Outside the Glass House*

Dug this up from eons back. :))

“Not all free acts lead to freedom.  In fact if you’re not careful, the choices you freely make may cost you a life of genuine freedom.” – Erwin Raphael McManus, Uprising

I grew up in a “glass house”, squeezed my way out and found my way back – a different person.  I was educated in an exclusive school for girls, brought up by relatively conservative parents, and had religion rammed down my throat.  One can’t blame my thirst for autonomy.  I went through high school fostering a life-long goal of stepping out into the freedom of university life. It seemed like this dream skyrocketed into reality when I entered UP – the bastion of liberty.  Suddenly, I could do away with curfew, sleep late and wake up late, speak my mind without being told to shut up, go on out-of-town trips without parental permission and supervision, manage my own budget, try new stuff I never did before and just do what I want to do.  These I did trusting myself enough not to cross any self-imposed danger zones.  And oh, how I thrived…and floundered.

The very institution I thought would be my ticket to freedom only made me thirst for more.  I couldn’t be satiated with even a freethinking environment.  My classes taught by the most liberal minds only offered half-baked answers to the deepest questions.  I was free to speak all the expletives I want, yet the words felt like empty utterances.  I shifted gears from the classrooms to the extra-curriculars: I joined organizations, ran for student council and maximized the opportunities that “freedom” extended my way.  Two decades into existing and as for life, I called it a day and concluded the thirst unquenchable and freedom, superficial.  Even outside the glass house, the road to genuine freedom was either non-existent or perfectly elusive. I almost stood at the crossroads and froze.

I have been avoiding having to do with anything devout, religious, pious and orthodox.  It didn’t help my hypercritical mind.  But as resigned as I was, the heavens were still on my favor. I didn’t know what got into me, but maybe because I was trying my knack at cordiality, I did a friend a favor and went to one of their “life parties”.  It turned out she was part of some Christian group in UP and the event was one of their weekly jam gatherings.  And it turned out she was the one who did me a favor. At first,  I was unforgiving with my criticisms but as grace would have it, I listened to the Pastor – with all ears and heart.  He was one who broke mindsets. The message he shared was familiar at the surface, but unfamiliar in depth.  For sure, it touched me but I thought it was just that – a fleeting thug at the heart, one that makes you cry a little and feel like you’re worth more than all the money in the world compounded. But what I didn’t know was that the path to freedom was as simple as hearing a familiar message shared most passionately.

I didn’t grow up with a pastor as a father, but I met one along the way.  I grew up in a comparatively conservative household and had my fair share of being inside the glass house. But I rebelled my way in high school and had my fair share of being outside the glass house. I thought that as long as I was under the jurisdiction of my parents, I’d never be in command of my own life. I almost didn’t pursue law school just to prove a point – that I wasn’t following others’ dream of me.  I guess I’m lucky to have had lived through both worlds and find out the answer isn’t really found inside or outside the glass house. Oftentimes, we point the blame to others or the environment we grew accustomed to.  If we feel wretched inside, it’s so much easier to point the finger at those responsible for all those rules and structures we just have to abide to.  We confuse discipline with blind obedience.  We follow systems out of a shallow understanding of the essence behind them.  And when we are sick of it, we resist because we feel that we are confined in a box.  We see structures as structures and rules as rules.  Without profundity, it is normal behavior to resist. We fail to see that the quest to freedom entails discipline.  The quest to freedom entails the application of prudence, not heedlessness.  And sometimes, the problem isn’t entirely borne by others, but also by our hearts and our mindset.

I had my own dose of enlightenment when at the height of soul-searching, I told my parents I didn’t want to pursue law anymore.  My parents surprised me when they told me it was wholly up to me.  All along I thought it was sin not to live up to their expectations, but it was liberating to know that they loved me and accepted me not because I did anything to please them, but simply because I was their daughter.  As an affirmative response, I am now in law school - but not because others want me to, but because I want to.  Add to that, I find the possibility of pastoring people a noble profession alongside lawyering.  My parents couldn’t understand me at first.  They thought I was shifting religions so they tried to dissuade me.  I could have lashed back at them, downgraded their religion and appeared all too self-righteous because I was, after all, free to do so.  But I shut my mouth, shed some tears and hoped that someday they would understand.  That free act didn’t oppress me.  Because I was free to love, I chose to honor their authority.

The church I know is not a stickler for doctrinal rules but it’s not bereft of them either.   The church I know has its doors ajar for all types of people, yet it doesn’t end there.  As far as I know, the role of the church is not to exclude, but to help set people’s lives in order – that one wouldn’t come out the same wretched person when he first came in.  To do that, the church has to put premium on integrity.  A person who doesn’t practice what he preaches cannot expect his audience to practice what he himself doesn’t.   

Church didn’t change me, but it served as a strong vessel for change.  When I finally came to terms with myself – the ugly and the beautiful – and let myself be confronted with the beauty of forgiveness, I began to allow God to change me and enable me to freely love myself and others.  Freedom, for me, is being set free from all the bondages that a false sense of freedom entangled me.  Freedom is not about us alone. Genuine freedom doesn’t consume us with ourselves and doesn’t hold us back from relating to and loving others who may either hate us or love us in return. It shifts us from our exclusive concept of self and enables us to widen our horizons – to love, to reach out, to forgive, to take risks, and to truly live.

To be free, you need not be away from people with expectations of you. If you need another crowd to do what you are passionate about, then you are not free indeed.  Regardless of people, the choice has always been, is and will always be yours to make. 

*Written in relation and reaction to the Youngblood article "In a glass house" published January 28, 2012.