Freedom, Continued | July 12, 2026 | Rev. Dr. Kathryn Benton
- The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples
- Jul 12
- 4 min read
There is an uncreated element in the soul of the individual…a given element.
This is God.
The opening music was sung by our congregation last week. It is a question many ask themselves and helps to describe what it actually feels like to be free. Speaking with a member of the congregation, they said that singing those words…how sweet it would be if I found I could fly…gave them a sensation of flying…in the moment…with the community that was gathered. Freedom, says Howard Thurman, is having a sense of alternatives…it is a spiritual experience…an experience of the human, and perhaps other than human spirit.
The opening words come from Howard Thurman, who is quoting also from Meister Eckhart, thirteenth century German mystic. These words appear in his speech entitled Mysticism and Social Change. This is what is sometimes referred to as the dialectic present in Thurman’s thinking…that of social activism and meditation…social change and mysticism. Yet what stood out to me as I listened to Thurman’s words (and went back to look at Eckhart as well) was this idea of freedom. Now I want to be clear…Thurman does not speak to this idea of freedom in the context of mysticism and social change…at least not in this particular speech, but this is where my mind went.
I followed this thread to another lecture given by Thurman entitled, The Search for Meaning. In this lecture, Thurman says:
…it is a strange freedom to be adrift in the world…without a sense of anchor anywhere. Always there is a need for mooring…the need for the firm grip on something that is rooted and will not give.
This is, I think, what Eckhart is talking about when he refers to the uncreated element…he means that part of ourselves that we find in our meditation…in our centering down…the heart at the heart of Life. Thurman is saying that we want this element to be rooted…to anchor us…to give us a place of mooring. There is in his words:
…an urge to be accountable to someone…to know that beyond the individual themselves, there is an answer that must be given.
Thurman is speaking to our innermost urges…the ones I hear of on a daily basis from others, and from my own soul. Thurman continues by acknowledging our need for others:
Always the way must be found for bringing into one’s solitary place…the settled look from another’s face…for getting the quiet sanction of another’s grace to undergird the meaning of yourself. To be ignored…is to be made into a faceless thing, not a person.
This is the part of us that needs community…that needs to be recognized by our companions. It is not as opposed to our sense of individuality…of freedom, but a part of it. We cannot be adrift from our fellows or from God. But Thurman continues…of course he does…
It is better to be the complete victim of an anger unrestrained and the wrath which knows no bounds…It is better to go through all this than to be passed over as if you are not.
I thought about these words in the context of a recent documentary I watched from David Attenborough entitled, A Gorilla Story:
The look in the eyes of the gorillas is deeply familiar. The footage reveals what Thurman knew about all life…that we are deeply related and connected and that we go through many of the same experiences. The gorillas knew what Thurman described…that it may be better to be a victim of violence than to be ignored. We need each other. This need is profound and is what seems to be missing from much of the life of our current time. We are isolated and alone. And this is not the freedom that Thurman is speaking of. Thurman speaks to the need for connection saying:
Every living thing, including man…every living thing belongs to every other living thing. I can never be what I ought to be until the last living manifestation is what it ought to be…for better or for worse, tied into the idiom of everything that lives. If I forget this, I profane God’s creation. If I remember it I come to myself in you and you come to yourself in me.
This is foundational. It is part of not only our humanity, but of our creatureliness…our very makeup. And this is what Thurman was pointing to, I think, in his lecture both on Mysticism and Social Change and the Search for Meaning. Thurman continued this consideration of freedom and sums up his ideas saying… give me the strength to be free and to endure the burden of freedom and the loneliness of those without chains. I found these words in his writings entitled, Give Me the Courage to Live:
Give me the courage to live! Really live—not merely exist.
Live dangerously.
Scorning risk!
Live honestly. Daring the truth—Particularly the truth of myself.
Live resiliently—Ever changing, ever growing, ever adapting.
Enduring the pain of change.
As though ‘twere the travail of birth.
Give me the courage to live,
Give me the strength to be free
And endure the burden of freedom
And the loneliness of those without chains;
Let me not be trapped by success
Nor by failure, nor pleasure, nor grief,
Nor malice, nor praise, nor remorse!
Give me the courage to go on!
Facing all that waits on the trail –Going eagerly, joyously on,
Without anger or fear or regret
Taking what life gives,
Spending myself to the full,
Head high, spirit winged,
…Gracious God, hear my prayer;
Give me the courage to live.
It indeed takes courage to live without the chains…the limitations placed on us by economic success, by failure or pleasure…and it may seem lonely at times. But this is the option open to a freed spirit…a spirit that is aware and connected to the uncreated element…to God. Yet this does not mean that we will be alone, since this connection to God includes our connection to others…for as we connect the God within us to the God within our fellows, we are able to experience this sense of freedom. This is the truth that both the mystics and those engaged with social change knew…this is the truth that gives our lives meaning. Let us wake up to this given element within! Let us in this community hear the call of the Beloved…the all-pervading spirit of the Holy, calling our name and respond with a sense of freedom and courage…
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