As America hits the big 250, everyone and their uncle has a hot take on freedom. Politicians are waving flags, pundits are waving fingers, and social feeds are somewhere between a fireworks show and a family argument at Thanksgiving. Cutting through that noise is a quieter, more contemplative voice — one that’s been sitting on the internet for years, free of charge, waiting for a moment exactly like this.

That voice belongs to the late Dr. Pieter Noomen, a Dutch-born theologian and psychotherapist whose collected essays and reflections live on at http://www.wordsforall.org. Noomen passed away in 2019, but his writings on personal liberty, spiritual responsibility, and the messy relationship between citizens and their governments feel like they were built for the current moment.

Noomen’s core argument is disarmingly simple: real freedom doesn’t start at the ballot box or the statehouse — it starts inside you. “In the full universal reality from which our earthly world is isolated, the freedom of choice is absolute,” he wrote in one of his Wisdoms of the Week. “Nothing is impossible there. … more often than we realize, we can be on top of our decision-making and of our behavior. The choice of what person to be or with what kind of attitude is ours and ours alone.”

That’s a heavy pill in an era where it’s easy to outsource blame to systems, algorithms, and whoever is currently trending. And Noomen doesn’t let institutions off the hook either. He was pointed about the tension between corrupt structures and the people inside them: “It is erroneous to think that a structure is more important than its parts. It is the other way around. A corrupt government that passes laws that benefit many is still corrupt. But citizens living in a corrupt society are free — and capable — to keep their insights and striving pure and honest.”

Noomen’s writings lean spiritual — he often framed his passages as messages received from a higher power and credited that source rather than himself — but you don’t have to share his belief system to get something out of them. Whether you’re religious, spiritual-but-not-religious, or firmly in the “I just want to think clearly for five minutes” camp, the through-line is the same: liberty is a practice, not a possession.

Before writing full-time, Noomen completed doctoral studies in theology and pastoral psychology at the Free University of Amsterdam, served as senior minister at three Protestant churches, and later worked as a psychotherapist and staff member at a Los Angeles church, focusing on suicide prevention and hospice care. That combination — pulpit, therapy chair, and hospital bedside — gives his writing a grounded, human weight that a lot of “freedom” discourse is missing right now.

As the country revisits its founding ideals this year, Noomen’s archive is worth a bookmark. Read a few entries, argue with a few, sit with the rest. The full collection is available for free at http://www.wordsforall.org.