Most reos in 118 who did not read books—which was everyone except Miami, Guillermo, Ismael, and, occasionally, Carlos, Ricardo, and fireman pedophile Sergio—were fascinated and sometimes puzzled by those who did. Rubén asked me, “How can you read so much?” I replied that I was used to it, especially after reading stacks of articles and books during graduate school. Reading was the principal way I received information, whereas the reos got theirs by listening to others, watching television, and receiving notifications. This fact was evident in their reactions when they heard me chuckle at my book. I remembered being intrigued as a child, around seven years old, watching my mother enjoy a book. Eventually, I developed an interest myself. It dawned on me that the reos had reacted this way because they had never read a book—or at least not many. Yet, like little boys, they wanted to know what the story was about and what made me laugh so much.

The contrast was sobering. Not only were these men in prison physically, but their minds had also been fettered. Strolling the patio with me, Miami noted that these reos only know how to regurgitate or parrot the information they receive. Few, if any, ever go to the next level of analysis and critical thinking, much less to the level of being creative and generating a novel thought. I marveled at how closed, mysterious, and perhaps even frightening the world must be for benighted men with such limitations, and I was thankful that I had escaped such a plight—recalling from Colossians 1:13 that God “hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.”

Publishing from a Cell

Beyond reading, I was writing and publishing. With the help of many friends outside prison, I was already working on my third book from behind bars. Valentín had finally finished the modifications to Suffering Unjustly’s index, and the prison draft could be published on Amazon by late 2021. The revised and expanded version is due to be published in 2026 or 2027. The Spanish translation of a draft of the first volume of Bearing the Cross—Llevando la Cruz—became available for purchase from Amazon in the United States and Western Europe. I figured that book would be my best defense before any honest Chilean judge and the court of public opinion. That book is now finished, substantially revised, its translation polished, and published in Chile by Don Pelayo Ediciones (2025). The other ten volumes, tucked into five larger books, are still awaiting publication in 2026 or 2027.

I tried to do more to publish the books while in prison. The hastily translated Spanish version of Bearing the Cross volume I—Llevando la Cruz—was now available on Amazon, but I had hoped for a traditional publication through Editorial Sudamericana, Random House’s South American imprint, which would have given the book wider distribution. As it turned out, however, Random House—through its Editorial Sudamericana brand—had closed down all its South American offices and was no longer printing books. I would have to look elsewhere, since Covid-19 seemed to be wreaking havoc everywhere. Álvaro was trying another outlet, Editoriales El Líbero, recommended by the Instituto de Libertad y Desarrollo in Santiago. By the end of March 2021, that attempt would be declared a failure as well. Nevertheless, the more people read the first volume of Bearing the Cross, the more hooked they became, but finding a publisher willing to carry such a candid work written by a hot-potato author was proving difficult. After several failed attempts to find a publisher, Don Pelayo manager Sebastián Izquierdo approached me about taking it on after I was released.

The publishing setback illustrates a principle that prison ministry supporters need to understand: a prisoner who is intellectually active faces obstacles that the idle prisoner does not. Every communication must pass through unreliable channels. Every document must be created on a phone or smuggled out through a visitor. Obtaining and properly recording source documents is far more difficult than it is outside. Every collaboration with the outside world depends on the faithfulness of friends who have their own lives and their own fatigue. The wonder is not that so little gets done from prison but that anything gets done at all.

The Body’s Rebellion

The bread cast upon the waters returns in many forms—but so does the body’s accumulated protest against incarceration. Apart from my deteriorating eyesight, my main physical problems were multiplying. My chronic shoulder pain—plus the soreness of the left knee that had been operated on twice, and the right knee once—was evident every morning when I bathed within my cell’s small shower stall, eighty centimeters squared. I could almost reach the small of my back with my right fingertips. But my left shoulder smarted so much that I could not get anywhere close without pushing my left elbow against the wall and forcing my arm to get a soapy fingernail or two to reach that spot.

