HOW I FOUND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE November 29, 2010 Issue

DOORS THAT OPENED IN PRISON

JOEL MINGO——JACKSONVILLE, ILLINOIS, US

IN SEPTEMBER 2004, I was sentenced to 16 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. "Sixteen years," I thought to myself. "How in the world am I going to do that much time?" My world seemed to have come to an end. All those who had been my friends broke contact with me. It also felt like God had deserted me, or was serving justice to me.

For the first two years of my incarceration, I spent each and every day studying the law looking for a loophole. Every authority and administrative figure was my enemy. Hate and anger were running through my veins.

But after a while, something inside of me kept telling me there was a better way to do things. At times I would listen to that inner voice, but other times I just did what I wanted to do. Then, one day, while I was looking through a pamphlet titled "Prison Resources," I ran across an address with "Christian Science Institutional Committee" on it. I'm from the South Side of Chicago and had never heard of Christian Science until then, but just the title "Christian Science" provoked a curiosity within me, and I decided to write to the committee. At that time, the fact that I stepped out on faith to try something spiritual was a major change.

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