Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to the CCDA podcast.
Speaker: My name is Christina For and I am the Director of Engagement and Mobilization here at CCDA and I am your host for this episode.
Speaker: This week is Locked in Solidarity, which is CCDA's annual and national awareness and action week on mass incarceration.
Speaker: And this week we are sharing resources and hosting events to help you and your community interrupt a violence.
Speaker: And so you can learn more about that at ccda.org slash LIS.
Speaker: Today, we're joined by some incredible guests to talk about a powerful project CCDA partnered with with Our Daily Bread, Win With Justice, Tadashi, and Lecrae.
Speaker: And this past January, we had the opportunity to take this team into two maximum security prisons.
Speaker: Jefferson City Correctional Center and Algoa, where we put on concerts to encourage those behind bars and filmed a documentary capturing Jonathan Irons' return to the place where he was incarcerated for 23 years.
Speaker: But I won't give away too much because we're going to dive in and hear more from our guests.
Speaker: So can we all share a little bit about who you are?
Speaker: And we can start with my friend Bo from Our Daily Bread.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: My name is Beau Cornelius.
Speaker: I'm director of prison ministry for Our Daily Bread.
Speaker: I'm also executive director of a nonprofit that I started with me and my wife in the Kansas City area called Second Mountain.
Speaker: We work at the grassroots level in prisons, implementing a
Speaker: leadership development program.
Speaker: We also are starting housing as well as supporting peer support certifications for people coming out of prison.
Speaker: I'm formerly incarcerated.
Speaker: I was released from prison about 20 months ago.
Speaker: So happy to be here and be part of this awesome project.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Thanks, Bo.
Speaker: My name is Maya Moore Irons, wife of Jonathan Irons.
Speaker: I am probably most known for my hooping part of my life.
Speaker: I've played professional basketball for a long time, got connected with prison ministry through my extended family.
Speaker: when I was in high school and had the privilege of walking alongside Jonathan while he was fighting his wrongful incarceration for over 23 and a half years.
Speaker: And so I really come in with a perspective of
Speaker: being completely ignorant to mass incarceration, to getting proximate to mass incarceration, then to becoming very passionate about advocating and ending it, as well as just really trying to be a voice for
Speaker: human dignity for all because so many of our problems I think stem from us not seeing each other all as image bearers and so I'm a mom like I mentioned I'm married to Jonathan as well so we have a just turned three year old and we are in it he is fully three and the best thing about our life so it's a little bit about me
Speaker: Thank you, Maya.
Speaker: Thank you both.
Speaker: Christina, I'm Jonathan Irons.
Speaker: I am a survivor of being wrongfully convicted.
Speaker: I spent over 23 and a half years in prison for a crime I didn't commit, and I got exonerated in 2020.
Speaker: And I've been home since July 1st of 2020.
Speaker: I'm married to Maya, which is, she's such a great and beautiful and amazing person, I'll say that.
Speaker: And JJ has a good mama.
Speaker: He's in good hands.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: I am an advocate.
Speaker: I am an entrepreneur, dog trainer, and I am for showing people what goes on in prison, what works and what doesn't work.
Speaker: I have over 23 and a half years of experience
Speaker: And I have a unique set of skills for that.
Speaker: And I want to share that and expose that and show people who people are inside because there's a tendency, which makes it easier, I think.
Speaker: There's a tendency to just dehumanize people and forget about them.
Speaker: They don't matter.
Speaker: They're less than human.
Speaker: In actuality, that's bad.
Speaker: That's bad for our society.
Speaker: That's bad for them.
Speaker: And that's bad for people moving forward.
Speaker: And I guess we're moving together as a society.
Speaker: I believe that we need to be more tuned in to what's going on with the people that are most vulnerable.
Speaker: And the people in prison are very vulnerable.
Speaker: I have lived among them and I've seen it.
Speaker: I've witnessed it.
Speaker: I've been on both sides.
Speaker: And I live as a free man and I and I and I had to go.
Speaker: I had to I had to go back.
Speaker: I had to go back and see those men and encourage them and strengthen them and let them know about, I mean, what's going on?
Speaker: I remember what people are thinking about them and, you know, what's in store, because that's important.
Speaker: They need that.
Speaker: They need that encouragement.
Speaker: Yes, awesome.
Speaker: And that's a good transition, Jonathan, I think, to share a little bit more kind of what was your vision originally for the concert and the documentary?
Speaker: And how did this kind of project come about?
Speaker: Well, from the beginning, I didn't know there was going to be a documentary.
Speaker: I just did not believe that they were going to allow cameras, you know, let alone three or four, and use inmates to do videography in JCCC.
Speaker: I just didn't see that.
Speaker: But what I had envisioned was true.
Speaker: I wanted to go back in and let them in, listen to some of these artists like Lecrae and Tadashi and hear what they have to say for them or say about them and just be in a room with them and fellowship with them because those guys like music like that.
Speaker: They never met anybody.
Speaker: And here's the thought.
Speaker: man, I can't believe someone, someone like these people coming here to perform for me.
Speaker: Like, man, I do matter.
Speaker: I am important.
Speaker: And like, they wanted, they didn't charge anything.
Speaker: They wanted to come in there and do that.
Speaker: And like, I, I, it was crazy as I met them and started a bond and have a relationship with them and go off and be goofy with them.
Speaker: You know, I, I, I light flashed in my head off of each one.
Speaker: I'm like,
Speaker: I need to ask them.
Speaker: Like the Lord was pointing to me, showing me their heart, asking them if they would do it.
Speaker: And I didn't want to ask, but I did.
Speaker: And they said, yeah, they snatched my arm off.
Speaker: Like, yeah, where we go?
Speaker: I was like, okay, well, I don't know how to organize this thing.
Speaker: I don't know how to do it.
Speaker: I don't know how to get in JCCC.
Speaker: I need some help.
Speaker: And the Lord basically put people piece by piece into the position and the vision came to life, like literally.
Speaker: Now, the video cameras...
Speaker: Or a cherry on top because not only do they get to experience it, now other people get to experience it and we can highlight like the humanity of what's going on in there and highlight things that are successful.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: I felt the same.
Speaker: I think it was really amazing to see.
Speaker: I think Maya will touch on this later.
Speaker: Just all of the team that came together and how we all, even just the guys behind bars that we got to meet and their stories and how they contributed to this whole documentary and concert experience.
Speaker: What was it like to see your vision come to life and to be with these guys that you had basically grown up with?
