#62 Freedom

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, and rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. -----Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Last month, on January 15th our country celebrated what’s become known as MLK Day. I remember reading the above quote at that time which was taken from his famous “I have a dream” speech.

As stirring and powerful as that speech was in August of 1963, I got to wondering just how deeply those that heard it really took it. Of course back then our country was plagued with so much unrest and civil strife. The oppression of this country’s minority race was coming to a head and these folks were shouting for both freedom and equality. They wanted the same freedoms that everyone else enjoyed and to be treated as equals. It had been a long hard road for the Black community since the Emancipation Proclamation just 100 years earlier.

Today, 60 years later we’re still hearing the words FREEDOM being shouted not only here, but globally. There is more turmoil and fear afoot that ever before. Now the oppression is coming from governments all over the world and its peoples are feeling lost and sometimes hopeless. Basic human freedoms like freedom of choice, freedom of speech, freedom to move about unopposed are what’s on everyone’s hearts right now.

No doubt that these are paramount for us all and need to be delt with, but there is another kind of freedom that most people don’t even consider. That my friends is the freedom that comes from knowing who you really are. I mean that from the depths of self. You are so awesomely powerful. You are true love incarnate.

I have found that that freedom, is by far the freedom that can erase all fears that come from the outside world. I remember at the height of the turmoil we were all facing in 2020, I had never felt such anger and fear in all my years on the planet in this lifetime experience. No doubt it mirrored the same kind of fear that the Black race had been feeling for well over 200 years since they were forcefully brought to this country as slaves and being thought of as expendable.

In order for me to “free myself” from the jaws of a system that was going haywire and oppressing the masses in every conceivable way, I had to go deep. Fortunately, I already had a pretty solid spiritual foundation, but had been shaken off of it with the radical events that were taking place in my outside world. So much so that I hardly recognized myself. Actually, I didn’t even like myself for a while there. I had been sucked in by the masses who were confused and scared and turning violent.

That’s when the proverbial light bulb came on. Wait a minute, stop the presses! I’m a spiritual being having this human experience. Nothing can really hurt me, I remembered. Yes, my physical self may be subjected to changes and things that may be uncomfortable or that I didn’t like, but I’m more than that. I’m spirit! My essence is of God. No outside force can hurt that.

I’m most certain that being the spiritual man that Dr. King was, this was the message he was doing his best to convey to the masses back in 1963. It was more than civil liberties and equality in the physical world that he taught. Yes, they were important, but he knew that for those that could really hear him, the most important part of his message was to know and be your true self, where the real freedom lives. God shows its face in us all. Let that part shine through and you will know a freedom beyond freedom.