Free to Soar

One windy spring day, I observed young people having fun using the wind to fly their kites. Multicolored creations of varying shapes and sizes filled the skies like beautiful birds darting and dancing. As the strong winds gusted against the kites, a string kept them in check.

Instead of blowing away with the wind, they arose against it to achieve great heights. They shook and pulled, but the restraining string and the cumbersome tail kept them in tow, facing upward and against the wind. As the kites struggled and trembled against the string, they seemed to say, “Let me go! Let me go! I want to be free!” They soared beautifully even as they fought the restriction of the string. Finally, one of the kites succeeded in breaking loose. “Free at last,” it seemed to say. “Free to fly with the wind.”

Yet freedom from restraint simply put it at the mercy of an unsympathetic breeze. It fluttered ungracefully to the ground and landed in a tangled mass of weeds and string against a dead bush. “Free at last” free to lie powerless in the dirt, to be blown helplessly along the ground, and to lodge lifeless against the first obstruction.

How much like kites we sometimes are. The Heaven gives us adversity and restrictions, rules to follow from which we can grow and gain strength. Restraint is a necessary counterpart to the winds of opposition. Some of us tug at the rules so hard that we never soar to reach the heights we might have obtained. We keep part of the commandment and never rise high enough to get our tails off the ground.

Let us each rise to the great heights, recognizing that some of the restraints that we may chafe under are actually the steadying force that helps us ascend and achieve.

在一個有風的春日，我看到一群年輕人正在迎風放風箏玩樂，各種顏色、各種形狀和大小的風箏就好像美麗的鳥兒在空中飛舞。當強風把風箏吹起，牽引線就能夠控制它們。

風箏迎風飄向更高的地方，而不是隨風而去。它們搖擺著、拉扯著，但牽引線以及笨重的尾巴使它們處于控制之中，并且迎風而上。它們掙扎著、抖動著想要掙脫線的束縛，仿佛在說：“放開我!放開我!我想要自由!”即使與牽引線奮爭著，它們依然在美麗地飛翔。終于，一只風箏成功掙脫了。“終于自由了，”它好像在說，“終于可以隨風自由飛翔了!”

然而，脫離束縛的自由使它完全處于無情微風的擺布下。它毫無風度地震顫著向地面墜落，落在一堆亂草之中，線纏繞在一顆死灌木上。“終于自由”使它自由到無力地躺在塵土中，無助地任風沿著地面將其吹走，碰到第一個障礙物便毫無生命地滯留在那里了。

有時我們真像這風箏啊!上蒼賦予我們困境和約束，賦予我們成長和增強實力所要遵從的規則。約束是逆風的必要匹配物。我們中有些人是如此強硬地抵制規則，以至我們從來無法飛到本來能夠達到的高度。我們只遵從部分戒律，因此永遠不會飛得足夠高，使尾巴遠離地面。