impulse and excess

 

freedom and responsibility

freedom can be a wonderful reality

within which to move,

the individual empowered to follow first impulse,

without any governor restricting desire,

freedom can thus be to soar above it all,

without limits, the "imaginary lines" that Whitman described,

that seek to keep a person from being one's "own master,"

yet in our world we are connected to that larger than us,

we can be constrained by what is right,

by other people, and creatures, and realities,

who add their voices to our inner direction,

real lines that should softly, but firmly, hold us,

in decision-making that is beyond our first impulse,

somehow we need to find a way forward

that both honors our freedom and restricts our excess,

the story of Genesis describes God's gift of free will,

and also the harsh result of indulging self

in defiance of obedience to a defining divine rule,

we mature into understanding

as we learn consequence for our actions,

an Indigenous prayer I invoke often

counsels us to both live the freedom of the eagle,

soaring in the sky,

and to also live the limitation of the ant,

which crawls on the ground,

freedom, at its best, should be tempered away from excess,

we can then live with balance, and thus with wisdom.

by Henry H. Walker

August 31, ‘26