Inner Freedom
Inner Freedom
Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent – March 11, 2020
We are social beings. All of our lives, from our first days to our last day, we constantly are learning how to live in relationship with each other.
Often, though, the clues we take from others are about people-pleasing, adapting ourselves and our behaviors to the expectations of those in our life-world. It is quite common – and in fact, may have become the cultural norm – for persons to shape their lives to the expectations and demands of those around us.
Inner freedom is one of the key ideas in the spiritual life. Inner freedom does not have to do with our outer freedom, that is, how free we are to come and go and do as we please. This kind of outer freedom is what adolescents strive for, and what most adults continue seeking throughout life.
Inner freedom is different. It is the freedom to be the person you were created to be, rather than the person who is pushed and pulled by circumstances, conditions, and events. This inner freedom is not easily recognized, nor is it easily attained. It requires, first, that we recognize the ways in which we are not truly free.
Elizabeth O’Connor says, “The materials we are given to work with, the conditions we work under and what happens to us, are part of the drama of what we shall do with our lives. But materials and conditions and events are not, in themselves, the determining factors.”
In other words, are lives are not determined by whatever happens in the outer world. Our lives are determined by who we are inwardly.
No, the place where he is does not belong to any one. One holds it, and then another. It is won by the usual means of aggression, or industry, or cunning, or deceit, or skill, or knowledge, and in these ways it can be lost. This is common practice and there is nothing to be said about the wrong or the right of it. This is not what we are discussing, but the fact that there is another way – one that belongs to an entirely different order of things, whose governing laws are different. The place a man finds under these other laws is really his own, and when he has found it he is not afraid, because there has grown up in him the knowledge that it cannot be taken away. He is in the place that was prepared for him when the foundations of his life were laid.
The artist has been used as an example here, but only to illustrate the general plight. Each of us is the artist of his own life. The materials we are given to work with, the conditions we work under and what happens to us, are part of the drama of what we shall do with our lives. But materials and conditions and events are not, in themselves, the determining factors. Whether a man arrives or does not arrive at his destiny – the place that is peculiarly his – depends on whether or not he finds the Kingdom within and hears the call to wholeness – or holiness, as another might say. The man who hears that call is chosen. He does not have to scramble for a place in the scheme of things. He knows that there is a place which is his and that he can live close to the One who will show it to him. Life becomes his vocation.
[Elizabeth O’Connor, Journey Inward, Journey Outward. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968.]
For Reflection:
o I sometimes go through extreme circumstances in my life. Job, health, another person, or something else of value may be taken away from me. I experience anger at daily events, the fear of exposure to disease, and the challenge of living in healthy relationship with others.
o I think about my understanding of freedom. How do I understand outer freedom and inner freedom?
o Nothing that I experience in life can take away who I am. Nothing can rob me of my soul-connection to God.
Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent – March 11, 2020
We are social beings. All of our lives, from our first days to our last day, we constantly are learning how to live in relationship with each other.
Often, though, the clues we take from others are about people-pleasing, adapting ourselves and our behaviors to the expectations of those in our life-world. It is quite common – and in fact, may have become the cultural norm – for persons to shape their lives to the expectations and demands of those around us.
Inner freedom is one of the key ideas in the spiritual life. Inner freedom does not have to do with our outer freedom, that is, how free we are to come and go and do as we please. This kind of outer freedom is what adolescents strive for, and what most adults continue seeking throughout life.
Inner freedom is different. It is the freedom to be the person you were created to be, rather than the person who is pushed and pulled by circumstances, conditions, and events. This inner freedom is not easily recognized, nor is it easily attained. It requires, first, that we recognize the ways in which we are not truly free.
Elizabeth O’Connor says, “The materials we are given to work with, the conditions we work under and what happens to us, are part of the drama of what we shall do with our lives. But materials and conditions and events are not, in themselves, the determining factors.”
In other words, are lives are not determined by whatever happens in the outer world. Our lives are determined by who we are inwardly.
No, the place where he is does not belong to any one. One holds it, and then another. It is won by the usual means of aggression, or industry, or cunning, or deceit, or skill, or knowledge, and in these ways it can be lost. This is common practice and there is nothing to be said about the wrong or the right of it. This is not what we are discussing, but the fact that there is another way – one that belongs to an entirely different order of things, whose governing laws are different. The place a man finds under these other laws is really his own, and when he has found it he is not afraid, because there has grown up in him the knowledge that it cannot be taken away. He is in the place that was prepared for him when the foundations of his life were laid.
The artist has been used as an example here, but only to illustrate the general plight. Each of us is the artist of his own life. The materials we are given to work with, the conditions we work under and what happens to us, are part of the drama of what we shall do with our lives. But materials and conditions and events are not, in themselves, the determining factors. Whether a man arrives or does not arrive at his destiny – the place that is peculiarly his – depends on whether or not he finds the Kingdom within and hears the call to wholeness – or holiness, as another might say. The man who hears that call is chosen. He does not have to scramble for a place in the scheme of things. He knows that there is a place which is his and that he can live close to the One who will show it to him. Life becomes his vocation.
[Elizabeth O’Connor, Journey Inward, Journey Outward. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968.]
For Reflection:
o I sometimes go through extreme circumstances in my life. Job, health, another person, or something else of value may be taken away from me. I experience anger at daily events, the fear of exposure to disease, and the challenge of living in healthy relationship with others.
o I think about my understanding of freedom. How do I understand outer freedom and inner freedom?
o Nothing that I experience in life can take away who I am. Nothing can rob me of my soul-connection to God.
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