What is the Greatest Freedom?

Two weeks ago, we first heard the horrible news of 9 people murdered while attending a Bible study in Charleston, SC.   For years, members of Emmanuel AME Church have chosen to welcome all who enter the church doors to fellowship and worship with them.  This choice ultimately cost lives.  


As we near the 4th of July holiday, I’m pondering this question:   What is the Greatest Freedom?

The Bill of Rights enumerates many freedoms, including freedom of religion and speech, freedom to peaceably assemble, and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.  All extremely important and valuable.  Still I wonder, what is the greatest freedom? 

My dictionary defines freedom as “the absence of necessity, coercion or constraint in choice or action.” Ah, there it is.  The freedoms in the Bill of Rights have a greater implied freedom - the freedom of choice. 

What is Choice?
Choice is something that we possess each moment of our lives. Choice is about seeing our lives from the widest possible perspective.  It’s about viewing life with panoramic vision and in 3D.  It’s about seeing all the possibilities, being conscious of outcomes, and choosing astutely. 

On What Do We Base our Choices?
Ideally, we base our choices on who we want to be-as individuals and as a part of families, businesses, and communities.  Yet how many of us are consciously aware of who we are and have chosen who we want to be? 

Who we are is a combination of the beliefs, values and perceptions we’ve accumulated in our life experience.  This combination can either expand our vision or limit our vision.  The great news is that when we become aware of who we are, we can then choose who we want to be.

• If you’re a woman who is limited by traditional views of beauty, you can choose to find your own beauty.

• If you’re a parent who is repeating destructive patterns learned in the past, you can choose to break the pattern and parent differently.

• If you’re a business leader working in a cut-throat environment, you can choose to show up differently.

• As citizens of a national community struggling to reconcile the past with our vision of the future, we can choose to step into one another’s shoes to view things from a new perspective.

On that fateful day, we don’t know if members of Emmanuel AME Church were conscious of the risk they took in welcoming a stranger into their midst.  They did, however, know who they were because they had chosen who they wanted to be. 

The greatest freedom we have is the freedom of choice.