I can’t remember if it was Marylee or Eric who wrote to tell me, but I remember being nearly catatonic for at least a week. It was like the bottom fell out. This wasn’t just another difficult thing to overcome, this was the end. This was a death. I literally cried out to God, ‘Are you there? Show me something. Give me a sign.’ I had nothing. I was spent, I was bankrupt. It was the most sincere plea I have ever made in my life. And I got nothing. A couple weeks went by and . . . nothing. No response.
I was lying in my bunk one night listening to the radio on my headphones, and I ran across a classical station. I heard something you rarely ever hear: a harp. There was no slow buildup, no preamble to what happened next. I was just engulfed in this very warm, very comforting blinding light. I don’t know what to call it—an ecstatic experience? a revelation?—because it was indescribable. Any words I use to explain it will fall short. I had this incredible feeling of joy. There was an overwhelming sense of this unlimited compassion aimed right at me. Then I heard my alarm go off and it was over, and I sat up in bed. Outwardly, everything was still the same. But I knew that I had been in the presence of God.
My life didn’t change right away. Everything didn’t instantly fall into place. I was in prison for another decade, so it wasn’t like God knocked open the doors for me. Becoming a believer was a slow, organic process that I had to grow into. But I was different after that. You can’t buy inner peace, but I had it.
- Michael Morton, quoted in "The Innocent Man", by Pamela Colloff, Texas Monthly, at http://www.texasmonthly.com/2012-12-01/feature2.php
I was lying in my bunk one night listening to the radio on my headphones, and I ran across a classical station. I heard something you rarely ever hear: a harp. There was no slow buildup, no preamble to what happened next. I was just engulfed in this very warm, very comforting blinding light. I don’t know what to call it—an ecstatic experience? a revelation?—because it was indescribable. Any words I use to explain it will fall short. I had this incredible feeling of joy. There was an overwhelming sense of this unlimited compassion aimed right at me. Then I heard my alarm go off and it was over, and I sat up in bed. Outwardly, everything was still the same. But I knew that I had been in the presence of God.
My life didn’t change right away. Everything didn’t instantly fall into place. I was in prison for another decade, so it wasn’t like God knocked open the doors for me. Becoming a believer was a slow, organic process that I had to grow into. But I was different after that. You can’t buy inner peace, but I had it.
- Michael Morton, quoted in "The Innocent Man", by Pamela Colloff, Texas Monthly, at http://www.texasmonthly.com/2012-12-01/feature2.php
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