True Love

I know now that you were there – that you helped me through it. I know that you loved me right there.

Couldn’t you have just stopped it… or at least shown yourself to me then… or helped me understand that I wasn’t bad right there at the time?

“That’s not freedom!”

What do you mean that’s not freedom?

“I mean that if I stopped it then I would have forced my will upon her. If I had shown myself to you when you were not choosing to see then I would have forced my will upon you. If I told you when you were not choosing to hear or told you what to think then, again, I would be forcing my will upon you. All of those things would make me the dictator that you thought I was.”

“I do work to affect outcomes but I never force anyone to do anything. I granted you all freedom long ago. I have never taken that away.”

“But remember – freedom always comes with consequences – good or bad!”

“And sometimes innocent people are affected when others misuse that freedom.”

Yeah, I know. Can’t you just stop that?

“Again, that’s not freedom!”

“I am always here – you are free to choose to see, or not. I am always speaking – you are free to choose to listen, or not. There are ways that I help, that do not take away freedom, that you can choose to notice, or not. I always love!”

But I don’t like the consequences. You can do anything you want! Can’t you just take all of the bad away?

“Freedom?”

What’s so important to you about freedom?

“Without freedom there can be no true love.”

Of course there can! You can love someone and tell them what to do!

“And they have the choice to follow you… or not!”

“If I take away freedom then everyone does exactly what I want them to… like robots.”

“You act how you are programmed to act. You think what you are programmed to think.”

“How would it make you feel if your children only acted loving to you because they had to… they had no choice… it was just programmed into them like a machine.”

It wouldn’t really feel like real love then. I wouldn’t like it. It would be meaningless to me!

“It wouldn’t feel like it because it is not ‘love’. It is just programming.”

“So your freedom is important to me. I only want you to love me because you choose to love – just like you desire that from your own children. Your own nature helps you understand me just a little better.”

“True love, then, can only exist where there is freedom.”