There is no dark like a night replete with the mystery of death. There is no truth like a fleeting wind. There is no lover like a lonely tree. There is no friend like a blade of faithful grass. There is no light like a solitary beam from the sun. There is no poem like an evolving earth and no Poet like the great Grace of Silence.
~ from POEMS OF THE SACRED UNKNOWN by Richard W. Bachtold
In 1979 Mother Antonia started a tradition in the prison which she calls the Day of Forgiveness: her protest agains the eye-for-an-eye logic that dominates prison culture. She believes forgiveness is far more effective than any punishment at controlling all the hate and homicide.
"Forgiveness is hard," she says, "but not forgiving is harder. Unforgiveness will age me, it will make me sick, and it will make me ugly. Nothing can bring me so low that I'm goijng to not forgive somebvoedy and destroy myself. Because that's what unforgiveness does. It's a boomerang that comes back."
~ from THE PRISON ANGEL by M. Jordan and K. Sullivan
