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Life Ways Finding the Freedom of
the Spirit Philosophers such as Gabriel Marcel have warned us that our world today turns each of us into a commodity, a number, a statistic, a role. These demands vie with the power of the Spirit for the claim over our hearts and the direction of our lives. As commodities, we are bought and sold to advertisers. The number of eyes viewing a program or an Internet page increases its worth. More and more eyes mean more and more money. Subtler advertising means more products sold. I recently saw a poignant advertisement. The ad pictured a child with an ISBN code number stamped across her forehead. Large bold letters read: "I am not a part of your inventory. I am not a pair of eyeballs to be captured or a consumer profile to be sold. I am an individual and you will respect my privacy. I will not be bartered, traded or sold." Advertising appeals to our compulsions. "Buy this," "you need that," "try this out and get something else free," "make a six-digit income in one month from your home without even trying." Click here, watch that, check out something else. Each of these verbs corresponds to a desire, an enticement, an image within us that gets activated when the word or the opportunity appears. Is the Spirit behind those decisions to: "click," "watch," "check out"? The Spirit might be. But then the Spirit might not be. Only you know the difference...at first. But your pocketbook, charge account, family, and friends will be able to tell the difference when the results of your decisions begin to have repercussions. "Thus you shall know them by their fruits" (cf. Mt. 7:20). It is possible to live freely in a world that hands us over to judgment, evaluation, measurement, commerce. We can do so if we live with the freedom of the Spirit. When we lift ourselves above, or swim deeply below the desires that spring from what we can buy, how to get ahead, self-protection, how to be number one, we swim in the breath of the Spirit. It is the Spirit of God, who makes us children of the Father, and sets us free. He will speak and act in us and through us and for us. Jesus said, "When they bring you to trial and deliver you up, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say; but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit" (Mk 13:11) An exercise for finding freedom: We are evaluated, somewhat ruthlessly and given a number according to our performance. And it often isn’t number one. There is something magical about being number one in everything, something, anything. We can sell our soul, our integrity, and our future, to be number one when the chance comes. Is the Spirit in that decision? Are you at peace? Have you begun to serve others more and grown in compassion? "You shall know them by their fruits." We are polled to death by the government, magazines, surveys, the Internet. Endless data is collected for marketing advantage. Becoming a statistic dulls us to the flesh-and-blood inspirited existence that is ours. It reduces us to an anonymous herd of people with whom we are compared and grouped, alienating us from communion. We do not rejoice in the richness of differences, enjoying with childlike curiosity the opinions and attitudes of others. Statistics make us anxious about what we should believe, what others believe, who determines what ought to be believed, or thought, or voted for, or done. Does the Spirit’s lead match the outcomes of the statistics? Is the lead of the surveys and the comfort of the crowd, a safe guide to the heart of God? One popular bumper sticker comments, "To do what is right is not always popular. To do what is popular is not always right." And roles are funny things. They can steal us from our inner sincerity, as we begin to dance to the music of demand and expectation. Tremendous pressure can torture us when we have to make a decision, so much so that we may never hear our inner truth, where the Spirit of God also lends his influence. What do we most deeply desire? Are these desires smothered beneath those for success? Money? The latest gadget? Even getting ahead enough so that our kids have everything we ever wanted for ourselves? What are our deepest desires? "You can tell a tree by its fruit" (cf. Mt 12:33). A final prayer: "Lord, you are my Lover, it is you whom I desire. You flow through my body like a stream, you shine on my face like the sun. Let me be your reflection." (Mechtild of Magdeburg)
Copyright © 1999-2003, Daughters of St. Paul. All Rights Reserved.
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