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	Ponderings from the Eternal Now July 2005 #24

Dearest friends,

Somehow I feel I should drop the “Ponderings” from the name of this newsletter because it doesn't seem like I do much pondering since I've left prison. I am still trying to live in the “Eternal Now” and that should count for something!

To update you on “supervised release”!

As noted in last month's letter the first 60 days are no travel outside the state of MD and no violation of non-restitution payments the first 90 days. So, we have a 30 day “window of opportunity” for travel because with no payments toward restitution there will be no permission given for travel. Given this I asked the probation officer if I could travel to MI to see my family and religious congregation and he said YES! From July 23 rd - August 16 th I will be in MI! I will celebrate Ardeth's 50 th Jubilee with all of her classmates as she joins us in spirit from behind the prison walls. Needless to say I am very excited and very grateful!

I will also be getting a new probation officer Chris Keating as Gregory Cole takes a new position in the Carolinas. Gary Phillips will remain my probation officer in CO and his role will be to deal with the courts on any violations.

The big question is how Judge Blackburn will deal with the restitution. We are indigent as vowed Roman Catholic sisters, we have had donated over $350,000 in our names to various charitable and peace organizations and we all did community service in our respective prisons. Will Judge Blackburn accept this alternative form of restitution or will he send us back to prison for another 5-12 months? If he accepts the alternative restitution we will then be able to travel with permission.

On the home front I am enjoying cooking and am taking things slowly. The other day I used over-ripe apples and not so great potatoes. The meal was delicious and I wondered why the prison food had to taste, look and smell so bad when Liz mentioned that it probably isn't made with love!

The Jonah House community as been wonderful in letting me just “be” these days. I enjoy my quiet spaces and my knitting. I'm also helping a number of women in prison with various tasks and the mail still pours in for which I am most grateful. You continue to fill me with your love and concern. Your lives and actions give me such hope.

I saw a wonderful, out-doors, community theater play “Nunsense” with good friends and Jonah House community members. I couldn't remember the last time I laughed like that but it had been a very long time.

The city seems more divided between rich and poor. The police helicopter hovers over us day and night giving the illusion of some kind of security. The infrastructures are falling apart!

If you go to www.jonahhouse.com you can hear my latest radio interview with KVNF out of Paonia, CO. I was privileged to be interviewed along with an 86 year old man from CO who was a conscientious objector during WWII and spent time in prison.

Jonah House has free long-distance telephone service on the week-ends so I've been spending time on the phone catching up with family and friends. I've discovered my 15 minute limit on prison calls takes me about 30 minutes out here and I find myself pausing when the person picks up the phone to say hello for the prison tape to click in! Ardeth has been calling me once a week which has been pure gift to at least hear her voice. It is difficult for me to be out and she in as you can imagine.

May these summer days be relaxing! I'm trying to follow my heart and not the calendar these days but we do live with calendars out here that seem to get filled and I guess that's good. The Jonah House gang continues to fill their lives to the fullest and I'm still overwhelmed at the many times they say “yes”. I will admit that I can't do it.

I've been sorting prison papers and want to close with a poem that someone sent me. It sheds some light on what can seem like dark days for all of us.

The Only Sermon

if we dug a huge grave miles wide, miles deep and buried every rifle, pistol, knife, bomb, bayonet
if we jumped upon fleets of tanks and fighter jets with tool boxes, torches
unwelded them dismantled them turned them into scrap metal
if every light-skinned man in a silk tie said to every dark man in a turban
I vow not to kill your children and heard the same vow in return
if every elected leader agreed to stop lying
if every child was fed as well as racehorses bred to win derbies
if every person with a second home gave it to a person with no home
if every mother buried her parents not her sons and daughters
if every person who has enough said out loud I have enough
if every person violent in the name of God were to find God
we would grow silent, still for a moment, a lifetime
we would hear infants nursing at the breast
hummingbirds hovering in flight
we would touch a canyon wall and feel the earth vibrate
we would hear two lovers sigh across the ocean
we would watch old wounds grow new flesh and jagged scars disappear
as time was layered upon time we would slowly be ready
to begin

(Andrea Ayvazian – dean of religious life at Mt. Holyoke College in MA)

My deepest gratitude and love,

Carol Gilbert, OP
1303 Moreland Ave.
Baltimore MD 21216
(410) 233-6238 233-4067