The Freedom of Restraint
Why is it that often, the more we desire freedom, the less of it we have? Do we hold so tightly to freedom that we crush it, like a child crushes a flower in their hand while trying to protect it? Indeed, love can be bruised, and even extinguished, if held too tightly—so can freedom. Love cannot flourish without freedom nor can real freedom thrive without true love. Freedom, in truth, cannot be free
Was Tolkien Manichaean?
“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate….For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” (Romans 7:15,19)1 Perhaps I am being a smidgen anachronistic, but I am starting to wonder if Paul, in composing those famous lines in his letter to the Christians in Rome,