photo by mogmismo

Once upon a time, The Husband and I sat on a grassy hill in summer, looking out over miles of forest and fields, holding hands and talking about…politics. We were specifically discussing the American plans (at that time they were only plans) to build a big ol’ fence to keep the Mexicans out. The concept, to both of us, was patently idiotic. Whatever your take on Hispanic immigrants in the ‘States, it is easily apparent that building a chain link fence isn’t going to do much but piss them off. So after a few moments’ rant, we began discussing other walls throughout history. The Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall, Hadrian’s Wall…and how they were all failed attempts at protection and, ultimately, separation of people who weren’t really that different. We talked about all the many ways that people try to draw lines, create Others, and the animal instinct to seek security through being part of a pack. We talked about a lot of things, but somewhere in the discussion we came up with an Idea. The Husband is a photographer, and I have a certain fondness for writing. The Idea was that we could travel the world, visiting all these walls (both ancient and modern), researching their history and talking to the people who lived around them. The Husband could photograph these walls and these people, and I could write about their stories. At the end of it all, we would make a book, and who knows? Perhaps people would read the book and some of them would decide that walls weren’t the solution. Perhaps some of them would even start to look for other ways to approach the difficulties we all face.

Unfortunately, we were broke (as we usually are), and so the idea got put on the shelf along with many other dreams that would be nice, some day…

The other part of the frame for my story takes place a couple of years later, just a few months ago. I was sitting in a coffee shop, chatting online with some dear friends in Australia. The topic was what you would really do, if you could live your life any way you want. And they weren’t quite sure at the time, but I had some definite notions. I wanted to write and to travel. I wanted a lot of things, actually, but at the center of it all was that. And from that conversation came the idea that, if only we could all figure out what we really wanted, we could be allies in helping every one of us to get there.

And then, one day about a week ago, I came home to discover that while I was gone The Husband had signed up for a contest. It’s a photography contest, wherein a $50,000 prize will be given to one person to go do the photography shoot of their dreams. And the idea he entered was…The Idea. The problem was that, to even get to the final round of judging, you had to be in the top 20 “popular” votes, meaning roughly that you had to have a hell of a lot of people show up on the site and vote your project up. And so I emailed a few people, and we went up a few points…and the other top contenders climbed higher and higher. And so I went through my address book again, adding a few more. And again we went up a few more votes, while others climbed steadily higher. Finally I just started emailing everyone I could think of, spammed my Facebook friend’s list, started begging my Mom to send it on to all those people she sends forwards of cutesy animals with their heads in the toilet. And we’re still barely hanging on to 20th place…but I started to realize something. These people, some of whom I hadn’t even spoken to in a year, were turning out to do a little bit to help. Some of them were doing even more, sending our plea on to all their friends, writing articles, helping to film a promotional video for Youtube… and for about the millionth time in my life, I found myself thoroughly humbled.

See, a few minutes to show up on a website and vote doesn’t actually cost any one person a lot, but no one has to do it. And it’s easy not to. There have been many, many times where I got some sort of “please take just a minute to…” email in my inbox, and dismissed it without even really reading it. I’m sitting here now, though, realizing that for whatever reason, a truly amazing number of people looked at my email and decided to lend a hand. It was ten minutes (I said in my email it would be five, but one respondent corrected me) to them…and each one left me feeling truly grateful, just a little closer to something I so desperately wanted. And I thought back to my conversation with my friends in Australia, and I realized this doesn’t have to be a pact among just a few people. We can, each one of us, pick something we really, really want, and then all help each other try to get there.

Today I spoke with a friend online to whom I haven’t really talked in a while. He was having a bad day. Not the end of the world, but with some real problems and no idea how to fix them. As we talked, I realized that there was something I could do, something that would get him a little closer to what he Really Wants To Do. So I just said I would. It’s as simple as that. We can all do whatever is in front of us, whatever is in our power, every chance we get, and know that maybe we are all helping each other get somewhere. It doesn’t have to be every man for himself. It doesn’t have to be sink or swim. We can all of us give whatever we can in any moment to help everyone else we care about get just a little closer to the life they really want. We can all be allies, well before all those walls come down. All it takes is just a little more.

So what I really wanted to say is thanks. To every person who took five ten minutes and tried to help me get a little closer to what I Really Want To Do, thank you. Whether or not we win this contest, you, bit by bit, gave me something more. I hope that when you see your chance you will let me know how I can help. Because you reminded me about what is really important…and you somehow gave me something to write about.

