The theme of “liberation” has been a rich one for me. From the pulpit it allowed me to speak about Islam and finding of freedom through obedience. It also opened again the conversation about the importance of practice and the possibility of discovering “self” in community. Perhaps “self in community” is the only self of substance.
Is our goal liberation into a disconnected freedom? Does the language of liberation call us to a freedom that is isolated and isolating? Or is the liberation we most seek deeply connected and profoundly accountable?
I remember that the great movements toward liberation were all collective efforts: the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and here in the US, the Stonewall rebellion, even the organizing for women’s suffrage…on behalf of classes of people and communities. Even the “me-too” movement, though powerfully given voice in the stories of particular women, speaks to a culture that condones violence against all women.
Collective liberation: Our selves and our freedom shaped and given meaning by our connections and our shared identities.
Or liberation as freedom not only from bondage but from bonds, absence of connection.
Mark Doty speaks to this tension in a short book of essays inspired by a 17th century Dutch painting, “Still Life with Oysters and Lemon.”
“…what we want is to be brought into relation, to be inside, within. Perhaps it is true that nothing matters more to us than that.
But then why resist intimacy, why seem to flee it? A powerful counterculture pulls against our drive toward connection; we also desire individuation, separateness, freedom. On one side of the balance is the need for home, for the deep solid roots of place and belonging; on the other is the desire for travel and motion, for the single separate spark of the self freely moving forward, out into time, into the great absorbing stream of the world.”
Doty describes the tension as “a fierce internal debate, between staying moored and drifting away, between holding on and letting go. Perhaps wisdom lies in our ability to negotiate between these two poles. Necessary to us, both of them—“
What role does gender play? Are male identified persons more resistant, more fearful of intimacy, of connection? Some psychology and considerable social science would say yes.
But culture is much involved as well. I am certain of that. Even as I write, I hear my own ancestors reminding me of a culture where connection is the norm and isolation is what is feared.
A fierce internal debate: Messy. Inelegant. Imprecise.
From Doty again: “ The most beautiful still lifes are never pristine, and herein lines one of their secrets. The lemon has been half-peeled, the wine tasted, the bread broken; the oysters have been shucked, part of this great wheel of cheese cut away…These objects are in use, in dialogue, a part of, implicated. They refuse perfection, or rather they assert that this is perfection, this state of being consumed, used up. enjoyed, existing in time.”
Doty argues that even the static image of the still life is an invitation to know life as a work in process.
“On one side of the balance is the need for home, for the deep solid roots of place and belonging; on the other is the desire for travel and motion, for the single separate spark of the self freely moving forward, out into time, into the great absorbing stream of the world.”
Perhaps the resolution of this tensions is not the goal. Perhaps the Beloved Community should never have been understood as a final destination, a conclusion, a benediction. Perhaps what we need most is to appreciate the messy and inelegant negotiation between the two as the outcome…the doing, the consuming, the engagement…perhaps finding life in the tension is the goal and finding joy in that process is the point.
Perhaps the goal of liberation is not a still life.
Next month our theme is commitment. With another sermon waiting to be preached.
Blessings,
Bill