Irvin's Message

Good Morning Sunshine! Let us greet this day as my Sister Ann would say ‘Glad to be above ground.’ So yes! Let us thank The Creator for the continued gift of Life and let us try with every fiber of our being to make this day worthwhile. For ourselves, our families, and for others. When you think about it, it seems an almost impossible task doesn’t it? How in the world are you supposed to make so many people feel their own worth? Or feel better about life or their conditions? You’re only one person yourself. What can you possibly do? We’ll all is NOT hopeless my friend because the first and most important step of such an endeavor is to make sure that YOU are alright! You can’t do anything for anybody else unless you yourself are taken care of. Your mind. Your emotions. Your spirit and your body has to be in sync with each other in order to maximize ANYTHING you set out to accomplish. So let us set a task today to look at ourselves and nurture, strengthen and uplift those areas within us that need our care and attention. We give of ourselves so much. Today let us give TO ourselves. Tap into that source of all Life and Positivity and become all that you need to be. Then you can step out to be the strength and the light that someone else may desperately need. Grand Rising is now!

Hello. It’s me. Up with the birdies. Tho’ if that’s true it’d have to be the nite owls ‘ cause that’s all I see looking out into the mornings predawn darkness. Still Night! It’s beautiful though… It’s about 4:30 am as I begin this text to you. So it is correct to greet you with; “Welcome to this Grand Rising!” I pray this day finds you well and unfolds with you in its loving embrace. I don’t know what the day will actually bring but, Like the
darkness of this early awakening, it must still give way to the Light! Assuredly the Sun will rise and bless us with its light, energy and warmth. That WILL happen for God is Good and has made the day to follow the night. So too in our own individual lives. Day will follow night. Light will follow darkness.Things change. Because of what I’ve been through and for so interminably long a period, I may see things a little differently than some people. That seems to come through in my writings many people tell me. So when we share, you and I, you’re hearing ME! Not something someone else is ‘parroting’ through me. Not just something I’ve heard. And I believe that though life still has, and will always have a mixture of Light & Dark; Up & Down; Good & Bad; and Positive & Negative. The bad is never as bad as it could be or even as it may have once been. Many times the thought or the idea of something negative in our lives is far worse than the actual experience. I try to approach whatever’s uncomfortable, bad, or negative in my life from that perspective. Saying: “It’s not as bad as it could be!” Or, “ This is a problem, now how do I solve it?” Sometimes it’s simply; “ What? Oh you again? I don’t have time to be worrying about you. Be Gone!” And that’s true. I DONT have time to be bothered and taken off course by things that are not exactly the way I want them to be. If I can’t find the solution and fix the problem, I use the experience as a lesson and then, MOVE ON! Thanking God for the strength and ability to do so. Life awaits you. You don’t have time to get bogged down by things you cannot control. In short, I guess my message today is simply: Keep things in perspective! Stay on the Path and don’t let events or ‘things’ get you down. For as surely as day follows night, things will get better. In fact, look around you….Things already are! Recognize your blessings. Be one! Fred is at my feet, saying “Hello” as I write. Isn’t that something to be grateful for? Among a host of other blessings in our lives……it is. Peace beloved friend.

Good morning. Welcome to this rainy but still so beautiful Wednesday morning here in gorgeous Central Pa. or wherever you are blessed to awaken today. Look around you and feel the joy, the love. Say a prayer of Thanksgiving, and greet the day. Start with a smile realizing that you have the capability to do so many good things today. I have to go to take my driver’s test tomorrow morning and I am soo excited. This will be a ‘first’ for me in my new life and I am ready to do it. I’m finding so many ‘firsts’ in my life now. Many of which you are probably so used to doing that the flavor and excitement and maybe even the enjoyment of them as an experience may have become lost. That can happen if we lose sight of the true value of those things that help make life so beautiful and special. We lose sight of the blessings surrounding us when we begin to take life for granted instead of being amazed every day at its richness and beauty as we should. I don’t want to ever forget how wonderful Life actually is. How real and meaningful are the countless little ‘miracles’ that surround us every day. Miracles like simply talking with you as I prepare breakfast for big Fred and walk Fred, and countdown to when I leave for work. You know, I had been in a place for so long where despair and darkness ruled and where being treated as a human just was not the norm. It was there I realized how much I missed the little acts of kindness that tie us to one another as human beings. How important it is to simply be alive and a part of something larger than yourself. Family. Friendship. Community. Life! I feel rich and secure in the knowledge that I will be alright! That I have the things that matter most in my life. I am alive. I am free. I have the ability to choose the path my life will take. I have friends and family. I have faith in God and belief in us. I look around and think, “ things are gonna be alright!” Let’s make it so. Welcome to this Grand Rising.

