Nothing escapes the Creator's cycle. Not plants, horses, trees, birds, or human beings. Each soul is a gust of God's breath unfolding in the great energy that surrounds us like an ever-moving stream. The goal is not to cheat death, but to live in the stream with a humility and aliveness that only acceptance of death can release...Thin and fragrant petals do not hide from the wind. They survive to die and break ground again. Even within one life, we shred and re-root. We break, bleed, and rearrange into yet another beautiful thing that learns how to reach. Resisting this process doubles our pain. Singing our way through, it is the source of wisdom and beauty.
Dr. Torres had never seen teeth as bad as those he saw at La Mesa. "This stuff wasn't in any of my books." He noticed that the worst problems often belonged to the toughest men and women in the prison, and even the hardest cases cried when he showed them their new teeth in the mirror.
Some of the inmates he worked on still stay in touch with him. "They call me all the time and tell me, 'Hey, I'm working over here, I'm working over there,'" he says. "The jobs are no big deal, but they're working, which they couldn't do before, because people didn't accept them. Nobody except Mother Antonia cared for them."
~ from PRISON ANGEL by Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan
"You sense the pure joy from her. And it's nice to touch that. Because we're all so skeptical -- I know I am. But even the skeptics begin to believe in God just because she's so happy. And it's not like she's preaching. This woman is just joy and happiness, period. . . . The first time you meet her, you think she's not real, not normal. But in twenty years I've never seen her change. There's an exuberance about her relationship with God, her relationship with people. Just joy, happiness, love. It's what we're born to be, and wish we could be."
~ Fr. Joe Carroll in THE PRISON ANGEL by Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan
