By virtue of where I was born and the parents I was born to, I have never had to live with poverty on a personal level. I have never been legally or socially enslaved to another person. I have been educated. I am able to choose and to change both my employer and my career. I have traveled and relocated. It has been my choice whether and how I will serve others.

     In short, I have been blessed with a rich social and political freedom.

     Sure, I have done my bit of complaining about government regulations and taxes, about politicians and their sometimes false intentions and empty promises. But this remains: as a citizen of the United States, I have experienced (and will return home to) a freedom that is sorely needed in many parts of the world.

     The Declaration of Independence declares, "And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor." It was to freedom that the signers of the Declaration valiantly pledged their whole beings. They spoke, wrote, fought, and shed their blood in terms of "certain unalienable rights." I can appreciate the struggle of the early North Americans to make these rights their reality when I consider the daily Guatemalan struggle to fully understand what it might mean to live in freedom and in peace.

     Here in Guatemala, a cluster of between eighteen and twenty-two extended families owns most of the land. The unemployment rate hovers around 50%. Many people live and work on fincas, not as slaves yet having to answer to the owners of that land. Their average pay is usually equivalent to two or three dollars per day, while owners reap unbelievable profits from the coffee, sugar cane, corn, fruits, and other products they themselves had little or no part in planting, tending, or harvesting.

     Those who are not on fincas but try to market agricultural products on their own find this a difficult task. They must still answer to those families which have political power and thus control the markets.

     I wince now when I think of how I have complained and made jokes about waiting room times in nearly any doctor’s office I have been to. I am not so sure I can make those jokes anymore. I have seen people patiently wait for hours, even a whole day, not knowing when the doctor would be free to see them or their child. Even getting to a clinic requires a lengthy journey for some, and that means losing at least one day’s work – and with it its wages, wages that hardly suffice to supply the nutritional requirements of healthy living in the first place.

     While nearly all children in the States receive some type of formal education, some here do not. Paying for enrollment, books, notebooks, clothes, pens, etc. can be beyond a family’s financial ability. San Lucas is blessed to have the support of both the parish and the Christian Foundation for Children and Aging in assisting families with ensuring the education of their children. Even so, there are still too many children who play on the streets when they should be in class, and the reason is usually a matter of family finances.

     The U.S. Constitution was created and is defended "to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." It has taken an average of six years per amendment to the U.S. Constitution; the Guatemalan Constitution is completely rewritten every time there is a change in leadership. With the recently signed Peace Accords, ending the thirty-six years of civil war, have come still more changes.

     Being in San Lucas has enhanced my appreciation for my American freedoms, opportunities, and social and governmental stabilities. I am educated and can continue my education. I have experienced forty-seven states, nine Canadian provinces, and a portion of Guatemala. I speak freely. I associate with whomever I please. I vote for political candidates whom I expect to more or less represent my views. I pursue both the careers and the arts of my choosing. And I am confident that when I do have children, they will have at least the same opportunities that I have had, if not more.

     In pondering and appreciating my freedoms, I do have to be careful. I have to remember that they have come about at a great cost, paid by the blood and the honor of those who have fought to create and maintain a nation where such freedoms can flourish. And I need to remain aware that they still exact a price today. This price may be more subtle than blood and honor, but it is certainly no less precious.

     Commercial freedoms put so many choices before me that I can easily lose sight of what is truly necessary to live. I (we all) need to actively remember that nothing is ever a necessity simply because it looks appealing, smells fresh, feels soft, or is used in more households than its rival. In fact, all of that supposed external goodness may be hiding the product’s or service’s complete lack of real, internal goodness and worth.

     It is easy to lose sight of, or to never even know, the value of simplicity when our high-tech, highly psychological marketing strategies expertly convince us that even some of the most useless items are not even luxuries but necessities. Many of us are so deceived that we play into the advertisers’ hands, becoming their unwilling accomplices. Our financial debt matches our internal emptiness as we attempt to fill our lives with many useless products. We then show off how in step we want others to think we are, and it becomes a race, a competition. Those who disbelieve this only need to walk down the street and look. Look at many people’s shoes, jeans, handbags, hats, artificial tans, artificial fingernails, hair styles, lawn styles, alarm systems, and cars. The truth is easily seen.

     One lesson I have awakened to while in the community of San Lucas Tolimán is that personal freedoms have far more depth and meaning than social and political freedoms. True liberty is an internal characteristic, derived from human dignity. Markets, candidates, interest rates, sneaker brands, or anything else external can never determine who I am. There is only one thing, one person that can encroach on who I am, and that is me. My true freedom is damaged only when I break relationships with friends, neighbors, and God.

     The complexities and lies of modern North American life want to distract me from that truth. In a commercial society, where my belongings determine my success, freedom is wrongly defined in the realm of doing, having, getting, and winning. Living in San Lucas has shown me a truer side of liberty: my integrity, my living as the dignified person God created me to be, is what determines my success. Thus, my freedom is correctly defined in the realm of being, serving, relating, and loving.

     I began by saying how blessed I am to have had the freedoms and fortunes that come with being a North American. Still, I need to keep this before me at all times: the fulfillment of my humanity does not come from any outward freedom. The fulfillment of my humanity comes from living and expressing the dignity that God has given me and celebrating this same dignity in others. The ultimate power in my life does not lie in my ability to make decisions, in my freedom to choose; rather, it lies in my freedom to give and receive love.