Seizing Freedom

Philadelphia is full of freedom messages and art. 

My camera worked overtime during our visit,

trying to capture all I saw.  

How do we celebrate freedom and live out our rights to be free?  What are the words we live by?  Do we exchange one freedom for another?  How is it that we continue to enslave ourselves in one way or another - whether through our though processes or standards or beliefs?

"...I was not alone. 

There were many others who felt the same way."

This resounds.



And what is the experience of American freedom as compared to any other "kind" of freedom?  What is the attraction of freedom in the U.S. as compared to freedom elsewhere?  Does freedom exist in more potency here?  What is it like to live in a country, for example, that does not allow religious freedom or freedom of speech?  What is it like to live in a place that does not allow women to read great literature classics?

"...freedom is a personal and lonely battle..."

Is this because only we know what we have set out to free ourselves from?  Is this because, even though the laws of our land dictate freedom, we continue to set up invisible laws of our own that we beat ourselves up over for not abiding?

How can I use my freedom

to ensure that others are free and remain free?

No one knows for sure how, when, or why the Liberty Bell got its crack.  I imagine it has to do with the force with which it was ringing.  Ring them bells; they rung it - loud and clear.

It can only follow then, can't it, that as I continue ringing for freedom,

striving to seize it,

something is going to crack in me?