There’s a terrific musical artist by the name of Solomon Burke. He’s been around for many years. He has a song which is entitled “None of us are free”. The point of the song is that if one of us is in chains, then none of us is truly free. In other words, we are truly free when we stand together in freedom.
The next important question becomes: Free from what? Free from everything? Well, that only leaves nothing. I mean, if you’re free from everything the only way you’d know that you were free, and thereby be free, is if you had nothing, participated in nothing and did it,…well.., with no one.
That doesn’t sound like a real warm, fuzzy place of freedom. It actually doesn’t sound like any type of freedom which I would ever aspire to.
Mr. Burke’s song inspires me to reevaluate what the goal of freedom is. Perhaps it is not as simple as freedom from tyranny, or taxes or even governments. If people decided that we, as people, must all be free from oppression before any of us is truly free, it really wouldn’t matter so much what our tax rates were, because we’d know that we, as mankind, were simply in it together. Together we empower and encourage one another through the deepest and darkest of moments. Together we find the resources to overcome challenges, face adversity and triumph over the seemingly undoable.
Christ, put forth this concept when He said, “And the King shall say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’” Matthew 25:40.
Setting the captive free is not simply about telling someone about their chains and expecting them to somehow suddenly and miraculously wrestle themselves free. It is a process of walking with them to freedom. Together we are bound by their chains; together we walk out of them.
In the end, it is not about US and THEM, because they are us and we are they. Hasn’t the day for blaming governments and religious establishments or corrupt leaders for our problems come and gone?
I was chatting with a friend of mine, who was raised in China, about how some of my ancestors, located in what is now Scotland, found freedom by banding together in monasteries in the remote Scottish hills. She told me that Chinese people did the same thing in China. Together they were free, regardless of the political climate of the day. In the end it’s not where you’re free, but how: Together! Blessings!

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