Purposeful Activity as Spiritual Resistance

The deeper lesson of this season—one I commend to every prison ministry worker and every prisoner who reads these pages—is that purposeful activity is a form of spiritual resistance to the prison’s assault on identity. The prison wants to reduce a man to his crime, his cell number, his legal category. It wants him idle, docile, interchangeable. It wants him to stop thinking of himself as a father, a husband, a professional, a reader, a teacher, a chess player, a man with opinions and competencies, and a future. The monotony is not accidental. It is structural. And the only effective counter is deliberate, sustained, purposeful engagement with the life of the mind, the life of the spirit, and the relationships that define who a man really is.

Everything in prison tended to wear away. My clothes had grown quite shabby. Half of the chairs I brought in for visitors were now broken. My electric razor was showing signs of wear. My electric oven lost a heating element. At least one of my quilts had holes in it from rubbing against sharp points on the bunk frame. Many of my possessions had been stolen. The gendarmes were cracking down more on the encomienda line, prohibiting Pamela from adding sauces, salsas, dressings, and pepper to my sacks, making the prepared food blander. Entropy was the prison’s silent ally.

Against that entropy, I set my daily routines: push-ups in the morning, reading on the patio, chess with whoever would play, writing in my cell, teaching on the Historic Baptists Zoomcast twice a week, and publishing books with the help of Valentín, Bob, Joe, and translator Martín. My life was consumed by that work, which profoundly defined who I was while I was in prison. For healthy reos, undertaking some activity was essential. Those who did nothing degraded fastest. Those who crafted items from wood or worked as rancheros fared better. Those who read, wrote, and maintained intellectual discipline fared best of all—though “best” is a relative term in a place designed to destroy.

Paul’s command to redeem the time is not directed at men living in comfort. It is directed at men living under evil—“because the days are evil.” The days were indeed evil in the Valparaíso Penitentiary. But every book read was a day redeemed. Every chess game was an hour rescued from futility. Every Bible study taught on Zoom was a small victory over the prison’s effort to reduce me to silence. Every shared meal was bread cast upon the waters—bread that, as Solomon promised, would be found after many days in forms I could not have predicted.

Miami was suffering his own unjust imprisonment with similar discipline—doing laundry, cleaning the patio, helping the infirm, and maintaining his principles despite every incentive to abandon them. Other reos were also suffering. Several machucados in 118B, including Sergio and Michael, had been denied their automatic upgrade from Sunday to weekend home leave. Moroni’s request to be moved closer to his kidney dialysis treatments had been ignored. Guillermo languished in módulo 111 awaiting yet another contempt-of-court sentence. What could be said? Prison was an evil place for some, and a terrestrial hell for the rest. The judicial system itself is principally a satanic henchman.

Yet even in that hell, the bread upon the waters kept returning. Alexis, my new cellmate, turned out to be a serious Christian who read his Bible and caused no trouble. Cell changes orchestrated by Castro paradoxically improved the patio’s social chemistry. The indulto legislation in Congress—a pardon law covering leftist protesters from 2019 and 2020—might cover other rightists and Libertarians like me as well. Valentín kept working on my books. Pamela kept coming with encomienda. And the fans in módulo 114 kept shouting their greetings down from the upper floors, a daily reminder that even in terrestrial hell, a man who casts his bread upon the waters will find it after many days.

“Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.” Solomon did not specify what form the bread would take when it returned. He did not promise that it would return quickly, conveniently, or in a way that made immediate sense. He simply promised that it would return. And so it did—in the form of peaches passed through a portal, a back adjustment from a scarred thief, a political vision from an undisciplined artist, a wife’s stubborn optimism, and a sovereign God who wastes nothing, not even the years a man spends in a cage.

Action Steps

Identify purposeful activities for the prisoner you support. Books, correspondence courses, language study, writing projects, and structured games like chess are not luxuries—they are essential tools for maintaining mental and spiritual health during incarceration. Ask the prisoner what he wants to learn or accomplish, and then help him obtain the resources to do it.

Practice the Ecclesiastes 11 principle in your own ministry. Cast your bread generously and without calculating the return. Send the book, make the visit, provide the vitamins, pay the bus fare. You do not know which act of generosity will prove decisive—but Solomon promises that the bread will be found after many days.

Help prisoners publish, create, and produce. A man who is creating something—a book, a craft, a curriculum, a letter of substance—is a man who is resisting the prison’s assault on his identity. If you have skills in editing, formatting, publishing, or distribution, offer them. The work may be slow, the channels may be unreliable, and the obstacles may be infuriating, but the result is a man who leaves prison with more than he entered with, rather than less.

Address physical needs as part of spiritual ministry. Vitamin deficiencies, chronic pain, untreated injuries, and inadequate nutrition are not separate from the spiritual life—they undermine it. A man in constant pain cannot concentrate on Scripture. A man with cracking skin and deteriorating eyesight is being worn down in ways that affect his faith, his patience, and his hope. Provide what the prison pharmacy will not.

Encourage the prisoner to teach others. One of the most effective ways to redeem time is through instruction—whether formal or informal. A prisoner who teaches chess, English, geography, economics, or Scripture to his fellow inmates is simultaneously strengthening his own mind, building protective social bonds, and bearing witness to the value of disciplined thought. The teacher in prison may accomplish more lasting good than many a lecturer in a university.

Discussion Questions

The chapter describes an informal economy of mutual provision within módulo 118—food shared, favors exchanged, loyalty earned through generosity. How does this pattern reflect the biblical principle of Ecclesiastes 11:1? In what ways does the prison context make this principle more visible than it typically is in the outside world?

Pamela cited Luke 19:40—“the stones would immediately cry out”—in response to Cristián’s encouragement that I pursue political leadership after release. What does it mean for God to use “stones” as instruments of encouragement or prophecy (forthtelling)? Have you experienced unexpected encouragement from unlikely sources in your own life or ministry?

Paul commands believers to “redeem the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16). How does the prison context illuminate what Paul meant by this phrase? What specific practices enabled the men of módulo 118 to resist the intellectual and spiritual entropy that incarceration produces? How might these same principles apply to Christians living in freedom but surrounded by cultural decay?

The chapter documents significant physical deterioration—knee pain, shoulder damage, vitamin deficiency, cracking skin, failing eyesight—alongside sustained intellectual and spiritual productivity. Pneumonia, renal cancer, and being severely stricken with Covid-19 were mentioned in other chapters. What does this juxtaposition teach us about the relationship between bodily suffering and purposeful living? How should the church respond when a prisoner’s body is breaking down, but his mind and spirit remain active?