“Am I Totally Free?”

Am I totally free? This question really resonates inside my mind.

At the age of eight I was aware of my family background. My father was a farmer and my mother was formerly a housewife. We are also sharecroppers. Seeing my family and the root of it, it driven me to dream of making a difference. To become rich. I want to get my family out from dirty, dusty and messy job as we inherited from our ancestors back then. In school I was in jealous with my classmates who has everything (i.e. new shoes, bags, uniforms and plenty of money). In fact, when I was in 5^th grader I dreamt of becoming an engineer. I wished of having rich family.

In High School I separated from my family because I had in mind that “my family is struggling spending the rest of my brothers and sisters in school how much more if I am already in high school year”? Poverty drove me to dream of richness in life, because I believe in old adage “Poverty is not a hindrance to success”. That is why I wrestled with poverty just to get what I wanted. But from there later I realized that “Oh I am now enslave with my dream of richness”. I studied because I want to be somebody in the crowd. I did not yet look at the other side of the coin. Looking back my life before, I realized that I was never, never free at all. Yes, I was free to dream and demanding myself to strive hard yet I did not get what I’d wanted. I was free to dream but only in dreaming, nothing is for real. It never happen to my life.  

I entered in the Seminary last June 2010. I can’t recall the very significant incidence the reason why I entered there, because there were too many of them. No wonder, my life was being boxed with that kind of formation. That’s how I exaggerated it. Full of rules and regulations and demands. For instance, you need to excel in academics, pastoral chores and many more. Basically my life was being fixed for what the formation needed.

When I got my 3^rd year in the seminary I encountered the very famous man in the Church named St. Augustine of Hippo. It is from him he started the ball rolling about the issue of freedom. Freedom may started from Ancient Philosophy but not tackled seriously. But in the modern time freedom started to float.

When I almost finished my college formation I was thinking that “Oh I have now the freedom to do things which I never ever experience before”!  I was so excited to find job outside because I felt that what kind of path I had chosen was never apt my lifestyle. Woe to me! I was just making my own judgments.  When the year was about to end, when everything was being set already (i.e. my toga, fully paid accounts) everything was turned into 180◦. My mind was changed. Everything was sheered and crystalized. One of the reasons why I planned to stop was “No one can support me in my theology formation”. But God was so gracious, He planned everything in my life. He makes my path clear. In this sense, do I have to say I am not free? No, no need to say that I wasn’t free at all. In fact, I can still deny and say no to the one who promised me to handle everything in my formation.

Let us now turn into the freedom of man as the mean theme of my reflection. And let us salvage some thoughts of Augustine when he says “true freedom was achieved only through a long process by which the knowledge and will of an individual are healed by the grace of God (gratia Dei, in Latin)”. Isn’t it hard to achieve? We can present varieties of ideas here. In fact we can also inject examples in order to support and discuss this thesis. We know for a fact that our freedom or believe it or not, a gift from the Lord. “Hello world” is the first sentence we found in the book of “The hope for the Flower” merely saying “I am free”. When the moment we were born freedom is at hand. But what was St. Augustine meant?

In my own perspective, freedom is achieve when human mind and heart are in one track. Meaning they agree each other. Plotinus then said, “The attraction of our body is towards matter or material things while the attraction of our soul is ultimately towards God”. Now this issue becomes complicated. How the man now becomes free? He even said, if I paraphrase it “It is the body that we become evil” and evil makes us unfree. Yes literally we are free but we are still accountable of our deeds. Man’s nature is always towards good. I for instance studying here in this seminary. We know that this seminary is promoting what we called “Responsible freedom” a freedom which is you are responsible. It doesn’t mean freedom which is freedom of everything.

Few weeks after I came here, I was faithful in following activities especially religious routines. Two or three months after I became easy go lucky. Most often I did not attend mass, I had absences. I don’t mind when the bell rung and just go back to bed and continue my beautiful dream. I did it because I love to sleep. I am conscious of what I was doing and even my conscience bothered me. I was thinking that, I did it because anyway I am free, no one will force me to attend the mass. Unlike in college life, you cannot escape because everything is in surveillance. We even had cameras in the corner. Everybody is noticeable because we are in dorm. Unlike here, we have our own room privately and no one will scrutinize who is not present in the mass. I can do what I want except girls or having girlfriend. Later on I realized, “oh this can affects my vocation”. Though my formators will not notice my actions but in the end I will be the one who will reap what I sow.  What kind of priest am I in the future if I will not tame this attitude? I don’t know why I was able to survive in my college life.

In my case, inside of me was in tag of war. My soul keeps on forcing me to stand and attend the holy mass but my body also was demanding to stay at my bed and have a good sleep. And sometimes my soul always wins the battle. If I try to answer my question “Am I totally free?” then I would say no, not at all, because I have my body and I am my body. I have my soul and I have my body too.

Responsible freedom is good, but it doesn’t mean that we are not responsible of what we are doing. The “ends justify the means”, as Niccolò Machiavelli says. What kind of result out from our action, justifies our freedom. We are free if the result is towards goodness.