Nothing is Free, Part I

The search for a path through life

Photo: Yellow jelly, tree fungus, and lichen on a branch, Tallman State Park: like all of us, bound to the service of life in their own small way.

It sometimes falls to me, in my early morning sorties, to come up against the tough, unpleasant questions one ought to be asking but can’t be bothered with because the tea has to be made.

I've spent a good deal of my life listening to people at Gurdjieff meetings speak about "freedom;” and of course people talk about it in other spiritual works.

This “freedom” is an action or a state in which we supposedly free ourselves of this, or that, and become whole or pure, or whatever it is that we in our fertile imaginations think freedom consists of.

I can't recall the idea of inner or outer "freedom" being a central part of my Christian education (I’m an Episcopalian) because although (some of?) we Christians believe we are "saved" (or not, according to how fundamentalist one is), no one necessarily, as far as I know, believes that we are "free" or might become "free."