Sometimes the world upsets me, discourages me, and causes me to tremble.
Like many in Canada, I was shaken by the recent events of the “freedom convoy” that motored its way across the land headed to the capital of Ottawa with its illegal “occupation protests” and disgruntled cries for freedom! Freedom from vaccines, freedom from masks and mandates, freedom from government, freedom to do as I like, when I like. Indeed, I was shaken… shaken with incredulity, anger and fear. I was so deeply rattled, I could barely watch it all unfold on the evening news.
I have not had to bear the brunt of this pandemic: I have not experienced a loss of a job, the loss of family relationships, or more tragically, the loss of life itself. But this convoy, rife with conspiracy theorists and self-appointed spokespersons, overshadowed legitimate protest and opposition which we can expect, and respect, in a healthy democracy. I trembled with fear at how fragile our democracy felt; this surprised me. Our culture has been infected with a heavy dose of entitlement— plagued with issues about power and rights, and whether we are getting what society owes us. The common good, protecting the rights of the whole as well as the individual, can sometimes be a difficult balance to achieve, but we try; and that effort I call democracy.
It was in this emotional vortex of convoys and conspiracies that I pondered my own struggle for freedom. A passionate desire for freedom has been an inner mantra for me since my days of theological studies in the mid-1980s. Desire, Passion and Freedom was the theme of my final vows in 1988, and the words are inscribed on the inside of my profession ring. They have become an ever-evolving name for God-Trinity: Desire—Creator, Passion—Christ, and Freedom—Spirit. The words sound a deep resonance within me as I find myself struggling with strong emotions like anger, fear, and even hate in these days of “freedom convoys” and the travesty of a brutal war in the Ukraine. How can I expand and increase love when hate seems to come so easily?
I have always found attractive Jesus’ command to love your enemies; I have always wanted to be that free. I have always felt challenged by Thich Nhat Hanh’s response of “I did,” when asked the question, “Who started the Vietnam war?” But somedays I can barely let go of the little grudges and hurts I carry, let alone acknowledge that my hate feeds the war machine in the world. I am not yet free, but gratefully, the path still gleams with potential and meaning. I know it is a freedom I can only receive; it is never a self-generated achievement. I ask for the grace to journey to a deeper, truer self where I might say with St. Catherine of Genoa, “my deepest me is God!”¹ From time to time I taste this place… and it bears the sweetness of freedom.
1 Friedrich Von Hügel, as quoted in Richard Rohr, OFM, and John Feister, The Wisdom Pattern (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2001, 2020), 159.
Sandra Stewart is a member of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions in Winnipeg. Originally from Windsor, ON she has spent most of her religious life in Manitoba but has also served in France, Senegal and Papua New Guinea. She holds a Masters degree in Pastoral Studies from Loyola University in Chicago, majoring in spiritual accompaniment from the Institute for Spiritual Leadership.
Presently she serves as a spiritual director, a facilitator of Centering Prayer workshops, and an advocate for social and environmental justice.
Sandra currently serves on her community’s province leadership team in Canada.
Thank you for your post Sandy, which I found timely, honest, and insightful. Thanks for your clarity about the ways you participate in “the sin of the world”, and for pointing to some places and ways you have found deliverance.
I had not previously heard Thich Nhat Hanh’s response to the question, “Who started the Vietnam war?” That response in itself packs quite a wallop.
P.S. to above comment. I also appreciated how you made your experience accessible to us, so that I/we could reflect more deeply on how I also participate in the sin of the world, and ways I have found deliverance.
Thank you, Sandy, for shining a beacon of light on the true meaning of “freedom.” I find your reflection deeply encouraging.
Thank you Sandy, for this transparent and meaningful reflection of these past many weeks’ events. I relate to them strongly as were my own sentiments as those events unfolded and continue to unfold, that struggle with my reactions of “incredulity, anger and fear”, and awareness of my own contribution to the “war machine of this world”. I want to love my enemies, I say to myself, or do I really? and I realize that I can barely move past the theoretical to its reality!!
You captured my feeling and concerns so very well. Thanks for putting into words what I have not, even in my own mind. There was an interesting and a totally in your face example of our ‘love-have dilemma , in the recent Academy Awards, captured for the World to see on television. An actor walked on stage and slapped another presenter for comments made about the actor’s wife. Newspapers and talk-shows are rife with who was right and who was wrong in this situation. Personally, I felt the whole debacle captured where society seems to be heading these days. A place where debate or any difference of opinion, is replaced by anger and/or physical attack. This wasn’t the movies. This was today’s sad reality.
Thanks for always keeping it real Sandy. I think that’s what I appreciate about you most.
Thank you, Sandy; what a powerful articulation of the fragility of democracy. I read somewhere a description of our Western society as the ‘me, myself, I’ society; we have not yet understood fully that we share a common home with all life on this planet.
Sandy, so much of what you have written here resonates with the feelings I have been experiencing over many weeks. In your writing, I hear an invitation to reflect on my part in contributing to this disorder. Thank you for putting words to this in such an eloquent way.
Thank you Sandy. Your article made me to reflect on “freedom” and the continuous struggle to attain it.