"Freedom," the Who sang many years ago, "tastes of reality."  As many of you may know, tomorrow, the U.S. remembers the birthday of civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr.  Central to the day is the belief that freedom, the ability to do what one chooses, when one chooses to do it is surely one of humanity's greatest blessings.  Those who have it treasure it immensely; those who do not, long for it deeply.
     Is freedom reality?  If being free is the ability to find oneself as oneself is in this world, then freedom is indeed reality.  It offers people opportunity to find what is most real and true about them, their lives, and the world in which they live them.  It is a path to ultimate discovery.
     Maybe that's why, as John records it in chapter eight of his gospel, Jesus told his audience that, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."  Freedom is only meaningful if it is grounded in something bigger than itself.  It's only real if it is centered in truth  Freedom is discovery because it recognizes that unless there is truth, being free is no more than the authenticating acts of existentialism:  here today, gone tomorrow, never a point to be made.
     As we remember King's birthday, we also remember that the freedom he preached is ultimately, as Gandhi observed in his notion of satyagraha, self-discovery in the truth.  We do not discover in an accidental universe without definition; we discover truth in a universe made real by truth itself.