Speaker: How did it feel?
Speaker: What did you see?
Speaker: What was encouraging in that time?
Speaker: Well, let me just be clear.
Speaker: It wasn't my vision.
Speaker: It was the Lord's vision.
Speaker: And he downloaded on me.
Speaker: I even told my wife, I'm getting a download right now.
Speaker: All this is coming to me.
Speaker: And I didn't have the wherewithal to do that.
Speaker: Or even come back in that capacity.
Speaker: I didn't know how I could do that.
Speaker: But the Lord, he let me know it was possible.
Speaker: But just going back in there, it was...
Speaker: It was empowering and I needed to go back in that capacity.
Speaker: I needed to go in there and experience that, you know, for my healing and, you know, my journey.
Speaker: It was almost like a full circle moment.
Speaker: Like I left these men and I'm coming back.
Speaker: Despite all that trauma and adversity and things that I went through.
Speaker: And I'm going to talk about who they are as people.
Speaker: I was like, that's such an empowering feeling.
Speaker: And then also have people with me.
Speaker: Like I wasn't just going into prison by myself.
Speaker: To go up on a visit, I guess one thing.
Speaker: But going to prison with the whole team, like Maya was there.
Speaker: And just seeing some of the people that I knew and grew up in there with and played ball with.
Speaker: It was such a good feeling.
Speaker: But at the same time, my heart aches for them.
Speaker: Because I know what they're dealing with.
Speaker: And it doesn't have to be that way.
Speaker: And thankfully, there are people in the DOC structure, the upper structure that are ready to do it a different way because they know that's not working.
Speaker: And I'm encouraged by that.
Speaker: And I want them to be encouraged by that because it's coming.
Speaker: It's definitely coming.
Speaker: And so I'm so thankful.
Speaker: But I have a mixture of joy and pleasure and a little bit of survivor's gift because I made it and I'm living life and I'm thriving.
Speaker: But I knew them, I grew up with them and I can't bring them with me.
Speaker: Like that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a wrestle right there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thanks for sharing.
Speaker: I loved a few of the pieces that you said, like that this was God's vision, which is beautiful in itself.
Speaker: Like God gave you this like passion and desire to see this.
Speaker: And then just kind of that tension between both things.
Speaker: Like I, I,
Speaker: It's beautiful to be able to bring people inside with you and to see the dignity and the value kind of that that whole experience brought.
Speaker: But that there is still pain and evil that's being done, right?
Speaker: And that a lot of the guys are, I think, even expressed to all of us.
Speaker: It kind of continues with what you're saying around what does it look like as you reenter society?
Speaker: What do you think people from our audience, like Christian community developers, what are the things that they should be aware of for people who return to their communities?
Speaker: What are some things that were helpful for you even personally?
Speaker: Having someone that I love and trusted to basically, in a lot of senses, hold my hand.
Speaker: Because that is a huge culture shock to go from being confined within a box to
Speaker: So just coming out and just seeing everything.
Speaker: I barely knew how to operate a phone.
Speaker: I remember my wife handed me the phone for the first time and she just said, here's your phone.
Speaker: I'm like, I didn't know what to do with it.
Speaker: I felt like a caveman.
Speaker: And she put her number in and called.
Speaker: I saw how it worked and she picked it up.
Speaker: It was a trip.
Speaker: To have somebody like that is important.
Speaker: But
Speaker: Like people that are coming out, they need important things.
Speaker: They need their identification.
Speaker: They need somewhere to get a roof.
Speaker: They need a roof over their head.
Speaker: They need all, again, like birth certificates, social security card, some type of ID.
Speaker: They don't have a car most likely.
Speaker: They need someone to help them get around and help get these things.
Speaker: They need people to basically accept them
Speaker: and pull them into their community and be like, man, you are welcome here.
Speaker: You are wanted.
Speaker: Like, yeah, you know, you served your time because that's what the law says.
Speaker: You get your punishment and your punishment is your sentence.
Speaker: Like you don't go there and just continue to get dogged out.
Speaker: And like for the rest of your life, you'll never have an opportunity.
Speaker: In the real world, what would life be like if every time we did something wrong, we would always have to live with that for the rest of our lives and we never got forgiveness?
Speaker: There's no path to healing or change.
Speaker: So just having people like, like see them as people is extremely important.
Speaker: And then having people to speak into like who you are.
Speaker: Like, man, I see you.
Speaker: I see you strong, man.
Speaker: I see you strong woman.
Speaker: I see you striving and celebrating like the little, the little things that they do.
Speaker: Not the big things, but just the little things.
Speaker: Taking one foot, even if it's just one foot in front of the other, I see you getting up every morning.
Speaker: I see you washing your clothes.
Speaker: Man, good job, man.
Speaker: It's not going to be easy adjusting to come out here, but you can do it step by step, day by day.
Speaker: And then, you know, having the concept that,
Speaker: Like with many hands makes the work light.
Speaker: Like no one person should get in and think I can save everybody and do everything.
Speaker: Like, no, let's, let's recruit people and surround these people.
Speaker: Let's circle them because they're, they're injured.
Speaker: They're like out, like out in the wild, wild west.
Speaker: Like if you got an injured party, they would have to circle them with the wagons to make sure they're good.
Speaker: I guess that's what you kind of have to do with somebody like that.
Speaker: And try to explain the structures of life.
Speaker: What's marriage life like?
Speaker: And they need an opportunity to get counseling and actually talk about some of the things that they've been through.
Speaker: Uh, and, and to kind of get through that and they didn't make sure they, they start getting good habits because some of these guys are not in a position where they'll have good habits on the inside, which hopefully we're trying to create an environment to do that.
Speaker: But guys need people to encourage them to pick up good habits and basically
Speaker: Maybe even walk with somebody like, okay, let's get up every morning.
Speaker: Let's go do this together.
Speaker: Let's get up every morning.
Speaker: Let's go ride to work together.
Speaker: Let's go do this.
Speaker: Like just having people around you and encouraging you because coming out of that environment, 99.9% of the individuals have experienced someone degrading them and talking about them, doubting them and discouraging them.
Speaker: And
Speaker: That's the last thing they need when they get out.
Speaker: Like, yes, people that are in prison are aware that they've committed crimes.
Speaker: They've harmed people.
Speaker: They're aware of that.
Speaker: And they've done their time to the point where the state has said, hey, you know, we're going to let this guy out, you know, and give him a shot.
