Freedom

For the last six weeks or so I have been using a prayer site called Sacred Space, run and maintained by the Irish Jesuits, to guide my meditation as my spiritual director is away on extended leave in Germany. It has been very fruitful. The meditation follows a pattern of becoming aware of the Presence, of Freedom and Conscious of God before examining and meditating on the the Gospel for the day and flowing from that mediation into prayer.

A few days ago this was the introduction to the Freedom portion, slightly different from the usual way..


Freedom
Many countries are at this moment suffering the agonies of war.
I bow my head in thanksgiving for my freedom.
I pray for all prisoners and captives.

And found myself thinking that perhaps I didn't really grasp what the Jesuits were on about. Poking about on other sites I have become more certain of my lack of understanding. I realise that I have grown up in a country that in my lifetime began with civil war, run by a one party colonial state, where freedom of speech was distinctly limited. The situation didn't improve after independence, being still a one party state with limited freedoms of association and speech. So quite possibly I do not understand freedom as someone who lives in the First World might.

So I reflect.....

Freedom.

Freedom from what?

Freedom to do what?