I Spent Today With 45 Inmates ...
ServiceSpace
--Mariette Fourmeaux du Sartel
2 minute read
Mar 6, 2016

 

I spent today with 45 inmates at San Diego's maximum security prison, on the last day of a four-day retreat for these men. They did not know we - free folks - would be there. When they returned from lunch, there we were, all standing singing and welcoming them back into the chapel for the closing ceremony of their retreat. Several of them stopped dead in their tracks. Why would 40ish people take time from their lives to visit them, the forgotten outcasts in this maximum-security prison? They continuously hear how evil they are, what a cost to society they are, how no one wants them back on the streets or working in their businesses or living near them, how their life is not worth much of anything. During open mic, one inmate shared how he had prepared to take his own life and this retreat gave him reason to live. Another shared that he had never had a father until having found a father in the pastor leading the retreat. Yet another spoke of the lines of cocaine that he did until just a few months ago and now, he's addicted to the love among this group of men. At the end, these hardened macho tough-as-steal men were moving around the room, with their arms flapping, flying and soaring to the words of the last song. I am blessed to be chosen as a messenger to tell them they matter. I care. I love them. My world is brighter because they are part of it.

 

Posted by Mariette Fourmeaux du Sartel on Mar 6, 2016


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