Stap voor stap.

That’s Dutch for “step by step” and that’s been my experience learning this language for the past two years.

Like anyone who has learned a second language knows, those early days are far from easy. Honestly, they’re pretty frustrating. 

When I started learning Dutch, I knew exactly what I wanted to express. However, I lacked the proper skills and knowledge to convert that expression into language.

But now I’m getting better.

Believe me, I still have a long way to go but I can see the progress and it’s super encouraging! Slowly but surely I’m able to express myself better and better. The more I practice, the freer I become. 

Why is that? 

Well, I’m adhering to the way the language works. 

Okay, so I have to admit, I’m not smart enough to come up with this comparison. I’ve borrowed it from the American Bishop Robert Barron who used the example to make a strong point about freedom.

Give it a watch for yourself.

In the clip, Bishop Barron speaks about true freedom as “a discipling of desire”, a phrase that can easily trigger our modern sensibilities. Discipline? And a discipline of our desires at that? 

It’s not hard to see the lack of appeal for those who adhere to the freedom we discussed yesterday.

One of postmodernity’s saddest narratives is that life has no objective meaning. In its place is the role of each human to create some sort of personal meaning from this. And while that does sound somewhat romantic, the implications undermine that pretty quickly.

The reality is, subjective meaning is doomed to cave in on itself. 

Since it’s based on individual experiences and feelings, it’s constantly changing and contradicting the experiences of others. Shifting feelings and a seemingly endless array of personalities and experiences will ultimately amount to chasing after the wind and stepping on each other's toes. 

It’s unsustainable. 

Fortunately for us, an objective meaning to life exists and is found in the person and teachings of Jesus.

It’s in His Way of life that a meaningful standard of good is set for all men and women. Following that results in an inner freedom that translates into the world around us. 

But Jesus also made it clear- the Way is narrow (Matthew 7v13-14), it will require us to deny some things and embrace others. We must be precise. We must discipline our desires. 

We must accept that reason, while helpful for understanding our situation, cannot carry us there. Faith in God is necessary.

Simply put: To live in alignment with the good, we must reject the attitudes and behaviors that contradict it. 

This makes many of us post-Enlightenment people cringe. It requires limiting our opportunities and, more so, it requires faith in God and putting Him at the center of our lives.

Yet, when we’re able to accept this, we find that true freedom is much more than a slightly regulated autonomy. 

We find that it’s flowing in the current of life, a current that is much wider, older, and larger than us, yet is willing to bring us along all the same. It’s what Jesus called, “Life and life to the full” (John 10v10).

It meets the ache and need for meaning that all humans share. And not just an arbitrary meaning that’s in one day and out the next. But a meaning of eternal significance, the very inner workings of life and reality itself.

Freedom is a language- with particular grammar, phonetics, and syntax. And once we learn these things we find ourselves speaking the rhythm of true liberation.

Tomorrow we will cap off this series. 

For now, be blessed.

Jon

Theophilus Newsletter

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