Yearning to Breathe Free

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

― Emma Lazarus

Freedom is the cherished state we all wish to live in.

Gay people only this week were finally allowed to enter on equal terms as straights.

Yet there are still many who want to deny them that freedom.

I won’t go into the reasons…but they are at their core, entirely ideological…just take a gander at my FaceBook wall, as all that’s discussed ad nauseam.

In this post I want to talk specifically about freedom.

My freedom was recently taken away from me…for about a month in LA County Jail.

Do we value freedom in this country?

We say we do. We say it often…ad nauseam…

But do we mean it?

We have this thing called “the constitution.”

People invoke its name all the time…usually as a way of promoting some end…

either political, or religious.

But what does the constitution really do for us as people? What was, and still very much is, its purpose.

Technically speaking it established a framework for our government and puts strict limits on what the various bodies therein created can and can’t do…

but why?

Let’s not speak of the “features” of our constitution, but its purpose…its why.

And the why of the constitution is freedom…generally couched in terms of our liberty and our equality as human beings.

And why is that important?

Why should people be free?

And free from what, or to do what?

I recently repatriated to the U.S. after spending 14 years in Costa Rica. Coming back here has been, well, a shocking experience.

I’ve re-entered the U.S. as one of the tired, poor and huddled.

And as I look around I don’t see much in the way of freedom.

I see a lot of weariness, frustration, and fear.

I see a lot of ideological sniping and finger-pointing about various problems, but little being done to solve them.

And all the while the ranks of the down-trodden grow larger.

And that, my friends, does not bode well for freedom.

The freedom we have to take a road trip would be a lot less enjoyable were it not for those government created highways we can zip across.

The freedom to enjoy life’s golden years after decades of hard work would be much less enjoyable for many were it not for that “little” government program called social security.

Granted, the lion’s share is up to us…it falls upon us to live our lives in a way that promotes our own freedom and that of others.

I call that in this blog…impact mindfulness.

Sometimes things get out of whack. Sometimes people go too far in the name of what is really a false sense of freedom.

Sometimes certain ideologies get in the way of it…

even ideologies that we consider freedom promoting…

like capitalism…

and christianity.

When folks start utilizing the mechanism of the state to promote ideologies and thereby curtail cherished freedoms…

well, that’s when the constitution must step in.

We should not accept that health should only be the privilege of those who can afford a doctor because capitalism demands it.

We should not accept that marriage should be a right only enjoyed by this particular sexual orientation because the bible demands it.

Perhaps we’ve been free so long in this country that we’ve forgotten what it really means.

Perhaps we need to undergo a re-value-ation…

before we lose it entirely.

image credit: Patrick Terol via Compfight cc