The prisoner's walk is a journey all of us are on together. It is also a journey we all must make on our own. 700 miles from Indianapolis to Lake Superior is merely a simplified and condensed version of the greater journey we began at birth and shall continue beyond our death. It is the same as the journey we make driving to the office every morning or walking to our daily cup of coffee. We have the choice to be free or not to be free. On this walk, every epiphany occurring in my heart has reinforced the belief that God alone grants us this choice. In our busy lives we aren't walking, we are sprinting everywhere we go. This makes it difficult for us to notice not only the path beneath our feet, but the foliage, landscapes, wildlife and people surrounding the angle of our road. For this reason, we forget that the destination is the present moment. The prisoner's walk has been a time of prayer, a pilgrimage of the spirit toward God. It has enabled me to slow down and view life in its simplest parts. I have realized the prisoner's walk is a journey that can be made by each of us, daily, without walking anywhere at all. It is a journey we must make alone. It is a journey that leads to freedom.

The third and final segment of this story opened a personal window for me to gaze into the eye of all imprisonment by examining the incarceration of my own life through the lives of others. Near the Merrimac Ferry, I traded stories with a man who, in his spare time, guarded his property on surveillance camera. Money seemed to have a grip on his life, and, because of this, fear did as well. As I walked through Wonewoc, I received great encouragement from Jessie, a physically handicapped man who, despite his great desire to walk across the Midwest with me, was able to find a way to travel vicariously within. To get from Wabasha to Red Wing, Minnesota, I received a ride from a carpenter named Randy who chose to work twelve hours a day, seven days per week, because he didn't "want to deal with the wife and kids." Just west of Baraboo, a park maintenance manager named Mark shared the intimate struggles of his heart as my laundry spun in his washer and dryer. He had recently been released from a three-year sentence for a crime committed when he found his wife in bed with his best friend. Although he hadn't seen his children in over four years, he found refuge within his Christian Faith, Buddhist Philosophy, the Rosary, and Narcotics Anonymous. When I reached Reedsburg, I was given a night on the town, a place to shower and a comfortable guest room by Todd, a man with a big heart who appeared to be on an amphetamine binge. He made valiant efforts to help everyone he encountered but couldn't help himself. He explained the reality of his life clearly to me that night, almost in tears. Since his divorce five years earlier, Todd's life had been one never-ending nightmare, day after day, passing between drug addictions, from one imprisonment to the next.

In their everyday lives, each of these five men (and many others met along the way) had the choice between freedom and imprisonment. Some seemed to have easier lives while others had been given the more difficult road. The more time spent in their respective imprisonments, the harder it would be to leave. The longer they were free, the easier it would be to remain. Some chose wisely. Others didn't.

About a week ago, I knocked on the doors of Our Lady of Spring Bank, a Cistercian Monastery near Sparta. The monks, following their rule of charity, offered me a personal hermitage on their 600 acres of forested property, three meals per day, and a hot shower. I spent a couple days there, attending holy mass and joining them every few hours for the prayers of the divine office. Between these meetings, contemplative prayer was a desert place where I sat face to face with God. I discovered a hermitage within, a place where I had chosen to embrace periods of uninterrupted prayer so I might continuously grow in awareness of the nature of God. These Cistercian monks followed an 11th century tradition of silence and detachment from the world begun by Saint Bernard in Citeaux, France. By surrendering their lives as prisoner to love they were free to travel the wilderness of God's heart.

In many ways, the contemplative and reclusive Cistercians were the reason I began this "Prisoner's Walk" in the first place. By imprisoning themselves to love for God, their lives transcended all walls. The heart of the monk was free to swim the love found in all things and all human beings. In this way, solitude paradoxically freed the monk from all imprisonment. His spirit is the wilderness of God's promised land. This is the great gift of living a monastic life. It is an answer to the universal call to love, the same call all of us share, no matter our spiritual belief or background.

But how do we apply this discipline to life in our fast paced world? Finding an answer to this question is the exact reason I left Indianapolis in the first place. Personally, the journey has only deepened my faith in the Roman Catholic Church. And these monks taught me that silence is a gift I can choose to receive every moment, every day. Choosing this gift requires a resolution to the practice of prayer, an hour or two of silence each day in which I drop thoughts of everything and listen to the eye of God. This is best done in front of the Eucharistic sacrifice of Jesus in the chapel (which Catholics believe to be the physical presence of Jesus Christ on earth). In addition to this, I must meditate daily on the word of God and study the life of Jesus. Once this discipline is embraced, I begin to grow in my relationship to God through meditative and contemplative prayer. I begin to view the events and struggles of daily life as a conversation with God.

For poets, poetry writing as a form of prayer gives shape to our contemplation through metaphor, imagery and various other devices. This can also be done by music, painting, sculpture, dance and all other art forms. But producing art is not the only way to give shape to love. Prayer makes it possible for us to live the moment in such a way that we become the embodiment of peace, faith, hope and charity. Life becomes the "theatre of the living word". In this type of theatre, living becomes an artistic act in which our daily life is the art itself. On this journey, I have encountered many people who have given shape to love by their very act of being, by simply extending a hand to me as a fallen brother. They have shown me what it means to be an artist of God's love.

