Let Freedom Ring – August 03, 2003
Every one of us yearns for freedom like the breath of life itself. Our desire for freedom is as innate as our need to think or to feel. Even young children sense that something is wrong in the world when liberty is restricted to a select few and when their own lives are preserved only by the mercy of their enemies.
This craving for equality and justice permeates every land on earth, even those where slavery is still practiced. Martin Luther King Jr. said: “A piece of freedom is no longer enough for human beings. Unlike bread, a slice of liberty does not finish hunger. Freedom is like life. It cannot be had in installments. Freedom is indivisible—we have it all, or we are not free.”1
As technology brings information to the most remote corners of our planet, ignorance evaporates. People begin to realize that we are all made equal by a loving Creator and that no one has the right to oppress another human soul. We begin to see our world as a large, connected neighborhood where we watch out for one another.
Freedom is a gift from the Almighty, but it is a gift that we do not all enjoy. We see suffering, and we whisper, “There but for the grace of God go I.” We know that we are no better than those who have been denied their freedom. Their struggles and fears could just as easily be ours.
We rejoice with a freed people when liberty comes at last. Tears of joy streak our own faces as we symbolically reach out our hands to clasp theirs in victory over oppression. Class distinctions are stripped away, and human equality is celebrated. We know that Helen Keller was right when she said, “There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.”2
Program #3859
1. In “Freedom and Liberty Quotes,” www.ronholland.com/quotes/freedomquotes.htm.
2. In Raymond V. Hand Jr., ed., The Harper Book of American Quotations (1988), 76.