"I co-faciliate a computer-aided drafting class, and every month an official from the Richmond main office of the Department of Correctional Education comes to check on the progress of the students. On his last visit, Mr. G. brought a box of old papers: junk from 30 years of drafting. He brought the box partly because he couldn't bear to throw it away and partly because he thought the program might be able to use its contents. As he handed it over, he said, 'The deal is don't throw anything away.'

I agreed easily. I understood exactly how he felt. I was ecstatic. I dove into it. However, as I dug through the box, he hovered over my shoulder. As I divided the files, folders, tests, catalogs, magazines, brochures, leaftlets, handouts into piles, he questioned me about my categories and divisions. I began to tease him about not wanting to let go of his stuff; he teased me in turn about snapping it up, taking it over, savoring it and making it mine so quickly. One pack rat paper lover to another, we twittered and giggled over the box. He was sadder but lighter. I was happier but heavier.

My life is cluttered with boxes of paper I won't let go. And while I am not ready to give up my box of drafting goodies, it occurs to me that when we understand each other too well, we don't share our burdens or broaden our perspectives. Instead, our singleness of vision, our narrowness of heart only intensifies. Perhaps instead of telling each other, 'Yes, I understand how you feel about that,' it might be momentarily more painful, but ultimately more healthful to say, 'No, I don't understand why you won't forgive. Please explain it to me. Please explain to me why you feel you have the right to be bitter, resentful, angry, mean, lukewarm, apathetic and unloving. Yes, yes, sure I understand what has caused you to feel that way, but what I don't understand is why you feel you have the right to continue to complain about it and not make the choice to move on.'

Healing, like all medicine, is not terribly effective when it merely soothes the symptoms with a numbing balm. Good medicine requires root changes in eating habits, in lifestyle, in physical activity. It requires effort and discomfort to generate and encourage new growth. Wholeness requires discipline and new thinking, and this is how we conquer our fears and obsessions. To be compassionate is not to mollify and coddle another's delusions. It is to care enough to get involved to help us break old thought chains and habits.

Healing requires an external perspective that demands more of us than the eiderdown of our feelings. I think that it is one of the most powerful and demanding aspects of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew Chapters 5-7). Jesus spoke revolutionary words that startle not soothe. (Not that I am going to tell you where I have hidden my box of papers), but it would have helped if someone had gone the extra mile, grabbed my yoke, and chucked it in the dumpster.

I would have squawked loudly, quickly found a substitute box of junk, but for a moment, I would have tasted and known the joy of a disciplined life: freedom." (Elizabeth Haysom, Fluvanna Review, August 14, 2003).

Elizabeth Haysom is presently incarcerated at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in Troy, Virginia. She is serving a 90 year sentence as an accessory to the murder of her parents in 1985. This column was first printed as part of a series, under the general heading 'Glimpses from Inside.'