Creating Our Own Futures

For about four years now, Steve Linney, one of Amicus’ many dedicated volunteers, has been joining Amicus Community Engagement Director Russel Balenger at the state Correctional Facility in Stillwater for “Connections,” an inmate support group Amicus facilitates.

Steve, a college level math professor told us that one of the reasons he continues to work with Amicus is that he always feels his contributions are appreciated by the “Connections” group, and he enjoys the positive atmosphere experienced there.
“They (the inmates) find value in me bringing my experiences in the outside world to them – bringing what I have and who I am.

One of the practices occurring at every “Connections” group is a “check-in” in which everyone in the room talks what’s been happening in their lives since the last time the group convened. The opportunity to talk freely about what’s important to an individual is not very common in a correctional facility and there are always positive interactions.

At a meeting in February though, Steve noticed something different. “I have NEVER felt the spiritual energy as powerful. As Russ said, they were ‘smoking!’”
Steve said he wasn’t certain why it felt so different, but guessed that it had something to do with the experience of seeing an African American take the oath of office as President of the United States.
He spoke about a 60-yeard old who was being released from prison in the next week.
“He was commenting about how prison is simply a state of mind and that what you have to do is “get out of your mind and what your “eyes” see and look/feel through your heart.”

They spoke about miracles such as the plane landing safely in the Hudson River and a black man being inaugurated as president, prompting one man to say “Being here and now, I AM BLESSED.”

“That is AMAZING to hear and see that,” Steve said. “Imagine being in prison and actually feeling/being BLESSED. Now that is a paradox – not only to express it, but to be sincere in actually feeling that.”

Steve said if there was only one point he took from the group, it’s that “the building isn’t the prison. The prison is our mind.”

He continues, “In some profound way, what we want is what we get … We have more power over our internal world than we might think we do.”

At Amicus we often talk about how “real change happens on the inside.” The Connections group has given me a great reminder of how closely related change inside ourselves and change outside ourselves actually is.