Thursday, February 9, 2012

Murphy: On Liberty


Don’t get me wrong -- it’s not like I’m knocking freedom; in America, that’s like knocking apple pie.  But half the time it’s really a weasel word.

Look -- you got Free Will, no matter what.  Even if you’re in prison.  It’s a gift from God, flat out, and can’t be cancelled.   But half the time, if a guy or often a gal  starts using that word “free”, it’s cause there’s some responsibility they don’t want to live up to.  But they don’t got the guts or the decency to just say,  I’m too lazy, or, I’m too bored -- instead they run the old Freedom flag up the flagpole.

“I’ve got to be free -- I’ve got to me!”   No -- wrong; you don’t got to be you, whatever that means.   If you’re married, you got to be a good husband or a good wife, period.  If you’re in the Army, you got to be a good soldier.   If you’re in prison -- well, you gotta do your time.  Even if you’re a yegg -- you got to crack that safe and crack it fast and nice ‘n’ silent, you don’t got to express your very own special personality doing it.

Hey, free is okay -- not knocking it.  Sure beats the machines.  Only, free to do what.  You really are free -- free to kill, free to poison the well….  plain freedom doesn’t get you very far.  If this “free” is going to be anything better than getting comped on a room in Vegas, you better use it for something that matters.  Like, you marry a woman and get her with child, who you guard with your life, without question.   Or you work long late hours in a laboratory, doing what is needed, while people laugh at your pocket protector.  Or -- God forbid, but it happens -- you deploy, and face the bombs and the bullets, when they have to be faced.

Yeh, free.  Thank our God, I’m free not to be me -- not to be just plain small me-me-me-Murphy;  puling whining Murphy,  dreaming scheming  grinning sinning Murphy.  I’m free to try to be something more than that.  Free to stand with my comrades, blocking the pass; to stand for what our fathers knew is best about this country;  to stand with my bride at the altar;  to stand and then kneel, making offering of my will, before the gaze of our Savior -- kneeling, head bowed, like any serf or any slave -- the freedom to yield, and to accept amazing Grace.

I have free will and I am free.  But sometimes, our prayer must be:
Thy will, not my will, be done.

 

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