I have been missing for a number of days. Believe me I have not forgotten you nor our sharing of thoughts. I have been so, so, so BUSY preparing for my official transition onto parole, my final days at the CC Center, my upcoming driver’s test, at least three impending speaking engagements and what I’m gonna share with you guys here. An article I was asked to write as a member of my team here at RJI. This is a chance to reveal a little more of myself to those of you just getting to share a bit of my world. I hope you learn something in the process. Welcome to this momentously beautiful Grand Rising.

My name is Irvin Moore I am an African-American man who truly believes he has a story to tell a story of a remarkable journey that may at times seem incredulous. It may inspire you or make you wonder at the variables that make life so interesting and so awesome. I’d like to begin by saying that I am the most recent team member of the Penn State University College of Education Restorative Justice Initiative . My actual title is Education Support and Community Liaison. I like that title a lot more than some of the other titles I’ve had over my 75 years of existence. Especially the last ones I had prior to being blessed to find kindred souls and justice inspired passions here at RJI . Those titles were ‘Convict, Inmate, Prisoner, Con and Criminal’. Imagine my extreme pleasure in having people think I deserve to be hired to work here. I came to RJI about three months ago. I walked through the doors of the Chambers building on December 6, 2021, heading to meet my new boss and director Efraín Marimón, who I had only talked to by phone once before. I didn’t even know what Efraïn looked like, and I didn’t even care. The words he had spoken to me a few days prior, when he said, “ Irvin it seems that we may have a place for you here at Restorative Justice”. Well , those words were enough to give Efraín the countenance of Michelangelo‘s David and the aura of a saint as far as I was concerned. I didn’t even care that the verb ‘May’ was used in the sentence that heralded one of the most amazing and joyous aspects of this journey I’d been on for the past eight months leading up to that phone conversation. I never even heard the context of probability or possibility that clothed the word ‘May’ somewhere between yes and no it is or it ‘ain’t’ Because I had a job! Not only did I have a job but I had a job that I had been shaped, fashioned, hammered and beaten on the anvils of dread and dire circumstance to be ideally suited for. The people in positions of influence, power and leadership who had made this happen only had an idea of the ‘rightness’ of this hiring. They had made the decision to approve it on what to them met certain criteria and perhaps seemed logical. And I will forever be grateful and appreciative of that. But I knew! I knew I had the job that I was a perfect fit for it because, unlike the character Brooks in the story ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, I believed in myself and in the power of positive thought. I wasn’t gonna let anything stop me. After all, it was positive thought and application that had allowed me to survive 52 years of imprisonment and the Hell that was the Pennsylvania State penitentiary system. I lived through decades of retributive, punishment-filled, so-called justice, and had come out on the other side alive, still sane, educated and ready and willing to give my all to change the monstrosity that we had allowed the criminal justice system to become. If I had to stand on a soap box on a different street corner every day from now on, or I had to shout it from the pinnacles of the high-rise buildings in this town, I was going to tell my story and make my message known. But… I was hired. Hired by the Restorative Justice Initiative, which meant I was given the opportunity I had prepared myself for since my arrest way back in 1969 and my subsequent goal to use education as a way to come to grips with, and maybe even rise above this life sentence in Pennsylvania, which many people have never known is really automatic and natural life, or life until you die. Or, as CADBI, and other prisoners rights organizations teach, DBI or death by incarceration. Almost from the beginning of my journey behind the walls of Pennsylvania’s notorious Graterford penitentiary I follow the advice, examples and threats of good, solid, caring old Heads who always promoted education, even education behind bars as being the only way to approach