Bobby McGee
So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36 NASB
Free – Janis Joplin sang the theme song of an entire generation: “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” Some days I think she was right.
John uses a Greek verb with particularly dense meanings. Eleutheróō in the Greek world had both political and individual dimensions, inextricably interwoven. If you weren’t politically free, then you couldn’t be existentially free. For the Greeks, freedom means to be governed, where the goal of the state is to protect individual self-determination without the tyranny of any particular person. We operate under similar assumptions today. It’s a short step from Solon to the Supreme Court.
But this isn’t Janis’ world. In her world, freedom is the absence of possibility. It’s not about laws of protection. It’s about the realization of an inner emptiness where nothing really matters anymore. For Janis, freedom is the failure of desire. Overcome by the futility of life and the despair of relationship destruction, Janis provides us with a different glimpse into ourselves. We aren’t essentially political beings, as the Greeks assumed. We are essentially spiritually-connected beings, and when the ties that bind are severed, the body politic will not suffice. The Buddhists got it wrong. Emptiness is the precursor of despair.
“Then somewhere near Salinas, Lord
I let him slip away
Lookin’ for the home I hope he’ll find it
And I’d trade all of my tomorrows
For one single yesterday
Holdin’ Bobby’s body next to mine”
Would you make the trade? All your tomorrows for a single yesterday of deep, overwhelming connection?
“There wasn’t anything to lose I hadn’t lost. The only thing worse than being fed up with the world is being fed up with yourself. . . . I was starving to death and had no idea why. All I knew was that the emptiness inside me was bigger than I was. So I went back [home].”[1]
“Either life is holy with meaning, or life doesn’t mean a damn thing.”[2]
Freedom. Oh, the sound of it. It stirs us to utopian revelries. But life has a way of slamming the door shut with our fingers still in the jamb. If I’m going to be really free, as he promises, I need to be deeper connected, entrenched in life together. Without that, there’s only Salinas.
Topical Index: Janis Joplin, Bobby McGee, freedom, eleutheróō, connection, John 8:36
[1]Frederick Buechner Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons(HarperOne, 2006), p. 134.
