Steadfast Resolve - An Update - March 2016

Last September, I was court ordered back to Sacramento for a two-day evidentiary hearing on my Habeas Appeal. I'm still awaiting a ruling from the judge overseeing my case. Two weeks ago, I amended my initial filing with a new claim disclosing recently uncovered illegalities committed by the government in my case. Important discovery was withheld and certain acts of the FBI violated my constitutional right to due process.

After seven months in Sacramento, I was transferred back to Mendota the day the new filing hit the court on a grueling 12 hour bus ride to Las Vegas, followed by another mind-bending 15 hour journey from Vegas to Mendota, shackled and blackboxed. The transport company contracted by the Feds blackboxes all detainees. A blackbox is an inhumane safety device clamping the handcuff chain (normally used only for violent prisoners), severely restricting hand movement. Any motion causes the cuffs to dig deep into your flesh. On the transport, I often wondered if the American populace had any idea of what goes on in America's prison industry: warehousing talented individuals for decades in prison factories; transporting individuals across this country like animals; engendering men to waste away behind fences and walls with little opportunity for rehabilitation. Bernard Kerik, former NYPD Commissioner and Homeland Security Director nominee under the Bush Administration, spent three years in Federal Prison. The man who had spent most of his once-distinguished career putting people in prison had this to say once he experienced prison himself: "You have to be on the other side of the bars. You have to see what it's like to be a victim of the system, so to speak. There's no way to do that from the other side. If the American people saw what I saw, there would be anger, there would be outrage, and there would be change, because nobody would stand for it."

America's obsession with incarceration is a dark stain on our self-proclaimed "greatest nation on earth" status. It's an atrocity that the "land of the free" contains 25% of all the world's prisoners and that we incarcerate more individuals per capita than any nation on earth, including those we accuse of human rights violations: Russia, Syria, Iran, and China. Mass incarceration is the result of a broken justice system. In a recent piece for the Georgetown Law Review, Federal Judge Alex Kozinski, a Reagan appointee, explained why Americans need to open their eyes and realize that the U.S. Justice System is far from just. Rather, according to Kozinski, "the system tilts heavily in favor of District Attorneys, incarcerates thousands of innocent people and fails to hold accountable prosecutors who abuse their power." Kozinski wrote, "The FBI has a unique opportunity to direct investigations so as to stack the deck against people they believe should be convicted."

My conviction is a result of both veins of injustice referenced in Judge Kozinski's words. (See blog, "The Winds of Reform" www.stevewilson777.blogspot.com) Should my case be overturned due to the plethora of illegalities revealed in my latest court filings, I will speak publicly about my "illegal" incarceration and how the system is so stacked against all citizens at every level. "Innocent until proven guilty" is no longer the reality in the United States. The reverse holds true. Our founding fathers must shake in their graves as the Constitution is trampled upon daily throughout the nation's Federal Courts and by the inequitable actions of the government's alphabet agencies.

Recent discoveries in my case have sparked a fire inside me. Though arduous and painful, I believe God allowed this nightmare experience to unfold so I may become a voice for change. By sharing my side of the story, I'll finally be able to address numerous lies and untruths floated to the media by the government. I hope to use my communication skills to bring an awareness to the unfairness and improprieties of our criminal justice system. No matter the outcome, I will never give up this fight for justice. I cannot relent. Silence is not an option. In fighting, I'm fighting for truth and for others in a similar position. I'm fighting for my daughters and their future. No matter where the road leads, I'll endure and share this story. Endurance is more than the ability to bear a hard thing; it's pressing ahead with the deepest resolve to turn a bad experience into something positive. If I can instill hope in others by sharing my pain, exercising vulnerability in revealing personal failure and hardship, hope may take root in the hearts of others, becoming a potent resource for them. Shared suffering inspires. It fortifies optimism.

