by Inmate Contributor | Nov 14, 2015 | Shawn Ali Bahrami
  
Our friend Shawn is serving his 21st year in a Texas prison for a crime he did not commit. Shawn is one of my personal adoptees, and writes to me often. We also speak on the phone a few times a month. His letters, like the one below, always begin with several motivational quotes. Of all the people who write to us, Shawn is one of the most positive and inspiring. You can read more about Shawn on his website, FREEShawnAli.com.
September 30, 2015
âNothing in life can take the place of knowing your purpose. If you donât try to discover your purpose, youâre likely to spend your life doing the wrong things.â -John C. Maxwell
âEveryone has his own specific vocation or mission in life. Everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he/she cannot be replaced, nor can his/her life be repeated. Thus everyoneâs task is as unique as his/her specific opportunity to implement it.â -Viktor Frankl
Good morning. Itâs early. I was dreaming again, woke up wide awake and couldnât go back to sleep. From the moment I woke up, I felt so alive and determined, I could literally feel my mind and spirit inching closer to my destiny. I woke up this morning feeling peace and liberty inside because I know my purpose, and it excites and motivates me to know Iâm one day closer to fulfilling the physical manifestations of my purpose. But for now, I have to live for today, Melissa, the little things I do today to prepare and train myself matter, and count towards fulfilling the full potential of my purpose.
I couldnât stop the tears this morning, they kept falling and flowing as if they were watering my positive mental visualizations and dreams that I reflected on as I thought about my purpose. It didnât surprise me, when I opened up my Leadership Devotional, that todayâs reading was titled âBe On Purpose,â and itâs where todayâs quotes came from. More tears. Why? Because if I never got locked up on this case, if I was never wrongfully convicted, there is a good chance I could have traveled through this fast life without discovering my purpose. No God, please let me get locked up, use manâs wrongdoing and injustice to bring about greatness in my life. I can miss my physical freedom for 21 years, but I cannot miss my lifetime without discovering my purpose.
Then I read my three pages of goals and visions for my life out loud, and I could feel the universe and God moving the chess pieces of my life to align me in the best position to realize my purpose. People. Events. Circumstances. Experiences. Connections. Contacts. I can feel the unseen chess pieces moving. Then I hit my concrete floor in the push-up position, but I only did one good push-up. Why? for the psychological effect (it makes my mind stronger). Yesterday, I did 1,200 push-ups for the physical effect (which made my body stronger). More tears. Iâm stronger today than I was yesterday – physically and mentally – and though Iâm caged in this tiny cell, I find and feel true freedom in knowing and pursuing my purpose.
Give me a hug, Melissa, mmm-mmm! We know our purposes in life, Melissa. Yes, it took your brother getting wrongfully convicted to âaccidentallyâ discover your purpose, and it took my wrongful conviction to âaccidentallyâ discover my purpose, but bad things and tragedies happening in life are inevitable, so we are so blessed that our tragedies werenât for nothing because our pain propelled us to discover our purposes.
I also received a new blog idea this morning for your site – Why You Should Adopt an Inmate – because there are many people out there who will find purpose in life when they visit your site and adopt an inmate. Have a good day, Melissa, and keep pursuing your purpose.
Feeling inspired,
Shawn Ali
by Melissa Bee | Nov 6, 2015 | Angel Voices, From the Staff
Yesterday’s blog post was a poem and drawing sent to us by Ron in Florida. I showed my 82-year old aunt Nancy the picture, because she loves to see the artwork that prisoners send in. Nancy has lost some of her ability to read and write, but makes a valiant effort when it is important. When I read the title of the Ron’s poem to her, “I Wish Someone Would Pray For Me,” she immediately handed me a pen and asked me to write his name down, so that she could keep it near her bedside and remember to pray for him. I wrote in large letters, RON. She would carry the paper with his name to me several times a day, sounding out the letters, making sure she was saying his name correctly, “RrrrrrrrAhhhhhNnnn.”
A few days later, Nancy came to me carrying a pad of paper, and said she would like to write a letter to Ron. I thought she wanted to dictate to me so I could write it for her, but instead she handed me a letter she had started and wanted to me to check it, to see if it made sense. I assured her that it did, and she shuffled off to finish the letter – which was mailed to Ron yesterday.
She wrote about looking out her window and seeing the beautiful colors of the trees and flowers in her backyard (Nancy loves color), and of the children that came the night before in their Halloween costumes to get candy. “I once did that, did you?”
Won’t Ron be surprised, and blessed, to receive Nancy’s sweet letter, and to know that such an earnest soul is praying for him?
by Inmate Contributor | Nov 5, 2015 | Poetry From Prison
I Wish Someone Would Pray For Me
by R. Tillman
by Martin Lockett | Nov 4, 2015 | Inmate Contributors
It was a frigid Tuesday morning in January when the van I rode in pulled up to the prison in eastern Oregon. From a distance it resembled more of an insane asylum than a prison, with its dingy-colored concrete exterior and brick-colored metal rooftop. Intimidating, imposing, and inhumane are all adjectives that readily come to mind as I recount that fateful day.