Speaker: They need people to just pull them along like, yes, encouragement, encouragement, encouragement, encouragement.
Speaker: That is such a great thing.
Speaker: A kind word will go so far.
Speaker: Be the safety net that they didn't have before.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Like, have people's backs.
Speaker: Treat them like you would a teammate.
Speaker: If you see them like they're your teammate and not something less than or other, like, that's not what championship teams do.
Speaker: They don't just leave their teammate to just...
Speaker: struggle.
Speaker: They help them.
Speaker: They don't necessarily coddle them, but they help them.
Speaker: They encourage them.
Speaker: They believe in them.
Speaker: And they say, you're on this team for a reason.
Speaker: Let's go get it.
Speaker: And you do it day by day by day, week by week, right?
Speaker: It's not an instant thing in a couple of months, right?
Speaker: Like it's going to be
Speaker: a journey and just figuring out what that season looks like.
Speaker: Take it, take it in bite sized chunks.
Speaker: Like this month, this is our goal.
Speaker: This month, these three things are our goal.
Speaker: This month, we're going to get connected with two people that can help with X or Y. It's life.
Speaker: It's a garden.
Speaker: It's a, it's,
Speaker: We're going to get the soil ready.
Speaker: We're going to plant the seeds.
Speaker: We're going to water, right?
Speaker: Like you have to think holistically about a human being coming from a place that did not treat them holistically like a human being.
Speaker: And so find those gaps, spend time, be a good listener, right?
Speaker: It's not just about telling people what to do or what you think should happen, right?
Speaker: It's about being a good listener, just continuing again to try to be a good friend.
Speaker: So much of a theme of our life and our story and our platform is like,
Speaker: Just be a good friend.
Speaker: I feel like people actually know how to do it better than they probably realize because it's foundational friendships.
Speaker: Man, yeah, I love so much of what you all said, and it very much kind of jives with the ethos of CCDA, like just the community and that holistic nature of how do we like come around, we surround with community and friendship, but also addressing the spiritual and physical and emotional and mental needs of people that come into our communities.
Speaker: You know, I think that is so important and really key.
Speaker: Another thing I wanted to just point out too around that was really powerful for me while we were there was just seeing, I think one thing that we really value too at CCA is having people who come from those communities be the leaders in those communities, right?
Speaker: And so like watching like Jonathan and Beau, both of you, and I know we'll get more into this later.
Speaker: later, but watching both of you who had been behind bars and knew a lot of these guys and knew the systems and all the things, right?
Speaker: Knew the correctional, the CEOs, right?
Speaker: The correctional officers and talking with them.
Speaker: I just was very aware when I was sitting in the audience that the things that Bo and Jonathan were speaking to the guys, the way that they were encouraging them
Speaker: The specific practical ways they were encouraging the guys to live their lives while they're behind bars so when they returned, they could be a good returning citizen, you know, in a lot of ways.
Speaker: I was like, no one else could do it that way.
Speaker: Like they knew exactly what to say.
Speaker: And it was actually confirmed because one of the guys came up to me and said, man, Jonathan just said exactly what I needed to hear.
Speaker: Like, that's what word I'm going to take, you know?
Speaker: And I was like, oh, I just love this like holistic picture of just coming back.
Speaker: And I know that was a lot of like, even what God put on your heart already too, right?
Speaker: Like we talked about earlier.
Speaker: Well, Maya, let's go on to you.
Speaker: Let's share a little bit more from your perspective.
Speaker: Why was it important for you to do this concert and documentary and kind of partner with Jonathan and all of us in that?
Speaker: When he started talking about this idea, I was so excited.
Speaker: And I just kept saying, hey, any way that I can be helpful, I'm down.
Speaker: Like, I want to be a part of this.
Speaker: And I think, again, just the momentum that
Speaker: we are moving with as a couple, as a community, it just fits so perfectly with the image of team.
Speaker: I have so much experience.
Speaker: Jonathan has experience from his journey.
Speaker: Bo created that experience of we're going to build a team, a community, a culture of team.
Speaker: I just want to figure out what
Speaker: my role was on the team for this event, but also beyond because I think a lot of times people don't necessarily have, they struggle with an imagination of where do I fit in in this issue.
Speaker: You hear mass incarceration, you see the suffering, you see a lot of the things that are wrong, and you're just sad and overwhelmed.
Speaker: But then it's like, what do I do?
Speaker: What can I do?
Speaker: And I hope to be a helpful voice.
Speaker: And Jonathan does a great job of giving people vision of how to be helpful.
Speaker: But my experience was I was that outside person that didn't know what to do.
Speaker: You have to...
Speaker: first see it, right?
Speaker: So people listening right now, this is a step in the right direction of you have to see.
Speaker: Like Jesus, he was incarnate.
Speaker: He came down and he saw so many of the stories of his life.
Speaker: It starts with, and Jesus looked and he saw.
Speaker: He moved toward
Speaker: Life.
Speaker: Life that had been thrown away, life that had been labeled, life that had been demonized, life that had been forgotten, life that had been traumatized, life that had been abused.
Speaker: But it was still life.
Speaker: And he looked.
Speaker: So feel good about yourself if you are looking or hearing or moving proximate to dignified image bearers, life that God has created.
Speaker: So the next thing, Jesus then felt something.
Speaker: It was compassion.
Speaker: And so we ask the Holy Spirit to give us the compassion of Jesus of what we're created to feel when we see suffering is supposed to be compassion.
Speaker: You're moved.
Speaker: You say, that's not how it's supposed to be.
Speaker: And you feel it.
Speaker: And so don't run away from your emotions, right?
Speaker: Like feel it because it's not supposed to be that way.
Speaker: You know, hopefully within a community.
Speaker: And then what does Jesus do when he sees, he feels, and then he helps.
Speaker: And so the land, the realm of helping can look so many different ways depending on what you have, where you're at on your journey, with what's needed.
Speaker: Like we've been talking about with CCDA of believing that helping,
Speaker: has to come from a humble posture of first listening and trusting and leaning in to those who were in it.
Speaker: And so I got the privilege of walking with Jonathan as a friend for 15 years.
Speaker: And it was probably about seven or eight years into our friendship before I started to even really use my voice publicly to advocate because I
Speaker: It was time, and I had taken more time to get educated on mass incarceration, not only just walking with him, but also just meeting prosecutors and talking to public defenders and reading books and watching documentaries and talking to people who've been in the space, the elders who've gone before.
Speaker: And that was how I tried to help.
