where is freedom?

For the first time in 41 days I am alone. I am sitting at a table with only my computer and this blessed liquid that we call espresso. How I have waited for this, for the time to stop and reflect, to pen some piece of the experience. Of course, my expectation is that words should be flowing freely, that all I have tasted of in the past 6 weeks would compile itself with ease onto this blank screen. Contrary to expectation however, I sit here and my head feels vacant. But I have had an entry in mind for the past 6 weeks, so I commit to writing something, even if it says nothing…

By simple logic, I find myself to be a contradiction.

For starters, I began my morning with the purchase of an Adbusters magazine at Chapters (somehow buying a non-conformity magazine at a corporate checkout seems a bit sardonic).

Of more concern however, the one that has been heavy on my mind, is the fact that I am a military officer that cannot make sense of waging war in the 21st century. Trying to understand my placement here has been the biggest challenge thus far. I have tormented myself with hard questions over the past six weeks. I have driven myself nearly mad with all of the ‘whys’ racing through my mind. Most days I feel like I am drowning in my tired body and my tired head, and I question how I will stay afloat for the remainder of what is to come.

War.
This wretched thing.
The word keeps bobbing in my head, and I wonder what part I will have in it.

I want to study it.
I want to photograph it.
Not because I want to learn how to wage or win it, but because I see it as the most hallowing of human experience.
I want to document the devastation.
I want to study it to somehow have a hand in preventing it.

And now I’ve climbed into it.
I wear the uniform.

What does that mean?
I have entered to better understand it.

I went to the National War Museum two weeks ago and I returned at the end of the day weeping.

I thought that it was going to be a drab building full of old tanks and shells from wars of yesterday.
I was wrong.
The architecture of the building was magnificent; the lines, the colors, the materials – all were brilliant; as were the displays. It was remarkable to see the lines of Canadian military involvement, and read history plastered on walls with our mark intertwined and celebrated. We do have something unique to offer the world; we have done it in the past, I only pray that it can be preserved. It was an odd thing to be wearing combats and a Canadian flag on my shoulder amongst civilians in such a place. I wondered as they looked at us what they thought, what they really saw. Canadian soldiers, sailors, and air men and women. What do they think when they see us? Are they proud of what we represent? Do we represent them? Their interests? I pray that it is so.

As I stared at monuments and read stories, I was proud of what we have done - but it didn’t soften my disposition in finding myself here. I have been moaning and complaining since arriving.

Nothing here is comfortable.
Nothing.
The days hurt.

Reveille is 4:30 am…well, pending that we don’t have a middle of the night wake up call caused by the unrelenting occurrence of fire alarms as of late … or, an important inspection the next morning, which requires us to wake earlier to ensure sufficient time for starching sheet corners at a crisp 45 degrees.

The days fill themselves quickly. With walls to scale over (quite literally), stairs to climb, boots to shine, and push ups to crank out, midnight always meets us fast.

Nothing is mine to decide here. Not my dress, not my words, not my time.
I have felt captive, my insides longing for tiny tastes of freedom. But I realize now that outside of these rigid walls I cannot understand what that word, 'freedom', even means. I cannot know the value of freedom until I lose some part of my own. I study this concept, but I fool myself in thinking that reading a few books would allow me to understand the lives of those who are truly captive, held by injustices and political prisons.
I know nothing.
I’ve been here for 41 days – and this is a mild taste of freedom lost. My reality is soft in comparison to most of the world’s people.

I have blamed these walls for my feelings of captivity,
but it is I who have allowed the holds to remain,
it is my sick disposition that has kept me captive.

I felt captive before ever arriving here – bound by different lines, but bound nonetheless.

Caught up in addiction, restlessness, unbelief.
Imprisoned not by walls, but within myself.
I can point my hand at these physical confines, but liberation does not wait on the other side of them; it is dependent on the posture I adopt towards the day.

It is here that I am beginning to see freedom as a liberty not dependent on our circumstances, but rather on our disposition. And it is in that recognition that I am finding gratitude and worship to be our surest path in getting there.

Gratitude frees us. Worship lifts us.

I curse this place. And that is what has kept me a prisoner.
Every morning when the alarm sounds I have woke with the same sick stream of thoughts moving through my mind, “I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life”. I forfeit freedom when I take such an ungrateful stance. I have to find a way to thank these walls for what they are granting me.

As I push through these days it is gratitude that will release me.

Audeamus –‘ let us dare’ to say “thank you”, to seek liberation in worlds that appear to have suffocated freedom.