We are all getting some lessons about freedom these days; I’ve just had a clear and personal understanding of it..

In his valuable book Bread For The Journey, famed spiritual author Henri Nouwen wrote of freedom: “when you are interiorly free, you call others to freedom, whether you know it. Freedom attracts wherever it appears. A free man or woman creates a space where others feel safe and want to dwell.”

Recently, I had to define and defend that space; it was both comforting and harrowing. I had to make some critical decisions about what happens when freedom collides with orthodoxy and firm but unyielding and absolute religious belief.

And I lost a friendship.

That is one of the oldest and most profound conflicts in human history, and I understand why.

The tragic fight for freedom in Ukraine is calling much of the world to liberty; their courage and determination to be free are, in fact, contagious. In our divided country and worldwide, Ukraine’s tragedy is creating a space where others wish to feel safe and dwell.

Has the value of freedom ever been more apparent and more difficult?

Freedom is essential to me, and Ukraine has me thinking about it personally, even as the images coming from that battered country haunt me day and night.

My life is very much about freedom, starting with my grandparents who came to America to be free and so that I would be free as well. That is THE American story, even as many of us have forgotten it and jeer at it now.

The thirst for freedom runs deep in my blood; I ache for the Ukrainians.

My life now is much about the space freedom has brought me.

I have always wanted to write freely and openly about what I want to write, not what other people want me to write or keep telling me to write. As my poor readers know, I fight for that freedom all the time, sometimes in the wrong places.

I have found the interior freedom of love, creativity, and life itself. Freedom is at the very core of every single thing that I do.

Thinking about it, I saw clearly that my idea of freedom ended my friendship with Moise Miller and his wonderful family, especially after this week. We will never be enemies, but we can’t be close friends.

It was coming for a long time, but it hit me right on the head this week.

I always knew it would be nearly impossible to sustain a close friendship with people as different from me as the Amish are.

I knew it was just a matter of time. Moise and I live on other planets; only a thread unites us. Somehow, we found a connection to one another, and we tried to keep it for as long as we could.

For me to stay close, I would have to surrender much of my identity to people whose values made it impossible for me to be myself around them. It was their misfortune to pick me as a friend and helper.

They could not have known it, but my interior freedom had to be put aside and abandoned for that to happen.

I’ve worked too hard to be anything but free in my creative and personal life; I can’t give it up and won’t. As was perhaps inevitable, that was the issue revolving around the friendship:  my writing and my photography and my ability to be free and open.

The Amish live a secret life. In many ways, it depends on the exclusion of the outside world. Only they know how they live, which is their defense and faith. They lose that and open the gates at their peril.

Most people know little about them, other than they ride horse buggies and wear different clothes. That’s how they want it.

I was so excited to find them as neighbors; I had a rare opportunity to explore this fantastic culture, about which so little was known, learn from it, and share it and be welcomed into it. It is a writer’s dream but looking at it differently, an Amish problem.

How unfortunate that one of their neighbors and close friends was a former journalist, a passionate blogger and writer, and a photographer who loves taking photos of the world around him.

They knew none of this and may not know yet who I am and what I do.

When I started my blog, I vowed to be both open and authentic, and I find, sometimes to my horror, sometimes to my joy, that I meant it and have kept faith with that promise. It has caused a lot of pain and discomfort.

I have no secrets; I tell no lies. That’s the best part.

One reason so little is known about them is that the Amish feel safer that way. They do not trust the outside world to come too deeply into their midst; they revolve around one another, the outside world only gets in when necessary for their survival.

That was a problem for me initially, but I thought I could handle it as I often have. For a while, I did.

And some sects – the Moises sect – are exceedingly conservative and do not want their pictures taken.

Not them, their horses, their children, and their homes. Other denominations use cell phones, allow photographs, even have cars and trucks.

You don’t need to be a detective to figure out that sooner or later; bringing a writer and photographer into their midst for months would lead to tension and discomfort. The Amish don’t fight, and they don’t argue. They get uncomfortable.

For months, it didn’t feel uncomfortable.

I was careful to take distant photos, and I often showed them to the family. They often asked me for prints to send to their families in other places. They frequently asked me to open my Iphone and show my photos. Sometimes, they came over to look at my blog.

No one complained or seemed uncomfortable. I loved writing about them; it was a great gift to me.

I know photography could be a big issue in the Amish world. A part of me guessed it might cause trouble one day, especially if other Amish families got wind of it. I had no doubt they knew what I was writing and what pictures I was taking.

As time went on, several problems popped up that made them uneasy. One was that other Amish people were, as I guessed,  upset that I wrote about this family. And there are always people happy to stir the pot.

Several townspeople came running to the Miller family every time I wrote anything. I don’t know their motives, it felt like schoolyard gossip to me,  but they rattled the family.