Setbacks in our lives carry enormous upside if we embrace the carnage. Weeding out the good from the bad is part of our growth. Life, history, the example of others cue us to adopt the chaos, itself a paradox of joy and sorrow, life and death dwelling in the same space, neither canceling the other out. When we walk through a devastating period of loss, losing a piece of ourselves, losing innocence and portions of our faith, hope, and love, new life can arise from the smoldering embers. When life's circumstances bear down upon us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand the assaults, God offers our spirits a reversal, granting discernment to sense that our ideas are often wrong about the present difficulties. What we mostly perceive as bad and dark is ultimately good and light. God allows adversity into our lives for a purpose far greater than our finite thinking permits us to comprehend. Though bad things befall us and the indiscretions of others may harm us, those injuries only serve a God who provides the remedies to trump harmful intentions. Our troubles serve a higher purpose, unknown and unseen in our present space. Soak in everything around you, both the good and the bad.  Meaning and clarity will find you. Observation is the fuel of inspiration.

Every experience in our lives is a gift, including those holding heartbreak, failure, loss, and suffering. Life is about every feeling, self-doubt and depression as much as joyful bliss. All emotion is useful and if we harness our feelings to decipher meaning, then express that discovery through sharing, we make the world a much better place. If we fail to use our experiences and position in life to help others, what is the point of striving so hard for fulfillment? Fulfillment ultimately comes through giving: Giving of ourselves and experiences. Sharing with another.

Arriving back at Mendota has been a breath of fresh air. It has allowed me to find some normalcy within an abnormal environment. In Sacramento, it was difficult to create routine. Besides my daily workout regimen, very few stimulants were available to distract me from the grim atmosphere. No music, email, sunshine, chapel. Scant resources and limited television. Visits with friends and family were conducted through a glass partition. Like a colorful wildflower in a barren field, Mendota provides surroundings where I can find inspiration. I've been reunited with music (my iPod), email, the outdoors, a chapel, quality television and movies. Visits are held in a pleasant room where I can hug and kiss family and friends. I'm back in an atmosphere where I can engage routines I've come to enjoy. Though a free spirit at heart, forever trusting instinct and loving the autonomy that spontaneity provides, I've come to value the structure and discipline that come from routine. Such austerity keeps me focused and driven.

Mostly, I'm thrilled to regain my writing routine. I hope to complete my trio of novels and a personal memoir. During my time in Sacramento it was impossible to get into a rhythm where I could carve out space to connect with my thoughts and put them on paper. The chaos and din of a county jail present obstacles difficult to overcome. To be at my best, I need solitude and inspiration, I need natural elements and sceneries of life such as a blue sky and warm sun, rolling clouds and rain droplets.

Writing has been a reprieve from the storm for me.  It has allowed me to dream again, to reimagine life after the tempest passes. When you lose everything and have nothing, then find something again that you love to do, you regain the world.  When I rediscovered my love for writing, I found a sanctuary. I found a home for myself.  It made me work hard and not waste these years because I had nothing else. I cleaved my way into the habit and learned to write again by studying and emulating my favorite writers. I'd sit for hours each day writing longhand, duplicating chapters, entire books, so I could feel the rhythm and cadence of the author's prose.

This eight-year ordeal has caused me to look differently at the world. The shift in viewpoint has affected everything about me, everything about how I discern time and chance and belief. About how I perceive the world works, how life is brief and fragile and encumbered with discolor, how bliss lifts and sorrow squeezes all life within. In this crucible of personal change my stories were born.

For me, creating stories is creating life, a gift that keeps on giving. I have this fascination with characters who push the boundaries, who are vulnerable, and yet, willing to risk it all to live like we all want to live, pushing against the restraints. I've created real characters who are mangled by life's realities and their own kind of self-doubts. Yet, they find a way to push forward, finding some resolve, some hope, be it through the help of others or their own self-determined will. When our dreams and hopes are victimized and taken from us, none of us are designed to be restrained. We're wired to seize moments given to us, to claim what is ours. However, we often run from our inborn nature and subconsciously deny ourselves those things we know will fulfill us. In turn, we settle for mediocrity, for careers and circumstance we loathe, relegating us to a life often lacking passion, somewhat bored and unfulfilled. My stories are laced with this theme.

My trilogy is made up of characters that are hard to forget. I'm eager to complete the books and introduce the story to you, especially the characters. I believe readers will fall in love with them and identify with their struggles: a Bosnian refugee from Sarajevo who carries dark secrets, survives Serbian rape camps, migrates to Italy to be discovered by a premier fashion house and groomed to become the world's next supermodel; a twenty-something American social worker employed by UNICEF who seems to arrange his life for the purpose of helping others. His sense of duty is so strong that he's able to repress most of his baser impulses in order to do what he believes to be right. At his core, he sees himself as kind of an irreparably damaged person incapable of being loved; a young orphaned child from Beirut needing to be a child again; a Swiss Expat banker from the Middle East hell bent to help any who've walked in his shoes; two rogue Irish lawyers; a hedge fund trader from California; an Italian soccer star born into the Camorra Mafia family; a beauty queen from the Appalachians; a dot-com billionaire; an investigative journalist from London; a maimed toddler girl from a squatter community in Bangladesh.