And…ok, yeah. I’m not so altruistic as to not add a plea here for my own cause. If you want to help The Husband and I be able to write our book, please go to our site and follow the instructions to cast your vote. It means a lot to me, and every single vote and comment creates a wave of excitement in our house that I wish you could see.

Photo by Federico Paziente

Years ago, I was privy to a very interesting discussion between my Mom and one of my friends. I had brought him over to hang out and catch up, and as usual he went and talked to my Mom, instead (this was a common occurrence in my life, but I’m not holding a grudge or anything…). Anyway, this particular friend was a reincarnated Beat poet (or at least, he acted as if he were) and identified himself with many “radical” ideologies. He liked to talk about Freedom a lot. Every time he said the word, you could see the capital letters. Everything boiled down to Freedom. And so my Mother, in her typical, astute fashion, asked him a simple question:

Are you talking about Freedom From, or Freedom To?

It rather rattled him, and the discussion got a little incoherent from there. I don’t remember now her explanation of the difference. In fact, I have asked her several times over the years to reiterate it to me, and I still don’t remember it. I have spent a lot of time thinking about the distinction, though, and come up with some of my own conclusions, which I am offering up here in light of the ongoing debate about Freedom in the United States, and in much of the western world at this point. If we are going to demand our freedom, we should at least be clear on the nature of our demands.

When we talk about Freedom, it is often an ephemeral idea, not a well defined set of parameters. Conversely, we may discuss Freedom in the context of specific actions, but without looking at the overall concept. Especially when we get into politics, we tend to line up on either side of an invisible divide, with one side effectively arguing for Freedom From, whilst the other rants about Freedom To, without either realizing what they are doing.

Freedom From

To some, Freedom is a state encompassing the absence of limiting factors. We can have Freedom From terrorism, from invasion of privacy, from oppression, or from pork spending. This is a self-limiting type of freedom, which relies on an outside source for its motivation. It is a reactionary freedom, and as such can never truly be achieved, as it must have an oppressor to fight against. To strive ultimately toward Freedom From is a psychological trap, for what you hold also holds onto you. Your oppressors become your co-conspirators, for without them you have nothing to overcome; you have no Freedom.

Freedom To

Freedom To is an expectation of being able to act upon your own judgement to do what you feel is best in a given situation. We can have Freedom To ignore useful advice, to act on the same advice if we feel it is merited, to express our thoughts, or to withold them if we deem it prudent. Freedom To is a fundamentally different mindset than Freedom From, in that with it we find that we are already Free. We may do anything we wish if we are prepared to accept the consequences. Freedom To is a pre-existing condition which cannot be taken away from us, except under the most extreme circumstances. Even in the tiniest jail cell, there is still room for Freedom To, albeit under the constraints imposed by Freedom From.

At times, we find that we must fight the “good fight” in order to ensure that our Freedom From provides us room enough for our Freedom To. But in doing so, we must not lose sight of the fact that this is the lesser of the battles, and one without end. The larger battle, the fight for Freedom To, takes place only within ourselves. And if we look closely enough, we will see that it is already won.

Photo by Simone Soldà

In the United States, we are intimately familiar with the “melting pot” philosophy. Being mostly a country of immigrants, we began with a blending of cultures. Over the years, we just kept adding to it. Everyone who comes here adds something and we are all better for it. Though there has been tussling along the way, and a lot of angling for control of the melody, overall we do all right…until religion enters the picture.

It doesn’t matter what religion, really. America is certainly primarily a Christian country, but we’ve got some of everything. We even have the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The problem is that no one seems to take a “melting pot” philosophy to religion. The Presbyterians stay in their churches, completely sure that their version of Christianity is the right one, the Jews go to the synagogue and hold tightly to their version of the Truth. The Muslims visit their mosques and hope they aren’t viewed as fanatics by their neighbors, while the Wiccans find secluded fields for their rituals under the moon. I get solicitations in my mail for the “right” church for me, and radio stations point me in the way of the True Church of Jesus on a regular basis. All we are doing with this “One True God” nonsense is holding ourselves, as individuals and a culture, back. You can’t make stone soup with just rocks.

