It is the winter solstice when the sunlight begins its slow and steady return. Instead of each day getting shorter, each day gets a little bit longer. Like any incremental shift, it takes awhile before we notice the longer days and eventually tiny shoots starting to spring up from the cold, dark ground.
Being aware of nature’s rhythms empowers us. Owning that power within us – to generate light in spite of outer circumstances – is not only possible, but in many ways necessary in order to find freedom within life’s terms.
I heard Author, Anthony Ray Hinton, speak at Canisius College and read his book: The Sun Does Shine, How I found Life, Freedom and Justice. It is an inspirational story, a celebration of the power of light. In it, Hinton, who served thirty years on death row for a crime he did not commit, outlines how he generated and shared his light within dark and dismal prison conditions.
Hinton called upon his faculties of faith, imagination, love, hope, resilience, joy and humor to find a way to live fully within the parameters of a five by seven-foot jail cell. It took him three years to recognize that hating those who convicted him, was a choice. That realization led him to choose forgiveness and love, leaning on inner resources, ones that confinement could not take away from him.
He forged friendships, engaged in imaginative adventures, and fought for his freedom while incarcerated. With the help of attorney, Bryan Stevenson, after thirty years on death row in the state of Alabama, Hinton was proven innocent and freed.
He now works for the Equal Justice Initiative to shed light on the injustice of solitary confinement and the death penalty. The punishment is too harsh for any crime, especially since one in every ten prisoners is wrongly convicted. Can you imagine being one of them and still maintaining joy, love, and dignity?
That’s what Hinton did. I strongly recommend his book; it is a truly inspirational and informative read. The American criminal justice system is marred by racism and social inequity making it both unjust and unequal. Every life has value and the sooner the system recognizes it, the sooner we move toward justice.
“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
