Freedom Means Having a Choice

From: Choosing God at inward/outward

By Gerald May

"God refuses to be an object for attachment because God desires full love, not addiction. Love born of true freedom, love free from attachment, requires that we search for a deepening awareness of God, just as God freely reaches out to us. In addition, full love for God means we must turn to God over and against other things. If our choice of God is to be made with integrity, we must first have felt other attractions and chosen, painfully, not to make them our gods. True love, then, is not only born of freedom; it is also born of difficult choice. A mature and meaningful love must say something like, ‘I have experienced other goodnesses, and they are beautiful, but it is You, my true heart’s desire, whom I choose above all.’ We have to turn away before we can come home with dignity."

Source: Addiction and Grace

I love this quote, from a wonderful book.

It makes me think of people who have a naive, or sometimes holier than thou, attitude to any type of addictive behavior. Looking down on someone because of their "weakness" in being attracted to, and unable to stop, doing things that are not good for them. If you never wanted to drink, smoke, gamble or use drugs - then you never had to make a choice - and in my opinion you are possibly very lucky - or, depending on your point of view, very unlucky because you never had the freedom to choose, and you never found the humility, wisdom and quiet strength that comes with realizing that some things are outside our control no matter how strong we like to think we are.

We are all addicts in some sense, once we go beyond the obvious addictions with their attendant social stigma - and consider our obsessions and compulsions (addictions) to things like - ideas, power, moods, fantasies, food, security, work, television, computers, finances, social status, etc. etc. etc.

It is only in facing and working towards overcoming those obsessions and compulsions that we become truly free. By recognizing that anything and everything in this world is transitory, with the exception of grace, we begin to approach that place where we can begin to discard the material worldly desires and give up, give in and let go - not in the sense of dropping out but actually tuning in, being quiet, listening and thereby being very much part of something beyond this place and time.

There's a saying that addicts can't meditate. It's an interesting check of our own addictive behaviors to see how we do when we first remove all external distractions and secondly work towards quieting the endless loop of chatter in our minds. It's not at all easy to do the first, and the second is the goal of people on spiritual paths that last a lifetime.

Paradoxically, by accepting that we are not as powerful as our pride leads us to think we are, leads to a quiet strength, peace and the ability to transcend our human nature.

There aren't any answers here - it's not a destination it's a journey, you don't need step by step instructions - but you do need a compass and some wise teachers to point you in the right direction every so often.

I'm a long way from the place I wish to be, I try to do the right things and often fail...but I pray that I'm headed in the right direction.

______________________________

Here's another quote from the book Addiction and Grace by Gerald May that I hope is uplifting for those of us who try and fail. He is writing about two things addiction and grace can teach us -

"First, although God calls us toward more perfect life, we cannot personally achieve the state of perfection. We can and should do our very best to move in that direction, struggling with every resource we have, but we must accept the reality of our incompleteness. Second, we need to recognize that the incompleteness within us, our personal insufficiency, does not make us unacceptable in God's eyes. Far from it; our incompleteness is the empty side of our longing for God and for love. It is what draws us toward God and one another. If we do not fill our minds with guilt and self-recriminations, we will recognize our incompleteness as a kind of spaciousness into which we can welcome the flow of grace. We can think of inadequacies as terrible defects, if we want, and hate ourselves. but we can also think affirmatively, as doorways through which the power of grace can enter our lives. Then we may begin to appreciate our inherent, God-given lovableness."