Free Indeed?

Last Saturday, the program I work for took a group of middle school kids to St. Louis for the day. We do field trips in the summer so our participants can see and experience life beyond our small, rural world and can “look forward and reach higher” (our motto).

As part of that trip, we attended a live musical theater called “Big River.” It was the story of Huckleberry Finn told in music. I learned that the music was written by Roger Miller (if you know that name, you are telling your age).

If you remember, the classic novel was set around the Mississippi River before the Civil War and dealt with the issue of slavery. It was difficult for me to mentally resolve that since only a few decades earlier, our young country had declared that, “all men are created EQUAL, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Yet, a terrible civil war was looming over a part of the country living in opposition to what it had declared. People were treating men, women, and children as property to be bought and sold.

The musical allowed us to step into the shoes of characters and feel a bit of their life challenges. I don’t pretend to be conversant with literary meaning, but I came away realizing that there were different kinds of slavery portrayed. Some were based upon race; some were based upon life circumstances beyond one’s control; and some were based upon one’s own life choices.

Big Jim was a slave in chains, sold and torn from his family. Big Jim was willing to risk everything to be free. Huck was a slave in unseen chains that came from a difficult childhood with an drunken, abusive father and with a society that rejected the result of that childhood. I don’t believe Huck realized he wasn’t free. A couple of other characters were slaves to a sleazy lifestyle they had chosen for themselves, and they had no interest in being free from it.

I am aware that we all watch life through our own particular filters, and my filters seek to see a larger picture. From the musical, I see that just like our young country, which declared a belief in liberty for all and yet were living the opposite, countries and individuals today declare one thing yet live another. Politicians declare, but once elected often fail to deliver on those declarations. Also, it seems that we as a nation, although declaring our dependence upon our God at the beginning, are seeking to disavow that declaration.

While most of us know nothing of the horrendous life of slavery, I do see that, in a sense, we all wear chains of one kind or another from the past. Some we have put upon ourselves through bad choices and some were thrust upon us by circumstances beyond our control. I am so thankful for Jesus’ words when He said he had been sent “to proclaim freedom.” Also, he promised, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” John 8:36

May we all be free indeed!

♫ I have lived in the darkness for so long
I am waitin' for the light to shine
Far beyond horizons I have seen
Beyond the things I've been
Beyond the dreams I've dreamed
Are the things I've done
In fact each and every one
Are the way that I was taught to run

I am waitin' for the light to shine
I am waitin' for the light to shine
I have lived in the darkness for so long
I'm waitin' for the light to shine. ♫
Roger Miller from "Big River"