On this journey, I also found prayer directly allowed me remain closely engaged with loved ones who were many miles apart. By meditating on a few letters and phone calls, I have felt deeply involved with my mother's recent struggles with breast cancer in Crown Point, my sister's graduation from the PharmD program at Purdue, and the birth of my nephew in Lubbock, Texas. In Indianapolis, my best friend and I were able to transcend great physical distances through prayer and intense letter writing, feeling profoundly united throughout the forty-day journey. Our hearts met on the metaphysical plane in a way we have never experienced before. In fact, she and I have since decided to get married.

After leaving the monastery, I was forced to take busy roads. I had approximately 115 miles to walk alongside semi-trucks and 55mph traffic until I reached the next rail-trail. I needed a ride. I meditated on the monk's example of surrender to God and found great peace. Several miles down the road, a 78 year-old woman pulled over her silver sedan and offered me a ride. Her name was Virginia and she started off by telling me the gist of her life story at ten words per second for ten minutes straight, pausing only to take breaths (literally). This woman could talk. Her words came out like machine gun fire. I only picked up on a few statements. First of all, she really didn't appreciate her husband. In fact, "everybody in town hates him." (She said this about 7-10 times.) She only has an 8th grade education (2-3 times). She also sadly lost her sister four years ago. (This part I heard really well because she slowed down to cry.) Oh my, already I could tell she was a beautiful woman.

We pulled over at her friend's house, Marvin, who had been living in a hotel room for the last seven months or so. He and his girlfriend were in bed when we pulled up and needed to get ready. They both had saved just enough alcohol from the previous night to get a jumpstart on the day. Marvin poured the last of his .40 into a plastic solo cup and his girlfriend grabbed the last of her vodka flask before getting into the car with us. "Where were we going?" I thought.

Virginia argued with Marvin's girlfriend, demanding that she did not turn in her job application until she "wasn't so wasted", while Marvin explained to me "he just got out of the pen".

"Virginia's my mother," he explained. "She takes care of all of us. See, I can't talk to my momma no more. Virginia's been my momma for ten years now. She'll slap me around when I'm messin' up. One thing I love 'bout that woman! She always, and I mean always speaks her mind. She don't hold back, you know what I'm saying? If something's bothering her, she'll let you know, damn right she will! She'll let you know and she'll let you know! Marvin grinned wide behind a pair of smooth shades picked out especially for the road trip. Virginia asked me again where I wanted to go, but every time I started explaining, someone would ask me a new question, trying to guess why I was on the road.

We pulled over at the liquor store and Marvin bought a 30 pack of Milwaukee's Best Light and a can of Coca-cola for me. He said he usually drinks Old English but bought the light beer for Virginia because she only drinks light beer. This time, when they asked where I wanted to go, I just replied, "Trempealeau".

"Honey!" shouted Virginia from the driver's seat. "You just tell me how to get there and we'll be on our way." I got out my map and began to navigate over the cranked R&B music and Marvin's life story.

Marvin had just spent three years in prison. He had never been married because he "was a war brat and needed to keep moving." He's from Carolina and has spent time in New York as well. His only son is 27 years old and his two daughters are 18 and 17. He hasn't seen his mother in seven years. He told me about riding train cars, living out of vans, sleeping under bridges and living on the run. Marvin seemed to have been affected a great deal by his recent incarceration. Those days had dug a deep groove across his back. I felt blessed to have his friendship. It all went back to Virginia. If she wanted to help someone, then he did too. "Ain't nobody better mess with my momma!" said Marvin.

He said after being released from prison they gave him his old job back at SparTech as a materials supervisor. "If they need it, I get it for them," said Marvin. He told me Virginia's daughter was a professional pool player, said she went on tour and was occasionally on television.

"We went to see her once in, ah, hey Virginia! Where was it we saw her play pool?

"That was Madison, honey,"

"That's right, Madison. Damn straight! We couldn't say a word in there, not even whisper or smoke or drink or nothing! That's real serious up in there let me tell you."

It wasn't until Marvin and Virginia started rehashing stories of hitchhikers they had picked up in the past that I began to realize they do this all the time. Virginia, Marvin and his girlfriend do this for kicks and a good feeling in their hearts. They pick up hitchhikers and a case of beer and drive them wherever they need to go. I asked Marvin and he verified my suspicions.

"Yeah, yeah man, we do!" he replied. "This is how we have a good time. Maybe four or five times now, but only on our day's off." He said they once drove a guy six hours, chasing a greyhound bus he had missed in Sparta.

"Yeah, and that guy didn't even send a postcard or nothing!" shouted Virginia.

For more information about The Prisoner's Walk or the Poetry in the Prisons project please email Joseph at poetryintheprisons@yahoo.com or visit www.mvsc.k12.in.us/mhs/poetry/. If you would like to donate any amount to Poetry in the Prisons, please make checks payable to "The Indianapolis Peace and Justice Center" and mail to Joseph Foster at 6166 Carrollton Ave; Indpls, IN; 46220.