It’s curious how sometimes a relatively familiar thing suddenly catches your eye and all of a sudden you see it in a new light.
I was praying the Divine Office, when a concluding Morning prayer struck me like that:
God of power and mercy.
Protect us from all harm.
Give us freedom of spirit
and health in mind and body
to do your work on earth.
Of course, I would ask for health of mind and body to work for God—but to ask for freedom of spirit…? (Were I Hamlet, I might say, “there’s the rub!”)
To work for God usually involves obeying the commandments, following the laws of the Church, and “doing what you’re told.”
“Freedom of spirit,” that’s skating on thin ice. It implies that you might be going against tradition to work for God—at least in the sense that you become convinced that God is pushing or pulling you in a new direction!
“Freedom of spirit” implies that you are seeking to be open to the action of God in your life, no matter how strange or innovative it may be for you.
To exercise freedom of spirit suggests that you are open to new possibilities, that you are not afraid to be a trail blazer, that you may decide to go “where no one has gone before”.
Of course, this can be a recipe for disaster, too! We can mistake our desires for God’s action and will! We may be courageously stupid!
But, isn’t that what freedom of spirit implies? We don’t always get things right, especially at first.
We learn by doing! We learn by trial and error. We learn by experimenting and experiencing.
From one point of view the Sacred Scriptures, the collection of writings that we call the Bible, are a record of our collective learning experiences over the long past centuries, a record of successes and failures.
A God-given freedom of spirit includes freedom to make mistakes, to better understand the will of God, to stumble and bumble to get things right.
From the point of view of keepers of records, of curators of museums, of defenders of the past, it may seem an invitation to chaos.
A God-given freedom of spirit includes both the courage to risk innovating and the courage to risk failure—in other words, the courage to learn new things.
The great prophets of the Bible innovated and often paid a steep price for their innovations. Jesus’s teachings were not always fully understood nor accepted.
It’s curious, when it comes to scientific research and development, we unhesitatingly applaud the great (and successful) experimenters.
But, when it comes to religion and belief, it’s the opposite; we hesitate to applaud experimenters.
Doing the work of God absolutely may include experimenting, trial and error, and mistakes and successes. But, all this is part of the plan of God for human life.
Progress is not possible without freedom of spirit as well as health in mind and body. And, freedom of spirit is not without failures as well as with successes.
But, beware blithe spirits. Remember, before asking God for freedom of spirit and health in mind and body, we pray to be protected from all harm!
1 January 2023