I am teaching three classes right now, distance-learning style. My students and I are isolated from one another, confined to our homes, denied the free movement we are accustomed to. Oh, and those classes?  

  • In one we are reading The Pilgrim’s Progress, which John Bunyan began when he was in prison. 
  • In the second we are reading Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison. 
  • In the third we are reading letters that St. Paul wrote while in prison. 

How’s that for a convergence? When I planned the semester I never noticed this rhyming of theme — nor, needless to say, did I anticipate that our very lives would be playing the same theme at this moment.