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by Melissa Bee | Nov 2, 2015 | From the Inside
This beautiful work is by Jason in Pennsylvania.
by Inmate Contributor | Nov 1, 2015 | From the Inside
Andrew (see his Halloween card on yesterday’s blog) recently sent us a letter:
Melissa,
Greetings, Sister! First let me tell you my mom and grandmother were all I had. My Grandmother passed away October 22nd, 2010, and my mom passed away December 2, 2010, so I’ve been indigent ever since (you know Texas doesn’t pay inmates to work). I wrote a few of the book places you told me about, thank you for that! I was sitting here thinking about how I could help your organization out. But the reason I wrote is to tell you a story I wrote that really happened to me …
Late One Night
I was lying in bed with the light off, but you can still see! I saw a little rat, so I got up and got a bag, and tied a line on the bag and ran the line over my light, so when I pulled the line, the bag would pop up. I laid the bag down and turned the light off. I lay there forever waiting, until I fell asleep.
That little dude got all the chips and I opened my eyes to see him running out of the bag, with the last chip. I couldn’t help but smile. I put part of a cookie in the bag, and a little later, here he came in the bag! I pulled the line and got him, grabbed the bag, and I was looking at the little dude, and I could see he was looking at me, so I wanted to pet him. I put my hand in the bag, and just as I was about to pet this cute little dude he want all psycho, mad-dog on me, he bit my hand and wouldn’t let go, so I am jumping up and down, trying not to holler.
He let go, and blood ran down my hand. He was still in the bag and I verbally abused him for going all psycho on me … but then got to thinking … all he wanted was some food, and I got in his business. So I let him go.
And now I keep some chips and food by the door just for him. Every night when the light goes off, he’ll go get the food. It brings joy to see him!
Andrew
If you’d like to write to Andrew, leave a comment or send us an email to get his contact info.
by Melissa Bee | Oct 31, 2015 | From the Inside
Happy Halloween, from Andrew in Texas and Adopt an Inmate.
Come back tomorrow to read “Late One Night,” a story Andrew shared with us about something that really happened in his cell.
by Inmate Contributor | Oct 29, 2015 | From the Inside
by Frank E. Page Sr.
The first officer that any male who goes to prison in the state of Alabama will meet is known as “Michael Jordan.â This is not his real name, but the nickname given him many years ago as he looks like a shrunken version of the more famous basketball player. if he had had a stroke. Inmates in Alabama county jails know and warn first-timers about this officer. I have had personal encounters with him and I would like everyone to be aware of this 30-year “decorated” officer.
Kilby Correctional Facility has a no smoking policy in the chapel for any type of religious service, or when going to see the captain (whose office is located in the chapel). Each dorm would execute church call a little differently, but all inmates had to go through a checkpoint office to get to the chapel. Kilby keeps different types of inmates separated, so there are fences inside of fences, with checkpoints along the way.
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by Inmate Contributor | Oct 28, 2015 | From the Inside
From a prisoner in the Sing Sing facility in New York.
Q: Please indicate issues you would like to see addressed in your facility.
A: Â Actually, everything, because management could not run a hot dog cart for a week without going out of business. Clearly they want recidivism. Keep the cells full – just like a hotel needs its rooms full. Sing Sing may be best prison in NYS, but very badly run.
Main problems are health care with ZERO education, prevention, healthy diet, age appropriate care or exercise for older men. We have frequent unexplained deaths of fairly young men. Our pharmacy is very prone to errors. After our Nurse Administrator was “fired” and arrested, they gave her another job in mental health which is technically a different agency. She kept her parking spot! Does it sound like a certain church? Educational opportunities are here only for those who fit profile of 20-25 years, above average IQ, interested in college, and no mental illness. That is about 150 out of 1600. My GED classroom has 20 seats. About 1000+ men need a GED. Obviously, this “does not compute.”
Roughly half the population has substantial mental health problems (on psych meds, zero impulse control, talking to themselves, self-medication / drug abuse, very low intelligence, illiterate in any language). Treatment of mentally ill is overmedication, zero exercise, poor diet and isolation.
For those of us who came to prison with skills and education, the problem is no opportunity to use or maintain skills. Our library is okay for fiction, otherwise zilch. Very old, e.g., vacuum tube electronics and a book on Fortran IV (might be valuable to a collector?). Car books have carburetors and crank windows.
Drug problems are major. Head in the sand about problem because “they” don’t want to explain how drugs can get through a forty-foot-high concrete wall. (Staff, of course.) Only control point is poverty of most prisoners.
by Inmate Contributor | Oct 27, 2015 | C.F. Guyton, Poetry From Prison
Poetry submitted by C.F. Guyton, pictured here with his wife.
My Momma
My Momma, puts the “El” in “El Shabazz,”
The love in laughter and the joy in these lonely days of future’s past.
My Momma; the Hiroshima of Hell’s Kitchen.
Succulent entrees of deliciousness are served.
Incredible are her choice vegetables, and did I mention,
Exquisite is her cooking?
My Momma; sheer, pure goddess of glam,
Bountifully, beautiful, through nature’s span.
Water lilies, and yellow to golden daffodils perk.
Her grand stand.
My Momma; the Earth births, Fresh mountain air.
Cool breeze and crystal blue streams.
White sparkles everywhere.
My Momma; with her courage and devotion,
Holds the mighty strength of a thousand seas.
Smooth as cotton and a smile like silk.
Creative is her mind as well as sharp is her wit.
My Momma; a star to be remembered; A torch to keep lit.
A force to be reckoned with. The Soul that has ignited the heavens untold.
My Momma; because of you I’ve found it all the more,
Yet to simply be me.
