The past week brings back memories of visiting inmates of state mental hospitals, including a state hospital for the criminally insane. I was their pastor.

As we sat together within these secure institutions, it was clear to them and to me which of us was free to leave. I was sane. They were not. I could leave. They could not.

On the way home I pondered the similarities between life outside the gates and inside the secured walls of these institutions, and the slim thread of difference that separates the outside from the inside.

During the last two weeks, it feels as though the thin thread line has disappeared.

We are all in the insane asylum now.

The difference between Ken Kesesy’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and America today is that Randle McMurphy, who organized the inmate revolt, is in charge, re-writing all the rules, ordering a lock-down that appalls the rest of the world.

The world looks on with horror. No visitors allowed. And we’re all inmates locked inside without a vote or effective voice.

Who will be our pastor now?

• Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Jan. 29, 2017.