The chapel in the prison in Ashland, Ky., where I was incarcerated during the first four and a half months of 2024, was an unadorned, modest-sized space that served a multipurpose function for the inmate population. In a setting where men live in extreme proximity to one another—and where there is near-constant chatter, shouting, snoring, farting and all other forms of man-made noise—for certain stretches of the day the chapel was the only place where you could find quiet in which to read, write, think or simply sit. Especially in the mornings, men who wished to be studious did so in the chapel.
In the afternoon, the chapel pivoted to being a place for religious programming, including a daily 2 p.m. Bible study that I attended. At 5 p.m., Muslim inmates gathered there for Taleem.
In the evenings, men would watch DVDs in the chapel on a big projector screen, and per Bureau of Prisons protocols, none of the content was allowed to be rated higher than PG-13. Among the DVDs that had made their way inside the prison were Seasons 1 and 2 of “The Chosen,” a TV show I had barely heard of prior to arriving in Ashland. Several of the men in my Bible study were enthusiasts of the show and strongly recommended that I check it out.
One evening, during my second month in Ashland, a fellow inmate named Chris, who was serving a six-year sentence for crop insurance fraud, helped me figure out the finicky old DVD player and the stubborn remote control for the projector screen. We then settled in to watch the first episode of the first season. As we did so, Chris—a farmer by background—said he had already seen every episode of “The Chosen” several times but couldn’t get enough of it and was always glad to watch again.
This show must be pretty good for him to want to rewatch it, I thought as the opening credits rolled. That first episode follows Mary Magdalene through a period of hurt, trauma and anguish, and ends with Jesus quoting to her from Isaiah, saying, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.” Jesus then embraces Mary, expelling from her the demons that have been like hornets in her brain.
As the episode concluded with that scene, I found myself doing something you’re not supposed to do in prison: crying. And as it turned out, in almost every subsequent episode, one moment or another would bring tears to my eyes.
Not the End of the Story
The series and its showrunner, Dallas Jenkins, beautifully and powerfully dramatize key Scriptural moments, while never compromising the foundational facts and narrative of the Gospels. The show uses creative license to bring to life scenes that Christians most often experience as text on a page or words spoken aloud at church.
My favorite scene came in the seventh episode of the first season. As Jesus is in the process of assembling his Apostles, he says to Matthew, “Follow me.”
Simon (not yet Peter), who is accompanying Jesus, immediately tries to dissuade Jesus, noting Matthew’s work as a Roman tax collector.
“I don’t get it,” Simon says to Jesus.
“You didn’t get it when I chose you either,” Jesus responds.
“This is different,” Simon protests, “I’m not a tax collector.”
“Get used to different,” Jesus says.
That particular scene, that particular line, the particular way Jesus says it caused me to cry and gave me goosebumps at the same time.
During these moments of high emotion—both on-screen as well as for me personally—much of the poignancy was attributable to a well written, well acted, well produced show. But I also knew that the setting in which I was watching the show changed the experience for me.
How could it not have?
Although tales of “jailhouse conversions” sometimes elicit eyerolls, having experienced imprisonment myself, it now makes perfect sense to me that a person’s faith would deepen while incarcerated. The fact is, you need God more, and it is also natural to grow closer to God when everything else—your family, your possessions, your comforts—is taken away from you. When I reported to Ashland, my faith was already strong, so there was no conversion or epiphany for me, but without a doubt, I felt God’s presence more so in prison than in my “normal” life at home.
It is a profound thing, when society has labeled you a criminal and a felon, to think that at the center of the world’s most populous faith tradition is a man whom those in power at the time condemned as a criminal.
When you are in prison, it is comforting and mysterious and remarkable to believe that you are not suffering through anything that God himself didn’t also endure for us and with us. It makes your difficult hours feel a little less lonely.
It is more powerful still to believe that Jesus’ condemnation and crucifixion were not the end of the story, that what first appears to be an end note of loss and lowliness and cruelty is transformed into a victory for love and divine redemption.
When you are in prison, is it endlessly comforting to think and to believe, “This place of deprivation and ignominy and painful family separation is not the end of my story.”
And when you are in prison, it is liberating to believe that, just as Jesus does in memorable scenes in the show with Mary Magdalene and Simon and Matthew and so many others, God uses society’s “throwaway” people—broken men and women, sinners and mess-ups and misfits—for his greater glory.
Every episode of “The Chosen” reminded me of and immersed me in these powerful truths.
A Request
Some other inmates who watched the show decided to binge it, taking in two or three episodes at a time. I told Chris that I wanted to instead watch one episode at a time, every other night or every third night, to intentionally make the series last.
During that time, the heat went out in the chapel for several weeks. The temperature inside was cold enough to see our breath. Chris and I were undeterred. We continued to convene in the evenings, bundled in our beat-up, green prison coats, sometimes shivering, but still determined to get our fix of the show.
It took us a little over a month to get through the first two seasons, and I was sad when we reached the end of the available episodes. I immediately reached out to a prison official. I said how popular “The Chosen” was among many inmates, explained that the show was uplifting Christian content, and asked if my or another inmate’s home church could mail us the DVDs for subsequent seasons.
A B.O.P. employee responded in a single sentence saying that they had received my request, but gave no word on if they’d allow the DVDs to be sent in. Despite subsequent follow-ups, that was the only response I ever got.
Seeking Growth
On a sunny, blue-sky morning a couple of months after Chris and I had completed our shared evening viewing sessions, I walked from the main compound to the prison’s farm and garden for one of my initial volunteer outings as part of a master gardener course I was taking. There were four inmates whose prison jobs were working in the farm and garden, and given his extensive agricultural background, Chris was the leader of that group.
When I arrived for my volunteer slot, Chris gave me a mini tour of the four-and-a-half acres that he had led the effort to cultivate, showing me the various, neatly planted rows of onions, corn, potatoes, peppers, cabbage, peas, green beans, broccoli and strawberries, which were at all different stages of growth. We lingered a little longer amid the rows of strawberries, since the corrections officer overseeing the farm and garden said that it was OK to enjoy a few nibbles while we gave our sweat volunteering. The strawberries we sampled were sweet and juicy. Chris pointed out different strawberries, each at a different stage of their life cycle, before they ripened into red deliciousness.
That morning, Chris told me, “The government has tried to take everything from me. But I was a farmer before I came in here, and by the grace of God, even while in prison, I’m still a farmer.”
In that moment, as prisoners standing there among rows of ripening strawberries, what I felt my friend and “Chosen” viewing partner really saying, as the show itself says so well, is that the Lord works in mysterious ways, and that God does not abandon us.