My twice-operated left knee had swollen more than usual and was causing acute pain—a frontal tendon or muscle attached to the distal femur that produced severe discomfort for two nights, making it hard to walk. I took Dipirona and Paracetamol left over from when I was sick with Covid-19 and pneumonia, hoping they would work. They did little. In prison, what else could one do? When Alexis went to get me some anti-inflammatory medicine, the penitentiary’s pharmacy was out of stock, and the pacos refused to let Pamela toss some Ibuprofen in one of my encomienda sacks. Like with my deteriorating vision, I just had to live with the pain. No one who could do something about it cared.

Then there was the vitamin deficiency. The edges of my mouth were cracking again—a telltale sign of inadequate nutrition that Pamela seemed unable to grasp the importance of addressing with multivitamins, despite my requests. The lack of sunlight in the cell during the hours we were locked in—eighteen per day—meant no natural vitamin D. The lack of fresh vegetables, except what came through encomienda, meant chronic deficiency in half a dozen other essential nutrients. The human body was not designed for prison, and prison was not designed with the human body in mind.

My bodily woes did not impede my chess playing, at least, nor did they stop mutt Sergio from boldly hugging me from behind and kissing me on the forehead as I concentrated on my game. The exaggerated affection always terminated once I fed the young man some imported chips—his caviar, as he called it. He asked my age—nearly fifty-eight—and commented that I was the same age as his daddy. Like with Rufo before him, I seemed to have endeared myself to another fighting machucado who would likely protect me should the need arise. That relationship might come in handy, and it was not too costly if all I had to do was provide scrumptious food and a few cigarettes now and then.

Bread upon the Waters: The Return

The principle of Ecclesiastes 11:1 was demonstrably true in my life in módulo 118, not merely as a theory but as a daily observable pattern. The bread I cast upon the waters returned in forms that sustained me practically and encouraged me spiritually.

Marcelo the mozo would slip me peaches, lemons, chunks of honeydew melon, yogurts, and apples through the portal. Miami brought me onions, tomatoes, and tiny avocados so I could make guacamole to share. Alexis, my new cellmate, arrived with avocados and chocolate-bathed wafers and made it clear from the start that he had no intention of being a leech—unlike some previous cellmates. Ismael gave me a cereal bar here, a free haircut there. Even Michael and Sergio shared their milky-cookie cake creations or a few bites of fried cheese empanada (filled turnover) once in a while. Rubén contributed ketchup, mayonnaise, and ají (Chilean hot sauce) to our Friday meals and let people use his pressed sandwich cooker. I ungrudgingly gave to all these reos and more, including poorer reos and just about anyone who asked me for something—even pacos Penailillo, Cisternas, and Castro. I taught or corrected English for Necúlman and Comandante Toledo, too. While I demanded or expected nothing in return, I also believed that blessings would come from being kind and generous. As Proverbs 11:25 states, “The liberal soul shall be made fat [rich]: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.”

Miami captured the social dynamic well when he told me privately one day, “No, but you, John, are spoiled the most; you are like the nucleus of the atom around here, and all of us are the electrons circling you.” I just chuckled. But the metaphor was apt. The bread I cast outward created a kind of gravitational field—an economy of mutual provision and protection that operated entirely outside the prison’s official structures. The rancheros brought me fruit because I had shared my pizza. The machucados kept watch over my safety because I had fed them. The sycophants tolerated my eccentricities because I taught them things. None of this was calculated. It simply happened, over time, as generosity compounded upon generosity in the closed system of the módulo.

Saturdays had become a favorite day for Rubén, Miami, and Ismael—among others—because I would invariably share a few slices of pizza with them. Even a small chunk was a luxury, scarce in prison and obtainable only via encomienda or by paying a paco. People appreciated that it cost nearly 2,000 pesos a slice, signifying, by prison standards, a considerable contribution. Cristián, Michael, and Luchito all got bites of pizza via Miami. Ismael, when he ate something from me that he found delicious, would close his eyes, raise his chin, kiss his fingertips—propelling them slowly from his face—and say, “un manjar” (a delicacy) or “eclesiástico,” a substitute for the Italian phrase un bocatto di cardinale that he could never remember. Miami used other terms—un bufét, un gourmet—though he also employed such terminology sarcastically when describing prison-issued food.