Today, the descendants of American slaves, and friends of freedom commemorate the landing of Major General Gordon Granger at Galveston, Texas, with news that the Civil War was over, and that the enslaved were now free. American poet Langston Hughes wrote:

With John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, Negroes died.
John Brown was hung.
Before the Civil War, days were dark,
And nobody knew for sure
When freedom would triumph
“Or if it would,” thought some.
But others knew it had to triumph.
In those dark days of slavery,
Guarding in their hearts the seed of freedom,
The slaves made up a song:
Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!
That song meant just what it said: Hold On!
Freedom will come!
Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!
Out of war it came, bloody and terrible!
But it came! Some there were, as always,
Who doubted that the war would end right,
That the slaves would be free,
Or that the union would stand,
But now we know how it all came out.
Out of the darkest days for people and a nation,
We know now how it came out.
There was light when the battle clouds rolled away.
There was a great wooded land,
And men united as a nation.

What is your freedom good for?

But what is freedom for? Jesus taught his disciples, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 25:25-28, New International Version)

The 16th-century German Christian Martin Luther seems to me to echo that vibration in his treatise “On the Freedom of the Christian,” when he writes

“A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.”

I consider Steps to Knowledge to confirm, in its own way, the truth of the words of Jesus, and the truth expressed by Martin Luther. The word “freedom” is first mentioned in Step 52, “I am free to find the source of my Knowledge.” The word “freedom” appears 16 times in three different steps between Step 52 and Step 93. It appears 13 times in Step 94, “My freedom is to find my purpose.” The word “purpose” is one of the major themes of Steps to Knowledge. The word “purpose” appears 29 times in 16 different steps between Step 12 and Step 93. It first appears in a step in Step 71, “I am here to serve a greater purpose.”

I consider Step 94 to be watering the seed sown in Step 52:

“What value can freedom possibly have except to enable you to find your purpose and to fulfill it? Without purpose, freedom is merely the right to be chaotic, the right to live without external restraint. But without external restraint, you will merely act out the harshness of your internal restraint. Is this an improvement? Overall it is not an improvement, though it can lead to opportunities for self-discovery.”

In studying Steps to Knowledge, we are getting free to be our true selves, true selves which are not apart from life. We are getting free to find our purpose. Will we succeed? All I know is that we’re working on it.

What is your freedom good for?

Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.