The main locale in my trilogy is Venice, Italy. The poetry of the lagoons, the warren of intimate walkways and canals, the intoxicating scenery and connection to romance at every corner serve as the ideal backdrop for the storylines. Venice is a small city with an abundance of myth and history causing everything to feel amplified. The magic of the timeless city is more than its scenery; Venice allows you to feel every human emotion in any setting because the city's atmosphere retains its ancient spells. The trilogy also takes the reader on a suspense-filled journey to other exotic locales: Sarajevo, London, New York, Miami, Beirut, Amsterdam, Rome; the Bay Area and America's Heartland; the Middle East, Far East and Eurozone.

In the end, my fight for justice and my headlong dive into writing is fueled by my love for my daughters. They're my world, my inspiration. Their lives have granted me unexplainable joy, unimaginable hope.  Even on my worst days, the instant softening and loving feelings that thoughts of my girls bring me without them ever knowing they're doing it, without any premeditation or self-consciousness, is something I never could have imagined. To give them anything less in return would be unforgiveable.

Please continue to pray for my appeal and for justice to be served.

Love,

       Steve

Beginnings

A New Year has arrived, a beginning, a moment of transition, terminating the old, commencing the new.   A rite of passage occurs this time of the year: new resolutions, new commitments, an idea that something might change in the upcoming year that failed to do so in the last.  Though New Year's Day is technically just another day, it's the cracking of a mental and psychological barrier that inspires us to believe in something better, to break away from fragments of a past that have anchored our hopes.

January is the month in which we find some fortitude, some resolve, to disregard the "If Only" and "Has Been", our spirit clamoring for the "What If."  We ascend the tree of unfamiliarity, inch to the edge of its branches, and seize the rope of possibility.  "A new beginning," we tell ourselves, the forest of dreams ahead.  We launch ourselves, swinging for fresh limbs of life, the newfound resolutions a wind to our backs.  Sometimes we land, finding the change we seek.  But all too often, we let go, midflight, fearful, crashing back to earth, hard to the floor of our present reality.

As humans, we're creatures of habit, of comfort.  We tend to be uncomfortable with change, with the uncertainty that beginnings bring.  The past clings tight, not wanting to let go. We feel its comfort and are drawn to it, even when we've not found fulfillment there for some time. Insecurities lurk, ready to encroach, pulling us back to the past of our lives. It's there we abandon our flight for change.

This New Year, as you contemplate another chapter in your life, a time of fresh beginnings, consider the wider horizons, the wider possibilities, the trails not taken, and be comfortable with uncertainty.  Don't be afraid to think outside the box.  Breakthroughs come from being audacious and uncomfortable.  Sometimes we're stretched to the breaking point by everything that stands between us and the change we seek.  We must refuse to break, and be heartless with the urge to give in, to not allow the familiarity of the past to overshadow future expectations.

Most of us hope to step out of the everyday routine of life and enter a space where we can say, "Wow."  Reaching for something new, something that can be, empowers the imagination, gives faith a fighting chance.  Yet, we often live life backwards.  We think we live by what we want.  But really what guides us is what we're afraid of, what we don't want.  We fear loss more than we covet gain, failing to see that loss, once you let go, can lead to a much bigger gain.  In launching, we befriend contingency, meeting God in the havoc of chance. 

As I glance back on loss in my own life, I see something now I couldn't see then: In letting go, comfortable misery was exchanged for an uncomfortable beginning.  God used the discomfort to get me to where I needed to be, opening me up to pursue His promises for my life.  Even God himself had a new beginning.  It's unfathomable to imagine, but the Creator of all things reinvented himself, altering a plan that had failed, creating a new beginning in Bethlehem.  And that beginning had its origins in uncertainty, doubt, hardship, and failure. Breaking from the past led to the fulfillment of promises spoken in that past.

