The end of this calendar year brings no celebration to my friend Glenn. "I'll never be free," he told me. After fifteen years in prison, including eleven on Death Row, he's probably right. Forty-three now, he won't be eligible for parole until he is nearly eighty. 

   As his spiritual adviser, I once told Glenn that freedom was not about a prison cell. It was a state of mind. "How about we switch places & let me tell you that in a few years," he sneered. It's true. Who knows how my spiritual practices would weather imprisonment. 

   So many of us live in other "prisons." Patients want to be freed from the hospital, children from school, employees from the tyranny of mean bosses, women from abusive husbands.  

   Whether it be the physically or mentally ill, the impoverished, the tortured, or actual prisoners, hundreds of millions feel trapped every day. Others are glad to be caught in the bodies they inhabit until their earth journey ends. They are the fortunate who live love.

   Those who live in God's light can never be jailed. Easy to say. Often hard to live – especially when we are feeling tortured by demons (as I was recently) who seem invincible.

   How do we free ourselves from jails of our own creation? Jesus proved that no jail can imprison the hearts of those who love. We should celebrate his birth not just on December 25 but everyday.

-Reverend Erie Chapman 

Photograph by Erie