Are We Free?

Mara Lpez Vigil

We are not free to choose who conceives us, from whom we are born, who are our father and mother, brothers and sisters, whose genes we inherit and in what combination; indeed random chance marks us from our face to our soul. In the roulette wheel of life we are not free to select all that we inherit. However we are indeed free to decide what we will do, which personality we will develop out of our unique and unrepeatable set of genes with their possibilities and limitations, their advantages and disadvantages, their potentialities, possibilities and limits. We are not free to choose the gender that we are born with: girls or boys, male or female, with whichever sexual orientation. However we are indeed free to learn and decide how to live and enjoy our sexuality, always as an expression of love and communication, never as an expression of power and violence. We are not free to choose the color of our skin. However we are indeed free not to despise it or not to envy someone of another skin color. We are also free to respect, value and celebrate all skin colors. We are not free to choose the language with which we learn to speak, the words and nuances with which we name things. However we are indeed free to choose what words we will speak in this language, to whom we will speak them and why we say them. Socialized and humanized by language, with the power of words we can oppress or free, teach or dumb down; we can hurt or heal, create and change or repeat and repeat. We can beautify the world or make it ugly. We can also learn other languages and in their words discover many other accents that other people use to name the things of this world. We are not free to choose the religion in which we are raised, because all religions are expressions of the country, culture and people or family into which we were born. All are different paths to pursue the Ultimate Reality. All have shortcuts to nowhere and winding roads with beautiful landscapes.
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Managua, Nicaragua Translation by John Converset, MCCJ

However we are indeed free to accept or reject the beliefs, dogmas, practices, rites, mediators and religious authorities of the religion that we learned. And free to examine these traditions, rethink them and decide if they nurture us and give meaning, joy and freedom, or whether on the contrary they are the bars of an ideological prison in which faults, fears and repression abound, a prison from which we are free to escape. We are not free to choose to be born in poverty or riches, with security or scarcity. However we are indeed free to choose whether or not we will share what we have, whether or not we will risk taking part in the struggle to make the world in which we live less unequal, whether we live mulling over the injustices of the world or whether we help change them. We are not free to choose the country in which we were born. However we are indeed free to choose another country in which to live, work, struggle and even to die. And in this adopted country we are also free to help live with dignity those who arrive at the same port not by free choice but forced by unemployment, hunger, war or violence. We are not free not to feel fright, fear or even panic, due to the processes that the wise law of evolution has indelibly written into our psyche to guarantee our survival. However we are indeed free to gain mastery of our fear, to acknowledge it without shame when we feel it and to accompany our brothers and sisters in their fears until they are able to transcend them. We are not free to choose the epoch in which it is our destiny to live, nor to establish how we will be remembered However we are indeed free to struggle for justice throughout our years, with their uncertainties, challenges and hopes. In fact we are free to put our whole heart into this struggle. After our time they will remember us for the fire that we kindled in this struggle. q