Speaker: I tried to be a good friend, right?
Speaker: I tried to use my voice and my resources to shine a light, to...
Speaker: contribute financially to things that were missing and broken.
Speaker: And so me going back into this space as a teammate, like Jonathan said, like it was such a good feeling to go back into that prison that I had been to so many years to visit Jonathan as we were fighting for his freedom and to go back in with
Speaker: bringing hope, bringing freedom, and just giving our bodies a new experience of that place and using my voice and my perspective and my platform to say, hey, I know you see me as this maybe superhero type figure that the entertainment industry tends to paint us as, but I'm a human just like you and I see you and you matter and
Speaker: I want to tell the truth about me and I want to tell the truth about you.
Speaker: I want to tell the truth about God.
Speaker: I want to tell the truth about our story together, our journey together.
Speaker: And I felt so received and loved.
Speaker: And the time I got to spend with those guys in there, like,
Speaker: It was so sweet.
Speaker: Like he has a best friend that he basically grew up in there with that I talked to on the phone and I call him my brother and I actually had to hug him.
Speaker: Gary Campbell.
Speaker: And talk to him and just vibe.
Speaker: Like it was so cool.
Speaker: The programs that are going on in there, the culture shift that is starting to take root, like it's working.
Speaker: And, you know, Bo and, you know, the Second Mountain, the global leadership, all of that.
Speaker: grassroots boots on the ground.
Speaker: It is working.
Speaker: And I got to witness that and experience that.
Speaker: So I walked away just as encouraged.
Speaker: And you move near to what God has created as good because we were created good.
Speaker: He looked at it and said, it is good.
Speaker: It is very good.
Speaker: When you move towards that, you're always going to get something back.
Speaker: So don't be afraid to give of yourself because it's going to get filled back up.
Speaker: Like this don't happen without, you know, Bo being there.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: Bo was the, like the Lord has confirmed it, like Bo was the missing piece that I needed for this, to just continue to do this work.
Speaker: And he's like, he's been preparing him and putting him in that position.
Speaker: Like for, so CC Day didn't get in there.
Speaker: Our Daily Bread didn't get in there.
Speaker: Bo, through relationships that he had,
Speaker: opened the door to get us in.
Speaker: I'm so grateful for him.
Speaker: And he's an ex-felon.
Speaker: Statistically, he should not be doing what he's doing.
Speaker: That's why all this work matters, because people like that.
Speaker: That's powerful.
Speaker: And I loved a lot of what you said to Maya around that framework you gave, especially around how we can model Jesus to see and to feel and to act.
Speaker: And I think that's kind of a lot of what we're hoping with Locked in Solidarity too, right?
Speaker: We'll be those things like here, we're giving you opportunities to see and even feel, right?
Speaker: And take something with you to act and follow Jesus into these places, into the spaces of, there's so many spaces we can be involved in when it comes to the incarceration system, right?
Speaker: But there's a lot of places where we can be just walking alongside and loving our neighbors, even behind bars, or loving their families that are affected or their communities that are affected too.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I really appreciated you sharing that.
Speaker: Because of what you're saying, Maya, I was thinking a lot about your kind of message to the guys was a lot about like our highest call is to be human.
Speaker: And I would love for you to just share a little bit of where that came from and what inspired you to share that at that time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love to read.
Speaker: I love to glean from people who have their eyes opened to
Speaker: the dignity of all of us, all of creation, right?
Speaker: Just the goodness, right?
Speaker: There's so much of our cultural Western experience, I think, that our cultural Western Christian experience so much starts our story in you're broken in Genesis 3, which, yeah, there's brokenness, there's weeping, there's evil, there's things.
Speaker: all around that are not how it's supposed to be.
Speaker: But our story doesn't start there.
Speaker: The gospel, you know, the gospel track you were given or whatever that starts, you know, highlights the bad news.
Speaker: And we end up digging into that bad news so much and profiting off the bad news and the fear and
Speaker: you know, our marketplaces and the advertisements and all the things that are fighting for our attention are so fear-driven.
Speaker: And it's like, can we get a break from...
Speaker: all of this bad news and fear because people click on it and we just, we're always trying to feel like we got to stay ready for the next traumatizing, bad, scary thing.
Speaker: And our nervous system is out of whack.
Speaker: And like, we're just in this crazy place.
Speaker: And it's like, hold on, let's pause and remember what God says first.
Speaker: And he said first that it is good.
Speaker: that we have all we need, we can be in right relationship with God, with each other, with creation.
Speaker: There's beauty.
Speaker: There's healing.
Speaker: There's a way to operate and move in this life that isn't
Speaker: this anxious, self-protective, fear-driven play.
Speaker: And so we've, we, we, we, we've forgotten what, what being human is, or we have allowed ourselves to be taken advantage of for people who are profiting off of dehumanizing people, right?
Speaker: Like the rabbit hole goes pretty deep with how broken it is, but we, we have to model this,
Speaker: what it means to be human to undo the ways it's been modeled not good for us.
Speaker: And so that's part of my passion is to help inspire people to realize you h ave a call.
Speaker: There's something for you to do no matter where you've been, no matter where you come from, you have a call.
Speaker: Your highest call is to be human.
Speaker: And for us to daily strive to model and walk out what that looks like in a non-anxious way.
Speaker: One of my favorite descriptions of Jesus is he walked around as a non-anxious presence.
Speaker: And it's possible for us to walk like him.
Speaker: And so being a human being means remembering you have dignity.
Speaker: Being a human being means you can rest.
Speaker: You can be safe.
Speaker: We can help create restful, safe, vibrant environments for people.
Speaker: The work that we do can be restorative and not exploitative.
Speaker: there's another way that we can be human.
Speaker: And that has been really inspiring for me.
Speaker: And so I've just tried to find ways to talk about it as much as I can for whoever will listen, because I think that's what ultimately gets us out of bed is when we feel excited about being a human.
Speaker: Getting out of bed.
Speaker: So, and whatever way that looks like in your community and your uniqueness, how you were created, where you are in this place and time, the story that we're in.
Speaker: And how do I be, how do I bring, how do I inspire being a better human?
Speaker: Where my feet are planted.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I think there were several times that day where I felt that there were points where the Lord just kind of reminded me.
Speaker: We were all stripped of just kind of our titles or our backgrounds or our statuses or everything that kind of defines us in this world.
Speaker: And there was just these times, including when you were sharing about being human, that it was like, we're just all humans here.
