'Identity, Freedom, Liberation' - Rev. Michael Allured

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MESSAGE

We’ve just marked Pride month when LGBTQ+ communities been able to celebrate our identity and to some extent liberation in relative freedom.  Being gay can lead to the death penalty in 12 countries around the world.  That’s a stark reality for many who are unlucky enough to be born in one of those countries.  

And here in the West let us not be lulled into a false belief that we now live in a tolerant society.  The attacks on transgender people are real: brutal and only recently, the leader of the Reform Party said that equal marriage was wrong.  

So as we invite each other to consider the meaning of liberation and freedom, let us remember that liberties hard fought for and won with blood, sweat and tears can be taken away in the blink of an eye.  

Some have questioned whether Pride continues to be necessary in the UK and America.  It’s true, we have made huge strides.  But in defence of liberty and freedom these statistics are a reminder of who isn’t free and who doesn’t have liberty:

  • Over 4,600 trans and gender-diverse people have been reported murdered worldwide since 2008.

  • In the 12 months leading up to November 2024, at least 320 trans people were killed globally.

That is the reality of our human existence. We all suffer because we bind each other and ourselves up in chains.  The human race craves conformity because we as human beings crave order and control.  We see greed and power grabs to aid the greed.  And so it goes on as we exist physically and mentally in our physical and imaginary cages – partly held by the power of others and partly through our own fear..  

In Buddhism there’s a word for this human condition: dukkha, alluding to the fundamental unsatisfactoriness of things or suffering that pervades all aspects of existence. It’s not just physical pain or emotional distress—it’s a deeper existential condition. 

Dukkha is the first of Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths. Life is suffering. And the path to ending dukkha is the Eightfold Path. Acceptance and non-attachment are part of the way in that process to nirvana, to freedom and liberation of the soul.

There is much for us to learn from the Buddhist way when thinking about our own path to freedom and liberation – not of the body but of our mind, of our soul.   Thich Nhat Hanh encourages us not to rush, not to fight the traffic and stop for the red light.   He writes: 

The red light is a bell of mindfulness. We may have thought it was preventing us from reaching our destination more quickly. But now we know the red light is our friend, helping us to resist rushing and calling us to return to the present moment, where we can meet with life and peace.

This ’monk Thich Nhat Hanh who’, according to Time Magazine, ‘taught the world mindfulness asks us to sit with the discomfort of our worries and make friends with them, calming them as we might a crying baby.  

Is he suggesting to us that if we notice what’s going on its power is taken away? Is he suggesting that acceptance is the way to personal freedom and liberation from suffering: embracing ‘whatever will be will be’? I think so. Yet this path takes hard spiritual and psychological work. 

Acceptance is one way to personal freedom and liberation: letting go of the things beyond our control.  Developing the art of gaining perspective and realising what’s important is a parallel path.  We see from our other two readings – words by Steve Jobs and Holly Butcher - that this realisation takes a lifetime and staring our mortality in the face to realise.    

Acceptance is a useful lesson to learn.  Yet it cannot surely be the whole answer to enlightenment, the road to personal and societal freedom and liberation?  We need fight sometimes too.  Another Buddhist quotation teaches us that You have to fight through some bad days to earn the best days of your life.

By all means let us accept the things we cannot change but may we also have the courage to challenge the things we cannot accept.  Balance and perspective in action alongside our sitting in stillness and blessing the presence of the present moment.  It is through art of balancing in life that we can at least have a chance of finding our identity and a kind of  liberation and freedom.

And if that takes a lifetime of practice: starts and restarts, perhaps this widely attributed Irish proverb offers us relief and the release, if only for a while, that we need.

 A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures for anything.