A few weeks ago, I found the most incredible photograph while looking for something else on the internet: it is picture taken inside a small Russian Orthodox chapel that is situated within a Siberian prison. The walls are covered with Icons of Our Lord, Our Lady, and various Saints. I love the mixture of styles; the world has become so universal, even in the intransigent Orthodox churches, that we can see the inclusion of Western designed images alongside more hieratic Russian and Greek representations. In front, the priest holds up an ornate Crucifix; blessing the other prisoners (just out of camera range.) In the background, a solitary prisoner: head down, arms dropped, eyes closed.
The photo blows me away: for, in the end, is this not what life is all about? Created by God, being born, growing-up, believing the lies of the world, becoming proud, screwing-up, falling-down, then hopefully hobbling back to the safety of the Father. Isn’t that True freedom. Within our prisons, but with God, feeling liberated. For example, the well-known and ironically named ex-gay Christian organization Exodus International recently closed their doors and issued an apology to the homosexual community. Strange, I thought. They went from Moses to Herod: setting the captives free to imprisoning the Prophet. Are they now advocating freedom or decapitation? Another recent illustration, the just published editorial in The New York Times by uber-gay actor Harvey Fierstein: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/31/opinion/the-culture-of-disease.html, who, being Jewish, I think inanity understands the difference between the reality of true independence and the false fantasy of liberation. Eloquently, he decried the current enslavement by outwardly handsome and beefy looking gay men who constantly pop retro-viral drugs in order to stave off the ravages of their HIV status. Lastly, all the recent hoopla swirling about the further social and legal acceptance of same-sex marriage is viewed by many within and from outside the gay world as a milestone in the history of freedom. Or is it just another anchor of enslavement? Hoping, yearning, desperately pleading that something, anything, will bring about final and lasting happiness. It was not meant to be. There is no complementary without the opposites of sex pulling the two individuals together. One of my last lucrative clients included a so-called “married” homosexual couple who constantly craved more intense thrills in order to escape the doldrums of their domestic bliss. Forced monogamy did not bring about the expected harmonic convergence, but an eventual continuation of the restless longing for escape.
I preach it over and over again; only, I do not know what else to write: solely through Jesus can the captives be set free. I go back to that photograph of the Russian man, standing in his prison garb, behind the priest. Just drop your head, let go of the shame and disappointment, and pray.