I haven't read any of Jonathan Franzen's novels yet, but I love what he had to say when he was on the cover of Time recently. The journalist who interviewed him pointed out that "for Franzen's characters, too much freedom is an empty, dangerously entropic thing. . . . At her lowest ebb, Patty reflects that she 'had all day every day to figure out some decent and satisfying way to live, and yet all she ever seemed to get for all her choices and all her freedom was more miserable.' And no one is freer than a person with no moral beliefs."
Then Franzen says: "One of the ways of surrendering freedom is to actually have convictions. And a way of further surrendering freedom is to spend quite a bit of time acting on those convictions."
To me, this describes living as a faithful Mormon.
Think of the happiest people you know. What is their purpose in life? I think this is a question happy people can answer readily. People who have a lot of freedom to do and be whatever they want but don't want to have to commit to anything seem to be lost, not happy.
Sometimes people wonder why I believe that God actually wants me to do so much---they claim that Mormons' busy-ness indicates we are not relying upon God's grace sufficiently. And if we approach our faith as a check-off sheet of things God expects us to do on our own power or He'll be mad at us, yes, I believe legalism can become a huge problem in any faith. But the answer, for me, is not to throw out requirements in order to feel more grace. For me, I am never more aware of God's grace than when I am trying to do something good that I already know I cannot do on my own.
When people claim I am not free because I'm invited (some would say "expected") to spend so much time making the church function through various volunteer opportunities, or because I'm invited to spend so much time reading, listening to, and discerning how to personally apply the counsel of Church leaders, both at the local level and at the top of a hierarchy, I would give them Franzen's response regarding how I feel about all of these time commitments and convictions:
"I came to realize that because my purpose on earth seems to be to write novels, I am actually freer when I'm chained to a project: freer from guilt, anxiety, boredom, anger, purposelessness."
Because my purpose on earth seems to be to write novels, be happy, love God, love family, love friends, and find a way to feel I am making a difference, I am freer when I'm "chained" to a God who makes it possible for me to do these things better than if decided I was the ultimate authority. I am freer when I abide by the commandments I've found to be valuable through life experience than when I throw out all parameters in search of freedom.
The journalist interviewing Franzen notes, "There is something beyond freedom that people need: work, love, belief in something, commitment to something. Freedom is not enough. It's necessary but not sufficient. It's what you do with freedom---what you give it up for---that matters."
