On the Paradox of Roots and Wings
I have come to suspect that the last, and perhaps most difficult, freedom we can learn is the freedom to belong. It sounds contradictory at first, as if belonging is the opposite of liberty. The common picture of freedom is the solitary figure, standing on a cliff, wind in the hair, the vast horizon unbroken by any obligation. To belong is to be tethered. To commit. To be answerable to something other than one’s own whims.
And yet, without belonging, freedom curdles into detachment. We may escape all demands upon us, but we also escape the web of meaning that gives liberty its purpose. The cliff-top figure, after all, must eventually come down, if only to eat.
The great paradox of human life is that the very bonds we fear will limit us are often the ones that grant us depth. Roots may seem like anchors until we realise they are also conduits,drawing up the nourishment we need to flourish. A tree without roots is not free. It is simply dead.
When we belong, we risk ourselves. We surrender a part of our independence in order to participate in something larger. This may be a family, a friendship, a faith community, a cause, or even a shared patch of land we call home. In each case, we make a silent pact: I will be here, with you, through the seasons. And in that very act, something remarkable happens. The belonging that began as a limit becomes a source of strength.
The ancient Greeks had a word for this: philia. Not the eros of passionate longing, nor the agape of unconditional love, but the steady, mutual loyalty of those who share a life together. This is not a freedom that stands aloof, but one that lives at the table,passing bread, telling stories, helping wash up.
Modern culture is suspicious of this. We are told to keep our options open, to move on when the going gets tough, to value autonomy above all. Commitment is treated like a quaint artefact, admired in museums but rarely put to daily use. We forget that every meaningful freedom has a counterweight. Without belonging, freedom becomes mere drift. Without freedom, belonging becomes mere captivity.
The art lies in holding them together,wings strong enough to fly, roots deep enough to return. When we can move in both directions, we find a surprising spaciousness in our lives. We can leave without fear, and we can stay without resentment.
Belonging requires courage, because it is an act of faith. We choose to trust that the people, the place, or the cause to which we tie ourselves will not misuse that bond. Sometimes, they will fail us. Sometimes, we will fail them. Yet the possibility of failure is not a reason to refuse the gift altogether. Rather, it is the very vulnerability that makes belonging precious.
There is a line in one of George Herbert’s poems that has always stayed with me: “Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back.” That is the moment in which most of us live,the invitation to belong standing open before us, and the hesitation born of freedom whispering that we might be safer outside. But love, if it is love at all, will not cage us. It will give us both a place and a path, a hearth and a horizon.
Perhaps this is why the greatest teachers of freedom have so often been those who committed themselves deeply,to their students, their neighbours, their craft, their God. Their liberty was not the liberty of escape, but the liberty of a life poured out into a shared purpose. They belonged so fully that their very presence became a source of freedom for others.
In the end, the freedom to belong is not about losing ourselves, but about finding that the self is most alive when given away. We are like kites,able to dance in the wind only because a string holds us. The string is not the enemy of flight; it is its condition.
Invitation: Consider where in your life you might need to root yourself more deeply. What cause, place, or community could become a source of strength rather than a limit? And what might it mean to offer your freedom as a gift to something you choose to belong to?