the serving of time so that one could make time serve them. I took that wise counsel and immersed myself in reading , studying, asking questions and learning everything I could about…. Well, everything. It didn’t matter what. I simply wanted to learn. It took a few years before we understood the importance of goal oriented education, and what better goal for us than a degree? This was in 1972 and we were brash enough in those days hopeful enough and lucky enough to start on a path similar to today’s Restorative Justice Initiative’s prison education program by inviting colleges and universities to come into the penitentiaries and sit down with us hardened criminals who felt that education could make a difference. They came, agreed with our proposals and, believe me, our universe, my universe, expanded exponentially. Many of us found that our lives would never or could ever be the same. I was able to acquire a couple of Associate degrees, a paraprofessional teaching certificate and even began teaching my own classes at the prison. Things were opening up along lines we’d never before experienced. The only problem was…the pendulum. The pendulum of change was about to swing back in the other direction and we didn’t even know it. This was something that was brought on by self-serving ideologues, politicians who lambasted those criminals who deserve nothing but punishment but who instead went to college on the taxpayers dime, and businessmen who felt that the prison industrial complex was something that they could begin making huge amounts of money from. They were correct. It has made and cost trillions. They just didn’t tell you who paid for all of that. The politician screamed ‘Elect me and I’ll put a stop to the foolishness of furloughs, school, educational release, work release, degree oriented education, speaking engagements, job training and anything except Punishment!’ And so the pendulum swung back and in the process got stuck in that retributive mode for the next 40 years we stopped educating the incarcerated. We stop preparing them for release from jail and the possibility of a successful ReEntry. We begin the process of locking up more and more people, too many conveniently being people of color. We go on to build more and more prisons and make certain they are filled to capacity by doubling, tripling and quadrupling the length of time that a person will stay behind bars. We create the Prison Industrial Complex and begin to treat the carceral population like the lepers of old. Shunned and ostracized. Inhumane . Today we have the distinction in the United States of America of having the world’s largest prison population which is over 6 million people behind bars and more than 10 million people under some form of supervision, control or sanction by probation or parole authorities. It appears that we are all, in one form another, in the belly of the beast and the impact is staggering. So you might be asking now how did I get out ?How did I get here? What’s the deal? Well the pendulum has started to swing again people. You may not have noticed it but things are starting to change once again, and this time we’ve got to help promote and sustain and maintain the change. That’s what RJI is all about. Doing what needs to be done to return education to prisons and back to deserving individuals and communities that need it. So that they and we all can learn and do better. I work at the Chambers building. At The Penn State University College of Education’s Restorative Justice Initiative. I work under the directorship of Efraín Marimón who has put together an office with teams of wonderful brilliant, passionate and committed students graduates and undergraduates, interns, professors, volunteers and rank and file workers like myself who know what being in the belly of the beast is like, and who don’t want to see anyone else lose hope or their humanity in places like that. You can find us there or wherever the work takes us. You may also get a chance to see among the motley crew of dedicated souls, a big brown and white 170 pound bear of a dog named Fred who works with us and who moves amongst us spreading his beauty and his love, who somehow, by the grace and the blessings of life, followed me home from jail one year ago. When you see us at RJI, walking on Campus or anywhere we may be traveling, don’t be shy or afraid. When you see us just come up and say hi and ask us about the work we are doing at the Restorative Justice Initiative. It may interest you.

