Freedom.

Ever think about how strange a concept freedom is? It's not one of the transcendentals--the one, the true, the good, or the beautiful. It's not one of the virtues--faith, hope, charity, prudence, justice, temperance, or fortitude. Freedom kind of stands out there all by it's lonesome.

I've written before (in a private reflection I'll partially publish here later) that maybe freedom is as important a name for God as love. Love and freedom both are words worn thin by the cultural battle of Christianity and the world which is passing away. But maybe part of the reason they have decayed so much and are abused so much is that they are not thought together. That is, of course, not to speak of the ridiculous travesty of "free love," where both words are totally emptied of their authentic meaning, and the phrase realistically means its exact opposite: compulsive exploitation.

But other than that, these two words are so interrelated that they provide a corrective of one-another. Love is only as authentically loving as it is free; and freedom is only as truly free as it is loving. They are coextensive.

This deserves some unpacking, but I only have ten minutes, so let's leave it to rest for now.