Born to Be Free

"Sawubona". I see you. I see your Freedom. 

In this season for remembering freedom, I think of my Pops, whose quick thinking saved him from dying on DDay in WWII, young Black man fighting for a freedom his own country hadn't fully granted him yet. I think of my great grandmother Eudora and her twin sister Izora, working as domestic servants at age 11 in 1870, born into a world that tried to tell them who they were allowed to be. None of them waited for freedom to be handed to them. They moved as if it was already theirs — because it was. 

That's the truth underneath this week's teaching: freedom is not something we achieve. It is not a prize waiting at the end of good behavior, right circumstances, or enough struggle. Freedom is our nature. It is the original condition of Spirit expressing as us, before fear ever had a chance to write its story over ours.

Ernest Holmes put it plainly: "The road to freedom lies, not through mysteries or occult performances, but through the intelligent use of Nature's forces and laws. The Law of Mind is a natural law in the spiritual world." Freedom isn't mystical or far away. It isn't hidden behind a veil only the specially gifted can part. It is lawful. It is available. It responds the moment we align our thinking with it.

So why don't we feel free more often?

Because somewhere along the way, most of us learned to live small. We absorbed messages — from family, from culture, from history — about who gets to take up space, who gets to rest, who gets to want more. We confused caution with wisdom and shrinking with humility. And collectively, we've watched whole communities have to fight for a freedom that was never supposed to be conditional in the first place. Personal liberation and collective liberation are not separate conversations. They are the same conversation, spoken at different volumes.

Here is the turn: freedom is reclaimed the moment we stop asking permission for it. This is where we treat and move our feet. Try this with me, right now, out loud if you can:

I am free. Not because everything around me has changed, but because I have remembered what was never lost. Spirit in me knows no limitation, no bondage, no smallness. I release every old agreement with fear. I move through this day as the free being I already am. And so it is.

Speak it. Then act like you believe it.

What does that look like for us today? It looks like saying no without over-explaining yourself. It looks like resting without earning it first. It looks like telling the truth in a hard conversation instead of managing everyone else's comfort. Small acts. Big consciousness.

Freedom also looks like us coming together to support our mission financially — not out of obligation, but because we can, and because we are grateful for our spiritual home. This is where the teaching meets the ledger: our identified giving is down 21% this year, and that has real consequences — it has us living in the bondage of a monthly deficit. But bondage isn't the truth of who we are, individually or as a community. 

We know the Law responds to what we align with, and right now Ahiah needs us to align with abundance, not scarcity. If Spirit always says yes, then part of our yes is showing up for the place that has held us, taught us, and freed us. I'm asking you to prayerfully consider increasing your giving this month — not from fear of the deficit, but from gratitude for what this community has given you. Let's treat and move our feet together..

You were not created to wait for freedom. You were created free, and everything since has just been the practice of remembering it. This week, don't just believe that. Live like it.

Spirit always says yes!

Your Affirmations for the Week

I am free right now, exactly as I am, exactly where I stand.

I release every story that told me freedom was for someone else.

I move through this world as the liberated expression of Spirit that I truly am.

An Important Closing Word

If freedom is truly our nature, then let's not stop at the personal. Let's extend it to the community that has held us. Ahiah has carried so many of us through our own seasons of bondage — through fear, through doubt, through not-enough — and now it is our turn to set Ahiah free. Free from the shackles of a monthly deficit. Free from the anxiety of not knowing if the lights stay on. 

Free to dream, to build, to grow into everything this spiritual home is called to be. That freedom isn't going to come through mystery or wishful thinking — it comes the same way all freedom comes: through the intelligent, faithful, consistent use of what we have. Our giving. Our presence. Our yes. So this week, treat for Ahiah's freedom the same way you treat for your own. Move your feet toward it. Give toward it. Because a beloved community sustains itself the same way it sets itself free — together, on purpose, in gratitude. And so it is.

Blessings and Light surround us,

RevMichael (Kisumma)