CHAINS THAT BINDS

DECEMBER 17, 2006

Chains have many decorative and practical uses, but they’re also a symbol and haunting reminder of the historical reality of human slavery.

The chains that bound men and women as plantation slaves represented a horrendous evil, which showed that even "enlightened" peoples with shining democratic principles can commit murderous acts of exploitation and inhumanity. This evil was carried out by the same people who had declared, "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness".

Even though laws were eventually erected against human slavery, the impulse to dominate and enslave remained, and can be found in countless professional, familial, and personal relationships and associations.

Public policy cannot by itself put an end to this dark impulse, though, because it originates not in political systems, but in fallen human nature, and political and social reform cannot change nature. It is ourselves we must reform.

What is most startling is how the impulse to enslave can be, and often is, turned against oneself. This is shown well in a story that is retold every year at Christmas time Charles Dickens' classic tale, "A Christmas Carol". In this immortal story of personal conversion, we recall, Scrooge is visited on Christmas Eve by several ghosts. One of these is the ghost of his former business partner, Jacob Marley.

Marley's ghost arrives in a sorry state. He wears a long chain around his waist, made of ledgers, cash boxes, unfair business transactions, and heavy money purses all made of steel. Marley's ghost explains by saying, "I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link, and yard by yard. I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it."

During his earthly life, no doubt, Jacob Marley never viewed the material riches he was accumulating with such fervent devotion as links in a heavy chain, but they were. They enslaved him by consuming all his waking hours, and thus by keeping him from giving time to more important things in life. They enslaved him by weighing his mind down with worry over the details of his business. They locked him tightly in a self protective prison of fear of loss. They deadened his spirit and made his life joyless. They drained him of his freedom and ability to love other people.

Dickens presents Marley's ghost as if to say that you can "take it with you" after all, in fact you have to! But everything you are doing to accumulate things during your earthly life is really the hard work of forging heavy chains that will forever bind you in the next life. Marley's ghost seems to say the only way to be free of self enslavement is to be free of material things, at least free of any attachment of our spirits to them.

On the other hand, giving our time, talent, and treasure to others is really the work of breaking free of the chains of selfishness that bind us. As in Marley's case, so also in ours. Our chains today may come in such innocent disguises as plastic credit cards, sports and recreational gear, home entertainment gadgets, stock and bond portfolios, social positions of celebrity and power, coveted free time to ourselves, and so on.

It's when we're trying to build empires for ourselves that we're most likely to want to use anything or anyone that will serve our ambitions, and this is what leads so often to exploitation of others.

The only way to end the "slave trade" of trying to dominate others for our own advantage is to set ourselves free from what is enslaving us. We must renounce our personal empires.

Jesus said he had come "to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and release to prisoners..." (Lk 4:18). He can release us from our chains, but we must first be willing to see what we have chained ourselves to, and we must want to be free of it.

+Bishop Raymundo J. Peña

last updated 05-Jun-2008 9:48 sitemap