Light in a dark place

Bringing hope and healing to prisoners

By Sr. Elaine MacInnes, O.L.M.
May/June 2012

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The work of our little charity, Freeing the Human Spirit, is to bring hope and healing to prisoners. We do this principally through setting up meditation and yoga classes in prisons, and supple-menting that teaching by providing companionship and guidance through letter contact with those inmates who wish to have this. At the moment we are in 22 institutions in Ontario. Recently, Ontario Correctional Institution (OCI) in Brampton held an appreciation evening for volunteers who go into that prison and about 300 turned up.

Cheryl and I were among the invitees, and while driving for two hours through an unbelievable rainstorm to get to OCI, we had sufficient time to talk about our work. All our meditation and yoga teachers find this work to be very satisfying. I am amazed yet again to realize how grateful we find ourselves to be. Prisons are not happy places. They are usually dark in one way or other. But we certainly find light in the work that we do. In fact, throughout the whole stormy evening there were many shafts of light that penetrated, as has so often been our experience on the inside. And the new orange shirts that many of the 700 men at OCI were wearing seemed like beacons of good will.

After Cheryl and I chose a table and slid into our seats, a few familiar faces from previous dinners sat with us. To my knowledge, there were no special arrangements made for seating and some of the inmates asked if they, too, could sit with us. We were delighted. The conversation was not dull or dark, but full of human interest as we all spoke of our daily lives and life itself. Soft music accompanied the hearty courses followed by an interesting and entertaining program. The whole evening was an expression of gratitude, and certificates and gifts were distributed in recognition. I could not help but reflect that both sides were grateful for the opportunity to remember and thank each other. One man who has been visiting prisons for 20 years was especially singled out and honored. He responded with humility and gratitude.

For me, the theme running through the evening was light. Certainly the light of the candle on the tables (the candle holders had been made in the prison workshop) ...light filtering through the stained glass windows ...light refracted from a bright plaid scarf ...light from the certificates of gratitude and recognition.

I am happy to say that I returned home that evening grateful and more conscious of that light. Later, upon reflection, I came to see that this awareness of light came from the prisoners themselves, as they endeavored to thank us for the help we bring to them each week of the year.

Moments such as these help me to realize that gratitude can be so satisfactorily reciprocated and, indeed, has a boomerang effect. Kudos to all our incarcerated friends.

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