It was late on a Saturday night in January when the call for our ambulance came in. We were being called to someone injured in a fight. He was outside of a bar several miles away from town. We asked if the sheriff had a car going also and they said, “No.” They did not currently have anyone available. We were to let them know if it was needed.
When we arrived, we saw eyes peeking out of the door of the bar but no one standing outside with him. He was all alone sitting on the icy cold pavement. He was huge – muscular – tall. All he was doing was grunting – loudly. “Grrrr. Grrr. Grrr.” Over and over again. He was dressed in torn jeans and a torn dirty t-shirt. He did not have a jacket or coat on. It was January in Michigan and the temperature was very cold. We pulled up next to him. I could see blood on his head. He didn’t get up. He just sat there grunting. I tried to talk to him. He refused to answer. He continued to grunt, “Grrrr, Grrrr, Grrrr.”
Eventually a couple of people came outside. We asked what happened. They either didn’t know or didn’t want to tell us. I asked if anyone knew him. They said his name was, “Mike.”
“Mike. Mike. My name is Mike too. I am here to try and help you. Can you tell me where you hurt?”
“Grrr, Grrr, Grrr.”
We got the stretcher out of the ambulance. Normally with unknown injuries including a possible head injury we would take spinal precautions. In this case “Mike” stood up and sat down and then laid down on our stretcher. We put the blankets and safety belt on him and lifted him into the ambulance.
The next thing I know I was sitting next to Mike alone in the back of the ambulance. My partner started driving to the hospital. As he drove, he called the sheriff dispatcher and asked the police to meet us at the Emergency Department. I looked for what I could do if Mike got violent with me. I had a big Maglite flashlight, but I was not sure that even with that I could fight him off. It felt like an unsafe situation.
As Mike warmed up, he stopped grunting.
“Do I look like your brother?” he asked me.
“No,” I said.
“Well you don’t look like my brother either! But you are just like my brother.” He was getting angry.
I tried to calm him, “What do you mean? How can I be just like your brother? You don’t even know me. I am trying to help you. Can you tell me where you are hurt?”
“You are just like my brother! You are just like my brother because you will never understand me. My brother never understands me, and you are just like my brother so you will never understand me.” He continued on and on.
“How does your brother not understand you?” I asked.
“He doesn’t understand me because he is just like you and you will never understand me. And you will never understand me because you are just like my brother,” his circular reasoning continued. Then he looked at me and said, “For you see – I am free.”
I am free. That is what he said. It seemed odd to me to hear him say that.
“They can do whatever they want to me but no matter what anyone does I am always going to be free,” he continued.
I was suddenly overcome with a complex mix of pity, compassion and anger. Fear left me as the reality of his world and the lies and deceptions that he believed confronted me.
We did sit in stark contrast to each other. He was all alone sitting on the ice in a cold dark parking lot in a Michigan winter in January. He had no friends coming to his aid or supporting him. He had blood on his head. He was cold, injured, alone and friendless. The world had been unkind to him. He was angry and trapped and imprisoned by his circumstances and by his anger.
I was at work at a job that I truly enjoyed. I had on a clean uniform that I was proud of. I had on a very warm jacket. I was working with a friend. We enjoyed working together. I knew and benefited from the love of my family and friends. I knew the love of God. And in this I had a much different understanding of the meaning of freedom.
I was free.
I was not free because I had no ties or obligations. I was not free because I had no limits on what I said or did. I was busy. During the week I was in college with hours of study and classes. On the weekend I worked 14 hours at the ED and another 24 hours on the ambulance every other weekend. Built around me were huge expectations. I also was (and am) committed to my Christian faith and my submission to the Lordship of Christ on my life. My life was and is not my own. And yet, there was no question in my mind at that moment about freedom.
He was deeply imprisoned in his circumstances. He was a victim of the cruel deception of this world. By trying so hard to be free he was being chained deeper and deeper in misery. It is usually so subtle that we do not see it. We live our lives missing the paradox of what true freedom is. But sometimes the circumstances make it abundantly obvious. Sometimes you end up all alone, sitting in torn and dirty clothes, sitting outside in an icy parking lot in the middle of January evening and all you can do is grunt.
The deception had overplayed its hand. He was not free. He was horribly empty and imprisoned in his misery.
For you see there is a secret. It is a mystery. It is a paradox. Freedom does not come by breaking free from all the ties and restrictions on you. Freedom comes from being where and who and how you are supposed to be. Freedom does not come from running away.
I had a patient once who ran away from home. He was in his 60s with a wife, children, grandchildren, a mother, a home, and a business. He felt the pressure of it all and one day when he was driving home, he didn’t go home. He just kept driving and went on and on. He settled somewhere else and started a new life. He was seeking freedom. But he was not free. Eventually he came home. Running away from his obligations didn’t make him free.
Freedom comes from being home or wherever you are supposed to be. Freedom is strong in a room surrounded by your family and friends who love you. Freedom is not found when you are running away from all of them. The things that the world might try to sell you as being free – making your own decisions – driving your own life – actually are deep deceptions. Freedom is understanding who you are – where you are supposed to be and how you are supposed to function.
On the deepest level freedom is found in submission to the one who knows you and has created you and loves you. Freedom comes from knowing love and forgiveness from God. Freedom comes not from fighting and scrapping to prove yourself to others and to God, but from accepting His forgiveness, and starting new as the person who you are meant to be.
The paradox is this: Freedom is found in submission. What might look like restrictions or rules if they were forced on you, become freedom when you see and chose and accept them.
Freedom does not come from a lack of ties or obligations. Freedom comes within them. Freedom can come with a house with a mortgage, bills, a job and a bunch of expectations. Freedom comes from being where you are supposed to be. Freedom is like finding a set of clothes that fit you perfectly. Without them you are naked and awkward and incomplete. But in them suddenly everything is right.
We turned a corner toward the hospital.
I was angry. I wasn’t angry at him. I was angry at a mean and cruel world and how it was destroying him. I was angry how it could make him an “object of wrath.” I was angry at how deceived he had been and how empty he was. I no longer cared about my safety or trying to keep him calm.
“You don’t understand. You do not know the first thing about freedom,” I said to him. “Look at you and what has happened to you. You are the one who was sitting injured and all alone in a cold parking lot. Wake up! You have got to see it. You are trapped. By trying to be free you are imprisoned. There is so much more to freedom than what you understand. You need help.”
I didn’t know what he was going to do next. He might get violent. And just then my partner backed up to the doors at the ED. The back doors of the ambulance were opened by two sheriff’s deputies who were waiting for us. I hopped out to safety. We brought him into the emergency department.
I never saw him again.
