I began volunteering as a counselor in that prison, and this same woman came to see me several times. The sessions were always the same. Few words would be spoken. We simply sat together. But in that sitting, a sense of caring grew. I learned that she had lost two children in a single accident and had no money to bury them properly. She committed a crime in order to pay for their caskets. She looked through me as she told me that story.
I was painfully aware that we were two souls thrown together by chance in a god-forsaken, rundown room in a federal prison. Even the room's single plant was fighting for life. Without speaking, our hearts knew one another's capacity for pain. The spirit within me looked at her without judgment. I knew that life was hard. Very hard. I knew that pain had long tentacles and that I was looking at a soul for whom pain had exceeded the limit she could bear. I saw her, and there was no longer any choice. In that seeing came Love.
The little room became a place of communion. There was no bread, and wine was forbidden. There was darkness and brokenness, and also immeasurable light. I can't describe all that we glimpsed. I can only say that we were looking from a different place, deep within each of us.
Everything is identified with Love, a Love that flows through everything, filling everything. We just can't see it.
Only from the place of spirit does Love become visible. Everything else is desire.
— Paula D'Arcy, Seeking With All My Heart