As we take a day to be thankful for our freedom, I wonder: do we really know what being free means? A lot of us take it to be, in the words of Henry Higgins, being able to live exactly as we like and do precisely what we want.
Is that all there is? No world, no country, no city, no family, no soul was saved with that kind of freedom. It's not far from being a slave to passion. No one seriously thinks giving a child "freedom" to do everything he wants would be in the child's best interests, so why do we think it is in our best interest to have no outside influences on our behavior, no one educating us?
That being said, so often the "righteous" are not interested in educating their brothers as much as judging them, making them understand just who knows what's going on, making them understand who's a sheep and who's a goat. But that's backwards. Far healthier to, when faced with the unknowable of our neighbor's heart, to look for the sheep in him, and to look for the goat in ourselves. We are to have salt in ourselves and be at peace with each other. Or, to put it another way, maybe the speckled-eyed man we least expect it is able to help us remove the plank from our eye. And then, when our sight is clear and we breathe the fresh air of truth and beauty and love, only then shall we truly be free.
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