"When you are interiorly free you call others to freedom, whether you know it or not. Freedom attracts wherever it appears. A free man or a free woman creates a space where others feel safe and want to dwell. Our world is so full of conditions, demands, requirements, and obligations that we often wonder what is expected of us. But when we meet a truly free person, there are no expectations, only an invitation to reach into ourselves and discover there our own freedom.Where true inner freedom is, there is God. And where God is, there we want to be."
Henri Nouwen
Nouwen I believe, is speaking of the attractiveness of the free woman or man. I wonder if this doesn't lie close to the heart of the Gospel message... Jesus was apparently a shockingly attractive man, although scripture indicates it wasn't physical. People, sometimes in crowds, would leave everything, families, livelihoods, homes, just to be with him, to listen to him speak and to watch what he did. Society doesn't much like folks who live free of cultural imperatives, from the will of the crowd. "Where true inner freedom is, there is God. And where God is, there we want to be." Yes indeed!
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