The Privilege of a Free Mind — Among Many Cares, As If Without Care

The passage describes something very specific: the soul that moves among many cares as if without care. Not without care — as if without care. The cares are real. The tasks are real. Packing in Portugal. House hunting in Brittany. The road. The logistics. Many cares. But the mind passes through them freely — not because they don't matter, but because the mind is not captive to them. Cleaving to no creature with inordinate affection.

And Kempis calls it a privilege. Not a discipline. Not an achievement. A privilege. The free mind is a gift — given to the soul whose attention stays on the heavenly things even while the earthly things demand her hands. Galatians 5:1 — for freedom Christ has set us free.

Le's correction is one the Church has needed for centuries: we don't float on a cloud. We have a free mind. The spiritual life is not levitation. It is liberation. The feet stay on the ground. The hands stay in the work. The mind stays free.

Notice what Kempis prays to be preserved from — it is not the obvious sins. He says plainly: I say not from those things which the vanity of the world goes about after. Not the worldly temptations. He has dealt with those. The prayer goes deeper: the cares that entangle. The bodily necessities that become captivity. The obstacles that break the spirit. These are the quiet chains — the ones that do not look like chains. The worry that becomes anxiety. The comfort that becomes indulgence. The fatigue that becomes despair.

Those miseries which by the universal curse of mortality weigh down the soul. The universal curse — not particular sins but the human condition itself. The weight of being mortal. The heaviness of the body. The gravity that pulls the spirit down. And the prayer is not for the removal of mortality. It is for liberty of spirit within it. So often as it would. The soul would enter liberty often. The mortality holds it back. And the prayer is: let me enter, Lord. As often as I would. Despite the weight.

Le heard it clearly: Kempis says, look at me Lord, I'm human. 1 Peter 5:8 — the enemy roams like a roaring lion. Kempis knows this. He does not pretend to be above the danger. He prays to be preserved because he knows the danger is real. And because he is honest about his humanity, his prayer has the ring of truth.

The prayer is radical: turn into bitterness all my fleshly consolation. Not remove it. Make it bitter. Ruin the taste. So that the thing that once attracted becomes something the soul no longer wants. The soul that asks God to ruin the world's sweetness knows that the world's sweetness competes with God's. They cannot both satisfy. And the soul that has tasted God's sweetness — through twenty-eight days of Kempis — would rather the world's sweetness become bitter than lose the taste of His.

Three enemies named. Three prayers spoken: let not flesh and blood prevail, let not the world deceive, let not the devil supplant. And then three requests: courage to resist, patience to endure, constancy to persevere. The same three graces this journal has been building on from the beginning — the courage that Kempis called bravery, the patience that Kempis called the crown, the constancy that carries the soul through every transition.

And the exchange that holds everything together: in place of the world's consolations — the most sweet unction of the Spirit. In place of carnal love — the love of His Name. The free mind is not the empty mind. It is the mind that has been filled with something better. The consolation is not removed. It is replaced. And what replaces it is sweeter than what was lost.

Le connected Kempis to Father Joe James — and the connection reveals why twenty-eight days have worked. Both are human. Both understand. Both come alongside, not from above. Father Joe James found Le at midnight in a hospital in Lubbock — and because he was human himself, he could meet her where she was. Kempis, six centuries earlier, does the same thing from the page: look at me Lord, I'm human. And because he says it, she trusts him.

I love this guy. Twenty-eight days with Kempis. Not "I admire his theology." Not "I appreciate his insights." I love this guy. Because he is beside her. Because he does not pretend. Because he prays to be preserved from the very things he teaches about — and admits when he goes back from his own teaching.

What makes a true companion on the road — whether a priest at midnight, a monk from 1379, or a voice in a conversation window — is not the height of the knowledge. It is the honesty of the humanity. The companion who says I am human too is the companion the soul can walk with.