“ . . . the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened.” In the context of our first lesson, that is the experience of Paul and Silas who had been imprisoned in Philippi. It is a powerful story of how folks can come to recognize the hand of God at work in the world.

Let’s, however, take the image of the opening of that prison as a metaphor for the prisons we may have created in our own lives. Most often our prisons are founded on the choices we have made to cope with whatever has come our way in life. Perhaps it has been power or control issues that have initiated our reactions that have become so habitual that we feel imprisoned by our responses. Or maybe it has been the need for affection and esteem that has us chained to those earliest responses to our perception of the lack thereof. Sometimes it can be the buttons of security and survival that, when pushed, leave us tied up in knots of fear. Whatever the issues that have come to hold us in bondage, we can be unfastened from our figurative chains by opening ourselves to the presence of God.

Once we come to realize our self-centered, egoic responses are no longer working, that we are indeed in a prison of our own making, we might find it helpful to follow Paul’s and Silas’ example of “praying and singing hymns to God,” or to delve into whatever spiritual practices enable us to be present to the Holy One here and now. The Beloved is ever waiting to release us from our bondage, to unfasten any chains we have welded together to separate us from Love. It may take an “earthquake” to shake the foundations and open the doors, but nothing is impossible for God.