Prisons don’t like for volunteers to come to prisons to teach classes because they demonstrate a level of concern and care that the paid staff do not. So administrations make it almost impossible for willing volunteers to enter prisons, because the truth they see hurts
We all have a past, but someone who has been incarcerated must start every conversation with the circumstances that brought him to prison, and then try to explain that he is now worthy of love and acceptance.
If you want to build community, you must listen to people’s stories. In those moments where vulnerable sharing happens, is when souls connect – and when that happens you have bonded yourself to a person that can walk this bumpy life with you. That’s how you survive prison.
Loneliness in prison has a way of slowly bleeding away your hopes & dreams. You don't realize it at first - then one day you wake up & wonder why get out of bed. So it's important to build community wherever you are, to drag your ass out of bed when necessary.
Society often thinks of incarceration as something people live through & from which they can ultimately be released. But the reality is that time spent in prisons & jails can create a host of collateral consequences that haunt people long after release.
There's a lot of humanity behind these walls. Brothers helping each other, tending to the sick, the elderly - and mourning each other's losses. Amongst the ugliness of prison and the violence, we find many souls full of love and compassion.
HOPE PREVAILS
Check out Tony's latest article.
Media Fights for Access to Executions, But Not the Rest of the Prison System https://t.co/tyxqyEk1yN via @Filtermag_org
Some church folk come to a prison to SAVE us from hell. Once they feel that is done, they flee. What they fail to realize is we need saving from the current hell we are living. Their assistance in that could prove to be a living testimony of their faith.
We don’t touch in prison – an imaginary wall is put up between us where it’s a sin to invade the personal spaces. I miss it! At times I feel like I have the plague and people are dammed if they touch me. How I long for a caring, warm embrace - a human connection
Today when I saw a TDOC car, it caused me great pain not because I’ve done anything wrong but just the realization of knowing I’m the property of this state and not recognized as a human by this state and its laws until I die.