What Does Freedom Look Like?

I really haven’t thought much of the treasure that I have tucked around me. I have lived oblivious all my life of this treasure. There are people in our world that would give anything to have a small part of what I have taken for granted for so many years. Yesterday I met one person that is exactly that way. But now he has a gained the treasure for himself.

“What is the treasure?” is the question I hope you will be asking as you read this.

The treasure is my freedom. Free to do whatever I wish to do today. Free to make decisions on my own without threats or fear of threats. Free to move where I want to and when I want to. With the condition of being free; I have the power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints.

So does Mike. Mike gained his freedom last Friday after a gruelling almost 3 hour parole hearing in the Kingston area. Today Mike lives in Peterborough and is free. Yes he still has a record but he is free of the restraints of prison. He can move about on his own and do as he wishes. He was deemed as having paid for his crime and it was decided that it would be best for all that he live on the outside of prison walls.

Mike has been inside for 8 years. For 8 years he has needed to follow a strict regime of discipline and order. He would get out of bed when someone else decided he should. He ate meals when someone else decided he should. He went to bed when they decided he should. Most of the Canadian public has no idea of what that kind of regime does to a person – they are just glad that it does something to ‘those kind of people’.

Now try to put yourself in Mike’s shoes over this past weekend. You now are free. What would you do with your new time? What activity would you be involved in to kill time – now that you have so much of it?

As I pulled into the parking lot of the New Beginnings House I caught my first sight of freedom. There was Mike sitting at the back of the parking lot. He was perched on a log that lays at the edge of the parking lot pavement. The log is under a large tree. His hand was extended and he was feeding a chipmunk. He was quiet and the setting was peaceful…Mike, some peanuts and a new friend completed the picture of freedom.

As Mike and I talked he pointed to the new home he now lives in… and said, “This is so beautiful.” The new home is an old RCMP Building that once provided living quarters and offices for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police when they were stationed in our community at one time. Now is home for former offenders who are beginning their life anew and fresh.

Now Mike has his freedom in a relative way. Mike has a terminal cancer that is eating away inside of him. He knows the diagnosis and has been told the prognosis. He knows he will die in these next few months. It is another kind of sentence that he has to live with. But he is willing to do so in his new home.

After Mike and I talked for a while we shook hands and promised each other that we would get together this next week. Then Mike turned and walked back towards the log at the edge of the parking lot. He headed back to his peaceful spot and his new friend.

As I drove away Mike extended his hand and waited. He grinned at me and I waved at him. Mike has found freedom. I have found what freedom looks like.

Back track…
On Friday… one of the parole hearing folk asked Mike an important question. “Mike, if you are healed after you get out prison, what would you do?” His reply was simple, “Go home to see my family.”

Mike is an easterner all the way from Newfoundland. With his sickness he may never see ‘the Rock’ again. But that is no matter to him… today he is free and when his death comes he will do that in his new freedom.

God bless you Mike… we are pulling for and with you. We are going to enjoy this freedom with you as well.

~ Pastor Murray Lincoln ~

PS... If you have been reading this blog consecutively – you will know that I ‘quit’, ‘resigned’ as chairman of the Peterborough Community Chaplaincy… I really did… I just can’t stop helping… shish!

Check out... Peterborough Community Chaplaincy