Sergetalks Blog ~ The Official Blog of Serge LeClerc

Soon after I arrived at Kingston Penitentiary, the deputy warden came to see me. We were no strangers. He had been my classification officer in Collins Bay Penitentiary, so he knew me well. (A classification officer has a caseload of convicts with whom he meets on a monthly basis. He gives advice regarding programs they should take and helps them fill out applications for day passes, paroles, or orders for court.

The C.O.’s primary role is to work with the convict to achieve some level of rehabilitation.) “I’d like you to do me a favor,” the deputy warden said, “and I will do one for you in return. Here’s the deal. We want to turn this prison into a full protective custody facility, but in the meantime, we need to get it back on its operational legs.

“I would like you to stay here in static population and become head of the inmate committee. You’re one of the few people I know who can pull this off because of your status and your reputation. You have only two years remaining on your sentence. If you will give me one year here, you can pick wherever you want to go for your final year. I don’t care where it is.” I said, “You’ve got a deal.” (more…)

Death is following the breath of your soul down to the bottom of life, where existence and nonexistence have merged into irrelevance. And that is reality of faith in its most basic understanding – the essence of meaning in the moment of time that is our existence in the coming out of one eternity to go into another and the rational of the how we are to live that moment to the where that we will live that eternity.

A person of character will always consider success a subsequent result of making their first business that of overcoming whatever difficulty lays ahead of them at the moment – and while many others will always think of them of only being lucky for what they achieve, it is in fact the case that they have the virtue of self-belief and the ethic of hard work.