This July 4th feels very different to me. For several reasons, not the least of which is Trump’s spectacle for today. For me and my memories, it is too reminiscent of the imagery of Tiananmen Square, or Communist China military parades. Echoes of an animal that puffs itself up, sporting for a fight.

I think of our forefathers and their fight for freedom. How messy, brutal and bloody it was. While our country was indeed formed, sadly, it was formed by denigrating indigenous people and on the backs of the slave trade – it wasn’t about freedom for everyone. In fact, the slave trade grew. 

So yes, it was messy, horrid, and in ways a demonstration of the worst of humanity. They may have tried their best, but it was created with some deep flaws. When I look at the current president, administration, congress and senate, I sometimes think it doesn’t appear as though we have come very far – at all. And those in positions of power who could actually take action to bring about freedom, to stop the misogynist, racist, bully in the White House, consciously choose not to.

Yet I remain hopeful.

I still believe when we know better, we do better. I see signs of this everywhere, if I pay attention. Click To Tweet

I can’t change the tanks sitting at MY Lincoln Memorial, or the concentration camps at the border, or all things so alive in my country that are ugly, dehumanizing and do not speak to some of the inherent goodness I believe was alive in our forefathers.

I can’t change a lot of things, but I can change my own practice of freedom. I can change my corner of the world, and so can you. I can practice what most of our elected officials won’t. 

Generally we think of freedom as release from a burden. However, looking at the roots of the word freedom you find its origins to mean “power of self-determination.” Perhaps someone else does not always determine my experience of freedom – something I forget once in a while.

We are told we can claim our freedom, but freedom from what? How many of us really feel FREE most of the time? And do I have clarity of what being FREE means? If I have freedom and you don’t, then do I really have freedom?

So if I go one step closer and look at the roots of the word “free” it takes me even deeper. To be “free” means “to love, think of lovingly, to honor…” 

This I can get behind. This is why I remain hopeful. Every day I have to look at my own perspective, judgments, thoughts and feelings. And if I can heal some of those, there’s hope for us all.

My experience in life is determined largely by how I relate to everything around me and within me. And while there are relationships, habits and beliefs to dismantle or release in order to know freedom, mostly it’s about putting things together – making “friends” with and relating to everything. Remember when I said that the root of the word free is “honor?” Well that’s what making friends with everything means – being honorable. Whew. I don’t know about you, but my work isn’t done.

And never once did I say it was necessarily easy, but NOW more than ever, honor needs a seat at our tables. Click To Tweet

Honor is the natural expression of honesty and integrity in my actions. My higher self will always guide me in the honorable direction as I consider how my actions affect the interconnected web of life, how I am relating to everything as I fight for what is good, true and beautiful.

Finally, honor cannot exist without love.

The moment I begin to friend everything, to walk the honorable path, as an honorable being, I awaken an eternal paradox I will forever dance with. I am reminded just how small and naked I am (the things I can’t change)  AND in that smallness I see my presence matters COMPLETELY (in my corner of the world) because it becomes about ALL life, not just about me. 

It is love and honor – pure freedom – our individual and collective power of self-determination.

Akhenaton said, “Honor is the inner garment of the Soul, the first thing put on by it with the flesh, and the last it lays down at its separation from it.” So I may not be able to hold on to the people I love so dearly. Or rescue families at the border. I may not get the dream job I worked so hard for, or lose the child for which I have planned and prayed. I likely will feel angry and disgusted with people in office and elements of my country. 

Whatever losses, judgments, wounds and growing edges I have stepped into, each is a “friend” waiting for me to arrange as stepping stones for my path of honor, my path of freedom. So this year, being free, and freedom, are not things I have, but are a dance with living, loving and deep honor.