Spiritual Survival Guide
7: Surviving Spiritually Beyond Prison
movement and monitoring where we go. We now have the freedom to walk down those same paths that put us in prison in the first place. That road is clear, and we often have people encouraging us to join them on it. The spiritual question is, Am I free enough to say no to this temptation? When I step outside and I hear a car honking, and I see my old crew wav- ing me over to go for a ride with them, does my relationship with God give me the inner strength to tell them that I’m done with all that? Will God give me the courage to stand tall when they’re making fun of me and pressuring me, and telling me that I’ll be back out in the streets in a week? Will they believe that I’ve changed? Do I believe that I’ve changed? Really? Everything is spiritual. Everything we do reflects on our character, our values, our priorities, and our basic trust in God. For example, looking for a job is a profoundly spiritual exercise, because we need integrity to tell the truth on our job applications. We need patience and persever- ance to keep going when we’ve been rejected fifty times in a row. We need hopefulness and trust to continue to look for legitimate work instead of stealing or selling drugs. We need humility to start a new job as the person who takes orders from everyone else. We need trustwor- thiness and discipline to show up on time every day in order to hang on to it. And we need gratitude to thank God for the opportunity to work. It’s all spiritual. And we could say the same sort of things about getting along with our family, participating in a twelve-step program, taking care of our health, avoiding pornography, helping out at home, taking the initiative to reach out to help others even though we’re still in need ourselves, and a thousand other things. Everything is spiritual, because nothing exists outside of God’s sphere of influence or concern. Everything is spiritual, because everything is connected, because everything matters to God,
Hitting reset and setting up new spiritual routines and habits can be a difficult process, especially if you don’t get ongoing support or if you find your priorities shifting because of all the new demands on your time and the decisions you have to make. Decisions, decisions, decisions. Unfortunately, prison does a fantastic job at shielding us from the practice of decision making. Choices as simple as what and when to eat are taken out of our hands. Many of us forget about the sheer number of everyday decisions that have to be made, especially when we re-enter society and have forgotten what that’s like. If it were only a question of deciding on minor things like menu choic- es, we wouldn’t even bother mentioning it. But “big-decision” overload is a whole different thing. Deciding things like whether it’s better to live with family or in a half-way house, what kind of jobs to apply for, what old friends to re-connect with or disconnect from, who to trust or not, how and when to resume parenting responsibilities, and dozens of other issues, simultaneously , is enough to overwhelm the best of us. We need to find a way to step up and get help at the same time. Dangerous freedom. Maybe the greatest decision we face is what to do with our new-found freedom. We no longer have people restricting our
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