He was also involved as a student of "A Course In Miracles" as was I. The miracles he experienced was beyond anything one could imagine. Some of them I can relate, although they are but a few that had happened in his life.

John had been in prison on a life sentence and after about fourteen years he was released by the Board of Pardons. He went through his post-traumatic transformation poorly. A few short years after his release he committed a series of drunken rages that resulted in his imprisonment again. While awaiting a trial in a little county jail he escaped and subsequently ended up in Santa Fe. He said that he felt he had been guided to walk away from the unlocked cell in which he had been held and after his escape he spent several weeks in subzero mountain weather where he had "died" several times. What had happened during those death experiences was that he had gotten in touch with his addictions to drugs and alcohol. He had never put together that his life sentence was the result of his disease of addictions.

In Santa Fe John was finally arrested as a fugitive from justice. Friends had convinced him that he should fight extradition proceedings in spite of his desire to give up and go back to prison for the rest of his life. A judge at his hearing decided to set bond at ten thousand dollars. A miracle. Bond is not usually set for a fugitive from justice. A friend of John’s who was dying from a brain tumor decided that her last wish in life was to get John out of jail. She and her famous artist husband put up the bond and John was released pending trial.

John petitioned Governor Toney Anaya for a hearing. Another miracle. Governor Anaya granted the hearing at which dozens of John’s friends gave testimony of John’s good works. Several months later the Governor’s Secretary called John and told him that the Governor had issued an order denying extradition to Pennsylvania. She told John that nothing like that had ever happened in New Mexico before and it would never happen again.

Months later, after Governor Anaya was besieged by news media to send John back to Pennsylvania, a Proclamation was signed by the Governor. It stated that after reconsidering all of the facts of John’s case he, the Governor, would not send John back. It stated that John had done a 180 degree turn around in his life and that sending him back would destroy all that John had accomplished.

John eventually faced the wreckage of his past by returning to prison a few years later. He said that he and his wife simply said over and over: In my defenselessness my safety lies. The crimes of the past never came up. Somehow they had all disappeared - there was no available records. The Parole Board released John after several months after hearing testimony of John’s involvement’s with people who had called out for love.

--- © Ray Hart