Minister’s Hot Takes

Freedom: The Gift We Give Ourselves

There is a lyric that has haunted American consciousness for generations: "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose." Kris Kristofferson wrote it. Janis Joplin made it ache. And somewhere beneath the beauty of that line lives a question we rarely ask out loud: Do we only give ourselves permission to be free when nothing is at risk?

If that is true — if freedom requires the absence of consequence — then most of us will never know it. We are embedded in relationship, in community, in care. We have things to lose. And yet something in us knows that freedom is not the same as emptiness.

If not emptiness, what?

Rev. John W. Adams

Senior Minister | CSLN