Exercising Agency, or I-95 doesn't go to Missouri

In 1969, baseball player Curt Flood, a center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, refused to be traded to the Philadelphia Phillies.  He wrote a letter to the commissioner of Major League Baseball asserting that he did not believe that he was a piece of property to be bought or sold with no input or choice in the matter, and asking to be allowed to be a free agent and make himself available to play for other teams. The commissioner refused.  Flood sued MLB, sitting out the 1970 season and taking his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.  His case was struck down, and the Phillies traded him to the Washington Senators, for whom he played 13 games in the 1971 season.  His baseball career was over.  Free agency was not instituted until 1975, but Flood’s lawsuit and his willingness to stand up for his rights as a ball player paved the way for other players.

The idea that human beings are agents unto themselves is an ancient concept.  Freedom of choice is one of the most basic and fundamental human rights that exist.  Countless laws have been written and passed in an effort to protect the right of individuals to choose the path of their own life; to seek happiness and fulfillment.  According to the tenets of my faith, the law of agency is an eternal law.

We abhor the notion of people making choices for other people.  At worst, such behavior is tyranny.  A milder variety we might call manipulation.  If we offer the innocuous (but no less suspect) titles of “nudge,” or even “peer pressure,” we can imagine more benevolent motivations, but if the result is the same, does that make it more palatable to us?  In its most positive attire, we call this endeavor influence, persuasion, or even great leadership.

Parents who do too much for their children are called helicopter parents.  Teachers and guidance counselors who coerce students into coursework and fields of study that they don’t want to pursue are seen as out of touch and without compassion.  We’re not even going to address what happens when someone tells someone else who they can, should, or may love.

But here’s the rub:  it is one thing to force someone to choose what we want them to choose . . . this subverts the principle of agency.  It’s something else altogether to teach individuals about the choices before them so that they can make an informed choice. (Note: the term “free agency” is effective in athletics, not in religious doctrine.  That term is “agency” or the right of men and women to be agents unto themselves, free to choose as they will.  There is no doctrinal nor scriptural basis for the term “free agency.”  Look it up.)

It was not part of the plan for someone else to choose our path for us.  The plan was for us to choose our path ourselves.  The choosing part is essential, crucial, inalienable.  What choosing cannot do for us, what agency cannot do, is choose a path separate from the end of that path.  Each path we choose has an end, a consequence if you will. The ends of some paths are clear and obvious to us; other destinations are hazier and harder to distinguish.  Regardless, when we choose the first step, we also choose the last.  Our freedom lies in the choice of the first step and each subsequent step along the path.

A friend and neighbor of ours who is an English teacher asked me to speak to his class at the high school a few times during their unit on choices as they read the Iliad, and I used a map of the highway system of the U.S.A to demonstrate my point.  I would show the convoluted and somewhat complicated path to get from our home in New Hampshire to my hometown in central Missouri.  More than a dozen roads and highways, with dozens of intersections and options, have to be navigated over the course of two or three days in order to get from point A to point B.  How much simpler would it be to simply leave my home and get onto I-95 and keep on going?  After two or three days, there we would be in sunny Florida – a lovely spot, perhaps, but not grandpa’s house.  If I want to get to Columbia, I have to follow a correct set of roadways, and while there are many options that will get me there, none of them involve staying on I-95 for the whole trip.  Not one.

I had a friend in Alabama who was a recovering alcoholic.  She joined our church and gave up drinking and was very happy for several years until she hit some unexpected bumps in her personal life’s road.  To ease her disappointment and pain (which were very real, by the way), she turned to the familiar anesthesia of alcohol much to the dismay of her family members, who did not share her religious conversion, but who appreciated her sobriety and encouraged her to stay sober. 

One day, in her frustration, she vented to me, “The church talks all the time about agency, but it has taken away my agency!  Before I joined the church, I could drink all I wanted to and I never felt guilty or bad about myself.  Now that I’ve been going to church, every time I take a drink I feel guilty.  I don’t want to feel guilty!  Where’s my agency now? I’m not free to choose!  I can’t do what I want and still feel good about myself!”

It seems to me that what really had happened here was that learning about the gospel had educated my friend about the path she was on, and about other paths that were available to her.  What had happened was that she had been shown a road map and had seen that Florida was not Missouri, and she was angry that staying on I-95 wasn’t going to get her home.

Agency, or the exercise of our free will, does not mean that we get to do just the things that we want to do; the things that feed our bliss.  My dad used to tell me, “Linda, the way to be happy in life is not about getting to do just the things we want to do.  It’s about learning how to love doing the things that need to be done.”

Do I believe in feeding my bliss?  Why yes, yes I do.  Do I believe that sometimes I need to rein in my bliss a little, for the benefit of others around me, or for my own good?  Yes, I do.  There’s a balance in life that needs to be sought – a place where seeking our self-interest finds harmony with the greater good of those with whom we share our lives.  Just because it feels good doesn’t mean we have to do it.  There have been angry and hurtful words that I have spoken that felt good to speak in that moment, which should have never been said.  There have been selfish desires that I have fulfilled because they felt good to me at the time.  Today I know that I should have told myself no and looked for another way of meeting my emotional needs – a way that brought joy instead of heartache to people I loved.  How much more satisfying that might have been!

See, I’ve come to believe that the greatest bliss comes from finding that synergy between my will and the will of someone who is wiser and greater than I am.  Learning to seek God’s love and feel His influence in my life leads me to make choices . . . my own choices . . . that are kinder and grander than the choices I might have made, left to my own devices.  I have found joy in making some sacrifices in order to gain something of greater value to me.  We all make sacrifices every day – we give up one thing for another thing.  No one can truly have it all.  The question we ask ourselves has to be, “What am I willing to give up?” and “What do I really want?” Where is it that we want to end up?

I admire Curt Flood for what he was willing to do.  He gave up a lot of things for what he believed in.  I would imagine it was heartbreaking for him, and disillusioning, and that he would much rather have just kept on playing ball (John tells me that he was a great outfielder), but he understood some important principles: 

1. If you’re going to take a stand, you are probably going to have to give up something you love to do that. 

2. The right to choose does not mean that you always get your way.    

3. The right to choose does not give you the power to force someone else to choose what you want instead of what they want.

As I listened to his words about his decision to seek free agency (thank you, Ken Burns and Baseball), the sense I got was that he was sad for what he lost, but that he felt what he gained was more valuable to him. Sounds a lot like exercising agency to me.