Events rarely happen as anticipated in our lives.  Sometimes things don't turn out as planned, but the end result of what we seek can be found through the strange twists of fate.  We all have made mistakes in life, fallen short. There is little we can do about the bad things that have already transpired.  We can be changed by what happened, but there is no need to be reduced by it.  At some point, we must get past the negative energy and get on to what we're going to do.  How we learn from our mistakes becomes the measure of who we are, of what we become, of where we arrive.

People can think too much of the past.  The past is over.  Kiss it goodbye.  Stay in the present.  Why think of bad things when you can think of good things?  In the present we're creating the future, engaging beginnings.  If we don't live in the now, we're missing life.  Many of us worry so much about the lives we're failing to live that the story we sometimes fashion about our time on earth becomes about what we couldn't or didn't do.  We chain ourselves to failure and insecurity by wallowing around in the muck and mire of our shortcomings. By giving too much attention to the pain of the past, we limit our future; we rob ourselves of fresh beginnings.

The best improvements in life come out of real problems and real pain and real failure, as it did with God's new covenant with humanity.  From every tragedy comes something miraculous.  I think of Thomas Edison and all those failed experiments leading him to the one that finally worked.  I think of Abraham Lincoln and all his personal failures guiding him to the highest office in the land, the presidency.  Both men let go of the past, allowing the failure of the past to birth something better.

Life is awash with possibilities.  No issue with pain and injury and failure provides us with total confidence that a beginning is the right thing to pursue.  We will encounter obstacles and must battle through them.  God will provide the strength and tools needed to make something better out of a bad situation. Cling tight to the destiny God has planned for you.  He will lead you to where you need to be.  Divine appointments of fate do appear when we let go and embrace what will be.

The Winds of Reform

Over the last few months, there has been a large outcry calling for change to the Federal Prison System of the United States. The charge is being led by people of influence such as Attorney General Eric Holder.  Michael Douglas is another leading activist.  He and more than 500 celebrities have signed a petition demanding reform and sent it to President Obama.  Signatures include those of Leonardo Dicaprio, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Robert Downey Jr. (who spent time in the Feds), Jay Z, Beyonce, Katy Perry, Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, Scarlett Johansson, Justin Timberlake, to list a few.

Members of Congress are also finally waking to the drastic changes needed in the American prison system.  For the first time, bipartisan bills are being sponsored in both the House and Senate to grant more good time for non-violent offenders, whereby one could earn up to 35 percent off his or her sentence through good behavior.  This would apply to someone like me who has an exemplary conduct record.

Recently, Eric Holder gave a speech to the American Bar Association in San Francisco, stressing reforms needed. "Too many people go to too many prisons for far too long and for no truly good law-enforcement reason," he said.  He went on to emphasize the need for returning nonviolent men back to their families and children who have suffered enough, who've paid for their crimes.  Of late, he continued his push for reform in a statement to USA Today, "New consideration should be given to the reinstatement of parole for federal offenders to help restore fairness in the criminal justice system and relieve overcrowding." 

If parole were to be reinstated, I'd be eligible for release within the next six months under the old federal parole law.  Presently, there is a grass roots movement among American citizens calling for the reinstatement of federal parole.  I ask you to join the throng by signing the Resurrect Federal Parole Proposal at:

http://www.petition2congress.com/11818/resurrect-parole-federal-prisoners

The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population, but it has nearly 25 percent of the world's prisoners. The U.S. leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment.  Criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized nations say they are mystified and appalled by the number and length of American prison sentences.  For instance, there are now over 2.3 million people behind bars in the U.S., more than any other nation, including China, whom the American Government accuses of human rights violations.  China, which is four times more populous than the U.S., has 1.6 million people in prison.  It's somewhat ironic that the United States, who purports to champion freedom and human rights, imprisons far more people than a country it accuses of violating those very same freedoms and rights. 

The United States comes in first, too, on a more meaningful list from the Prison Studies Center, the per capita rate of incarceration:  We have 751 people in prison for every 100,000 in population. (1 in 100 adults in the U.S. is locked up.)

