ABSTRACT
As we look for ways to reclaim and restore those of us who offend and commit crimes against others of us, it is important that we look backward as well as forward; backward into ancient wisdom traditions that offer us the benefit of thousands of years of a kind of natural human empiricism that moves us toward personal and community transformation. Sam Keen writes, “The great metaphors from all spiritual traditions-grace, liberation, being born again, awakening from illusion-testify that it is possible to transcend the conditioning of my past and do a new thing.”1 For the offender in prison or the offender within each of us, transcending our past and “doing a new thing” creates the possibility of peace and meaning in our and other’s lives. Such a notion is hopeful news in an age when a punitive sense of pessimism seems to reign supreme as evidenced by longer prison sentences; fewer treatment, educational, and vocational programs; and correctional budgets strained to the limit for constructing new prisons.
