The Use of Freedom

In Search of a Wisewoman

There are many of us who have been born into a democracy with a First World standard of living, having access to adequate food, education, health care and options for self-determination that may have taken our freedom for granted. Freedom comes from the Old English word ‘freo’- free + ‘dom’-a state or condition, and means the power or right to speak, act, and change as one wants without hinderance or restraint. Science defines a ‘free radical’ as an unchanged molecule, typically highly reactive and short-lived.

Did we ever think that with all the progress in science and technology, in no longer dying of diseases and conditions that literally plagued past generations, where famine no longer should be allowed stalk the world, where rules of law were made to give individuals rights and protection, that we would be experiencing the daily newsfeed of multiple horrors? What have we done with our freedom? How well are we protecting our fragile democracy? How is it, in allowing free speech, it is perverted by those who have warped agendas?

Nations that are free to practise religion, particularly those who espouse Christianity, are somehow free to cherry pick through and use the Bible not as a primer for living a kind and ethical life, but as a one of destruction. They are somehow sanctioned to be freely radical in burning down the very guarantees of their ultimate freedoms. One wonders if they ever came across the line in 1 Peter 2:16 that reads, “As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil.”