Speaker: And I think there was just something, I describe it to my community when I came back as it felt like a little glimpses of heaven.
Speaker: You know, we're all here and we're all here because by creator God.
Speaker: And there's something so beautiful about that, right?
Speaker: CCD practitioners are guided by the CCD philosophy.
Speaker: And this philosophy includes some of the things you've touched on already around being holistic, leadership development, listening to the community, and more.
Speaker: How did you see this or the components of our philosophy in our event?
Speaker: There's so many great things about CCDAs, you know, the values.
Speaker: And there's a trustworthiness, I think, because it was founded on people who have gone before who actually did the work.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Like, it's not an idea that comes from a lab.
Speaker: It is actual testimony, lived experience of people within a community, right?
Speaker: So it wasn't hidden, this isolated thing.
Speaker: This happened in a community over decades, and the community and the culture just keeps growing and keeps showing the way to healing and restoration is...
Speaker: together and actually giving entrusting leadership to people who have the most ability and authenticity and
Speaker: authority to lead.
Speaker: And if you are disconnected from something, how are you going to be entrusted to lead it, right?
Speaker: Like, we have such this idol of leadership, I think, in Western Christian culture that just is so disconnected from life.
Speaker: Like, it doesn't make sense if you think about anybody who's trying to come in to a group
Speaker: And lead.
Speaker: It's like, that's not how leadership works.
Speaker: I've been so inspired by like, by our indigenous brothers and sisters who have so much wisdom and, and, and leadership to offer because so much of their culture from how I'm understanding and learning it right now is not so much about like taking authority and like
Speaker: and making it a title, but it's more so of everybody's at the table, you listen, and the wisdom will just naturally be followed.
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: When you go to the table with people and you listen to someone like a Bo or like a Jonathan, it's just we naturally follow them into these places because of their lived experience and their wisdom and their maturity to be able to be a part of the growth and the life.
Speaker: And so I think we get just so, again, like you said, Christina, like the status and the titles instead of like, what actually is working?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let's follow that, whoever it is, right?
Speaker: No matter what they look like.
Speaker: Like, let's go to the actual place.
Speaker: That's another thing that Indigenous brothers and sisters help remind us of how important it is of the actual place and how disconnected Western culture is from place.
Speaker: Like the place that you're at, the people that have cultivated the place speak to how the place will thrive.
Speaker: It just makes sense, right?
Speaker: And so that's, I think, a really refreshing next step for people who just are so disconnected from place because that's been our culture.
Speaker: To actually go to the place, get connected with the place, like submit to the place.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then find a way to be a part of helping.
Speaker: So that's, I think, why CCDA has been so entrusted is because they actually live that out over time.
Speaker: It's not going to happen in a year.
Speaker: It's not going to happen in a day.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Like, over time, you see that being connected to the place, which means you have to be present.
Speaker: You can't do 100 billion things.
Speaker: like one thing at a time and life will continue to happen.
Speaker: So I appreciate that model.
Speaker: And I've been, I've been refreshed to be able to find resources and encouragement and elders in this space to help give us wisdom of how do we do something different?
Speaker: If I may add that, I see CCDA as,
Speaker: an organization and a group of people that really care about the people that are considered the least of us.
Speaker: And that's, that's what we're called to do.
Speaker: Like you guys, like I just, I done my homework on you guys.
Speaker: You guys have been doing this for some, creating daycare centers for people that couldn't afford it.
Speaker: creating communities, like creating whole movements around prison reform and all that.
Speaker: And like, just, just bringing awareness to what's going on in there.
Speaker: So I, I'm so thankful for, you know, y'all coming with us and our daily bread.
Speaker: I just coming and just being a part of what we were doing and just like the call that the Lord had put on us.
Speaker: And I'm like, you can't, you can't say that you didn't feel called to be a part of this.
Speaker: You know the call when you feel that you can't describe it with words.
Speaker: You can't put a label on it.
Speaker: I guess it's something to just breed you.
Speaker: Go here.
Speaker: Stop here.
Speaker: Don't go yet.
Speaker: Don't go around that corner because you don't know what's around that corner.
Speaker: Okay, now you can go.
Speaker: I need you to take this message to this person.
Speaker: And you may think that message is boring or not important.
Speaker: But to that person, that message may save their life or alter their life.
Speaker: You know, and just, and it just, y'all present for being there, man.
Speaker: Thank you so much for just being present.
Speaker: That's nine chances out of 10.
Speaker: That's, that's what people need.
Speaker: They need, they need you to be present with them and present in the moment.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I am very thankful too that we were able to work together and collaborate and be in community together.
Speaker: I guess we should continue on to the man of the hour.
Speaker: We've been mentioning him.
Speaker: I'm just kidding.
Speaker: But Beau, yeah, I would really love to hear your story, especially around kind of the Global Leadership Academy.
Speaker: And the day after the concert, we were all able to kind of sit in on one of the Global Leadership Academy meetings.
Speaker: It w as a program that Beau started while he was behind bars at Algoa.
Speaker: So can you share a little bit about how it started and even what you do there now?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Uh, thanks for the question.
Speaker: Um, I guess to say how it started, I would kind of have to go back to, um, how I experienced prison.
Speaker: Um, I went to prison at 40, um, after owning a business for 15 years, um, which I found out when I went to prison is not typical.
Speaker: Uh, most people, um,
Speaker: And are prison at a young age and it affects their trajectory, obviously, from that point forward.
Speaker: But through through the perspective that I had in prison, just the direct result of the nature of command and control and risk management.
Speaker: showed showed me that nobody could get what they needed beyond all of the bad stuff that happens in prison.
Speaker: Like there was no ability to get any type of life skill, wisdom, practice, put anything into process.
Speaker: Um, so, you know,
Speaker: I guess along the way too, I had a relived experience that was very upsetting.
Speaker: Um, I try to stay away from the salacious details because there are plenty out there, um, in the echo chamber if you want to go hear them.
Speaker: But, uh, I don't think anybody would try to argue that, uh, prison is, uh, uh, you know, a nice hopeful place.
Speaker: Um, so between those things and discovering, you know, how I get back,
Speaker: to good.
Speaker: Um, I experienced the global leadership summit, um, in 2019, a couple of years into my sentence and God put light bulbs in my brain.
Speaker: I just kind of knew that this was a path to not only, um, getting guys reengaged with what, what I explain is how do you inspire someone to take the will of
Speaker: for their own life.
Speaker: You can't teach it.
Speaker: You can't threaten it.
