Freedom Requiers Limitations

There's a regular at my neighborhood pub named Dave.  Dave retired last month.  I asked him how it's going.  "Ehh... I'm bored. Started canning a lot of things.  Pickles, salsa... you like hatch green chiles?"  He's bringing me some this week.  He left his job of 24 years, now has all the freedom he once dreamed of and... he's bored.  "I started getting up to take a walk at 7am just to have something to do."

 Dave is finally free.  But he's also not free.

 Freedom is not the absence of constraints - it's having the right constraints.

 You don't liberate a tree by uprooting it.  You don't free a fish by pulling it out of the water.

 I often have the thought, "If I just didn't have to do this, then I'd be free and happy."  It's not usually a conscious thought.  It's more of my posture towards my responsibilities.  If my kids just didn't need me so much... if I didn't have to work with this client... If my friends didn't throw so many parties...

 As I write this, my son is trying to climb on me.  "If only he didn't wake up so early today..." It took me a few minutes to notice the irony of that thought while writing this specific sermon.  Right now, my toddler feels like an obstacle to my freedom.  But in reality, my kids - along with all their responsibilities and commitments - are one of the biggest sources of meaning and joy in my life.  That's not despite their constraints, but because of them.

 Yes, some constraints shrivel our soul.  Maybe you should leave that job.  Maybe you need boundaries in that relationship.

 But the path to freedom is not away from all constraints, but an embrace of the helpful ones.

 Responsibilities and commitments are not an obstacle to happiness.  They are the necessary condition for joy, peace and meaning.

We need relationships, with all their compromises and commitments.
We need work.  Otherwise, we devolve into some version of the Real Housewives.  Or boredom, like Dave.
We need routine and rhythm in our days, so we can show up fully and make interesting things.
Some of us need to commit to a place.  Or a community.  Or a product, service or target market.

We find what we need to commit to so that we can do the meaningful, joyful work we are here to do.

What we are doing is giving shape to our life.  To give something shape requires embracing limits.

"Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial."

There are conditions that help us thrive.  We must honor and submit to them. But first, we must identify them.  

What are the constraints that help you become free?