There are a couple of notable examples of religious casseroles in relatively recent history, and I point them out in an effort to illustrate that we can get past our prejudices to build something greater. When religion comes up in discussion, whether we are talking about abortion, war, or neighborhood planning committees, we commonly dismiss it with a general statement about how religious differences are irreconcilable. This is patently untrue.

Two of the best examples of the blending of religion we have in the United States are Voodoo and its close cousin, Santaria. These religions developed out of a blending of ancient African religious systems with each other and with Christianity. Voodoo originated in Haiti when shipments of slaves from various African regions were thrust together under Christian “masters”. Under these miserable and extraordinary circumstances…a new religion was formed. Rather than killing each other, rather than dissolving their beliefs under the new authority, they blended their indigenous beliefs with what they found…and voila! A new religion. An amalgamation of Christianity and tribal beliefs that was beautiful, powerful, and…magical.

Santaria developed from the Yoruba people of Western Africa as they were imported by the slave trade into Central and South America. Like Voodoo, its practitioners originally hid their actual belief system under the drapings of their Christian “masters”, until eventually a new, blended religion was formed.

Here in the Bible Belt, we have another, less well known, example. When Irish immigrants arrived in the soft Appalachian mountains, they brought with them a synthesis of Irish pagan and Catholic beliefs. Upon setting up shop, they mingled with the Native Americans…and another new belief system was born. Incorporating the faerie mythology of the Irish with the spirits of the natives and the symbolism of the church, Appalachian Granny Magic wasn’t quite a religion, not quite a secular practice. Magic and religion and practical concerns became one path, out of which many skilled midwives and herbalists and lay preachers were created.

The Romans, in their hey-day, greatly strengthened their expansionist policies by allowing the religious beliefs of conquered lands to continue to exist, and this often led to an incorporation of foreign religious beliefs into their own. Hinduism was created out of the blending of the religious systems of the native Indian Harappans with those of the invading Aryans, and in turn influenced and was influenced by the advent of Buddhism. Islam grew out of a desire to convey a “purer” version of the truth than Christianity and Judaism, and Christianity, itself, managed to acquire many pagan symbols and stories as it developed. Truly, there is no “pure, unadulterated” version of religion. All of them, in essence, are a blending of myriad truths and stories.

How, then, is this applicable as we contemplate a world situation in which violence and intolerance are increasingly based on religious differences?

Looking at history, it seems apparent that while religious blending can be accomplished through force (as in the case of Voodoo and Santaria), the most beneficial combinations to society as a whole arise from voluntary mingling of the practitioners. Living side by side with other religious systems often reveals that what on the surface may seem irreconcilable differences are, in fact, merely different names and rituals with the same end goal. If one person shows up at another’s house with a pound of fruit cake and a “Merry Christmas”, only to be received with some sun-shaped cookies and a “Happy Yule,” does it really matter who calls themselves what? After all, there’s still a decorated tree in the corner.

Overcoming religious prejudice is vital to our success as a species. On a pragmatic level, the United States, with its increasing reliance on foreign nations for the stability of its economy (bye-bye, isolationism, you are a dream of the past), must learn to look to what will provide long term stability in its relations with its trading partners. We could, of course, simply set out to take over by force any nations with assets we covet who will not submit to our terms. This is a short term strategy, however, as we require the voluntary participation of the residents of these nations if we are to maintain our economic interests there. Continuing to emphasize the differences in our peoples (such as religion) will only increase the difficulty of reaching mutually satisfactory agreements. A better strategy would be to have a comprehensive understanding of the precepts of another culture, and an ability to emphasize where their belief systems meet our own. In a sense, perhaps this was what Ahmadinejad was trying to do with his now-infamous letter to President Bush, although that letter was summarily dismissed by the administration as “irrelevant”.

The name of God is, in fact, quite irrelevant when it comes to establishing foreign policy. We must not be so insistent in standing on our laurels that we forget what is best for the people of our nation. We can, and must for our own well-being, step across the imaginary theocratic divide and find the places where our beliefs meet. If we wind up kneeling toward Mecca, perhaps we will learn from the experience. If Arabic leaders learn to sing “Ave Maria”, it is not the end of the world. The people of all nations can learn to accept the truths where religions meet, particularly if they are not encouraged to fear their neighbors. Creating a religious scapegoat has, historically, backfired on its creator. This is not the position we want to be in. Our emphasis on an “us and them” mentality will only ensure our decline.

Accepting the beauty of another religion does not mean the end of your own. It is merely the beginning of a deeper understanding.