I love where I live, but there is a reason small towns are called small.

Something changed. Something altered the family’s quite evident tolerance of me. I honestly don’t know what.

They asked me several times recently and suddenly not to write about them and not to take any pictures of them, their family, their horses, or their farm. Once or twice, they were upset, almost angry.

At the same time, they continued to ask me to drive them to train and bus stations, order their supplies online, hunt down clothes and boots, displays for their food,  get the bus and plane tickets, arrange for rides when they reached their destination, and pick them up when they got back.

On hot days, I brought soda and ice cream to the men working, potato chips and lollipops to the girls.

I started to feel like a servant, not a friend.  My fault. The Amish ask for nothing but accept most everything. Writing and pictures, two of the essential things in my life, didn’t seem to matter or value.

I love this family and always will be a good neighbor to them, but more and more, I felt ill at ease. I need to be clear: they have every right to their privacy, for whatever reasons they choose.

I understand that completely. But I am not the best friend to have if what you need is for your life to be guarded from the outside world. In fact, I would be the worst possible choice. So it was important to both of us that we go our separate ways.

I truly loved writing about them, and that was something worth all of the work and driving. I have a transactional mind in some ways; I thought we had made a deal that was good for both of us.

I can’t say what they were thinking; I will never know.

I am proud of the photos I took; it was something I enjoyed and found precious and challenging. I put several up on my study wall.

But if I stopped writing about them and couldn’t even take pictures of their horses, then what was I doing? Why not just respect their requests and move along? That’s what I decided to do.

Friendship is about making people feel uncomfortable or feeling uncomfortable. That is not healthy.

Recently, a family member drove to the farm and asked me for some help making arrangements and ordering some supplies. As this person was leaving, I asked, as I always do, if I could take a picture of the horse munching on a birch tree in my backyard.

This person said no, I couldn’t. They said it abruptly, and it surprised me; I’d taken photos of their horses often, always with permission.

This person said that someone had come to them and told them I was writing about them on my blog.

This snapped something inside of me.

To be their friends, I realized I had to give up the freedom that is so precious to me and that I worked so hard to have. I had to lie and hide my friends from my readers.

I had to stop writing about what I wanted and stop taking photos I wanted to take, even on my property.

I respect their values and rules, but this was a  bridge too far for me. It means I was a taxi driver and online shopper, but the core of who I am – a writer, photographer, and free person – was forbidden and had to be suppressed.

It means I could never reveal or refer to a vital friendship and relationship in my life, something I had promised I wouldn’t do on my blog and have never done.

I told this very good person – a person I have come to love – that I couldn’t accept this increasingly uncomfortable and one-sided relationship.

I can spend hours driving the family around and buying boots, but I can’t take a picture of a horse in my yard? No, that was no good for me.

I told this person that they shouldn’t come to the farm anymore and that I couldn’t work for them any longer. I said this, I said, with love and respect. And sadness.

This person said they loved me as well. I believe it. I said we needed to be apart for a while. But I’m not sure it will just be a while.

And I wrote the family a letter explaining how I felt. We will wave warmly to one another in the Amish way and never speak of this. We will let go and move along. Now and then, I will leave some gummy bears and Mountain Dew, and lollipops in their foodshed.

Maria and the girls will continue to work together, they are great workers helping out on the farm, and they work very well together with her.

Today, I took the photos down and put them away.

I don’t want any images hanging that make people uncomfortable unless it’s for a good cause.

I’ve learned a great deal about this family and myself. That is precious to me. I am grateful for what I had.

But when push came to shove, I wasn’t giving up my freedom to anyone. I never compare myself to the people sacrificing their lives in Ukraine, but they inspire me.

I wasn’t going to hide my life or be told what to write or what pictures to take on my property or the public roads.

We had to break from one another and move along. Friendship is about trust and comfort, not tension and uncertainty. I will miss them dearly; they are very good people.

If I don’t protect my interior freedom, then who will? Lots of people are shedding blood for that.

It is uplifting to me to see, hear and feel Americans wake up after their long, deep and ugly sleep. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are finished, they are not the same thing, but they are each end of the other.

That, at least, is one gift from the martyred  Ukrainians that will live on.

No more words, no more pictures, nor more driving, no more online shopping, no more copying of papers, no more ordering plants, buying displays, getting pizzas, calling Ohio to arrange rides, being notified when someone died.

I’m done with it.

I take full responsibility for this.

I think I went too far and did too much, and when they, for whatever reason, got uncomfortable, they started telling me what to do and what not to do.

This is not what a friendship is; this is not what a healthy relationship is.

This makes me sad but also proud. And lighter. It’s time to let go and move along.

My interior freedom is only as good as my willingness to stand up for it and keep it alive inside of me.

I will always be a good neighbor to them if they need me.

No one, for any reason, can take my freedom away.