FREEDOM JOURNEY | PART 2
As significant as the inner journey has been the outward journey of naming, articulating, and dismantling of systems of power, be they societal, organizational, and/or religious. I have always been attracted to and apt to see the big pictures. Over the years, my prophetic and apostolic tendencies come from my dissatisfied sense of what is systemically deficient and sometimes diabolical. Why this matters more now is because it involves freedom journey not only for me but also for many others. These systemic encrusted systems, in the end, serve man and whatever man’s interests may be (sometimes in the name of God). What is more compelling is that it imprisons and shackles those who are on the freedom journey. The dominant powers act as significant blocks and detractors (often disguised as wisdom as man’s approval or simply as common sense) to put captives as captives and unfree as unfree. These “cages,” some provincial and some global, exist everywhere placing people under bondage. The diabolical aspect is that some of these cages are being legitimized and operated in the name of God.
Early in our sabbatical, I facilitated two separate book clubs over Zoom on the same book, The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann. I do not clearly remember why I was attracted to the book at the time and had the compulsion to facilitate book clubs. But the fact I did speaks of a volume of my discomfort and even anguish of what Brueggemann called, “dominant empire mentality.” The book gave me permission as well as language, firstly, to criticize the dominant systems of power that do not know the time of the day. Empires run by numbness and time is nonexistent not dissimilar to many casinos that do not have clocks or windows. In this vein, Jeremiah’s poetic and prophetic (which are the same, really) words of God are worth reflecting, “Cranes know when it’s time to move south for winter. And robins, warblers, and bluebirds know when it’s time to come back again. But my people? My people know nothing, not the first thing of God and his rule.” (Jeremiah 8:7, The Message)
The book also empowered me to join in creating newness, and formation of freedom movement of our souls and the world. To do this, Brueggemann speaks of using metaphors and symbols concretely and candidly but also not in rage or cheap grace—the reason why Brueggemann used the word imagination in the title. The mother of imagination is longing, an eternal longing to be free and to belong. Freedom and belonging are not opposites, but fulfillment of longing. Longing gives rise to belonging and ushers freedom to be.
As I have been drawn to poems, I do not think of poetry as merely placid and self-absorbed contemplation detached from the world. Rather, I think of a significant portion of poetry as present-day prophecies criticizing the current state of empire building and managing, coming from the land of anguish painting the future of hope and newness. This courage and imaginative act are a road to creating an alternative consciousness—a new way of seeing and living.
The same three requirements are needed: slow, honesty, and courage to dismantle empires and usher in the newness of hope. The same building blocks are needed to bring newness to my soul as well as to usher in the ancient newness of the God-reality on this earth. Slow forces new and alternative ways of seeing. Honesty reveals our attachments and calls for detachment. Courage translates into a freedom-based act of doing which stems from all humanity to simply be. Furthermore, according to Brueggemann, the person who is marginal, geographically, societally, and religiously, may “embody a poignant counter-reality—reality always to contrast and finally to destroy the dominant [empire] reality.” (The word empire is added for clarity.)
“Walk this labyrinth not just for yourself but for all those who cannot find their way.” Today’s blog explains how I interpret what I read four-plus years ago. I did not know the full meaning at the time but drew my heart enough to take a picture and notice. I tell myself today that I have got to walk my path and my freedom journey first. As I walk on my path, the invitation is to share my experiences using metaphors, symbols, and imagination to help others find their way.