The only other industrialized nation that comes even close is Russia, with 404 prisoners for every 100,000.  Again, Russia, like China, is hardly a standard bearer of human rights, and is notorious for punishing its citizens, as the recent case of the Russian oil tycoon, Mikhail Khodorkovsky points out.  After 10 years in prison, Khodorkovsky was released last week, with the help of the German government.  Berlin had negotiated with Moscow for two years to secure his release. The former Yukos Chairman's first press conference was telling: "People talk about my release as being a Mandela moment; today without a doubt this is not so. Our society has not yet accumulated such a potential for protest that would allow one pebble to start an avalanche."

In other words, Putin is not unlike Lenin and Stalin.  The Kremlin remains largely unchanged.  And yet, America's per capita incarceration rate doubles that of a nation infamous for violating human rights.  The United States locks up nearly 100% more of its citizens than Russia does.  And lock up is hardly an understatement.  We literally sentence people to decades in prison and throw away the key.  Rarely do judges and prosecutors look at the merits of a case and take the time to evaluate all mitigating circumstances. We seem to be in the throes of a "more the merrier" approach to imprisonment, an assembly line model of sentencing, coercing individuals into plea deals to avoid trial, often using underhanded tactics to do so. The legal representation that defendants receive is often egregious and incompetent as the following example illustrates.

When a friend asked John Horner if he could buy some painkillers, the 46-year-old father of three didn't see a problem.  The Osceola County, Florida, resident had been taking prescribed painkillers for years after losing his eye in an accident, and agreed to sell his friend, "Matt," four unused bottles.  After the pills exchanged hands, Horner discovered that "Matt" was in fact a police informant, and he was charged with dealing drugs.  At the advice of his public defender, Horner pleaded guilty, and was later sentenced to the mandatory minimum of 25 years in prison.  He will be 72 by the time he is released, and his three young children will have grown up without him.  "Matt," who turned out to have a long history of drug offenses, was more fortunate; he received a reduced sentence of just 18 months after informing on Horner, and is now free. (This story was printed in The Week magazine, September 20, 2013).

If you think this story is an outlier, you're gravely wrong.  This tends to be the norm. I've seen it repeated hundreds of times in my study of the law these past four years.  I know dozens of individuals whose cases are similar to the Horner case.  The competence level of public defenders and many licensed attorneys is subpar at best. 

My case is a further example of such incompetence.  I was promised/guaranteed a sentence and coerced into a plea deal that was disastrous, admitting to things that were not true.  Counsel not only mischaracterized my exposure, he completely misunderstood/misstated the law relevant to my case.  He utterly lacked a basic understanding of financial instruments, even more so, failed to investigate the very contract that every investor signed that lies at the heart of my case.

Most who are familiar with my case have heard that I was convicted of running a Ponzi scheme. (I wasn't. I involuntarily and unintelligently pled guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of filing a false income tax return).  Yet, the Ponzi scheme angle was spun to the media.  A Ponzi scheme has no underlying investment.  Bernard Madoff, the most famous schemer of all, did not make one single investment related to his fund, or one stock trade.  He ran a Ponzi scheme.  I traded close to one billion dollars worth of stock, held open positions daily in the market, and the fund was profitable at times, up over 50 percent through 2005, 24 percent through November of 2006. The fund had an underlying investment – stock holdings. Is that the mark of a Ponzi scheme?  No.  Yet, none of this was researched by counsel.  Had counsel investigated the contract signed by investors, a fiduciary agreement bound by law, it would have disproven most of the government's assertions. I was ignorant to this, having no understanding of the law at the time.  I was unable to aide my own defense as I was locked in a cell fighting my case with no access to the internet, law materials, relevant case law, nothing in which I could learn the law and mount an adequate defense. (This is a story for another time and only the tip of the iceberg.)  Even when I insisted that counsel argue certain issues, he refused to do so.  The result of this has been a nightmare experience I would not wish on anyone, a sentence of 19.8 years for a nonviolent crime.

While it's not a crime for people to lose money in the stock market, I feel for every person who did so under my management.  I am beyond grieved that individuals lost money under my watch.  My single focused goal is unyielding: to work relentlessly, as diligent as possible, to ensure that every single investor receives full recovery of their investment.  I know I will be able to achieve this goal, and would have already done so had I been in any other country but the United States.

