Let Freedom Ring!

My country, tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing;

Land where my fathers died,

Land of the pilgrims’ pride

From every mountainside let freedom ring!

Wishful thinking perhaps, upon the face of a distant shore of hopelessness or hopefulness in the possibilities that lie out there. The truth is that the land of the free incarcerates more of its most precious and vital resources than any other industrialized nation on earth. Yet! The half has not been told.

There is a greater portion of our nation that moves about daily carrying on business as usual. They are not being watched by prison guards on the side of the road. Nor have they been fitted with wrist bracelets or ankle monitors to control their movements. The bars of containment are invisible to the human eye and more devastating than the clanging steel doors that are programmed to open and close. The impact of an incarcerated mind is staggering while the cost to society is immeasurable.

The Incarcerated Mind. What does it mean or imply? Defining incarcerated and outlining the functions of the mind can best answer this question. Incarcerated: imprisoned, confined, jailed, shut up or enclosed.

To be incarcerated is to be locked up, controlled by someone or something other than self. The ability to move about is severely restricted by space, scope and time. Normally one thinks of prison as a place for a person convicted by the courts for a crime. The mind can be imprisoned by what the tongue says and the ears hear.

Some of the functions of the mind: think/thought; feel/emotion; perceive; remember/memory; reason; judge/opinion; understand/intellect; decide/will.

An Incarcerated mind is at a disadvantage to navigate any of these functions. The fall out from the state of an incarcerated mind is seen in our relationships, in our streets and in our homes. One more thing—racism in our church is the outcome of an incarcerated mind. Jesus said, “except a man be born again”, (freed from an Incarcerated Mind) “he cannot see the kingdom of God”.  Where is your Mind?