"FREE" WILL

Let's take a look at the subject of free will. To quote my favorite author of the 20th century, C.S. Lewis, "God gave us free will in order that we might love. Without the choice to love, we are merely robots. Love that is commanded or executed by some higher force is no love at all." Who can dispute this argument? I certainly can not. Love, by its nature, involves placing the object of the love above oneself. That is difficult for most, impossible for some. But beyond the implications that free will has towards the subject of love, what about its general purpose and use? Is Free Will really free? I propose that it is not. Free will is an illusion, for every choice that we make has consequence. We are free to make choices of our own volition and will, yes. However, those choices always affect the lives of others, for no man is an island (to quote another famous author).

For example, suppose that I choose to exert my free will in drinking alcohol. I choose to imbibe regular copious amounts of it until I am entrenched in the habit of becoming intoxicated. Is there anything to stop me from doing so? No, for I have free will. However, the consequence of these actions to my family, friends, and even total strangers might be quite dire. My health would surely deteriorate, my judgement become clouded, my motivation lax, and my motor skills slowed. The repercussions of my drunkeness would continue into the far reaches of my life like circles on the water into which a pebble has been thrown. My "free will" therefore, is not free at all, for it is inherently tied to the lives of others. If we love others, then we consider them before ourselves. Therefore, my will must be bent toward what is best for those that I love.

This is the crux of the argument, the bending of the will. Truly the only choice that we actually have is in what direction to bend it, correct? We might choose to bend our will toward selfishness, toward obsession, toward work, toward intellect, toward the approval of others, or toward God. The latter is the only appropriate choice, since only God's will is superior to our own. If we consciously choose to bend our will toward God's, using the freedom that we have to choose what is best and most right according to our conscience, then we have directed our choices in the most altruistic manner possible. Only in this scenario is the free will used to influence others in good ways instead of bad.

The exercising of the will is likened to any other form of exercise - it must be enacted over and over again in order to be in good shape, as we call it. Our will is accustomed to fighting, to having its way, to satisfying and gratifying the desires of the flesh. The more we bend it toward the will of God, the more it is accustomed to doing so. The more we bend it toward the needs of self, the more it is accustomed to doing so. The muscle of the "free" will is exercised any time we make choices that are of import to the lives of others.

I submit that the choices detailed above are the most crucially important in any human life. Which way will your will bend?

Is Anyone truly Surrendered?

The White Flag

Surrender comes in many colors
Like the blue of fallen dreams
Bordered ‘round the hazy yellows
Where illusion used to be
In solid purple ‘gainst the gold
That was control’s majestic beat
Marching next to independence,
Red and brazen inside me.

Behold the grayness under choices
Fitting pieces perfectly
‘Til over blackness there’s a portrait
Dressed in humble subtlety
And waiting for the narrow brush
To detail where the white should be
A banner waving dawn to dusk
Proclaiming what we know as free.


KDC 7/08

Ever Wonder?

THE MEANING

What does it mean for the heart to open,
When memory’s flood reappears,
Where does it take us to places forgotten,
And how can we see it all clear?

Whenever we look straight into the sunlight
It’s blinding to one who is not prepared
But when we are ready to see what it shines on
True lessons are learned from what’s there.

Relationships past and long since unbidden
Are coming to mind and exposed in the heart
Teaching me why I was there in the first place
And truths they were meant to impart.

The spirits of people I loved in this lifetime
Will always remain close at hand
And recalling their laughter, their touch,
Or their eyes brings back what we couldn’t have planned.

What does it mean to love one another
The way that the Lord has loved us?
Isn’t there surely a permanent marker
On souls that have empathized much?

I praise the artist in heaven above
For finally drawing my heart
Out of its shelter that served as a prison
And kept us all trapped in the dark.