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July 2004 Sermons
July 4, 2004 SermonRev. Nancy D. DeanJuly 4, 2004Learning to be FreeEric Hoffer, the American philosopher wrote: The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do. It is the freedom to refrain, withdraw, and abstain which makes a totalitarian regime impossible. We in this “home of the brave, land of the free” use the terms “free,” “freedom,” “liberty,” frequently, often rather casually. We assume that they are absolutes because we have heard from birth that freedom is our birthright. There is something gratifying about that in a way; that we take for granted our freedom, that we believe in our unassailable rights. That we are, for example, free to move from one place to another, free to marry whom we please, free do the kind of work we chose, free to practice this Unitarian faith of ours. Yet, I suspect that even as I listed just a few of those freedoms many of us assume are unassailable, that some of you were thinking that not all of us have all of those rights or freedoms, and certainly not all of us have always had those rights, even though the 1776 Declaration of Independence states we are all created equal with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Think about some of the ways we use the words free, freedom, and liberty. I might say tomorrow when my vacation starts: “I am free as the breeze.” There is Walt Whitman’s freedom of the open road. Patrick Henry’s, Give me liberty or give me death. Or, lyrically, Chris Cristoferson’s, freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose. Then, there is New Hampshire’s state motto: Live free or die. We in this nation hear and learn all kinds of things about being free; we believe that freedom is the hallmark of our democratic union. We are taught in our public schools that the USA is a free country, because the Constitution guarantees us the right to free speech and the right to vote. Though, we must note that this last has not been a consistent right for everyone. Remember only white landowners had the right to vote after the Constitution was adopted. Years later, women, then African-Americans, then youth got the vote. I could not vote when I was eighteen-years-old, for you had to be twenty-one, but some young people pointed out that anyone old enough to fight and die for this country should be able to vote (boys could be drafted at age eighteen, and had to go to Viet Nam to fight a war). Some dedicated people fought to change the voting age, and won. So we see that freedom is something we learn, we experience, and something which can change. Freedom is not a static condition. With just a bit of exploration we see that while freedom is something we value in this country, value highly, and rightly so, we still want to consider: What does it mean to be free? How free are we, really? And to consider how much freedom relates to our moral and ethic principles-What can we do for and with our freedom that is in consonance with our ethical principles? A further consideration in our effort to learn and understand what it means to be free, is to consider freedom that is inherent to existence or freedom of the mind. Someone once wrote (I find this very thought-provoking): A slave is a free person if contented with his/her lot; a free person is a slave if he/she seeks more than that. Think about Helen Keller, who was born in 1880 in Alabama, and because of illness when she was less than two-years-old was left both blind and deaf. People of my generation grew up with Helen Keller lifted up as a major role model, for she went on to not only learn to communicate, but was graduated magna cum laude from Radcliffe, and went on to help many other blind people, and also wrote prolifically. She talks about the moment when she was freed from her prison of darkness and silence: The mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that “w-a-t-e-r” meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, joy, set it free! To be free, then, means to understand, to gain knowledge. Remember that slaves were denied education, dictators restrict assess to information, because to learn and understand is the first level of freedom. To be free, then, is more than just our ability to travel from one place to another unhindered, though this is no small freedom either. Consider the Palestinians who can travel no more than 2-3 miles without confronting a check point, with a checkerboard of some seventy-nine such checkpoints in their tiny area of land on the West Bank. We here think a toll every fifty or a hundred miles is restrictive! Václav Havel, Czechoslovakian playwright and first president of the independent Czech Republic stated this about being free: Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens there can be no free and independent nations. Without internal peace, that is, peace among citizens and between the citizens and the state, there can be no guarantee of external peace.
