After completing this posting, my years of chaplaincy with inmates came to mind. I was a chaplain for six years in corrections, first jail, then state prison. After about a decade, I again offer spiritual guidance as a part of inmate rehabilitation.
I have witnessed over these years how inmates get habituated to the 'inside.' Most keep returning, forgetting how to live 'outside.' They may deny it but prefer being in a cell to being on the outside. This is not to say they like incarceration, they may detest it. Habituation is not about liking or not liking.
We can be the same - trapped in the life we are habituated to, fleeing at any chance for escape, or fleeing back to our unnatural habitat upon trying a new way of life. We may not like the same-old cage, but we know it and feel secure there. We have friends there. Our family may be there. We are familiar with the terrain and feel safe walking about there, even if it leaves us with bloodied feet.
Life is not meant to be lived where feeling safe is prioritized over adventure, exploration, and experimentation. Most humans touting their freedom are not as free as they think - possibly, we none are.
When we enter a spiritual path, we are thrown up against our fear of the spacious Sky. Hence, a value of meditation is to sit in silence, becoming more comfortable with freedom from captivity to habitual thought, feeling, and action. And part of this freedom is freedom from the compulsion to act, from the necessity to do something to prove self-worth. Yet, to enter this freedom, we must be honest about how we flee back into captivity again and again.
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Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.
*Galatians 5.1, Christian Scriptures (MSG)
Note: The writer is encouraging early Jesus followers to embrace the life of freedom from religious legalism - this legalism below I call 'prescriptive righteousness' - being urged upon them. This newfound freedom from religious law is the main factor in the split in the 70s CE between Judaism and the Way - or Jesus' followers. Before the break, the Jesus community was considered a sect of Judaism. Sadly, much, if not most, of the institutional church has sought to keep Jesus in its own tribal captivity, denying his life and message of liberation by claiming Jesus for itself, a Christian savior, which Jesus never expressed a wish to be, and turning its Bible into a rule-book for unquestioning compliance.
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When I was in my hyper-religious phase decades ago, I was too precise in living. This mindset arose from being raised in religious fundamentalism. Buddhists would say I was 'too sharp' or 'too excellent.' With such a lifestyle, one assumes a fakeness, demonstrates a lack of humbleness in trying to be and appear humble. Life was too much about should and should not. Self-righteousness, then, is inevitable. Living up, or thinking one does, to such rigidity leads to ego inflation, even if called holy, righteous, or enlightened.
This self-righteousness can be an egoic escape in any spiritual path; for example, one can be as prone to self-righteousness in Buddhism as in Christianity. Foremost, it is not a religious matter but a tendency of the ego cut off from alignment with its Source. For example, is there not a lot of egoic inflation in politics? No domain of life is cut off from this facade of freedom often parading as free.
This religiosity - too sharp, too excellent - has been called 'prescriptive righteousness' in the Christian tradition. While prescriptive teaching has been integral to most Christian teaching, Jesus' wisdom, taught by word and life, points us in another direction, and it is to Good News (Gospel). Freedom.
For example, the Jesus saying,"The wind blows where it wills. You hear its sound. But you don't know where it comes from, and you don't know where it's going. So is everyone born of Spirit (Greek pneuma, Hebrew ruach, 'wind, breath, spirit')" (Gospel of John 3.8). Why would we be surprised by the authoritarianism in much evangelical Christianity and present politics that appeal to religious extremism, when much religion has relied on teaching that presents its deity, church-as-institution, and leadership as authoritarian?
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We could imagine a different god. What about a god that is more like Nature, like the wind? A god who says, "I'll not tell you what to do; discover it for yourself. And I'll discover with you." And, "I'll not get all upset when you fail, but I'll celebrate you tried. Just keep it real."
Is it not a wise indicator that Jesus gave the Beatitudes, recorded in the Gospel of Matthew and Luke, on a hill rather than reaffirming compliance with the Ten Commandments that Moses is said to have received on a mountain? Did not Jesus show us love and compassion is priority, not keeping the rules, not getting it right? That is, Jesus did not see life as a matter of keeping the rules. Principles and wisdom teaching are not rules. Legalism is deadening. Living wisdom is life-affirming, enlivening.
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If we keep growing spiritually, spontaneity increases, and we adjust to it. We learn to live on a different terrain than ought and should, ought not and should not. A part of us may wish to flee back into the felt safety of living inside authoritarianism and mindlessly following supposedly enlightened, infallible guides - as in, unquestioning obedience to a holy book, institution, or person. We, then, are like someone running for a hideaway from the wind or clinging to a tree not to be blown onward elsewhere. Freedom is found in the being blown elsewhere. So, we can stiffen up or open and sail on the Wind-Breathe-Spirit like a kite or bird in flight.
Responsible freedom is our nature, not responsible compliance. The more we shift into this loving-liberty, the more we are who we are. We can call this True Self, Self, Buddha Nature, ... False Self is acting apart from Spirit, denying our heart, even when doing the right thing. We can do the right things and still be enmeshed in prescriptive religion or legalistic spirituality.
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Below is a poem expressing my musing on freedom from a time in silent retreat. Based on your spiritual worldview, I hope it will aid in your contemplation on spiritual freedom - I write 'spiritual freedom,' but any freedom is spiritual. I mention 'Christ,' but that is meant to be much more than a church or Christian person or image. Christ points to a universal Presence; you may have a different image to communicate the same Truth.
Moving from 'should' is essential for you For your life to be lived freely, gladfully You've earned it You've walked 'correctly' Now dance outside the lines Listen to your heart Relish the freedom Open all windows Let the wind blow through You feared this, were told not possible for anyone - you - Your 'god,' so they said, forbad it (But is not freedom in Christ?) Leaves play on a branch Twirling until they fall You too Sway with all Until the wind blows you off (You don't need to know where to) And pray when you die death will be the dance too
*Brian K. Wilcox. "Dancing Outside the Lines." Ferry Beach, Maine. 1.18.22 PM
*Use of photography is allowed accompanied by credit given to Brian K. Wilcox and title and place of photograph.
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.