Speaker: You can't beat it into them.
Speaker: If they don't have it, chances are you're going to have to serve it up in a recipe that they can receive it.
Speaker: You may have to give it to them six times before they can take it.
Speaker: So again, how do you inspire someone to
Speaker: with the will to take responsibility for their life.
Speaker: Well, that takes autonomy.
Speaker: It takes an understanding of something bigger than yourself, first and foremost.
Speaker: But you have to believe that you're capable of being in control of yourself and your own path forward.
Speaker: Prison tears you down, but it doesn't do anything to build you back up.
Speaker: So I'm aware that I have a lot of dysfunctions.
Speaker: And now I've dealt with those.
Speaker: Now what?
Speaker: You want me to spend the next decade in my cell avoiding rape, murder from CEOs and all of this kind of cult?
Speaker: Like, what do you want me to do here?
Speaker: So for me, I was very motivated to find a way to get guys to put things into practice.
Speaker: Well, what can I do here?
Speaker: Well, it sounds lofty, but the one thing that I can do is I have influence.
Speaker: And so how do I use that influence for good?
Speaker: Well, that started in restorative justice.
Speaker: It started in the chapel, but I'm just a big dreamer.
Speaker: And I thought I might be able to actually affect this place at the top level with leadership and leadership principles.
Speaker: If I can get people communicating, um, and I can just keep it authentically what it is, um,
Speaker: you know, along that path, I'm learning a lot about myself.
Speaker: I'm learning the dysfunctions of my own motives, the experiences that caused me to get to a place where I went to prison at 40.
Speaker: You know, I hear Maya so articulate in explaining, but when I hear her talk about humanizing people, I hear conditional love versus unconditional love.
Speaker: How do you love unconditionally as Jesus did?
Speaker: what I realized along the way was all I understood was conditional love.
Speaker: I learned even faith was taught to me by people who abused me.
Speaker: So everything that I knew was conditional.
Speaker: But as I started to understand something bigger than myself, changing a system, being part of a community of men who had a desire to make
Speaker: think I found God, I found a relationship with God in that moment.
Speaker: I mean, I know it, I found a path back.
Speaker: Uh, I think often we want to believe the spiritual journey is like this and boy, mine is all over the place.
Speaker: And so, you know, for me, that was so motivating.
Speaker: I heard God's voice instead of talking and asking and being disappointed.
Speaker: I didn't get, I learned how to listen in those moments.
Speaker: And, um, you know, what I've found is a way to be effective, a way to, you know, there's like, I heard you guys talking, there's a lot of lanes.
Speaker: It's such a broken system.
Speaker: You could be all over the place.
Speaker: I would tell people find a lane, narrow it as much as you can and try to have the most impact.
Speaker: How do we have impact?
Speaker: How are we effective?
Speaker: I might be good at something.
Speaker: I might have something that's a benefit.
Speaker: But how do I know, how do my collaborators know that that's a value to the system?
Speaker: Solution, CCDA knows it.
Speaker: Solution and innovation happens closest to the problem.
Speaker: So if you're 600 miles away from the problem and full of resources and you want to help, I'm on the floor here.
Speaker: You have to come be proximate.
Speaker: You have to come be present.
Speaker: You have to
Speaker: find a way to be effective.
Speaker: All of those things were motivating in starting the program, but also how the program has developed into a thing like you saw, where it's actually changing the culture of a prison.
Speaker: It's all about the people.
Speaker: It's not about the program.
Speaker: We give it the structure.
Speaker: But the fact that my warden is there and has known me for eight years and has
Speaker: grown in this with me to allow this to happen.
Speaker: That's the people.
Speaker: That's the relationships.
Speaker: That's God working in the hearts of people who for decades had hard hearts and didn't want to allow that to happen.
Speaker: I don't know why that's happening.
Speaker: I don't know why God's got that path.
Speaker: But it's like, you know, when we engage in these things, it's like, you know, I hear a concert, but I'm also hearing, how do we use this to affect positive change within a system, within an institution?
Speaker: You know, so what we were able to do was we were able to go in there and show that we could intermingle for hours in a maximum security prison with hardened, violent criminals who are doing life without parole.
Speaker: And, um, we can have an encouraging, awesome Christian inspiring event.
Speaker: And so what are they going to say next time we ask?
Speaker: And I'm going to say, can we do it a little bigger and can we do it a little better?
Speaker: And that is, that is how you change a system.
Speaker: It's one piece at a time and it's the lane that I know that I can get in because I know, you know, I know, I know the inner workings and I have advocates.
Speaker: I've, I've earned that, um, through years of, of working at this level.
Speaker: And so, you know, even, even in my role at our daily bread with like, um, you know, going to CCDA in Portland and, and, um, you know, the different things that I do there.
Speaker: That's completely new and foreign to me.
Speaker: And it's not easy to go into prisons.
Speaker: It's intimidating to have meetings with wardens.
Speaker: It's never like, oh, I'm going to.
Speaker: But I know that's where I'm most effective and most impactful.
Speaker: And so that's where I work.
Speaker: And that's what that's my vision for the Global Leadership Academy is that.
Speaker: It can just be a class of guys sitting in the corner learning how to collaborate and be creative and how to be active listeners and, you know, take that home.
Speaker: So you learn it in here, you practice it in here with others, with staff, so that that's who you are when you go home because you are
Speaker: what you are, how you practice, you are your processes through the day, whether you're in prison or not, that's who's going home.
Speaker: You're not, uh, you know, you're not, you're not going to do a switch up the day you walk out.
Speaker: So you better be practicing who you're going to be.
Speaker: And that should be in the spirit, in the physical and in the mental.
Speaker: And, uh, you know, you have to take care of those things, um, to be
Speaker: to be in a good place, to have that inspiration, to have the willingness to take responsibility for life in a place where you're literally kept in a box and told that you have no influence over anything that you do.
Speaker: I got mad and said, okay, I'm going to show you otherwise.
Speaker: And, uh, you know, it takes patience.
Speaker: It takes humility.
Speaker: I've heard all of that in this conversation.
Speaker: It's not blunt force trauma or
Speaker: It's not a hammer and everything's a nail.
Speaker: It takes patience.
Speaker: It takes humility.
Speaker: It takes a, uh, uh, be sitting with an upset stomach quite often because you might be feeling like you're, you know, having to be, uh, you know, stomach things that are very unfair or whatever that's fair isn't effective, you know?
Speaker: And so, um, that's sorry.
