Let me give you a thought that I think is true. The essential nature of religions, politics, and governments is not seen in how they started. They frequently become the very thing they sought to change. The forces, constraints, and imperatives which cause this ossification are labeled Conservative, Republican, Democrat, Communist and Liberal, or, for that matter, Christian and Muslim. Labels, many, many, Labels. Walls, many, many Walls.

But, please, do not immediately nod your head and assume I am talking just about political parties and known religions. They do participate in the process, but I am talking about root differences in our personalities. There are many nuances, but the two basic binary positions are those tentative, timid, and deceived souls who are afraid to live with out walls, and, on the other extreme those who seek to destroy walls. I can not claim authority or final knowledge about Jesus or any of the other great Religious Leaders, nor, for that matter, Political Leaders, but all of them seem to share one common ground: they started with attempts to destroy existing walls.

Sadly, they, or if not they, then their followers built new walls. Over time all ideologies build tenants about which they become conservative, and, all Conservatives need walls. This position is an agoraphobia of the soul. Without limits, restraints, and walls they become both the inmates and the guards in the prison which they call “Freedom”, but it IS NOT! Such Orwellian double think is a lie, and while the title “Liberal” can also be wrongly assigned, my basic definition of the essence of Liberty (from which the name, “Liberal”) is the absence of physical, governmental or religious walls.

Gigantic and Fearsome prisons have evolved from and are named after the Rebels who strove to set people free. But the dream is twisted and soiled by the timid. Freedom demands a lack of walls, a suspicion of leaders, and within... the hearts and souls of explorers.

If we refuse to allow the departure of our children, we put them into prison, no matter how soft and how padded the cell.

© Jim Lyle 15 Jan 04