A free gift of self to be set free

The other day, outside a grocery store, I met a woman named Katerine who was asking people for money. As I sat on the curb waiting for my friend, Katerine turned around and said something to me in Greek. I apologized for not speaking the language, and she nodded her head and turned back around. For the next few minutes I struggled between wanting to talk with her and my fear, until I saw another woman hand Katerine some money. This woman's example of sharing gave me the courage to do the same.

A few minutes after I'd handed money to Katerine, she walked to the curb where I was sitting and showed me a picture of her family, telling me about each member. Although we couldn't understand the other's words, her gesture of friendship and desire to share herself and her story meant so much to me.

I'm realizing that we really just want someone to share in our burdens, and the greatest gift we can share is ourselves. It is in this sharing of ourselves without expectation -- this love -- that we find freedom and joy.

Paul Claudel, a poet, dramatist and diplomat, wrote, "I have not come to bring you paradise here and now, Christ tells us, I have come to bring you the horizon, the sea, that is to say, freedom. I have come to bring you the desire and the direction, that secret understanding throughout your travels, of your destination."

Something about Claudel's thought really resonates with me. That Jesus doesn't just want to hand me paradise, but that he wants to allow me to discover his beauty, truth and goodness in the holy and profane. To surprise and delight me when I find him in places and people I would never expect means everything to me.

I love that he trusts me with the freedom of choice, to share in the discovery and creation of the journey to paradise. He wants me to experience the journey to the horizon, the unknown, allowing me to let go of the things I thought I needed to expose who I am so I can better share myself, giving me freedom.

When I expect paradise or something in return for my love, it doesn't work. I end up feeling lonely and rejected. But a free gift of self sets me free, brings me the horizon. So I don't want paradise -- not yet. I want the horizon and the journey, because what I'm craving is liberation.

So God, bring me the horizon. That line over the ocean, beyond the city, through the mountain, that artists draw there in the distance. Pull it down and up, like a lampshade or projection screen, run with it toward me, stretched out horizontally like a kite in the breeze, and push it away, so that I will chase after it more and go farther and longer than I thought I could before, to meet you in the end, and realize it was you who was drawing me in all along. You are the liberation I crave.

Mia Pohlman is a Perryville, Missouri, native and graduate of Truman State University with a bachelor's degree in English. She now lives in Athens, Greece, where as a Fulbright fellow she teaches English.