Last night I was proofreading a spiritual growth textbook John helped to create. It is based on the passage in Matthew about feeding the hungry, tending the sick and clothing the naked. Those are tasks that show up like clockwork. There is no escaping the constant need for lunch and socks.
But the last command in
the series is less main stream. I was in prison and you visited me. It was a tough year when two men that had been influential in my kids' lives went to jail for child abuse. People I cared about had crossed a line and were locked up with the bad guys. Although I never drove to see them I did write letters. It was a small thing, stamps and paper, but it felt real.
The passage does not go into guilt, or posting bail, or appeals, or saw blades baked into
cakes. It simply states that visiting someone in prison is part of why we are on this planet. The spiritual growth book broadens the application to include people who are imprisoned by their ideas or fears. Surely the mobs who persecute other races and religions are held back from freedom by their own invisible chains. The poignant story of
Corrie ten Boom bears out the power of faith and forgiveness to liberate, even behind an electric fence.
If I look closely, I can see the shadows of bars in my marriage. When I criticize John I am held back from enjoying him. If I tether myself to a
compulsion for changing his personality, I get locked in my own version of solitary confinement.