People who commit nonviolent crimes in the rest of the world are less likely to receive prison time and certainly less likely to receive long sentences.  The United States is, for instance, the only advanced country that incarcerates people for property crimes, and the only country with conspiracy laws.  But it's the length of sentences that truly distinguishes American prison policy.  "Far from serving as a model for the world, contemporary America is viewed with horror," James Whitman, a specialist in comparative law at Yale, wrote last year in a study of America's Criminal Justice System.  Prison sentences here have become "vastly harsher than in any other country to which the United States would ordinarily be compared."

Bernard Kerik, former NYPD Commissioner and former Homeland Security Director nominee under the Bush Administration, was just released from three years in federal prison. The man who had spent most of his once-distinguished career putting people in prison had this to say about the Federal Prison System: "You have to be on the other side of the bars.  You have to see what it's like to be a victim of the system, so to speak.  There's no way to do that from the other side.  If the American people and members of Congress saw what I saw, there would be anger, there would be outrage, and there would be change, because nobody would stand for it.  Our prison system is not benefitting society."

The questions need to be asked: Why are so many men, nonviolent offenders, being warehoused in prisons, being held for decades on mistakes made that could be corrected if these men were freed after reasonable punishment?  Why does America pursue a measure of justice uncommon to any other nation?  Long incarceration for nonviolent offenders destroys families, injures children, confines most families to a vicious cycle of poverty.  Fathers and husbands locked away for draconian periods of time are irreplaceable in a child's life, in a family's life.

Flowing from the honorable act of the pursuit of justice, has come a great miscarriage of justice, inhumane in scope, unparalleled in size, unseen in any other industrialized nation on earth: Mass incarceration of our nation's citizens.

In closing, I kindly ask you to make your voice known.  Please visit the websites below and follow the instructions to be included in a letter campaign to Congress that address the issues of prison reform, of doing away with draconian sentences.  Please promote this in your social media circles and forward to friends and constituents.

www.prisology.org/action

www.petition2congress.com/11818/resurrect-parole-federal-prisoners/.

Feeling Christmas

 Every Christmas the feeling returns, one I've felt since childhood.  As a young boy growing up in Germany, I went with my family to celebrate Christmas at my grandmother's house, which sits high on a hill in the town of my birth near the former East German border. My grandmother's home had splendid views of the scenic landscape. When the winter snow blankets the rolling hills, the scenery becomes dreamlike, as if living inside a snow globe.  Snowflakes twirl in the creamy light of the lampposts, the flurry of white flecks carpeting the countryside fairy-tale like.  Mounds of powder cover the streets and sidewalks near the home.  Down the hill sits a forest of pines and firs, thick, dense, the trees tall and stout, a formation of elegance, the branches laden with snow, bending.

I remember days of running with laughter, crisp, clean air surging through my lungs, the clear winter blue of the sky, my feet rising and falling in the white frost.  A feeling would envelop me, occupying the innocence of my childlike wonder, even as the iciness of the Cold War intensified in the backdrop of my world.  I could not explain the feeling or describe it.  I understood little about the emotion, except that it felt good, right, always surfacing at Christmas, a sensation part hope, part peace, feeling miraculous and timeless, returning year after year, at Christmas.

Across the years, I've found myself in numerous cities throughout the world during the Christmas season.  No matter where I've been, I always felt the feeling.  I recall a time in Munich ambling through the Christmas market – an annual event held in most German cities.  The market was teeming with booths offering everything seasonal.  Outdoor chandeliers, large and bright, hung suspended in the air spanning the Marienplatz, Munich's famed pedestrian zone.  The chandeliers were in the shapes of angels, bells, trees, wreaths, lighting up the night with thousands of white Christmas lights, transforming the city square into an imaginary wonderland.  Orchestras and choirs filled the air with Christmas music, as horse drawn carriages glided near with lovers snuggled tight.  Children stood in frozen wonder in front of stalls peddling teddy bears, toy Santas, hot cocoa, and holiday candy.  The scent of pine mingled with mulled wine vapors; the char of roasting chestnuts with bratwurst sizzling on griddles.  Stands sold fried potato pancakes, pretzel-shaped glazed doughnuts the size of the Berlin Wall.  Dozens of kiosks were titillated with the most mouth-watering desserts, every type of chocolate and cake imaginable.  And of course there were the stalls selling Gluehwein, beer, and a dozen varieties of hot drink to keep you warm.  Yet, trumping all this was that intimate feeling of childhood, of Christmas, of something magical.  Even the weather conspired to endorse the miraculous feeling I felt as an armada of clouds appeared from nowhere, sprinkling a sweet dusting of snow onto the spires and medieval beer halls of Munich.

