These are fierce times for those in chains, as well as for those called free.  Go outside while dawn is still a passing rumor.  Close your eyes and pay attention. It is not difficult to sense the intensity at the heart of the moment.  You listen for the rebuttal, but you hear only the silent verdict, and the gavel slammed.  You look for someone who loves you to raise an objection, but you don’t hold out much hope. Blindfolded and strapped to the condemned man’s seat, you cannot see the masked phantom woman tasked with your sentencing. Inwardly you plead more fervently than you ever have, that you might feel and know the unwavering presence of your Creator, but you feel only the tightening chains around your wrists as she stands you up, binds your hands behind your back, and drags you up the stone-strewn hill to your execution.  Your crime, she tells you, was failure to yield to the real, to surrender your despair in her field where all cares disappear.