That Guy and the Stain

Everyone has that piece of Tupperware; the one that was new and clean and shiny then one day, against your better judgment, or out of enthusiastic ignorance, you placed some spaghetti in it with a fine homemade red sauce. The kind with fresh herbs, pink salt that includes all those needed minerals, and a few mushrooms.

Not the creminis, but the wild ones you picked in the Roosevelt National Forest. Then, the inevitable happened. You should have seen it coming, but you didn’t; you were too excited about your delicious and thoughtful leftovers: the plastic stained. It’s a seemingly permanent quality of that vessel. 

    Ok, well that was pretty specific, but I know it lands. In your cabinet there is a dish that’s stained red. Go look, it’s there. This is a conversation about true freedom. And to have this conversation, we must understand what freedom is along with its opposite: captivity. Captivity such a strange word, because it’s how we describe the condition of a slave, a prisoner of war, and one entranced by his lover’s gaze. 

And one may argue he or she has lost free will when held captive. The slave must obey the slaveholder. The prisoner his prison guards, and the lover, her desires for the other. 

    Free will is ultimately the deciding factor of whether or not someone is free; whether he has the freedom to choose or is fettered to something else and must be obedient to it. When we are free to choose. When we are captive, we are free to obey and nothing else.

    But it’s not that simple; within the framework of free will, we find all kinds of ways to be captives. For example, we have to free will to drink beer. But if we are held captive by it, we are not free; the desire of fit, that unrelenting urge to touch that sweet malty embittered beverage to our lips consumes our thoughts, it directs our motives, and ultimately manipulates our desires to prioritize it as a master. We call this alcoholism; within our ability to exercise our free will, we choose a form of slavery. 

    This can obviously be said about different kinds of drugs and substances. The use and abuse of such things create a balkanized personality: the part of self with hopes and dreams and duties and loves and purpose and the other part that wants that thing. That thing pulls us from our purpose and path so as to serve it. We lose who we are so we may serve what we are not. To treat as master the very thing that can and will ultimately be our downfall into the abyss of self-inflicted servitude. 

    We see all around us an uncountable measure of temptations and advertisements to cultivate self-inflicted captivity. We can scroll through products on Amazon that make our lives better one Buy Now button at a time. We can scroll Instagram or Tiktok or Snapchat or Twitter or Facebook, Tinder, Grinder or Bumble, or Hinge only to addict ourselves to the thrill of the hunt, look, click, and swipe behaviors that lead us to an overwhelming and instantly delivered endorphin rush that is available and cheap. So cheap it costs almost nothing; nothing except your freedom. 

    There is an infinity of options if you want to be a slave, which coincidently makes an unexpected prophet of the peerless poet, Bob Dylan, when he stated, “You're gonna have to serve somebody." 

    So “Damn it all,” you’re saying, “it’s all slavery!” And in a way you’r right. There is no way out. We are here spinning around in space on this little greenish, bluish, brownish sugar-dusted planet with no way out until we die. Perhaps you’re right. And as you sleep your spaghetti in your freshly stained Tupperware from Amazon–Which only cost you $30.99 with free two day shipping–while admiring your cooking skills and the fact you can safely identify wild mushrooms, you’re asking yourself, “How can I be free?” 

That’s an excellent question and I’m glad you asked because I was about to transition to that exact topic right when you asked it. Thanks!

    How many people have been free? Free from addiction? Free from the torments of the flesh? Free from the chains of avaricious men? Free how? Is that possible? 

    I think it is and we have an immaculate archetype for freedom: Mary, the Mother of God. 

“WOH! Mother of God? Back off crazy person!” 

Can I explain myself? 

“Yes, but you’re on thin ice, I have some Tinder dates to reject… or accept, I haven’t decided.” 

Perfect. So, as I was saying, The Mother of God is a title given to Saint Mary. She is the Mother of Jesus, who is God, so she is referred to the Mother of God or Theotokos which is Greek for “God-Bearer.” Now, this isn’t just a stretch I promise. 

“Sure.” 

Seriously. 

    We need to harken back to the idea of free will. All those vices mentioned above, those types of captivity were not a struggle for Mary. She was eagerly, willingly, and completely a servant of God. And she chose this path. We see this clearly in the first chapter of Luke:

    My soul magnifies the Lord, 

    And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. 

