Just Imagine!

As I write this I am aware of soooo many places in the world where people are on the streets seeking freedom, breaking through the barrier of fear and protesting against oppression, corruption and slavery of all kind desiring to have their basic rights met, to be treated as humans, to be set free. Millions are taking the streets so that their voice is heard, yearning for change in Chile, Catalonia, Iraq, Pakistan and my country of birth Lebanon.

I am in no way going to analyze the political reasons for this or pretend to make a judgment on the who stands behind these protests but as I write this, I sense a burning feeling in my heart, a light that is growing calling me ever slowly towards freedom, begging me to be free. When we seek freedom personally, communally or globally we empower others to do the same. We are born free and eventhough we might find our surroundings, relationships, situations or personal choices engulfing us with slavery just like a fire engulfs a forest, our deepest selves, our virgin point, our true self, still remains free, though desperately needing nourishment.

Freedom! Wow! What a word. Do you know what it is like to be free? Not some superficial, surface, do what I want freedom, but to be spiritual free, to be free on the inside. To be free to be who I am or who you are. Do you know how and what that feels like? To be who I am, to be who God created me to be. To be myself in the midst of so many demands? To be myself despite the social and personal constraints? To be free despite the impediments. To be free despite my unhealthy attachments. To be free to live from the deepest desires of my heart. Maybe you do!

Why is it hard to seek this deep freedom, to nourish it and live from it? Why is it easier to slip into slavery, to falsely conform, to do what is easy, to be and do what others want, to forget who you are and follow the crowd? Why are we scared to change, to speak up? Why do we just go with the flow and not say enough is enough or as we say Arabic “be kaffe”? Why is it easier to stay enclosed and not to go out, not to explore and go outside the city gate. Why is it easier not to take risks and harder to be vulnerable and real, to make decisions and take risks? Why?

Is it fear? Fear of what? From what? From who? Ahh, how I know this fear. I have heard it and believed its voice. It has been my companion, so many times disguised as God or a friend who wants my best interest and cares for me. How I believe it. Why? Because it’s an ancient voice. I have heard its tunes and danced at its songs since my childhood days.

When I was a kid, I needed it and it made sense. I sensed it protected me but now as I grow old, it has often worn the mask of false safety and security speaking with its sweet voice, telling me false stories.

How many times I believed; don’t take any risks! Don’t make mistakes! Don’t go outside for you will get sick! Don’t say anything! Don’t upset anyone! Don’t …

And when I trust the voice, it picks up pace, hits at the core and tells me, watch what you do! You are never gunna make it! You will fail! Look how many mistakes you have done, here we go again, you never learn! You are a failure! You are always sick! People are sick of you! Stop talking! No one loves you! You are not good enough! You will always give in to fear! You will never have the courage to change! Just stay put! Stay here! You don’t deserve to be happy! Sounds like the voice of the inner critic, psychologists might say.

Yet when the voice wears spiritual clothe, it is most dangerous and becomes toxic and damaging. It tells often half truths and sometimes outright lies. God is watching every move! Be careful you never sin else you risk his wrath! God loves you as long as you are well behaved! God wants you to stay put, keep sacrificing, keep suffering, keep quiet…

Akhh! How I believed this voice and how it has the potential to stifle and destroy our freedom. When we listen to it and act from it our growth is hindered, we become smaller and our choices, careers and relationships are stifled. Our nations are spent. We become slaves, unhappy, unfree and filled with hopelessness and lost with a false identity, unworthy of love.

Ahh how many people have I met who tell me about the voice. They don’t believe they are worthy of love, that their past trauma and voices have told them falsely that they can never be free, so they are trapped in fear, and are locked in complex situations, unhealthy environments, abusive relationships, and they accept all of this living unfree.

Yet the voice of freedom under the rubble can never be put out, for deep within me is a call be me. Deep within you is a call to be you. To be free, to be myself. Even if we crawl towards it. I sense I am too crawling towards this being me. To be myself. To accept myself. Wow. Accept myself. Where did that come from? Imagine we accept ourselves. Imagine we love ourselves and allow ourselves to be loved just as we are. Allow God to love us. Allow God to gaze at us. JUST to allow God to be God. To be Love and love ourselves from that love.

Imagine we see ourselves with the eyes of God. See ourselves and each other as beloved, worthy of love. Who needs moral theology then? Love becomes all and in all. Wow! How freeing would that be? Imagine what our lives will be like! Imagine we believe this! Imagine we believe we deserve this!

Imagine the decisions we will make! Imagine how many decisions we will stop holding back? Ahhh, I sense the decision flood gates will open when we live from within that freedom.

Just imagine how we will be, where, with whom and above all who and what kind of people we will be. Just imagine!

Ahh, that inner freedom, the kind that one can be free even in the midst of the storms. How powerful are Gibran Khalil Gibran’s words here on freedom, when he says that “you shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief, but rather when these things girdle your life and yet your rise above them naked and unbound.”

Yes naked and unbound. Yes that kind of freedom that Jesus had even on the cross. Wow! Imagine what it is like to live from that freedom! Just Imagine!