A Christmas tradition my mom started when my brother and I were younger, entailed reading the Polar Express before my brother and I would saunter upstairs with visions of full stockings and freshly wrapped presents dancing in our heads.
This year my family and I will not get to relive this experience as members of my family have contracted covid-19; fortunately, they are experiencing mild symptoms. This came as a bit of a shock as we have all taken this virus seriously with my dad being a former first responder and our desire to protect my cancer stricken 86 year old grandfather as well as those like him.
My immediate inclination of course was to blame all who have not taken the virus seriously, who decry, “wearing a mask infringes upon my rights as a human and as an American!” Or, “these stay at home orders and social distancing restrictions go against our freedoms set forth by the constitution!” I will not even bring up the “my body my choice,” resist our governor, freedom crowd.
My point is, we have a freedom problem here in the United States. Not just the people who have not taken the virus seriously, but everyone, myself included.
We boast of constitutional rights while assuming our worldview matches the worldview of others. We live in silos, full of warheads, with our ideas, waiting to bomb our neighbor. We believe the freedom we experience is the same freedom experienced by others. Yet, we neglect to acknowledge how our freedom negatively impacts the lives and freedom of others.
The Liberty Bell in the United States, perhaps like the bell in the Polar Express, conveniently rings for people who believe in a certain interpretation of freedom.
As for myself, I have been struggling to hear it lately.
As I watch the United States experience the deadliest days/weeks in the history of the country, I do not hear a sound. While bills are written and promises are made, somewhere in 5,000 pages of cacophony, forgive me if I do not hear a chime. Where ‘progress’ and protest are televised and marches are held, signs are burned, and eyes are blinded; there is no tolling of the bell.
My God, I do not hear freedom ringing, and it scares the shit out of me.
“With liberty and justice for all,” seems like a strange tone these days considering the disproportionate effects of this pandemic on minority populations and the gross slew of pardons for ‘loyal’ criminals.
Yet, where is my faith in all of this? Truly, if I believed, I would understand that there is hope even in the silence.
The problem is, the world is anything but silent. With audacious claims, conspiratorial worship, and malicious, polarizing ideological leanings, we are nothing more than resounding gongs and clanging cymbals.
We are bands of selfish freedoms rather than selfless freedom that liberates and provides justice for all.
Alas, where there are instruments, there is still hope. There is hope that the orchestra of division and faux-freedom, will one day become a melodic symphony, driven by the love of the musician.
In this season of wonder and hope, as we turn the page, may we all tend to the noise we create asking God:
“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.” - St. Francis