Independence Day

Independence Day. Religious freedom. Land of the pilgrims’ pride.

This isn’t day two of my Italy/France pilgrimage. It’s day I don’t know what in the pilgrimage of my life. (I’ll get back to the Europe trip soon).

I’m on a farm now for a month. I milked a goat this morning and I went for a walk/run in the dark rain last night with a flashlight. Three days ago, my apartment lease ended and my parents’ divorce was finalized.

The joy of this farm life mixed today with a sad feeling of homelessness, while I also thought of the meaning of light in darkness, and the Truth of liberty and religious freedom.

A few questions ran round my head:

Where is my home? What is independence? What is religious freedom?

I have no place “back home.” This feeling of homelessness isn’t a new thing in my life, but it isn’t more comfortable this time either. Is my home America? Or a building where I feel surrounded by love?

What about independence? I’ve been self-reliant many times in my life. And emancipated from my parents for many years. But is that the fullness of liberation?

There’s no machine gun held to my head when I attend Mass (thank God), but I know that chaplains are persecuted in the U.S. military (yes, in America). I can practice my religion in this country (the reason we celebrate Independence Day), but for how long? And is the legality of religious practice the whole of religious freedom?

This week I milked a goat and cleaned someone else’s fridge, but I lived by others’ schedule and that of God in nature and animals. I am tired. I cried about the loss of my own comfortable, safe-feeling timetable. I wish I had my own home and a self-made daily program.

But I grow here. And practically, right here, right now, I am home. Because my real home is eternal. I don’t really belong anywhere on this earth.

Also, the Eucharist is my home. Jesus is the source of peace in my body. He nourishes my weak little sad heart and gives me strength, mighty strength like that of a horned mama goat ready to bust a cap on anyone who might tryn mess wit her young. (My mama Mary is also mighty--she makes sure I get grace to receive daily communion.)

Right now freedom is naming my needs. I am independent when I tell someone else: I need daily exercise, healthy food, prayer and time to write. Why is this liberty? Because if I don’t name these simple needs, I let the desire for them fester inside and I get angry at myself that I didn’t voice them and at others that they can’t read my mind – that’s crazy slavery.

My freedom now is a little voice inside me that is me and God together. It says, “I love you. You are beautiful. You are awesome. You matter. I’m so proud of you.” Every day I strive to grow in the awareness and acceptance that even if I am criticized, I am still loved by God. And even if the basic needs I think are necessary aren’t met (like a regular schedule so I can feel secure and in control), God still takes care of me and continues to provide ways for me to grow – even in the midst of my discomfort, frustration, depression and anxiety.

And what about religion? I need to remember to pray every day that the American people will preserve the right to celebrate Mass in this country, as well as other religious freedoms we enjoy. And when that is taken away, I pray that I will have the strength to call God my savior in the midst of all persecution. On a personal and universal level, I pray that God removes obstacles that others and I have put in my own heart that prevent me from the free practice of religion in myself. If I am not free to worship in and through my own person, I will not care about religious freedom in my country or the world.

I used a flashlight to see through the darkness when I exercised last night. It was enough to lead me home.

My home is not just America or the house of my youth. Independence is not self-reliance or separation from the family. Religious freedom is not just the ability to attend Mass without fear of annihilation.

My home is heaven. My independence is the result of communal life. And my religious freedom is the liberty to follow God’s will in my heart, mind and life through the Eucharist, the core of my being.

Thank you, God, for the fourth of July to remind me of flickers of hope -- like the beam of a flashlight or bursts of fireworks -- on this pilgrimage to a free, independent life with You, my eternal home.