Unitarian, Adlai Stevenson once said: My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. This is another aspect of the freedoms we do not at first glimpse think of as such; yet, it has certainly been true more than not in western history that failure to go along with the culturally acceptable, be it in dress, speech, religion, science, or art, was enough to get a person branded as dangerous or heretical. I like what the writer Graham Greene pointed out: Heresy is another word for freedom of thought. As hard as it is for parents to watch their children do things that seem heresy to our way of understanding, those kids are probably going to grow up to be fine adult, because it shows they have independent spirits. People with independent spirits do not usually easily give in to encroachments upon their freedoms. Jefferson and the founders wrote and spoke a great deal about inherent rights. Rights that we are born with and then are/may be taken away. The 17th Century poet John Dryden put it this way in a poem: I am as free as Nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran. Jefferson, however, pointed out a salient feature of freedom in stating: If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. And this echoes the Stoic Greek philosopher Epectitus, of 2000 years ago, who wrote that: Only the educated are free. Freedom, though, is not ours without cost, for we must do something actively to sustain our free state or we will find ourselves quickly enslaved by those who would wield power over us-and those kinds of tyrants are always plentiful everywhere, including right here in our free society. After the terrorist acts of 9/11/01, we all had a right to be worried, even afraid, but the rush by some to take away freedoms hard won by the founders was not the right reaction. We need always to be mindful of what Franklin said: They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Or, as 18th Century British statesman William Pitt also put it: Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. We always have to warily protect our freedom from being savaged by such necessities as would infect and breakdown our precious freedoms. If you are not worried about the infringements of the Patriot Act, my only assumption is that you have not read it. It is a dangerous over-reaction to a frightening event. We will not preserve our freedoms without effort, sometimes we will have to fight for them, even as the founders fought for them. I believe I can say without fear of contradiction that the founders would be dismayed by this terribly misnamed Patriot Act. Learning to be free is always easier for those who have had little freedom, and they especially learn the value of little freedoms. A story to illustrate. A man from the United States met an emigrant from Russia. In the course of conversation, he said: "I guess you left Russia because you wanted more freedom.” "No, I had plenty of freedom," replied the Russian. "I could not complain." "Then it must be that there were no opportunities in Russia," the he tried next. "I had opportunities!" the Russian insisted. "I could not complain." "Was it that you could not find a nice place to live?" "Not at all. I had a beautiful apartment. I could not complain." The man looked confused. "If everything was fine in Russia, why did you come to America?" "Aha!" the Russian chortled. "Here I can complain!" It reminds me of Shakespeare’s words advising his father, who was worrying a great deal, that to be “free” means freedom from guilt or anxiety. Both guilt and anxiety are emotionally enslaving. You and I have seen how people can become emotionally debilitated unable to act freely or independently because they are trapped in their heads. Such people are unhappy because they cannot, do not, or will not say what is on their minds and act out of jealousy, or hate, or anger, or envy, etc. Religion, itself, can enslave people, so that even to think certain thoughts can be blasphemous, or dangerous. So, even if we are free in a democratic sense, we can certainly still be imprisoned in our heads. I am a big fan of lyricist Stephen Sondheim, especially lyrics like these in the Westside Story song, “America”: I like to be in America! O.K. by me in America! Ev’rything free in America! For a small fee in America! Like all the arts, music contains its own truths. Free means a lot of things, but rarely free of costs. The humorist Bennet Cerf told this story back in the 50s: A retired California couple received this circular from their young married son in Denver: "Vacation Contest. Free round-trip transportation to beautiful mile-high Denver. Free golf and use of all facilities of new million-dollar country club. Unlimited use of slightly battered station wagon, color TV set, pool table, and set of bongo drums. Maid and laundry service included. To enter contest, just complete the following sentence in twenty-five words or less: 'We would like to come to Denver and take care of four healthy young children for two weeks while our son and daughter-in-law take a richly earned vacation in the Canadian Rockies because . . ."
We each have to learn what it means to be free. It is a personal responsibility, which as Unitarian Universalists we also see as part of our faith. We who do not want someone to hand us a recipe for our religious truth, should no more expect such a recipe for freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom of any sort is meaningless, as the theologian Kierkegaard says, if we do not first exercise the freedom of thought I have known many people who did not exercise the freedom of thought-no doubt you do, too. They were so afraid of not fitting in with some group, or uncomfortable that their thoughts might set them apart, that they gave away that precious freedom for the sake of conformity. Just think how many in Hitler’s ranks felt that something was not right about what this madman was doing, but were too afraid to speak out, did not want their neighbors to label them. How wrong, how terrible it was that so many priests, ministers, leaders would not stand up so that others around them would have the courage to do the same? While I understand this impulse on one level, it is still a cowardly impulse. I used to be a fan of the television program Northern Exposure; in fact, when I was in divinity school, someone would tape the episodes, and we would watch them together in the Refectory while we ate our lunches. Those of you who did not watch this program need to know that this was about an unusual town in Alaska where the main radio DJ was a philosopher, and all kinds of unusual people were part of this community. It had brilliant writing by Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider. In one episode a character said: We hold in our hands, the most precious gift of all: Freedom. The freedom to express our art. Our love. The freedom to be who we want to be. We are not going to give that freedom away and no one shall take it from us! The echo of the founders of this nation is clear in this statement. And perhaps the only people who can truly appreciate freedom are those who do not usually fit in, or people like the founders who had suffered greatly under a tyrannical king. I hope that is not the case. I hope that we all can learn to know what it means to be free. Free in our minds as well as our hearts. Free in our right actions. Free in our love for others. Free in our expressions of faith. Free in the sacred way of inherent freedom. We call Unitarian Universalism a free faith, meaning each person has the right, the responsibility even, to own the truth of his/her own heart in matters of religious belief and spiritual practice. This in itself encompasses many freedoms: the freedom of thought, freedom from intimidation, freedom founded on knowledge, experience, and faith in that which is greater than oneself. Such freedom as is the inherent right of every person, and endowed by the Creator and creation. So be it
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