Comfort Zone Prison

Most pris­on­ers in our penal sys­tem return to prison within a few short days after their release. Con­sciously or uncon­sciously, they com­mit new crimes and are back in cus­tody within forth-eight hours. They are so con­di­tioned by their own com­fort zones that they do obvi­ous crimes — almost beg­ging to be arrested again. For as mis­er­able as incar­cer­a­tion may be, it is “home” to them. Few break the cycle. Repeat offend­ers are the name of the crim­i­nal jus­tice game.

That may sound hor­ren­dous to the rest of us, but we do the same thing. We imprison our­selves in rou­tines and view­points. Our com­fort zones are lim­i­ta­tions more than free­dom. We even love our per­sonal self-imposed wor­ries and mis­eries. Like the short-time pris­oner antic­i­pat­ing release, we talk of the great adven­tures we would take if we won the lot­tery. How­ever, we know full well we will just repeat the same pat­terns. We are afraid. We would spend the money hid­ing rather than explor­ing. It would insu­late us more than free us.

When the Allied Forces freed con­cen­tra­tion camp vic­tims, they walked out­side the perime­ter fences then back to their bunks — just to sit and feel secure. When the Berlin Wall fell, res­i­dents of East Berlin walked over to West Berlin, then back to their lit­tle apart­ments — just to sit. Their curiosi­ties of the rich West were not enough to take them away from their dingy abodes for more than a few hours.

Jesus had trou­ble pry­ing his fol­low­ers away from the pseudo-securities of their fish­ing busi­ness. They hap­pily left for a while, but after the cru­ci­fix­ion, they went back to their wooden boat com­fort zones. It is as if their few months of spir­i­tual free­dom were just a jun­ket. When push came to shove, they did what we all do: They went back to their com­fort­able par­a­digms and rou­tines.

We all talk a good game, but we are crea­tures of habit. “If only” is our excuse. We have the time. We have the money. Then again, we have the need for our com­forts. You won­der if we lock our doors to keep bur­glars out or our­selves in.