This afternoon I had the honor and privilege of sitting and talking with a man who, just five hours before, had been released from a federal penitentiary. Drugs and alcohol had been the cause of this man's incarceration. He had been a highly successful, high profile, criminal attorney...then as he said he became an attorney who was a criminal. His losses from his addiction are too long to list. He had found sobriety two years before he went to prison and in that time became one the most spiritual men I've known, though the shadow of prison was always upon him. In the time prior to his incarceration he taught me many things and I felt honored to call him a friend.

I had not seen him since his imprisonment and the penitentiary had become his place of residence. I wasn't sure what to expect when I began to listen to his words. Would this be the same man I had known or would I find a man embittered, as many are, by the ugliness of a prison. A place where violence is the norm and spirituality could easily be construed as a weakness rather than a virtue. A place where society hides away those who have offended that society.

What I heard as he told his story was one of inspiration. I have written articles in the past, spoken to many people about the value of mindfulness, of living in the moment. I learned today so very much about mindfulness, about the value of living in the moment. Those lessons came from inside the walls of a prison, taught to me by a man who only hours before had been a prisoner there. Having worked in the field of corrections I had an understanding of what he spoke about when he described his day. Rituals that never change from day to day...lights on at the same time, off at the same time, meals at the same time, prisoner counts at the same time, menial labor each day at the same time. A perfect garden for growing resentment plants from the past and flowers of fear for the future.

How, with the monotony of a prison existence, can one live anywhere but in the past or the future? Who could blame anyone that would allow their minds to wander to outside the bars and the walls, to move to the past or future as a way of escaping the misery of each day?

One would think that to isolate in prison would be a wise idea...."leave me alone and I'll leave you alone....I just want to do my time." My friend told me that when he did assume that attitude and those behaviors it contributed to the most miserable days he had while incarcerated.

He found that the way to mindfulness, to living in the moment, was by extending himself in service and help to another. He had experienced this before by practicing the Twelve Step of Alcoholics Anonymous, "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs". The founding fathers of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson and Dr. Robert Smith, had learned in 1935 that "working with others" was an integral part of their own recovery from alcoholism. This practice was not something newly discovered in 1935 in Akron, Ohio. Almost two thousand years before the apostle Paul taught Timothy that he was not only to teach others but also to be an example by putting his beliefs into practice. Paul said: "Give your complete attention to these matters. Throw yourself into your task so that everyone will see your progress. Keep a close watch on how you live and on your teaching. Stay true to what is right for the sake of your own salvation and the salvation of those who hear you" (1 Timothy 4:15-16).

My friend found that sharing his "experience, strength and hope" with others allowed him to live in the moment and share that moment with another human being. He talked of sitting with men who had never seen a cell phone, had never seen the internet and men who had not had a visitor in twenty years. What can one give to a another who's family, friends and society has abandoned? All that one can give is the gift of self which, for my friend, resulted in a gift given back to him. That gift was the gift of living in the moment through service to others.

Most of us have never been to prison, but we create the same shackles with our mind. We become self centered to the extreme with all of our attention directed toward ourselves. We chain ourselves to the past or the future and lose the gift of the present. If mindfully being of service to others provides freedom within the walls of the penitentiary, then imagine the freedom it can afford those of us not in prison. Find an opportunity today to be of service to another and provide that service in a mindful way, then reflect on the freedom you just experienced.

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