little time to the family. We miss out on its spiritual depth entirely. Our encounter with freedom becomes something outside us, like legal protections or the right to accumulate more wealth and power than we could ever possibly use. More and more these superficialities dominate our vision-even as intuition nags us that there must be something else. The truth is, wealth and power and comfort are more psychologically enslaving than liberating. We lose our souls to an idea that dominates our minds, shaping our moral and intellectual understanding of the world.
      The freedom that inspires the best from people is an interior phenomenon. Laws and constitutions may help to protect it, but it originates from our hearts and minds.
      The spirit of a chained slave, hungering for freedom, might be more liberated than his or her master's, or of today's flash-bulb celebrity or CEO. This, more than anything, illustrates what Jesus meant by the poor being blessed. It's not wealth or power or comfort that blesses people. It's a particular vision of life, one that mourns and thirsts for justice. In their simple deprivations, the poor can enjoy a dimension of life that those on top are naturally separated from. The poor are more blessed than the wealthy, who are shackled to their addiction to riches, their lust for more things, their celebrity status and need for power. They think they are free, but their souls suffer from spiritual slavery that stops them from experiencing the here and now dynamic of a true Kingdom of Heaven.
      They've been told that they can't enter this kingdom any more than a camel can pass through the eye of a needle. They've been told, unequivocally, that they can't serve both God and money-for by serving two masters, they end up loving one and hating the other. How do they respond? By loving their riches and twisting God's word to satisfy their peace-of-mind.
      The materialistic world they enshrine is void of spirit. Human freedom cannot thrive in such a world. The fact that caring for our neighbors no longer inspires many of us is the surest sign that we are no longer spiritually free, and have lost our aspiration to be so.
      Jesus told us that truth would set us free. Pontius Pilate gave us a clue as to what that means. Pilate was the Roman military governor at the time, an autocratic realist eventually expelled for corruption. The gospels portray him asking Jesus directly, what is truth?
      Pilate was a man of power and considerable means, a man of the empire imposing his cultural ideas on people who resisted accepting them. (Sound familiar?) Even with all that support behind him, Pilate's spirit was not free. He had no grasp of truth beyond the mundane politics of power and riches. Whatever spiritual vision he might have once had was gone.
      He was, perhaps, a lot like us.
      Jesus' life was the answer to Pilate's question, for it reflected the kind of freedom that inspires people to open their eyes to a greater truth, beyond the distractions of wealth and power. Such freedom liberates us from society's questionable moral values that portray greed as if it were the highest virtue.
      We need to learn that freedom is more than the ability to just do as we please. It is a liberation of thought, like someone who is reborn to an intellectual autonomy capable of seeing illusion for what it is. It reconnects us to a morality that is more humane, more natural-as simple as the Golden Rule, but just as profound. Freedom is, first and foremost, a liberation of the mind.
      Our economic and political systems thirst for the influence of high ideals. Because we fail to supply them, they end up functioning in an empty, soulless manner that invites corruption. When politics and capitalism fail, it's because we make them fail through our own decisions.
      We cannot have freedom without free thought-the kind that flourished in ancient Greece, the Renaissance, the writings of the Talmud, the Enlightenment, and American transcendentalism. Such movements burst with energy and enthusiasm, and resulted in progressivism that was both powerful and humane. In many ways, they shaped what is best about today's world. Inspired freedom of thought has that capacity.
      We don't see much of that anymore, especially in religion and politics, where new ideas, full of vigor and inspiration, are discouraged. Instead of providing the impetus for human development, religion and politics often serve as vehicles for greed and ambition. Politicians and religious leaders seek followers who nod like robots on command. They cannot be called liberators in the truest sense.
      Not even our best action, no matter how philanthropic, has any depth of personal, moral worth unless it is done freely-not for reward in heaven, or publicity, or getting your name on a plaque, or making your family proud, or trying to avoid eternal punishment. Such motivations, while producing some beneficial results, do not add to the moral authenticity of who we are. They are actions without heart. What we need as a simple moral guide is to do what is good and right, for the sake of what is good and right. Nothing more. Here we find authentic human freedom-not in greed, or in bullying, or in winning public support-but in our lives.
      The cult of greed too easily overshadows everything else, transforming good, honest labor into a vicious contest. It is a demanding taskmaster that swallows careers, vocations, friendships, marriages, energy policies, environmental concerns and international relations. Even religion! It corrupts our souls, making everything soulless in its wake. It elevates momentary profit over more pressing concerns, transforming capitalism into a kind of economic cannibalism, where the elite of our nation greedily devour the hopes and labor of the many-and then pats itself on the back, wanting more.
      If this is the best that freedom produces, it's no wonder that people from other cultures question our motivation.
      The moral challenge that confronts us now is plain: Is this the best we can do? Do money and power really define what America is all about? Or have we just been distracted for a while-and long for the abundant life that the soul of freedom makes possible?

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