Around the world, Christmas is celebrated, on every continent, even in nations where it's illegal to practice Christianity.  Regardless of the environment, a subtle message is seen, a tinge of the miraculous felt, as the feeling of Christmas hovers in every land.  The world is conscious of the miracle child of Bethlehem, allowing thoughts of the miraculous to infiltrate the finite orbit of our lives, providing us with a sense of what can be, of impossibility occurring.  A feeling churns inside of us during the Christmas season, one uncommon at any other time of the year.  Even if you don't believe in the Christmas miracle, the divinity of Jesus, you remain conscious to the possibility of a God who exists.  Your spirit connects with that force of possibility, of something miraculous being available to you.

A miracle is the supernatural occurrence or intervention of God that transcends human or logical reasoning.  At different times in our lives, we require these supernatural manifestations.  When there's no way out, when human reasoning offers no hope, a miracle is needed.  And this is precisely the message found in Christmas, the feeling that seizes us.  Our hearts unite with a possibility of the miraculous occurring in our lives.  Feeling Christmas is feeling the miraculous, linking us to an act deemed impossible: A virgin giving birth.

The miracle of the first Christmas was not an end unto itself, nor was it temporal; it was a miracle of permanence, providing a foretaste of what God can do in our very lives.  Christmas reiterates the miraculous: God amongst us, His miraculous power available in every situation we face in life.  So even in prison, I encounter the feeling from my childhood at this Christmas season.  I feel it when I move, when I think. I feel it when I kneel, praying for those I love, my girls, my family, my friends.  I feel it when I stare at a razor-wired fence, holding onto promises spoken, the miracle God will provide.  I feel it at this very moment, in the stillness of the room in which I write. 

Night has fallen, bringing closure to another day.  Around me, the spirit of the season is on display. Snowflakes hang from pipes and light receptacles are masked in the colors of Christmas.  Hues of red and green fill the room.  Pillars are swathed in holiday gift-wrap, in loops of garland.  A fireplace sits in the corner, fabricated from cardboard, burning logs in the hearth.  The mantle bears stockings, the red bricked chimney stretches to the ceiling.  Along the far wall, window panes are colored in paintings.  Santa distributing toys.  Rudolph guiding a sled to earth.  Tweety Bird in a Santa hat.  Pooh Bear sledding down a hill.  Smurfs in green, aiding elves.  A Christmas tree twinkles nearby, branches bejeweled with ornaments, tinsel, multicolored lights draping the limbs.  Frosty the Snowman stands guard, button eyes, carrot nose, a broomstick in hand.  I wave. I think he waves back. A familiar feeling overtakes me. A miracle occurring.

        I close my eyes.  The room transforms itself into a classroom, my youngest daughter at my side, us united, hands clasped, together in the folds of Christmas, her face beaming with delight.  She leads me to her desk, her steps eager and jumpy, her heart drumming, picks up a gingerbread man and candy cane.

        "Look Daddy, I made these."

        I see the excitement in her eyes, the wonder of creation.  I feel the sensation she is feeling, flaunting her craftsmanship, her gaze alive with the miraculous, so proud, a thought becoming matter, an idea budding into a miracle.

        "Those are amazing, sweetie.  So amazing.  Wow."

        A bright smile adorns her face, and right there in that smile I see everything that is important in life, more important than anything in the world.  Her mother and grandparents applaud her efforts, sing her praises.  Her two older sisters come bursting into the classroom, dressed in layers, scarves draping necks, gloves warming hands, festive knit caps crowning their heads.  They scream with glee.

        "Shelby!"

        "Look at that amazing candy cane!"

        "That gingerbread man is awesome!"

        Shelby basks in the attention, the affirmation she is feeling, the goodness.  Her sisters embrace her achievement, sustaining her childlike thoughts, aiding her to believe she has just created the most remarkable gingerbread man and most beautiful candy cane in history.  She feels something she should feel, a feeling every child should feel.  Something miraculous.

        Loved.  Adored.  Special. Treasured.  Wonderful. 

        The Feeling of Christmas.