challenge.

Perception. It is a funny thing.

When we meet others what do we see? What do we know? What do we hold to be true?

I look at those surrounding me in this particular part of my life and wonder if this is who they truly are.. If this wealth and influence is where they are happiest. Truly happy. If they lay at home in bed and breathe a deep breath of joy for the oxygen they feel lift their lungs up and down. Apologies for sounding cynical.. but I get so frustrated with everyone around me accepting everything. Accepting what their parents teach them. What society tells them. Do they think for themselves?

Kant explains it well.. "it is so easy not to be of age. If I have a book which understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a physician who decides my diet, and so forth, I need not trouble myself. I need not think, if I can only pay - others will readily undertake the irksome work for me."

Does this not send an uncomfortable shiver of difficulty through your body? If only I have money then I need not think for myself. And the most miserable part of it is.. it's true.

In this southern culture I was raised in there are a few things everyone has in common. Christianity, racism, and a distrust for anything that they have not been raised to believe is true. Of course this is a huge assumption but most of the deep southerners I have met fulfill all three requirements.

Why do we accept anything and everything we are told? And more importantly, why are those that are feeding us these ideas not encouraging us to challenge it? If they were truly confident in their own beliefs, they would believe that nothing could disprove them. But instead, they lack the confidence, likely because they don't really know why they believe in it, and they pass the falsehood down.. onto new generations, more generations of people that know nothing. Believe nothing. They have no faith.. because they do not know what they have put their faith in. I firmly believe this is why being a "christian" and racism, etc are so prevalent in our southern culture. If our forefathers encouraged us to challenge racism these people would see how ignorant it is.. and if they encouraged us to challenge the type of christianity they promote.. maybe people would see that legalism and the comfort (or discomfort) of their laws do not match up with the grace that jesus preached.

I did not come to believe in jesus because of my parents or because of the society I was raised in. I challenged it all. And that is when it became my own. Even if our parents are great people that have always tried their best to guide us in truth, we should always challenge. When we do not challenge.. that is where doubt enters. For if we had truly challenged something.. picked it apart, argued with it to the core.. then we would have no doubt. We would either disown the idea or take it to be truth, defending it to the death, because we would truly believe in it.

This is where I began to come into freedom. And this is why the concept is so intrinsically beautiful to me.. all that I believe.. is mine. I believe it. Because I have lived separate from it. I have become my own person. Apart from how I was raised and from those around me. Every part of who I am wants to be my own person. I don't need people to help me see who I am. I love people and seeing who they are.. but that isn't who I am.. that is simply experiencing and learning from others. I constantly tell people not to take what I say to be truth. Who gives me that authority in their lives? I don't want that authority. I only want to share life.. share experiences. And if something I speak rings truth to them.. then great. If not.. then great. It does not change who I am or who they are. It only changes the depth of our relationship.

And maybe I'm wrong.. maybe some people need this freedom that I see in challenging something.. and maybe others experience freedom in accepting everything. So often we want others to be something, someone.. but we rarely want another human being for who they are.. flaws and all.

I am guilty of this.

I want others to want the freedom and truth that I desire. But for some.. their freedom looks different than mine. And maybe another facet to freedom is the acceptance of this truth. That others may simply be free in what I see to be a cage.. like money and wealth. Others may be free in a room with no windows.. with structure and obligations. This is not how I perceive it but who am I to discount another's perception of the beauty that freedom is? Some need rules.. others don't. Freedom may be grasped differently in each individual. Some need conformity. Some need others to follow. Some need someone else to tell them what to think.. feel.. believe. Others rebel.. need freedom in a radical sense. Need freedom without barricades. Need to travel. sense. see. smell. Feel the freedom. Experience it. This is me. This is how I see freedom. The truth of freedom whispers peace over my heart as I sleep and swims in the air that surrounds me as I examine the breath that enters into my lungs. I want to grasp it with every part of my being. I need it. And I'll spend the rest of my life chasing it.