Trekking Freedom’s Terrain: Angry at the Tainting and Enrolled in the Course Called Love
Some time ago, I sighted Freedom. Albeit in the distance, I could see it clearly through near-sighted vision. Even without my glasses. In my mind, I relished in the many possibilities of it.
It was beautiful.
Recognizing freedom gave voice to a lengthy longing for liberty that had not previously been clearly defined. Recognizing it brought forth hallelujahs for the free range it would deposit under my feet. I simply knew that should freedom materialize, I would mine that deposit, intensely, without any negative side effects on others or environment.
But freedom, as elusive as freedom is, erupted and brought me back to embracing the life set immediately before me. Don’t get me wrong. I had not been seeking an escape from my current existence. I loved it. I treasured it. I still do.
Life’s been a difficult journey filled with overcoming, discovery, metamorphosis, motherhood, and madness… Chuckles. Sometimes, we all feel like we’re losing it, don’t we?
I’ve been in love with all these elements of life though, and I would not have had them had it not been for sweet difficulty. Difficulty has been my teacher and I’m thankful I’ve been schooled by her.
I sighted Freedom when new difficulty came my way through another human being. Why is it that most if not all of our greatest difficulties in life come from other people? Not earthquakes, not hurricanes, not calamity?
Iron sharpens iron?
I bore the beatings and lashings that were doled out with calm, and grace, and some silent tears that only my pillows and God and I knew.
And my students too.
Without knowing it, my beautiful students loved me fiercely during this season. Every morning, in their usual fashion, they would enter our classroom, pause at the front of the room to deposit their homework in the bin, and run to embrace me. Sometimes though, they would stop and peer at me, perceiving sadness that few others could see beneath the joy that I felt in their presence. At times, they would embrace, comfort, and speak life into me. “Don’t worry.” They would say. “Don’t be sad today. Everything will be okay.” Or, “Are you sad today? Don’t be. We love you. Like you say, we are our own family.”
I’ve asked my students, “How can you tell when I’m sad?” They’ve explained that they can see my heart through my face and they just know. One day, a student ran into the classroom, dropping bag and lunch along the way, grabbed my midsection and started to weep. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Do you want to talk?” A shaking head accompanied the following words: “You just need a hug right now. I can see your sadness. This is to make you happy.”
Instantly, my tears began their own cascade.
I’d seen the student travel through familial and other grief. I also knew my student’s needs and initially, I thought the student was re-encountering personal experiences. But really, personal difficulty and grief had given my student sight and fueled a sensitivity and compassion that met me in my time of need. I gently unlocked my student’s arms, acknowledged my sadness saying it would soon pass, and encouraged the student for the gifts of discernment and compassion the student clearly possessed. Then I made sure to let everyone know, individually and collectively, how much I appreciated and loved them.
With our morning and worlds righted, my students and I then had an amazing learning day. Even as difficulty hovered, and freedom called.
As I mentally prepared for Difficulty’s exit, I could see Freedom looming larger and larger in the not too far distance. I’m not one to run from things. But I’ve been journeying my entire life — blazing trails, doing, serving, changing, becoming, being, and taking my trek in stride. I’ve been running towards tomorrows while learning to treasure the todays. Today though, I wanted to run towards liberty’s calls.
Somewhere in the weeks that Difficulty tormented, my trek had put back on its hiking boots and had laced them up again. During the same time, consciousness had begun mapping out alternate paths on Freedom’s new and beckoning trails. Eventually, it became clear that I had been walking in those hiking boots for a very long time; being loved and carried by them.
I recognized I had been cultivating freedom for as long as I could remember. Freedom for myself, my mom, my sister, my dad, my sons, my students, others, and in my relationships with them.
We all deserve freedom. We all have a right to it.
Then the intervention came. Intervention would change Difficulty’s course and that would ultimately change mine.
In the aftermath of intervention, I felt angry. Cheated. I examined who was I angry with? The difficulty-causing other? Myself? Destiny? What? I knew I was not angry with the interventionist. The interventionist had done a wonderful thing and helped calm the raging tempest that Difficulty was. In those turbulent weeks, I had not even been angry. I had simply been grieving. I had been grieving with and for Other’s personal storms and suffering. I had also been struggling to be strong enough to batter the accompanying thundering and torments Other sent my way.
I realized too that I was angry at the tainting of freedom already cultivated, and the polluting of freedom’s trail upon which I currently stood in those laced-up and worn hiking boots.
In conformity to my nature, I closed the door to Freedom’s beckoning and re-adjusted my focus on the one who needed me there and then. As my students love selflessly, so too do I love — try to love.
Love always calls for patience, forgiveness, and sacrifice, doesn’t it?
So, I’m here. Weathered, different, present and still enrolled in that course called Love. And Freedom’s next leg actually has not been lost at all. It’s here, right now, humming that sweet sound of running water skipping over rocks as it makes its trek through hills and valleys and treacherous terrain.
And my hiking boots?
Well…
They’re on, laced up and still trekking Freedom’s Terrain.
