Freedom is a very complex word.
In some cases, it is a perceived state of being. One can believe they are free on perception alone, even as reality around them is much different.
In other cases, it is a changed state of external factors. Something from the past has been changed, and the new state has less encumberment.
In still more situations, it is a self efficacy, a letting go of the past and an embracing of a future that is not defined by that past. This form of freedom may be the hardest form of all.
Consider the plight of Benny.
Benny was our favorite illegal. His real name was Benito Juarez, a recognition and honor of his heritage. Though he was officially an “Amazon” parrot, we doubt if he ever ventured south of the Mexico border.
Benny lived at our home for many years, sometimes in a cage and sometimes - often most of the daylight hours of the summer - in a hedge that ran the length of the front of our home, dissected only by the sidewalk. There Benny would fend for himself, and any neighborhood cat that dared come near, for itself. Benny oinked, meowed, greeted visitors with a hello and scared the bejesus out of many a mailman and salesman.
To keep Benny fettered and in a state of limited freedom, we would take scissors and clip the feathers of his wings, beyond the skin so as to not create any physical pain or harm. With this remediation, Benny was “free,” to go wherever he could walk … or felt safe walking. He would also get hoisted to my shoulder on most days for a tour around the yard.
One of Benny’s best traits was to lull us into ineptness. As summer progressed, and days grew shorter, his wings would grow ever longer. We routinely failed to notice … until the point where he simply took off into freedom.
Benny would fly up into a tree and I would coax him back to no avail. As soon as I would climb toward him, he would take off again, this time often beyond our view. But not beyond our hearing range.
At dawn’s first light, everyone knew Benny was free again. It is hard to imagine that a bird of that size could create a sound that loud. Mom would always say, “Alfred do something,” but everyone knew that only little Stevie held the power to act. After a couple of days, Benny would have settled into a tree of choice and I would dutifully load his brown pyrex cup, the kind that had the looped handle on it, with peanut seeds and begin to climb up the chosen tree to join him.
Benny’s freedom had a big hiccup in it. He couldn’t keep from looking back. To say that one can actually see wheels turning in a bird brain might be a bit of an overreach. But it always seemed to me that the sight of me … well more specifically the sight of the peanuts … filled what limited capacity he had for processing into a tormented stew. To move forward with freedom. To return to the safety of an always served meal.
I learned to only get so close and let him make the choice. And then, never flying, only walking with beak and feet, down the tree he’d come. He’d reach out to grab a peanut, and I’d grab his feet. Benny had actually never tasted freedom because he had never stopped looking back.
The adage goes … every minute we spend on our past we steal from our future. Pretending for a moment in time and space to be free while still looking back for the security of peanuts in a pyrex cup is not freedom at all. Jesus seems to support that theory at least … leave the nets behind, let the dead bury their own, sell all you have and give it away, go and sin no more. In other words, to be a new creation, you must only look forward … which is something far easier said than done.
Right, Benny?