On Freedom within Constraints: Taking another Shot at this!

[[Dear Sister, your post on freedom (On Questions of Freedom vs License)  on freedom was interesting, but I still don't see how having constraints can be a source of freedom. First off I didn't get the illustration on playing violin. I don't play an instrument so I couldn't relate. Can you give me another example? I mean it just seems weird that someone would want to take on legal requirements so they can be "free". I am thinking of all the things you can't do because of your vows. You know, like marriage or having kids, or just hanging with friends or having money. So you know, I just don't see what you mean when you say you can be yourself. It looks to me like when a person makes vows they are making sure they cannot be themselves but what someone else thinks is right.]]

Thanks for giving the original post a try. Yes, I can at least attempt to give another example and maybe clarify. You didn't say whether the sports example was helpful so I am hoping it assisted a little.  What I was trying to point out was how constraints can allow the potential someone has to be fully realized whereas the lack of constraints associated with license (the ability to do anything at any time whenever one wanted) actually prevents the realization of one's potential. Think of learning to write cursive or "longhand". You practice stroke after stroke for hours and days and months. There are constraints in the ways you can form letters and words, constraints on your physical capacities, constraints which stem from your teacher's expectations and talent in teaching handwriting, or her lack thereof, and so forth. Over time however, your observation or respect of these constraints begins to translate into the ability to write freely, legibly, with facility and personal expression or "flair" (because you will find ways to do that even within the constraints imposed). The limitations imposed also created a realm of freedom and fruitfulness.

Without those constraints, those limits and definitions, those patterns and shapes and all the time it took to practice and master them, you could have used your pencil or pen to explore and create infinite numbers of shapes, patterns, lines, spaces. etc; at the same time you might have found you only drew a few over and over because of limited imagination and coordination. You could have scribbled in deep pain, gouged the paper in anger, and in time you  might have developed an actual consistent schema to express yourself. But no one else would be able to read it -- or hear you clearly.

The time you spent would ultimately be mostly a waste of time and effort for you would still lack the freedom to write and understand the cursive writing of others. You would be lacking written language and all of the capacities written language helps to develop.  In time, as you develop these abilities (and do so within the new but freeing constraints of grammar and syntax) you may well come to write compellingly of the nature and psychology of anger or write a novel exploring the deep pain you once could only scribble about --- precisely because constraints and the discipline and creativity they encourage have created a realm of genuine freedom for you to explore. They linked letters to one another and formed words; words linked to one another and to your own inner experience and created the power of expression. And over time you made these your own. You became a writer,

An even simpler example maybe: think of a child's room, full of toys including crayons, paints, chalks, etc. The parents want their child to develop her creativity and capacities for art. When she draws surreptitiously on the wall next to her bed, they add a black board and an easel along with the rule, "No more drawing or coloring on the wall or floor." (No more need to face Mom's anger.) "No more need to draw or color in hiding or secrecy. Draw and color all you want, but you must use the easel and the chalk board!" Constraints. Limitations. Physical challenges. But they also create a space of freedom where one can (learn to) paint or draw with chalk openly to one's heart's content. Law is a lot like this. Traffic laws create a realm of freedom where one may travel the streets without fear in relative safety; they create the freedom to go wherever one needs or desires to go without worrying about folks running red lights, driving on sidewalks and operating potentiality deadly machines entirely without constraints.

Canon law and standing in law does something very similar for the consecrated hermit. For one called to this it gives us a sacred space to be a hermit no matter what in the world around us militates against that, or what doubts inside us may come up from time to time; we have discerned our vocations with others and have been admitted to profession after a time of careful evaluation. Standing under canon law is a reminder of who the church has perceived and charges us to be. That is truly freeing. But it comes with constraints: it comes, as I say so often, with rights and obligations, as well as with legitimate expectation on the part of others. It limits what I may and may not do, who I may be and may not be; evenso, because I am called to this by God through these limitations and related freedoms, I learn that constraints of this sort can free me (and allow God to empower me) to be my best self in the silence of solitude.

Celibacy in Christ, for instance, a clear constraint frees me to be a complete woman and makes me free to relate to males generally comfortably and freely, of course, but I am also free to relate to male contemplatives especially, in a profoundly deep way without anxiety or ever feeling the slightest danger of impropriety. It's a paradox where specific limitations create realms of deep freedom in which one may truly grow in genuine wholeness and holiness as the man or woman they are. My vows and the requirements (more, the vision articulated in) my Rule give me the space and time to spend in prayer and with Scripture in study and lectio. The constraints of my Rule create a realm of freedom, excitement, and personal growth. Silence (a constraint on noise, music, TV, and unnecessarily disturbing things as well  --- unless there is an important reason for them) creates a realm of freedom in which all kind of things (some quite difficult) can occur for and within the hermit's inner life. In the space created by constraints, God is powerfully present and dwells with and in me. In this way, the limits of my hermitage are also the ways in which this small place and my own life open to eternity.

So, that was some of what I was trying to say.in my earlier post. I hope this helps a little more, but if not, get back to me again and let me know what remains unclear.