Freedom in Motion

After five hundred miles I am in Escalante, Utah. Northern Arizona and southern Utah have remarkable geographic diversity and beauty. I went through mountains and moonscapes, forests and fields, rain and shine. I struck up conversations with Japanese tourists, a developmentally disabled chap on vacation, and the owner of the local bike shop. Now I am sitting outside my little cabin at Bob’s RV park just thinking about how lucky I am.

As I motored along today and gaped at the incredible scenery, I thought how lucky I have been in my life. I have been able to take advantage of the world of motion and have been privileged to visit many places and to imbibe much of what creation has to offer. I find incredible freedom in movement and travel, and as I gazed at the glory around me I began to wonder about those who have not been so lucky.

Some folks simply are not travelers and have no real interest in seeing something other than what they already know. I must admit I don’t understand those folks.

Some folks simply don’t have the economic means to go very far from home; when I was in High School I worked at a marine science center one summer, and our job was to introduce elementary age kids to the wonders of marine life. I was stunned to find out that children living in Florida had little or no experience of the beach, the ocean, or forms of river life. It broke my heart then and it still does today.

And there is a third category of person who has not been as lucky as I have been: the one who has some sort of physical or mental impairment that prevents him from seeing or doing, that prevents them from finding freedom in motion.

But perhaps I am judging from my own limited perspective. Perhaps I am the one who limits himself to finding freedom in motion. I mean, think of folks like Christopher Reed or Stephen Hawking. A tragic accident bound Reed and a vicious affliction still holds Hawking in its grip. Yet both of these men … and many, many more like them … have refused to be limited by the physical world. Hawking has gone places in his mind that most of us mortals cannot even conceive, and up until the very end of his life Reed reached out to others.

Finding freedom in motion is a gift. Finding freedom in spite of the lack of motion is a blessing.