Sunday, April 26, 2026
Sunday Reflection: The Other Side
On Friday, I took my clemency clinic students on a field trip. I rented a big van and we drove north 100 miles to FCI Sandstone, a medium-security federal prison.
It was not their first time in a prison; nearly all of them had spent two or more days in a federal prison already this semester to work with our clients- not just in Minnesota, but Alabama, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota.
We met with four people with very different pathways to being incarcerated in the same place, and had an intense conversation for nearly two hours. We saw the shops where they work, and the RDAP program where people overcome the challenges of addiction. We ate lunch with them.
On the way there, the mood was lively-- people seem to revert to middle schoolers if they are in a big van, and there was a lot of singing. A lot.
But on the way back it was different. There were serious conversations, very different perspectives on what we had all seen together, and a consensus on what is important.
I go to prisons often, and feel compelled to by what Jesus directs. I am not that great at feeding the hungry or clothing the naked, so visiting those in prison is what I can do. What Jesus said, specifically, is "that when you visit those in prison, you visit me."
What I too often forget is what visiting Jesus is all about. It's not like Jesus would get much out of meeting me! But I would get a lot out of meeting him. And that is exactly the way it is when I actually do visit those in prison-- I am the one who is handed a gift, who is changed, who is the receiving party.
And who is grateful.
