Action of Freedom

The refusal to feel takes on a heavy toll. Not only is there an impoverishment of our emotional and sensory life, but this psychic numbing also impedes our capacity to process and respond to information. The energy expended in pushing down despair is diverted from more creative uses, depleting the resilience and imagination needed for fresh visions and strategies. The words of Martin Luther King Jr's declaration, "I have decided to love," emphasize choice. Once we choose love, we instinctively possess the inner resources to confront pain. Moving through the pain to the other side we find the joy, the freedom of spirit that a love ethic brings. When you open to the pain of the world you move, you act. That action is the testimony of love. That action is freedom.