Where Can Freedom Be Found?

Reflecting on Bob Dylan’s 80^th birthday on Sunday… Apparently Dylan wrote ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ in 1962 – so he was just 16! This protest song, posing rhetorical questions about peace, war, and freedom, included: ‘How many years can some people exist Before they’re allowed to be free?’

Where can freedom be found? (WCFBF?) The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.

Yesterday was a national holiday. Everyone is free to do as we wish… In Sheringham Park we walked in the woodlands, enjoying spectacular rhododendrons of many colours. Later we walked beside the beach. Many folks were lazing on the beach, in the sea, eating fish and chips, enjoying ice creams…

WCFBF? In the woods, on the beach.  

 

I particularly enjoyed a sign in Sheringham Park that warned me against ‘loose livestock’. I imagined deer that needed some adjustment with a spanner or sheep that had a screw loose. I decided that it probably referred to the cattle grazing in the field.

WCFBF? In a field, living loosely.

I was delighted to be reminded of the annual cheese rolling race at Cooper’s Hill, Brockworth, in Gloucestershire. Yesterday thousands of people watched competitors chasing a wheel of Double Gloucester cheese down a famously steep hill. This ‘extreme sport’ event, was first officially recorded in 1826…

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WCFBF? Chasing cheese down a hill.

I’m reminded of Jesus’ mission ‘to proclaim good news to the poor… proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

WCFBF? In Jesus, and in those who would follow in His steps

Roly Bain was an Anglican vicar and a clown. He describes the clown as a ‘vulnerable lover’: ‘God is the God who is Love, and his love shines all that he creates. His love is the love that is laughter, a liberating love with a redeeming smile that is a way of transcendence and salvation’

WCFBF? In God’s love and laughter.