Practicing Spirituality in Prisons

I have a friend who says, “What you push against gets stronger.”  She’s right. 

         Big example: During the recent souring of my marriage, if I tried to change my estranged husband’s negative opinion of me, my day became a fruitless battle.  When I surrendered to my powerlessness over him, and went on to tasks and pleasures about which I actually had a choice, I had a good day.

         Small example: Suppose I call someone who doesn’t answer.  I could throw myself against the problem, texting them, emailing them, calling them again.  But this just leaves me angry and frazzled.  When I simply leave a voicemail and go on to other things, the eventual call-back feels like a lovely, unexpected surprise.

         Last Sunday, The New York Times had a story about American prisons learning this same principle.  In American prisons over the last thirty years, it became more and more standard to throw unruly prisoners into solitary confinement.  But what the prisons were “pushing against,” namely disobedience or lawlessness, just got stronger. 

         Eventually, in the summer of 2007, in a prison in Parchman, Mississippi, “violence erupted…an inmate stabbed to death with a homemade spear that May; in June, a suicide; in July, another stabbing; in August, a prisoner killed by a member of a rival gang.”

         The reason I’m posting about this has to do with a spiritual experiment that followed.  A spiritual experiment with a spiritual result.  Stay tuned.



Comments

[Meg Ciccantelli]

Now this sounds quite interesting—a spiritual experiment—leaning forward for this one.

Glad you are back. Missed you!

[Julie Lakehomer]

Thanks, Meg!