Sometimes it suffices just to say ‘Good Morning. Have a great day!’ I think today is one of those days. We just got hit with a couple days of cold and snow.. brrrr. I’m cool with it because even though my big dog Fred is dealing with his diagnosis, the sight, feel ( and taste ) of the snow seems to invigorate him. I love it! So much is happening right now. At the Restorative Justice Initiative we have schedules to keep for the upcoming projects and events that will soon begin taking place. I am even being given more responsibility and chances to learn . It is hectic but it is GREAT! Spring Break is over today and the students will be back bringing their energy, curiosities and laughter back to the environment. Both here on campus and where Fred and I live and travel. This month brings me closer to the end of my trips to the CC Center at Johnstown. That will be somewhat of a relief yet will still be bitter-sweet considering I still have yet to convince anyone in a position of power and authority or compassion? to begin feeding and providing essentials to these men and women ReEntrants who are sent to these Centers to live while they transition back into our Society. How can they expect to do that when for the first days or weeks of this transition they have to wonder and worry about things like food, clothes, toilet paper and the necessary information that will help them move about in that checks & balanced & I.D. laden world. It’s a shame. We need to do something. We talk about the push to assist those reentering Society. The so-called ‘ReEntrants’. Yet what about the basic requirements of Food, housing, and Training? When is that going to happen? Well…I leave them for the last time in two weeks to move into the ‘parole’ phase of my own transition. But I WONT ever leave from doing what I can to make Restorative Justice more than just a phrase on people’s lips. We’ve all got to help make it real across the board. Yes…March is going to be an eventful month. And then…God is going to grant us something just as fantastic. APRIL! Ho Ho…more opportunity to do what we need to do to usher in this Beautiful Community that we’re working to achieve. We start with ourselves. First. Then we reach out and touch someone else’s life with our blessing. We welcome them to this Grand Rising that we give praise and thanks for with our energy, strength and love. Good Morning to you beloved. How are you going to greet this day?🌞💯

I think back to 11 months ago, when the world for me was so very different. I sit in awe of the transformation my life has undergone, and I smile as my heart sings the joy of simply being once more….alive. The beauty of this all is that I am not alone as I once thought I was. You are here. You move along this path with me. And there are others who feel that what we say, what we feel, and what we do is ‘Right and Just’ and they too move in the way of God’s Law. I thank you all. The world thanks you for being the blessing that you are. Today I return to Johnstown Community Correction Center. I again bring what food, information and direction I have amassed this week to the men who must live there for however long it takes to transition back to their communities. I only have two trips after this one and then my furlough contract will be over and I move on into the next phase of my own transition. No! I am NOT afraid! How can I be? I’ve waited for this moment in time for over 50 yrs. I am so happy to be at this place in time. And so grateful for the opportunity to be doing the work and living the life I am. My message for you today is simply ‘Reach out and touch somebody’s hand. Make this a better place if you can.” Sound familiar? Ha ha…Welcome to this Grand Rising beloved. Enjoy the fullness of this day!

Good morning beloved family, friend, traveler, or fellow member of our Human Community. Ahhh such a beautiful morning it is too. Time to awaken and give thanks and Praise to our Creator for the beginning of another day in which to be blessed and to be a blessing to others. Let’s rise as one mind. One heart. One Spirit. In anticipation of all that lies before us on this Grand Rising. There may be problems that require our focus that we encounter today. We are ready for them because it’s only when we apply our minds that we find solutions. There will also be obvious and hidden blessings. Discover them and welcome their presence also, for in them we find strength, accomplishment and joy. Reach outside of your alone-ness and share the blessings. Reach outside of yourself and BE a blessing. I often mention prayer when we ‘talk’ , that’s because, in truth, prayer moves mountains and is part of our connection with both God and with those for whom we pray. I ask this morning that you pray for peace in our world and for the understanding that God Loves us all. Good Morning and welcome to this Grand Rising.

Good Morning to you on this still dark, brisk and invigorating Thursday, March 3, 2022. It’s hard to believe that I came out to this wonderful world almost one year ago. March 26th will mark that one year period. Just imagine. It still seems like it was yesterday, almost.
It’s strange how elastic and relative time can be. When I was in the ‘Belly of the Beast’ time was solid like a rock. Unchanging and immutable. Moving in imperceptible fractions when you weren’t looking yet always seeming to hold fast to the moment. Refusing to budge, to relax, to let go. Every day was the same. In lock step with the day(s) before. We lost days in there. We lost years. Now time runs differently. Somehow. But it does. I realize everything is relative and where I’m at physically, psychologically, emotionally and even spiritually will color my perception of time. It will be one year in just a matter of weeks that I’ve been blessed to move amongst you and bear witness to the wonders of this Creation. If you only knew how blessed YOU are. How truly wondrous this life you’ve been gifted is. Every moment, no matter how fleeting, or how eternal, is an opportunity for you to ‘Be’! Be ‘what ?’, you ask. To be a blessing. To be a friend. To be a Teacher. To be an Angel. To be a Mentor. To be an example. To be a student. To be Guide. To be a Leader. To be an Inspiration. To be a Key that unlocks chains and opens doors of opportunity. Any of these things or all of them. The choice is yours. Isn’t that wonderful?
I return to Johnstown Community Correction Center today. As always I bring food, knowledge and, I hope, inspiration to the people there. After this trip I’ll have three more trips to make there and then I complete that legislative requirement. I then start another phase of this journey. I hope you’ll continue to travel this road with me and let’s see what we can see. Let’s do what we can do to add to the blessings in this world. If ‘Time’ permits, let’s welcome more and more people to this Grand Rising. Shall we?

