Our government has done horrible things recently. To show our dissent, some of us protested by posting the #notinmyname tag. I myself tweeted no fewer than eight times using this tag.
We wanted to stand apart, to be excused from the inhumane policies, to prevent others from judging us by what our authorities are doing. We wanted to calm our conscience.
But – with all due respect – this is a lie. We are deceiving ourselves.
My daily outrage:
Pope Francis – head of the church I belong to – has just passed the following judgment over childless couples: “[…]not having children is a selfish choice”. I have heard this comment all too often these ten years. But I have bad news: not a single man, not even the Pope, is entitled to the moral high ground to speak like this.
I don’t know what games His Holiness is playing on us, but he clearly changed his moral standards over the last couple of days, and not for the better (see his remark where he promoted violence against children). Maybe this is a political move to appease the hardliners within the hierarchy of the Church. Maybe something else. I don’t know. I’m not to judge.
Freedom is one of those important things that we don’t usually notice until we lose it. There are numerous examples in both history and fiction to support that. So, if I think freedom is one of the few very fundamental values, it can’t hurt to be mindful of it first.
Thinking of times when I feel the freest, it’s when I walk the streets or the woods, alone, nothing to come between my thoughts and my consciousness. Times when I can do this are very precious.
But when you start thinking hard about things, all manner of doubts come up inevitably. Is this really it? I mean, freedom? In a way, yes. Spending time on my own, thinking, is when I rejoice in my consciousness, which is, they say, a prerequisite to free will, having worlds to do with freedom. As it is, I’m frightened of losing all or part of my consciousness.
The Third Tower 