In my drawing class, I’m part of a rapscallion group of new friends who gather at the same table every week. We often begin the week’s assignment silently absorbed in the flow of our charcoal, pastels, oil, or ink across the page. It’s peaceful, literally drawing us out of the maelstrom of bad news that bombards us at other hours.
Soon, though, one of us is bound to stage-whisper a quip about how our self-portrait looks like a person with mumps, or our chair looks like a frog. And then we’re off into a fit of giggles and comparisons, reassurance and praise, which almost always wind their way into sharing stories of our lives. I know two of my new friends are unemployed; they know I’m a Unitarian
Universalist minister. They cheer me on when I audition for and get into a choir. We heartily welcome the sweetheart of one when she brings them to class for a session.
We have plans to get together when the class ends, continuing to draw and chat and share refreshments. We can’t know if we’ll build lasting friendships, but I do know that we’re already building something vital and sweet and meaningful.
Every week this new micro-community brings me joy and hope.
Recently, Timothy Snyder’s book, On Freedom, teaches me the difference between negative freedom and positive freedom. Negative freedom is freedom from—freedom from any obstacles to what “we” want to do. There’s always an us vs. them in negative freedom, and the problem always lies with “them.” If we can just get them and their obstacles out of the way,
then we will be truly free and happy. Right? Yeah, not so much.
Positive freedom, on the other hand, is freedom for. It’s the freedom to create and build. It’s not focused on us vs. them. We may face obstacles, but positive freedom says that together we already have the capacity, the creativity, and the responsibility to create a better society, whether on a small or large scale. This is a freedom that no one can take away from us.
My table of rapscallion new friends reminds me that this work of building the Beloved Community can happen anywhere and everywhere. Each of us is growing stronger and more resilient because of this community we are creating. We can trust our capacity to build.
~Rev. Nancy Palmer Jones
