Today is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. If you are conscious at all today you will most likely be barraged with news and reminders of that day 40 years ago. My mind this morning immediately went to “how old was I”. The answer is 12 years old. Quickly I thought about who I was at 12, and I would suspect I was free. I already had what King and the country was hoping for. The question came to me, when did I loose that freedom, and I would say the day I took my first drink, which would have been 3 years later at the age of 15. For the next 25 years I was a slave to alcohol. It was my master, my lover, my companion. And in that we all know there is no freedom.
So what happens to us when we really begin to work at our recovery? Freedom does come, and interestingly enough it has a price tag as well. But the price we pay for our work on our path will net life, and not assassination. The price is one of time invested in meetings, pages that are expired on a journal or relationships that need to be let go of.
Today I invite you to ask what you are paying for, are you paying for freedom or are you moving closer to your own death. What I have learned is that moving toward our own death doesn’t just have to be through our addiction, but we can get so far away from our divine purpose in this life that we are slowly dying.
Are you free today????