Pray To Be Free

The Anchoress is singing my song today, with a very nice reflection on Cardinal Kung --who spent more time in prison than Nelson Mandela, for the crime of keeping his faith. But along the way she talks about freedom and the mindset of exile, noting as I note the things we overhear or read each day that show people preparing themselves not to be free. (In this instance, she overheard someone approving cigarette taxes because "lives will be saved.")

liberty is not lost in a day. It is lost in increments and inches. Today you will not smoke in a pub - or smoke at all - even though those in charge might. Tomorrow the government will set your house temperature for you, while keeping their own set to their comfort levels. They will tell you how much money you may fairly earn, while “they” are not quite so limited. Next year your son will be forced to participate in mandatory volunteerism, and so will your mother. Soon you will be advised to abandon your hate-filled intolerant church for the approved and correct one. Someday, you may be asked to bow before someone and you will have to say “yes” and then live with yourself, or say “no” and live with those consequences. The banality of slavery…it is almost a tedious thing.

And then she has a recommendation for how one trains the mind to be free.