You asked me.  You sent me letters and emails and asked, “What was it like to conduct a spiritual program in a jail?” 

 

My friend, Judge Ted Kowalski, had conducted a program called, A Course In Miracles, a spiritual thought system, in Cook County Jail for a few years.  It is in Chicago and one of the largest in the country, housing more that 9000 detainees. 

 

He asked if I would like to help by taking over some of the classes.

 

It felt a little scary to me.  But, I decided to go anyway – just to see.

 

So, this is a snapshot of what it was like.

 

First, I had to be cleared to even get in to the jail, in contrast to visitors who talk to inmates through a glass on the telephone.  Then, the evening began.  Checking our identification, going through a metal detector and a body search.

 

It seemed to be just as hard to get in as to get out.

 

Finally, we entered through two thick buzzing and clanking steel doors and were escorted by guards into a room inside the jail.

 

As we waited, 25 men, mostly young,  filed quietly into the room.  They were dressed in tan Department of Correction uniforms and were escorted by several guards.

 

All of them had been indicted on serious crimes, from armed robbery, aggravated assault, drug dealing, to murder.  Not exactly your usual cross section of a study group you might find in a church or a hall where such meeting are generally held.

 

Then, as they settled in and the guards left, it seemed like any other group.

 

The self appointed director for the class, got busy organizing papers, pencils, books.  Name plaques were set up in front of each man..

 

These were people who had terrorized the city.  Now, they sat like obedient children all ready and serious about the topic for the evening – which was love and forgiveness.

 

I had heard this topic discussed before but never in the context that followed.  I had heard it debated in the light of family disputes, hurt feelings, infidelity and differences of opinion.

 

I had never seen love and forgiveness approached from assault in the street, knives, guns, drive by shootings, – threats few of us have experienced.  The questions were not about kindness and compassion, but how do you stay alive on the street?  They were coming from their experience of the violence they had inflicted and terror which had come to them and their families.

 

The miracle was that, considering their backgrounds, they were still open and willing to discuss the principles of love and forgiveness.

 

I learned a lot as the evening went on.  They taught me that you can’t start with the big stuff.   You can’t start from assault and murder.  We can’t start with loving and forgiving someone who has injured us mentally or physically seriously.  It was so simple I wondered why nobody else thought of it.

 

We have to start small in this business of love.  To see everyone as your brother is too hard.  We have to practice seeing our oneness with each other in safe places.  With people we are not afraid of.

 

One inmate said that we could start with our mailman.  Not by just saying hello, but thinking about what his life might be like.  Noticing if it a snowy day and how hard that would make his job.  Appreciating him.  A safe person you hardly know.  Commenting how it must be nice to be a mail carrier on a beautiful fall day.

 

Other students chimed in on this.  They said that it might inspire our mailman to say a kind word to someone on his route, who in turn would call her husband to apologize for the fight they had that morning which would inspire her husband to be kinder and more attentive to an irate customer on his job.  They talked about love having a domino affect in the world.

 

These “criminals” were on to something here.  They liked a lovely passage in the Course that said,

 

A miracle is never lost.  It may touch many people you have never even met, and produce undreamed of changes of which you are not even aware.  (T6)

 

We never did get around to trying seeing the love in an attacker with a knife or a gun.  I suspect that is probably down the road a piece some of these students.  They have a lot of serious loving to do.

 

One of the mature inmates spoke up.  He said he had decided not to come back to jail ever again after seven incarcerations.  He was getting too old for it.

 

He added, “You know I was never a very good burglar anyway.  If I broke into a house and there were toys, I wouldn’t take the TV.  I figured the kids would have nothin’ to watch in the morning.”

 

Another man who was indicted for burglary added to the conversation.  He said, “You know all those things I stole.  Not one of them every loved me back.”

 

There was love in that room.  Not the kind we were used to – but it was still love.

 

All the TV programs, the politician’s words, newspaper articles about locking these people up and throwing away the key were going through my mind.

 

Not all, certainly, but many, many of our incarcerated brothers and sisters need rehabilitation, not just punishment.  We are spending millions to house them, not help them.

 

The classroom was set up in a circle.  A circle of sharing and honesty.  Of open hearts.  For a few hours, I forgot I was in a jail.

 

The walls had disappeared and a model of healing and oneness was the only thing there.

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