Suppose you have an angry prisoner in a cell. Compare him to a hermit, a religious man who has bound himself by vow to the enclosure of his hut. The prisoner’s state of mind is resentful and rebellious. The hermit’s state of mind is quite different. He has taken on a caring way of life and is trying to lead it as perfectly as he can. The hermit is doing everything for God and is depending on God. The prisoner is doing nothing for God and depending on Himself and the state.
The hermit has made love his whole life and welcomes every chance to show love to God and to any stranger who comes along. The prisoner wants only to get even with the people who put him where he is, and with the whole world.
Here is my contrast.
I read this and this is the perception that they want you to believe; the narrative that is pushed. Everyone in prison is mad at the world and blaming the world and is also considered beyond redemption. However, there are prisoners who have come to prison and seen the error of their ways and have become the hermit. In my eyes, I will take it a step further and say that some have become even better than the hermit!
A hermit chooses to live in love when it’s easy. I have seen prisoners who are innocent and rather than live in anger or spite or seek vengeance, they simply live in love, in spite of the storm. I see this story and I see the narrative tells us that the hermit is better than the prisoner, but I would like to see the hermit come out from the enclosure of his hut and face the temptation we all face and survive the injustice we survive. How would the hermit deal with racism, inequality, poverty, hatred, violence, and all everyday struggles?
Only then should we listen to the hermit’s testimony. Will the hermit end up in a prison cell or a psychiatric ward or even survive the reality of the real world?
While there may be saints in monasteries, nunneries, churches, tabernacles, temples, etc., there are also saints behind these prison walls and these barbed wired fences. These are saints that may not have arrived in the conventional way, but they have arrived.
Nobody is beyond redemption. NOBODY IS BEYOND REDEMPTION!
Before one is so quick to condemn and so quick to look down on another; one must actually empathize and put yourself in their shoes or at least be grateful that you didn’t have to go through the unconventional route they may have.
Keep in mind that God never puts more on us than we can bear, so let that be the starting point of how you see someone on the opposite side of your reality. God sees something in them that you don’t. Rather than jump to a quick judgment, let’s help each other get to our divine places in life.
Namaste,
Raymond
