UPFRONT July 7, 2008 Issue

Spiritual transformation = freedom

KIM SHIPPEY, SENIOR WRITER

This week the Sentinel revisits a topic that concerns us all, and on which almost everyone seems to have clear—often bold—views: Freedom. Over the past ten years we've covered many aspects of freedom. And each time we've explored it in the light of this magazine's commitment to "report on the unlimited ways that the healing power and presence of the Christ activates, uplifts, and transforms the lives of everyday people around the world" (see above right).

We've worked to show that a genuine spiritual transformation needs to take place in order for people to express their inherent freedom. That God alone is the source of freedom. That freedom is everybody's birthright, and that it comes as we gain a more spiritual concept of ourselves and others. And that it's through prayer that humanity finds its true and natural condition of liberty—unscarred by tyranny of any kind, economic lack, fear, depression, sickness and pain, incarceration.

A helpful insight into the role of prayer in prisons is brought out "In the news" this week by former corrections counselor Judy Cole, who through her work with prisoners was persuaded that our prayers can help bring about positive change in their lives. In fact, for all of us, she writes, "The willingness to blot out any past view and replace it with a spiritual one is imperative to progress" (pp. 12–13).

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