    For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; 

    For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.

    For He who is mighty has done great things for me, And holy is His name.  

    And His mercy is on those who fear Him From generation to generation. 

    He has shown strength with His arm; 

    He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 

    He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly. 

    He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty.  

    He has helped His servant Israel, In remembrance of His mercy, 

    As He spoke to our fathers, To Abraham and to his seed forever. 

    It’s right there in the third line: maidservant. The context for this “song” is when the angel Gabriel comes to Mary-A young lady at this time–and tells her God has chosen her to be the one who brings the Christ into the world, the Savior of the World. This is not a statement, this is a question, a request of her by God. 

And she said yes. I

n the verses prior to the above she states, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” 

 This is the ultimate archetype of freedom we can imitate. 

    If something is contrary to the will of God, to our nature, something that stains the image of Him inside of us and if something causes irrational impulses and damages us in such a way we create habits that turn into irresistible impulses, then we must turn away from it. If there is a path on which we can find our meaning and place in history our conformity to God’s and access to His will for us then we say yes. Yes to His Grace. Freedom is found in choosing service and obedience to God. 

    This is difficult, but it’s the only way out of slavery. I am reminded of the profound words by Saint Nikolai Velimirovich: 

Enemies have made me a stranger in worldly realms and an extraneous inhabitant of the world. Just as a hunted animal finds safer shelter than an unhunted animal does, so have I, persecuted by enemies, found the safest sanctuary, having ensconced myself beneath your tabernacle, where neither friends nor enemies can slay my soul.

    This is freedom. Saint Nikolai write this while imprisoned in the Nazi prison camp, Dachau. He was tortured and hated and broken by his captors, yet he was freer than the man I see in the mirror. What is the more lamentable captivity, the type that puts the body in a cage and offers earthly torments or the one that corrupts the soul with unquenchable appetites and every-tormenting despair and hopelessness? 

    That’s a tough question, but it seems as though we might have the answer in the Saints who suffered all those physical torments and most–if not all–suffered those of the spirit as well. They chose to serve God. So, you’re probably almost done with your spaghetti by now and again, congrats on the wild mushrooms thing. That’s really cool for you. Now go wash your vessel. 

    OH DAMN! It’s stained, isn’t it. Unless you’re smart–and healthy–you used glass; but for the purpose of this example, it’s plastic. 

    OH DAMN! It’s stained, isn’t it!

“Yes.” 

Isn’t that like habits? The behaviors that began as an experiment in building friendships or pleasure-seeking, attention-seeking or even escape. Perhaps it’s thoughts that pervade you (logismoi), because of some disappointment or trauma or abuse and they haunt you and control you and destroy any sense of happiness and satisfaction you might have once experienced; they possess your mind and your heart, your intentions and motives and kill your joy. #DiminishingReturns 

    And when you run from them and fight them and ignore them, they just show up, once again, like a shitty friend who makes you miserable, but is fun to get high with while watching Rick and Morty. That guy. He keeps coming around, drinking away your happiness and pissing on your couch. That freaking guy. 

Is he worth your free will? 

    When you hang out with that guy, he occupies the vessel that is your soul and leaves a stain that is really difficult to remove. After he finally departs, you try to wash it off; the bland color, the grease and the stink. He made an unwelcome cameo in your life once again, you enjoyed it for some fleeting moments, then he wasted your time, drank your beer, ate your spaghetti–didn’t even appreciate those delicious porcinis–and left without saying goodbye. 

    That guy everyone knows. He is smoking. He is drinking. He is gluttony. He is frivolous sex. He is drug abuse. He is anger and sports and politics and sloth. He is anything and everyone that uses your free will to take away your freedom. 

    I hope this helps, because I don’t believe in purely human or self-centered freedom. There is no evidence for it; it doesn’t exist. There is only service and to wrap this up, I’ll harken back to Bob: 

You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride. 

You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side. 

You may be working in a barbershop. 

You may know how to cut hair. 

You may be somebody’s mistress, may be somebody’s heir; 

But you’re going to have to serve somebody.