For the last couple of nights, I've been lucky enough to pile in with a carload of guys who've been going out to the Silverdale Correction Facility and telling some pretty pitiful strugglers that there's a way out of jail. As part of the prison's Spiritual Awareness Week, they allow a few from area churches to spend an hour or so with the inmates, and, as usual, the visitors get a lot more out of it than it often seems the "residents" do.

We went to "George 4" cell block, which is solitary confinement, and once there, you had to talk through the edge of the heavy steel door. Some men are eager to visit, to talk to anyone after being kept in that cell 23-and-a-half hours a day. Others curl up on their bunks with the single blanket over their heads, which is what I'd probably do if I was told some "holy rollers" were descending on my wretched nest.

Curiously, the visits reassured me of the inherent goodness of man. Each night, we were able to ask these guys about their kids, their dreams about getting out, and give them each a simple paperback Bible. And when I'd tell them about the Super Bowl, about how Indianapolis had led at the half, but how the Saints didn't give up and were able to "finish strong," they all loved that.

Yes, they are each behind in the "big game" right now, but if they'll just stay in the game, if they'll simply call on a greater power, maybe they, too, can "finish strong." I don't bang 'em over the head with religion, telling them to repent and such, as much as I press the fact that "hope" is still there. As a matter of fact, it's a free call. All they need to do is ask. Besides, in the front of each Bible we shoved under each door, it told pretty explicitly how to do that.

Talking to a hard-hearted criminal is plumb easy. The soft opening is to ask one about his children, to see if he'll hold up a picture. Talk sports. Tell him a joke. In the sensational book Charles Colson wrote after "Watergate" in 1975, he described beautifully what it means to a guy "on the inside," and the book, "Born Again," should be required reading at every high school. Colson, you'll remember, started the hugely-successful Prison Ministries.

Some inmates were eager to laugh, to prove the fact there is good in just about everybody if you'll gently probe to find it. And then there was one in particular inmate who just stood at the window of his cell and never spoke one word. His face never moved, not a smile nor a frown. He just stood, listened, and, as we went to the next door, he slowly climbed back onto his rock-hard bed.

I was, by far, the oldest to go in our group. Some of the younger ones had never seen inside "the joint," so they relished the experience, talking excitedly on the way home, but, during my life, I've visited more than I ever wanted, and every time I've ever left a prison, I am always pretty deflated.

But it gave me a chance to tell the guys one of the best Alcoholics Anonymous stories, and, as I pray that just one of the Bibles we left will fall into some wanting hands, the tale is one that any visitor to the forlorn should never forget.

Once long ago a young convert to the AA experience was so happy to finally be sober and so eager to lead others down the path, he asked one of the oldest guys in his daily gathering if he could accompany him to see how he talked to a drunk.

Soon there came a call from a seedy hotel, so the two "recovering drunks" went to a downtown flophouse to counsel the caller. They trudged a couple of flights of filthy stairs and walked down a hall lit only by a bare light bulb. Sure enough, the door to room 320 was opened just enough so they could walk on in.

But, by the time they got there, the caller had slugged down his fifth and was almost comatose on the grimy bed. The older man, nonplussed, pulled up a chair and told the poor guy there was a way out of his self-imposed hell, that there was "The Big Book" that would lead the way, and ... well, that it, too, was a free call. The old man recited the "Serenity Prayer," and then the two visitors quietly left.

Out on the street, the younger one said, "Geez, that didn't do any good," but the older one, a man who was a veteran of many such battles, only slightly smiled and answered, "Let's wait and see."

Several months later, when the older one and the novice were chatting after the daily AA meeting, a guy walked up and told the two, "I want to thank you for coming to the hotel the other night. It changed my life. I'm determined to get better, to get my family back, and if you hadn't come, I'd probably still be there ... "

The young convert studied the newcomer before saying, "Wait, you weren't on the bed," only to hear the stranger reply, "No sir, I was under it."

Never give up when you are spreading hope. Who knows what the silent and sullen prisoner heard at the door? Sometimes you just need to "wait and see."

royexum@aol.com