Good Morning to you on this still dark, brisk and invigorating Thursday, March 3, 2022. It’s hard to believe that I came out to this wonderful world almost one year ago. March 26th will mark that one year period. Just imagine. It still seems like it was yesterday almost.
It’s strange how elastic and relative time can be. When I was in the ‘Belly of the Beast’ time was solid like a rock. Unchanging and immutable. Moving in imperceptible fractions when you weren’t looking yet always seeming to hold fast to the moment. Refusing to budge, to relax, to let go. Every day was the same. In lock step with the day(s) before. We lost days in there. We lost years. Now time runs differently. Somehow. But it does. I realize everything is relative and where I’m at physically, psychologically, emotionally and even spiritually will color my perception of time. It will be one year in just a matter of weeks that I’ve been blessed to move amongst you and bear witness to the wonders of this Creation. If you only knew how blessed YOU are. How truly wondrous this life you’ve been gifted is. Every moment, no matter how fleeting, or how eternal, is an opportunity for you to ‘Be’! Be ‘what ?’, you ask. To be a blessing. To be a friend. To be a Teacher. To be an Angel. To be a Mentor. To be an example. To be a student. To be Guide. To be a Leader. To be an Inspiration. To be a Key that unlocks chains and opens doors of opportunity. Any of these things or all of them. The choice is yours. Isn’t that wonderful?
I return to Johnstown Community Correction Center today. As always I bring food, knowledge and, I hope, inspiration to the people there. After this trip I’ll have three more trips to make there and then I complete that legislative requirement. I then start another phase of this journey. I hope you’ll continue to travel this road with me and let’s see what we can see. Let’s do what we can do to add to the blessings in this world. If ‘Time’ permits, let’s welcome more and more people to this Grand Rising. Shall we?

Good Morning everyone. Middle of the week already. God has blessed us with another day. I am so grateful to welcome this Grand Rising. And especially so to welcome it with you in thought, joyous feeling and prayer. I am well. Fred is laying by my feet as I write, breathing deeply in the midst of a puppy romping, bunny chasing dream. It’s almost time to take him out for his morning ‘constitution’ but I’ll let him sleep for another few minutes while you and I share the beginnings of this beautiful day. He is so comfortable and, thanks be to God, has not descended into that realm of pain and debilitation that his bone cancer often causes. I’ll take that and enjoy the time we have together for as long as it lasts. So many of you beloved people have told me that you keep big Fred in your thoughts and prayers and you’ll remember that I am a fervent believer in the power of both prayer and of positive thoughts. So, thank you for your heart-felt gifts. They are working. I want you to know that I too lift up each of you in prayer and thought. Even those of you who I am just getting to know or hear about. Yesterday I received a response from someone who let me know that their father is in the hospital and had been for some time. They and their Mother sit and be with dad who may or may not be conscious. I don’t know, but Josh who answered my writings said that they read my words to dad every time I write and know that he is aware of my message. They promise that once he is able to he will answer himself. I am humbled and so, so thankful for the opportunity to be a blessing to this family. In whatever way possible that is what we are supposed to do. We are supposed to do what we know are the ‘right’ things to do. Helping one another navigate this world’s ups & downs is one of those ‘right’ things. We shouldn’t really have to think about it, but just incorporate that into how we interact with those in our lives or those who we may not even know but whose lives and circumstances somehow touches our own. A word. A deed. An act. A thought. An example. A gift. A prayer. These are some of the ways our gift of humanity and community can be shared. This is how we can continue to be a blessing to the world that sorely needs blessings more now than perhaps any other time in our history. We each have a role to play in this wondrous drama. Let us play those parts to perfection and let Justice call for ‘Encore’! Peace and Blessings beloved friend.