My current workload allowed for a morning off, and so I’m whooping it up in my usual way — hanging out at the bookstore, perusing books I probably won’t buy. It’s not completely unfair to them, since I do occasionally pick one up. And besides, I’m thoughtful enough to patronize the cafe and always leave a little spending cash behind.

Today’s soy latte order, however, is interrupted by a strange remark from the barista.

“Uh oh, I better call security. Looks like we’ve got an escaped convict.”

I think my face registered total surprise for a couple seconds, until the light dawned and I looked down at the shirt I was wearing. I have on the touristy Alcatraz t-shirt I picked up on a recent trip to San Francisco. Funny how you do things like that and then totally forget what other people are seeing all day long.

“Yep, that’s me,” I reply. “Kind of silly for me not to have changed into another shirt, huh?” So we both have a grin, and I get my coffee.

Of course, it’s nothing like a prison uniform, and it is a strange choice to have picked up. On the aesthetic side, it sports some of the graphics that San Francisco’s park system have that I really liked and wish I could do — very clean and precise, but really eye-catching and evocative. (Samples, including the Golden Gate Parks ones, HERE. Click on any to upsize.) But I also didn’t mind the meta-message I was carrying away. It’s Lent, so maybe it’s okay to admit it: I am a prisoner. We all are.

People used to know it. One of the worst things that can happen to us is to believe the hype that has been coming our way, that we’re now liberated from the fetters that enslaved our ancestors, that we no longer need to feel duty-bound to try to be strong or faithful or upright. We’re smart now, you see, and so we’re free to do whatever we want.

That’s the line, or something like. It’s not for nothing that the “golden rule” for Wiccans is something like “Do whatever you want as long as no one gets hurt.” This is what we wish God would have said to us. And maybe there are some advantages to that ideology, though I strongly suspect that any society that really adopted it as an ethical standard would find that people actually did get hurt much, much more than they do now. But the biggest problem with it, of course, is that it’s not the truth.

It’s Lent, and getting nearer the truth is the whole point. We’re in the third week, and so this Sunday, we’ll confront the Cross. When we do, we’ll either be taken captive by that message, or we’ll keep chasing the world’s freedom, which is the worst imprisonment of all.

Saint John of Kronstadt said it better:

Man, they say, is free; he cannot compel himself, or ought not to force himself, to any religion or instruction.

Lord, have mercy upon us! What a diabolical opinion! If they are not forced, then what will become of men after this? What will become of you, the proclaimer of these newly-invented rules, if you do not force yourself to that which is good, and live as your vicious heart — your proud, short-sighted and blind intellect, your sinful flesh — incline you to live? Tell me, what will become of you? Do you not, then, force yourself, I do not say to good, but even to that which is your duty and is useful? How can one do without forcing oneself? How is it possible not to induce or force Christians, too, to fulfill the precepts of religion and piety? Is it not said in the Scripture that “the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force”?

And, especially, is it possible not to compel boys to instruction, to prayer? What will become of them? Will they not become killers and good-for-nothing? Will they not learn every evil?

– St. John of Kronstadt, “My Life in Christ”