| Circumstances can seem to run the show in our lives. | | | | the greatest of all freedoms, the power of |
| This happens so that happens. That happens so I do | | | | developing our innermost selves in harmony with the |
| this. Circumstances can also supply the gift of | | | | moral order of the Universe, and so winning peace at |
| boundaries to us. | | | | heart whatever obstacles we meet. |
| My thesis project in college involved directing a play. | | | | Through the years, I've come to realize that inner |
| As a senior, I had first dibs on whatever space I | | | | freedom is far more important to me than external |
| wanted to use. I was offered a black box theater | | | | freedoms. In the work I have undertaken with my |
| that I could arrange any way I wanted. It could have | | | | innermost self, I have found peace at heart despite |
| been proscenium, three-quarter, in the round. I was | | | | the gifts of the boundaries (or, obstacles) I've |
| paralyzed by the choices. | | | | encountered in the life of the world. |
| Instead, I opted for a wildly erratic rehearsal schedule | | | | Unsure of the moral order of the Universe, I have |
| and the college's chapel space. Why? Because the | | | | discarded most of what might be considered morality |
| doors couldn't be moved. Because there were | | | | for a simpler creed based, perhaps, on the order of |
| immovable pews. Because the space itself gave me | | | | the Universe instead. Every time I make a choice, I |
| boundaries within which I could do creative work | | | | ask myself a series of questions I've accumulated |
| safely. Boundaries became a gift. The freedom of the | | | | over the years. Consider these: |
| black box space was too great for me at the time. | | | | Is this choice . . .peaceful in my |
| (For what it's worth, I'd make the same choice | | | | heart?kind?simple?elegant?something I'd be proud to |
| today, almost thirty years later.) | | | | talk about? |
| I like what Johann Wolfgang von Goethe says about | | | | Obstacles don't have to curtail our freedoms as long |
| this: | | | | as we develop an inner plumb line for our choices. |
| If we examine every stage of our lives, we find that | | | | Instead, they create boundaries for our safe passage |
| from our first breath to our last we are under the | | | | and peace at heart. |
| constraint of circumstances. And yet we still possess | | | | |