Speaker: I'm bambling.
Speaker: You asked me one question and I answered it for about 13 minutes.
Speaker: I just took a sip of my coffee, said, keep popping.
Speaker: Pop it, pop it.
Speaker: We at the cafe right now.
Speaker: Pop that whip.
Speaker: That's the sermon I needed for this week.
Speaker: Somebody pass the collection plate to this book.
Speaker: That was so good, Bo.
Speaker: And I think even something I don't know that will come out from the documentary that I want to make note of is even that the state director of the Department of Corrections was there at the meeting, which is crazy that you take the time to come and sit in this meeting because of how much they've heard that this culture is changing, right?
Speaker: This culture at JCCC is changing.
Speaker: Like who would have ever said that this would be said, right?
Speaker: And they're desperate.
Speaker: They're desperate, honestly.
Speaker: They had, you know, they have poor corrections officers standing charged with second-degree murder.
Speaker: They need, they know the place needs to improve.
Speaker: It's just interesting that they've leaned into
Speaker: ex-offenders, as they call us, to do so.
Speaker: But what a beautiful thing.
Speaker: Again, the solution is closest to the problem.
Speaker: You know, this is, I mean, this is like grassroots discipleship to me.
Speaker: This is coming in alongside the guys who are best equipped to change the system and equipping them with the resources to do it inside.
Speaker: And we're seeing it happen.
Speaker: It's awesome.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And I want to even emphasize to the parts for Bo and Maya and Jonathan, for all of you, that it, like you've said multiple times in different ways, it didn't just happen overnight.
Speaker: It's like years of commitment, of friendship, of vision, of working through your own stuff, working with your community through their stuff, like choosing to see and be in your lane, you know?
Speaker: I tell guys, you take 17,000 steps forward and you take 16,000 steps backwards and you might take those 16,000 backwards all at once.
Speaker: And when you turn around, you've taken a thousand steps forward.
Speaker: But when you think that it's tit for tat and you think, okay, I've been a good boy for a week.
Speaker: Now let me out and do whatever I want.
Speaker: You know, I get far more no's, far more frustration.
Speaker: I'm dealing with it now with an approval that I got a denial on that I couldn't believe that's frustrating that I might lose a little sleep over.
Speaker: But it's just I don't take it as a finality.
Speaker: It's like I just got to do what's next for the next thing.
Speaker: And then if it is a no, if I if I exhaust it, then God will show me this was not supposed to be.
Speaker: Keep moving.
Speaker: What's next?
Speaker: And so it's not about.
Speaker: how it affects me.
Speaker: It's not, oh, I've been working on this thing and now something changed and now all of that work has gone away.
Speaker: That's a horrible perspective.
Speaker: I'm working to be effective and have impact.
Speaker: So when it shifts, I just need to keep moving forward and keep the work.
Speaker: And I've had 9,000 opportunities to quit.
Speaker: And the only reason that we're still effective is because as a community, as a global leadership community in prison, we have not quit yet.
Speaker: So-
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: You know how long ago I had that vision of going to JCCC?
Speaker: How long?
Speaker: At least three years ago.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: At least three years ago.
Speaker: I got that popped in my head and it go in there, just smaller pieces of it.
Speaker: But with time, like it, it got clearer and clearer on what was going to happen.
Speaker: And it just like, everybody just came like God just starts.
Speaker: It lined up.
Speaker: Just, just lined up just like that.
Speaker: That ain't my doing.
Speaker: That's God doing right there.
Speaker: I have trouble following up, keeping up with all these emails I got, let alone all that.
Speaker: Woo.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, and, you know, I want to say thanks to Jonathan and Maya.
Speaker: Like, you had the idea, but as somebody who spent a quarter as much time in prison as you did, the fact that you got to a place that God took you to a place where you not only were okay—
Speaker: but you wanted to go back.
Speaker: I often, I can't explain it.
Speaker: I'm at a loss for words, but you owe the system nothing.
Speaker: You're innocent of your crime.
Speaker: And you and your wife have spent so much of your life to a system that has done nothing but victimize you guys.
Speaker: And so to come back,
Speaker: There's only one reason.
Speaker: It's the people.
Speaker: It's the people.
Speaker: And I just, I praise you guys for it.
Speaker: I know it's not easy.
Speaker: I have to do it myself.
Speaker: And like I said, you went in at 16 for four times as long.
Speaker: I went in at 40.
Speaker: That is different.
Speaker: And so, and my stomach gets upset.
Speaker: My air goes away from me at times, particularly certain people, certain smells.
Speaker: You know, there are COs in there that
Speaker: Or certain ways.
Speaker: I know Jonathan might have seen some, he's been gone longer than me, but I got to cross paths with those people, you know?
Speaker: And so, you know, it's for you guys to have been traumatized the way that you have by the system and be willing to come back.
Speaker: That is what's going to change the system.
Speaker: I promise.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's going to be a really powerful element of just like even the kind of documentary that comes in that awareness piece of that because it's just like you didn't have to do that.
Speaker: And the fact that y'all are stewarding your platform, your story in that way is so beautiful.
Speaker: And I've really appreciated that as well.
Speaker: My last question for you, Bo, is I've told a lot of people this, but that leadership meeting with those guys behind bars was probably better than most leadership meetings I've been to on the outside.
Speaker: It was like, wow, this is so good.
Speaker: And Bo always jokes with me that I wrote so many notes.
Speaker: He saw all my notes that I took from the time.
Speaker: But one of the key components of our philosophy is leadership development.
Speaker: And so I was curious, like, what are you hoping the guys will take back to their peers, obviously behind bars?
Speaker: That was a big element.
Speaker: I loved hearing the guys talk about that.
Speaker: Like, this is what's hard for me to take back when I leave this place.
Speaker: But also I know eventually they will leave and
Speaker: You want them to take these kind of skills to their families.
Speaker: It's not even just skills.
Speaker: It's like character and competencies.
Speaker: It's like all of that, right?
Speaker: And what do you want them to take back to their families and communities once they're released?
Speaker: Dignity.
Speaker: So I think so much of the system pegs you for what you did for, for a singular moment, um, in your life.
Speaker: It doesn't take into account how you got there or what you do after.
Speaker: Um, but I know that, you know, um,
Speaker: Using a moniker for a human being by one single snapshot is just a woefully incomplete way to describe
Speaker: a human being, a child of God.
Speaker: Um, so, you know, everyone has value, but everyone has influence.
