Great institutions have leaders who are proud of what they do, and who engage with everyone who makes up those institutions, so each person understands their role.

The women I met in Danbury helped me to confront the things I had done wrong, as well as the wrong things I had done. It wasn’t just my choice of doing something bad and illegal that I had to own; it was also my lone-wolf style that had helped me make those mistakes and often made the aftermath of my actions worse for those I loved.

So for all my scoffing at “holy rollers,” was it such a bad thing if faith helped someone understand what others needed from them, rather than just thinking about themselves?

D. H. Lawrence used to observe on our national character: “The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.

I understood that faith could help people see beyond themselves, not into the abyss but into the street, into the mix, to offer what was best about themselves to others.

According to the CDC, cigarettes kill over 435,000 people a year in the United States. Most of us in Danbury were locked away for trading in illegal drugs. The annual death toll of illegal drug addicts, according to the same government study? Seventeen thousand. Heroin.

In my travels I had encountered all kinds of people whose dignity seemed to have a price – widely variable – and I thought that next time I had better set my price higher than anyone would pay.

Personally, I thought that one could thank the Lord at a lower volume and perhaps with less self-congratulation.

I opened my mouth, mad enough to spit, and said loudly, “I don’t eat iceberg lettuce!” Really? I asked myself. That’s what you’re going to throw down with? “I don’t care what you eat, just don’t be pickin’ in there!

Lack of empathy lies at the heart of every crime – certainly my own – yet empathy is the key to bringing a former prisoner back into the fold of society.