Finding sanity and kindness.

• Author: Kelly, Kathy

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PEOPLE SOMETIMES ASK ME, "How do you keep going in the face of so much injustice and despair? They point out the overwhelmingly powerful forces that drive us into seemingly endless cycles of inequality and war. My answer is simple: I keep falling in love.

I fall in love with people who are bearing the brunt of war and who nevertheless welcome me and my companions into their homes and lives.

I fall in love with the people who consistently refuse to walk away from the challenge to beat swords into plowshares and build a better world.

One of the places where I found the strongest capacity to live in accord with deepest values was a U.S. federal prison. Women I met there were enduring years away from their loved ones for a range of nonviolent offenses. For many, the greatest fear was that their children would forget about them. They longed for a chance to correct their mistakes and provide for their children, but those weren't the kinds of "corrections" that were allowed here. I was incarcerated for three months at Pekin prison, in 2004, for having crossed the boundary line into Fort Benning, Georgia, where for decades the Pentagon has operated a training school for Latin American militaries, turning out some of the hemisphere's worst killers and torturers.

On May 1, 2004, I was in the Pekin prison library trying to write an article about the Iraq War when several women prisoners rushed in and urged me to come with them. "Kathy, you got to come and see this," they said, their eyes widened with alarm. "It's awful, what's going on over there in Iraq." CNN was showing the first pictures to have emerged from Abu Ghraib, images now indelibly scarring the memories of people the world over: the hooded man, the pyramid, the man on a leash, the man and the dog.

The women were tearful as they watched the news. "What's going on over there?" one asked. "What's happening to our country?" asked another. And then they asked me, "What can we do about it?"

I felt puzzled. "Not too much," I responded. "We're in prison."

Later that day, several women approached the warden with an unusual request. They wanted to gather together on the oval track each day at sunrise and at sunset, for a special time of prayer. The warden agreed to this, and so began an extraordinary prayer circle.

Here are some of the prayers I recall:

"I want to pray for my kids. I ask God to please look after them. And I just want to hold up the children in Iraq, because I...