Speaker: You have the ability to have impact wherever you are.
Speaker: Um, please go read Viktor Frankl, um, man's search for meaning.
Speaker: Um, even in the Holocaust, people found purpose.
Speaker: It's, um, it's,
Speaker: it's using that influence for good.
Speaker: Um, you know, it's finding ways to rehabilitate yourself while being forward facing, get past the rich risk management, understand yourself, your previous self enough to move forward, but don't dwell in, in the bad.
Speaker: Don't dwell in the worst things that happened to you and the worst things that you did be forward facing and then equip yourselves with the tools to go out and create the
Speaker: that support group that you need.
Speaker: Understand how to be humble, how to be creative, how to be curious instead of projecting.
Speaker: Understand your tendencies to go to outrage instead of love.
Speaker: And, you know, talk about those things.
Speaker: That is leadership.
Speaker: Leadership is a fabric.
Speaker: It's not a linear line.
Speaker: All of these things are connected.
Speaker: And when you talk to them with people with similar perspectives, with similar shared experiences,
Speaker: unbelievable growth occurs, spiritual, mental, physical, all of those things.
Speaker: It's more than the sum of the whole.
Speaker: And so where there's two, where there's three, it's just more and more.
Speaker: And I saw it while I was incarcerated.
Speaker: And so I'm inspired to throw the rope to the guys behind me and show them that it's possible too.
Speaker: And then if I can
Speaker: If I can work with administrators, with wardens to alleviate some of the restrictions and some of the road bumps that occur, then that's where I see the value that I provide.
Speaker: And I do.
Speaker: I believe that we can do this in every prison in the country.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker: And I love, I was just thinking as you were sharing, I love a lot of what you're calling us to hear, right?
Speaker: Or to the CCD audience.
Speaker: We literally talked about, like we talked about proximity at that leadership meeting like that day, right?
Speaker: Or we talked about what does it mean to use our influence?
Speaker: That's beautiful.
Speaker: Well, I wanted to give a chance if there's any last kind of words or things that have come up that y'all might want to share with our CCD audience before we wrap things up.
Speaker: Thank you all for your prayers and for your proximity to this.
Speaker: Even if you are five, six, seven, eight hundred thousand miles away, all that matters, man.
Speaker: The fact that you care enough to even pray.
Speaker: I would say in general for all of us in this day and age, just
Speaker: keep trying to be aware of things in your life that distract you because we have 24 hours in a day and God calls us to sleep at least eight of those, you know, our bodies and minds to function.
Speaker: So what are we doing with, with, with our daylight, right?
Speaker: Like, what are we doing?
Speaker: Um, what is more satisfying to you?
Speaker: Seeking after distraction, that's really probably something you're trying to, some pain you're trying to cover up.
Speaker: Or doing something life-giving that's hard.
Speaker: but we'll get you out of bed, right?
Speaker: So I just, I know there's so many things vying for our attention, but let the Lord, when you wake up, like, Lord, like guide my eyes, guide my desires and my cravings.
Speaker: Am I craving things that are just going to leave me empty or am I craving things that are going to challenge me and grow me
Speaker: to be more human right be mindful of things in your life that are making you less human or more human and uh all of us are in this together you're gonna grow people around you are gonna grow right like it can only be good if we keep leaning in to our highest call so weird i needed things my husband
Speaker: I just say thank you for supporting this event, CCDA.
Speaker: And, um, I would challenge people to get engaged.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: at any level, find a lane and try to have impact.
Speaker: It can be intimidating.
Speaker: Um, it can seem overwhelming, uh, but there, there is a path for everyone to get engaged somehow to have influence in the need, um, of mass incarceration.
Speaker: There's just so much.
Speaker: And if you're not sure, I'm sure CCDA could help you, uh, find a way with that.
Speaker: And I'd love to talk to anybody who had a heart for this, uh, but just didn't know how to engage.
Speaker: So, but thank you very much.
Speaker: Thanks for, thanks for supporting us.
Speaker: It was a great event, but, uh, it's much more than event.
Speaker: It's a movement and, um, it's awesome.
Speaker: We're moving forward with it.
Speaker: So thank you.
Speaker: Thank you for supporting us.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree 100%.
Speaker: And I do think one great step is to continue to stay engaged with Locked in Solidarity this week, where we'll be sharing stories.
Speaker: One of the stories will come from Gary Campbell, Jonathan and Maya, who they mentioned earlier.
Speaker: who has been behind bars and was one of Jonathan's best friends.
Speaker: And so I hope you guys will read his blog piece.
Speaker: It was very moving.
Speaker: And there are lots of other ways to get engaged from learning to actually taking an action, even as small as starting with your community to doing advocacy.
Speaker: So I hope you all will be engaged.
Speaker: You can find information about that at ccda.org slash LIS.
Speaker: And thank you all.
Speaker: It is such a privilege and honor to be your friends, to walk alongside you, to be in this work together.
Speaker: Y'all inspire me.
Speaker: So I'm so grateful for this time together.
Speaker: Appreciate you, Christina.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thanks, Christina.
Speaker: Appreciate you.
Speaker: And I want to close.
Speaker: I think some of what you were saying, Maya, around that distraction stuff, there is this prayer that was shared with me that I'd love to close with.
Speaker: Please do.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Lord, forgive us for thinking too highly of ourselves.
Speaker: Forgive us for thinking too lowly of ourselves.
Speaker: Lord, forgive us for thinking of ourselves so much.
Speaker: May we keep our eyes focused on your spirit and on the most vulnerable among us as we seek to be caretakers of this moment.
Speaker: Amen.
Speaker: Amen.
Speaker: Amen.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you for listening to the CCDA podcast and thank you all for joining us.
Speaker: If you want to learn more about CCDA and get involved, connect with Maya, Jonathan Bowe, or even learn more about CCDA's Locked in Solidarity Week, check out the show notes of this episode.
Speaker: Also, stay tuned for our upcoming documentary that we mentioned in this podcast, The Return.
Speaker: We produced it alongside our friends behind bars at Jefferson City Correctional Center in Algoa, and also with Maya, Jonathan, Beau, Lecrae, and Tadashi.
Speaker: A trailer will be coming soon, so make sure you are following us on all the social media and our newsletter.
Speaker: Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker: This episode is produced by Sarah Callen in association with me, Christina Fore, and we will be back soon with another episode featuring CCD practitioners who are committed to seeing people and communities experience God's shalom.
Speaker: We'll see you then.
