Inner Freedom #1

It is my continuing pleasure to share with you some thoughts and ponderings from other Companions from our Selah community.  This month’s reflection comes from Troy Fenlason.  Troy has written a few thoughts on our topic of “inner freedom” and I would like to share them with you in smaller bite-sizes leaving us plenty of room to ponder and reflect.  Today’s in the first of four parts.  Thanks for sharing these thoughts with us Troy!

As a dispersed community of contemplative companions, we share a common set of values and commitments as we live into the way of Jesus through this common purpose:  To invite all people to pause and to nurture contemplative experiences with Jesus, leading to inner freedom and loving service.

Question:  What stirs in you as you hear “inner freedom”?

I can feel the longing and the power of the words inner-freedom.  Something resonates within me.  But it is frustrating to realize that every attempt to describe it leads me almost exclusively to what it is not.  It is much easier for me to express freedom as ‘freedom-from’ but I am troubled by my lack of capacity to express freedom as ‘freedom-to’.  I wonder if I am frustrated because I can’t find the words to describe the mysterious experience of freedom, but more likely it is because I still mostly experience life from within these prison walls and have only a taste of what it is like to be roaming around outside?  I feel that I have tasted inner-freedom for brief moments, but it still feels like I am searching for a door that stays open.  I am still hoping to see the prison from the outside, from a distance.  I am still longing for the capacity to stay and rest in freedom in contrast to the strange comfort I get from the same drab four walls that hem me in.