FREEDOM

For me a soaring eagle is the epitome of freedom. I find that image impossible to reconcile with the view of life projected by our "free and democratic society". That phrase along with "freedom loving people" are among the most frequently used by President Bush to describe the collection of us who are not terrorists. Fortunately, we are not as far away from the image of a soaring eagle as we can get; but we are close to that distance and moving in that direction.

Indeed, we are not a "free... society". The U.S.A. alone is forced to spend $7 billion a month to wage the war on terror. I am not sure what they buy for that amount, probably the war in Iraq, homeland security, perhaps even their entire standing military complex. We don't need to know. The point is we can not claim to be a "free...society" while being forced to pay $10s of billions a month world wide to fight terror. 

Though terrorists are the visible 'enemy', they are not the force that restricts our freedom. They are merely a  tangible distraction. The real source of terror for us is meaninglessness, the void we sense is beyond the last why. It is our efforts to fill the void that restrict our freedom, in a spiral cage. We are restricted to the degree we try and our terror increases with our sense of restriction. The greater our terror the more we try to fill the void and so on to self-destruction.

This terror can not be defeated entirely. Certainly no amount of money can fill the void nor can any of the other ways we try. The effect of the void can be minimized; but only by reaching out to the limits of our capacities, to others and to God will we be able to 'soar' like an eagle. (see poem)