Soul's Code

I was filled with pain and hate over a brutal crime. My path to freedom began with meditation, and ended at a Texas prison

BY TOM HUDGENS, episode 1 (of 5) — Thirty years ago a man named John Black* raped and murdered my sister. In May, I visited him in prison and told him that I forgave him.

The realization that I could actually do such a thing came unbidden. It wasn’t something I struggled to attain. I just looked one day and there it was: my own voice saying, “You can forgive him.” That voice spoke to me often. Eventually, I acted upon it.

Three years ago, after a miserable year in a career that I loved in theory but not in practice, I was struck with the idea of attending a meditation retreat. I typed “silent meditation retreat” into a search engine, and discovered Spirit Rock Meditation Center, located on 400 acres in Marin County, California.

I made a commitment to a spiritual practice before facing my “enemy”

BY TOM HUDGENS, episode 2 (of 5) — “John Black is very eager for this meeting.”

That was the short and simple email I received from Rick Warr, a mediator with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice who was arranging for me to meet John Black,* the man serving a life sentence for raping and murdering my sister 30 years ago.

Why was he eager? I wondered. What did he think would happen?

When I first met my “enemy,” I recognized him instantly. Then I leaned within inches of his face to hear his apology

BY TOM HUDGENS, episode 3 (of 5) — It took a half-hour to drive to Chesterson Unit, the prison in Huntsville, Texas that has housed my sister’s killer, John Black,* for thirty years.

Rick Warr, the mediator with the Criminal Justice department, picked me up at my hotel. We drove through the main entrance, past cornfields and cattle, and eventually reached the sprawling prison buildings, all made of yellow brick.

I asked for complete honesty — however painful he thought it might be for me.

BY TOM HUDGENS, episode 4 (of 5) — Not that long ago, I would never have believed that I would be here: Sitting face to face with John Black, the man who raped and killed my sister in 1978, chatting with him about his life.*

He apologized and asked for my forgiveness. And now it was time for me to put my lengthy spiritual preparation — which led me to this prison outside Huntsville, Texas — to practice.

I thanked John Black for reading his letter to me, for agreeing to meet, and asked him to be totally honest, even if he thought the truth might be painful or offensive.

I told him that I was speaking on no one’s behalf but my own, and that I was not trying to see if “justice had been served.” Rather, I wanted to have open communication, compassion and understanding.

‘I can accept what happened,’ I told my sister’s killer. ‘Today, in this moment, I can wish you well’

BY TOM HUDGENS, final episode — When you took my sister’s life, I told the killer himself as we sat in a stark room in a Texas prison, there were, amazingly, seven people who considered her a best friend.

John Black,* who is 30 years into a life sentence, had told me about his life, with the honesty I had asked for. Now I was telling him about his victim, who was taken from the world when she was 22 and I was just 9.

How a prayer circle, and a kitchen fire, led to a powerful Aha! Moment

BY SUEANN JACKSON-LAND — Every other Saturday morning my friend Kim picks me up to join the Elgin Street Mission Breakfast Club, a group comprised of  women who serve food at a local soup kitchen. Our captain is Debbie, an energetic woman I like to describe via her shoes: Keds sneakers colored with Sharpies into left and right rainbows.

Kim, I met at church. She is one of those people who keeps her Christian faith private, although her spirit is always at work. That she didn’t try to coerce me into a volunteer effort made me want to do it all the more.

This past Saturday, only my second time participating, I immediately went to my cereal pouring job because that’s what I knew how to do. I was pouring when our toaster lady, Barb, asked me if I thought the industrial-sized block of hard yellow stuff was butter or margarine?

Western apathy about Aids in Africa can be changed into action via personal stories

BY CASSANDRA MINO — Thanks to high profile celebrities such as Bono, and Bill and Melinda Gates, most North Americans are aware that there is an AIDS crisis in Africa. However, I am certain that most people living outside of the continent feel removed from the tragedy and thus can easily overlook the immense devastation that is occurring every day.

A post-modern mystic describes how she learned to accept — and appreciate — financial ruin, homelessness, and terminal illness

GUEST COLUMN: VAISHALI — I have had to start over so many times in so many aspects of my life, you’d think that ‘Square One’ was my mailing address. I’m sure we at least share the same zip code. I have been diagnosed — terminal — twice.

I like to refer to myself as a “terminal over-achiever.” Because of those chronic health problems, I lost the business I spent nearly a decade building. And then it took every cent I had ever saved just to stay alive. I had to start over financially, from Square One.

I have been without a home, and as Blanche DuBois from Streetcar Named Desire would say, “. . . have relied on the kindness of strangers.” No home? No problem. I can stay at Square One — they even leave the light on for me.

I have been lied to, and cheated on, by nearly every single romantic partner I have ever had, which for me, is a deal-breaker. So, the instant I discovered betrayal, I packed up and left. My destination? Square One.

As the fear on Wall Street panics every holder of American stocks, here is a lesson from the Great Depression: Our grandparents weren’t left behind by their community, family or friends.

GUEST COLUMN: SHERYL KARAS — What is your greatest source of wealth in a Depression? A dependable day job? Gold coins stashed under your mattress? A 401K retirement plan?

If the stock market crashes and inflation rises at the speed of light, things we’ve been taught to depend on in recent years will turn out to have been nothing to depend on at all.

The real source of wealth for people in the Great Depression were their communities, family and friends.

From Plymouth to John Wayne westerns, white Americans have put Native Indians between a rock and a hard place. This Thanksgiving I’m joining a festival to honor what they’ve given, and lost

GUEST COLUMN: DANNY KENNY — In the twilight slumber of Thanksgiving morning, the first boat moors at “The Rock” and the “tired and weary” passengers disembark. But this is Alcatraz not Plymouth, and we’re not here to celebrate or give thanks for our survival. We, so-called “civilized” folks, have much to be thankful for, and I’m not talking turkey here.

On the day when the majority of white Americans give thanks for the American dream . . .