Independence on the Road to Freedom

My freshman year of college I was in a freshman dorm. It was the closest thing to what my Private Christian Liberal Arts College had to a fraternity. Bowman House for many was where many “boys became men.” The chant that I remember hearing so often was “where we go one, we go all; Bowman House.”

            I grew close to a lot of the guys in our dorm. Some of my best friends today came out of my freshman year in Bowman. It was a place for many to learn what community was. Bowman House had regular meetings to build community as well as many other activities throughout the year. However as a freshman I really did not care to attend these meetings, so I skipped out. It was nearing the end of our freshman year and some of my friends who had not skipped out were selected to leadership positions in Bowman during our sophomore year.

            When one of the leadership positions opened up, I went and talked to Rob, the RD, about the possibility of the position. He told me while he saw me as a leader, because I had not joined in the community like I could have, he would not accept me for the position.

            It was during this time that I realized my independence was keeping me from actually taking part in the things that I wanted to do. Everybody has freedom, but with this freedom comes the ability for choice. When one does not choose responsibility then there are at times consequences. In my case I could not be a leader in Bowman because I had chosen to skip out on the house meetings.

            Freedom is a powerful thing. We allow the freedoms that we have to change us. We allow the freedoms to help us grow. But at the same time it could change us for the worse, it could lead us away from what we really truly desire for our lives. For this I am thankful of choice. But on this road to freedom, I wondered if needed something more.

Community on the Road in OK

This past week I was privileged enough to go to Moore, OK with a group from Heartland. We left at 6pm on Wednesday and traveled to Ottawa, KS. We checked in the hotel at 12:30am and left by 6:30am. It was a short stay, but we had a goal. We arrived at the church by 12noon and were helping with relief by 1pm. We were tired and the sun was hot. On the first day we worked about 4 hours and they let us off early to enjoy the 4^th. As a team we decided to go to downtown OKC.

There was a lot going on with live music and fireworks. Rather than listen to the music we decided to walk what was told to us as a few blocks to the Oklahoma bombing memorial. I thought I remembered a lot more about that sad day in 1995 when Timothy McVeigh decided to wreak terror. We arrived and there is still a makeshift memorial with people attaching things that were of value. There were some race numbers which a Ray, a teacher from Moore, told us they were from a memorial marathon ran the last 13 years that provides funding for the memorial museum.

Ray was for one of seven people that stood out to me during the trip. We were able to find out that Ray was one of the lucky ones who lived in Moore. His house was spared; the school he worked at was missed by the tornado. He and his 16, sixth grade students were huddled together in the bathroom. After he knew his students were safe and had someone to attend to them, he ran to Briarwood Elementary, the school that lost a gym, and the school where his son attends. He was to the point of panic when he saw the school for the first time, but it was not long before he scooped his son up in his arms and was thankful for the protection through the storm.

He then went home to find out it was ok, but lost power for five days. In the previous 7 years he really never took the time to know his neighbors but because of the power outage they started hanging out in their driveways, sharing stories and having cookouts. His neighborhood is now a community.

Ray had just returned from DC where he was at a teacher’s conference for 5 days. He said he could not wrap his mind around how different things looked and how much the volunteers had done in a few days. This was important to our team, which was involved in the cleanup process. We spent the majority of our time in Plaza Towers Elementary back yard. One of the hardest hit areas cleaning up a few houses that homes had been taken right off the slab. It was hard work and even though you could see a lot being accomplished we felt like there was still so much to do.

The second person is Jared. He works for Poured Out, the organization we worked with during the few days we were there. Jared was our project coordinator and also ran the skid loader to bring the rubble of someone’s home to the side of the street for the city to pick up. Jared is 20 years old, and we were able to talk to him about life. For someone so young he has a lot of perspective. He has a goal of eventually being able to work for Poured Out full time. He was working a good job, where he was paid well, but he was unable to have the flexibility of taking off 3 weeks here and there to work with Poured Out, so he quits his job on faith and finds a part time position at a church in town where he now has the flexibility he need to be able to go where he feels God is leading him too.

The other five people were the team from Heartland. These were people that were so flexible that took time away from work, they never complained (at least to my face), and were always willing to do the uncomfortable, even work in 95-degree weather to get the job accomplished. Angie, Jeff, Kayla, Dani, and Eric, I would take you anywhere, I would trust you with anything, and I might just follow your directions, just not all at once. I felt I knew them all well before the trip, but there is something special that happens on these trips that would take months or even years in a church setting. The forming of community is a special thing, and that is what this trip was all about for me.

On the trip home, we asked group questions, everyone had to answer, unless they were asleep. Some were funny, some were just to help us know the individual more. But as time progressed the conversation turned to more serious things. Things we would not normally share outside of family or those closest to us. And that is when I realized our community had become a family. Something everyone desires but very few receive.

Independence

My parents tell me that I was an independent child. I always wanted to try things on my own. I would fix breakfast or lunch on my own from a pretty young age. Remember steakumm sandwiches. Not sure if they still make them or not. I was awesome at fixing those.

Why ask for help when I am able to do it, or at least attempt it. I was content shooting basketball on my own in the driveway. I was content riding my bike places instead of depending on my parents for transportation. I would ride miles to go to a friend’s house. It gave me a sense of freedom.

When I went to college I went 1300 miles away from home. I did know some people at the school. But there was something about the unknown that intrigued me. Getting away from family and friends did not seem to bother me. I thought of it as an adventure. Even as a 17-year-old when I decided on Indiana I knew it would work out. Being on my own did not seem to scare me.

In college things started to change, I started to form a community around me. But the pull of being independent was still there. It is hard to be in a community and still be independent. My freshman year in spite of the great friendships I made I was still very independent. It allowed me to still do the things that I wanted to do, whether they were helpful or harmful to myself or even my friends.

God was molding me and it hurt. People confronted me about my actions. People saw dangerous behavior in my life. At times I did not like what I saw in the mirror. I started to realize I had anger, that I was very prideful. My community was a good one and they put up with a lot from me. I am surprised they still like me by the end of the year, well; most of them still liked me.

I was finding my independence did not really work very well if I wanted to be a part of a community. There was something that had to change about me. But I knew it would not be on my own that I could change. It would have to be through Christ and as a part of my community.

This will be my first post in series on independence, freedom and community. Oh and by the way, Have a Happy Independence Day this week..