TRANSITIONS
by Stuart Anderson
Birth. Pulled from the comfort of the womb into cold reality—bright lights, loud noises, naked and alone as we cry in unfamiliar surroundings. Shocking and uncomfortable in the moment. And yet, a new life has begun, with all the possibilities it brings.
The first day of school. The transition to high school. That first heartbreak that felt worse than anything we had ever experienced. Life was over.
But it wasn’t.
Starting a job. Losing a job. Losing someone we love—a father, a grandparent, a sibling. Each marks a transition from what was to what is, at least from where we stand at the time.
Then comes the knock at the door. Federal agents. A target letter.
A world comes to a halt. Panic sets in. But even that is only the beginning: sentencing, self-surrender, prison, release, halfway house, ankle monitors, home confinement, rejected job offers. One transition after another.
Is this the worst? Is this the end of the life I knew?
For a time, it can certainly feel that way.
The hardest part of a transition is that we usually judge it while we are still inside it. We can see clearly what we have lost, but not yet what the change may make possible. We are standing between what was and what comes next, and that uncertainty can make the loss feel permanent.
I had prayed to God to change things for me. I told Him what I wanted. In the end, He did not give me what I wanted. He gave me what I needed: a transition toward something more meaningful and closer to His will.
Perhaps that is the lesson of transitions. We cannot always choose them, and we certainly cannot avoid them. But we can choose what we do when they arrive.
If we listen, remain open, and stop fighting what can no longer be changed, even a painful transition can carry us into the next chapter of our lives.
And the pain we thought would never pass?
That passes too.
JUDGMENT
by Stuart Anderson
“Judge not, that you may not be judged.”
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus doesn’t warn against discernment—knowing right from wrong or making wise choices. He warns against something far more common and corrosive: the impulse to condemn, to deliver a verdict on someone we barely know.
My own history with judgment has been a long, looping ride. I judged, I was judged, I judged again—an unbroken circuit with countless outcomes. I judged quickly and often: drivers, talking heads on TV, shoppers in the checkout line. Each encounter prompted the same irritated refrain: What’s wrong with them?
Self-centered. Clueless. Narcissists. Assholes.
Politics, culture, religion, even the weather—nothing escaped my commentary.
Then came the case. Suddenly the roles reversed.
Federal agents spoke to me as if my fate were already written.
My own lawyer seemed to approach me with suspicion: He’s probably guilty. Pay the retainer.
The District Court’s Chief Judge—known, without irony, as “Hang ’em High Harry”—delivered his sentence with practiced efficiency. A swift reminder that, in his courtroom, mercy was in short supply.
I brought my judgment habits with me to the federal camp. In RDAP, I told myself I wasn’t like the others—street guys, drug dealers, gang members. They, in turn, saw me as a white-collar type who assumed he was above it all.
Staff at the camp and halfway house had their own reading of me: just another inmate, another file number, another man who must have done something wrong. No need to know the story behind the conviction.
Potential employers ran background checks and made their decisions without hesitation. Risk. Liability. Pass.
Friends weighed in through silence. Distance. Some disappeared altogether.
Even parts of my family struggled to trust the version of me standing before them. What did you do?
And beneath all of it was my own verdict—the harshest by far: I’m not worth forgiving. I failed.
The ride felt endless.
But time has sanded down some of my edges. I’ve become slower to judge and less concerned about being judged. I still slip—it’s human—but I catch myself sooner. I’ve learned that everyone carries a story, shaped by circumstances we rarely see. That old refrain—walk a mile in another person’s moccasins—has become less cliché and more compass.
Here is the quiet truth that finally found me:
The less I judge, the less judged I feel.
Maybe Jesus was naming something simple and enduring—judgment has a way of circling back. What we send out tends to return. And the final word, the word that counts, belongs to someone infinitely wiser than any of us.
WILLFUL BLINDNESS: THE CHOICE TO SEE NOTHING MEANT EVERYTHING
by Stuart Anderson
“I didn’t do it, you didn’t see me do it, and you can’t prove a thing!”
— Bart Simpson
I used to love that famous (or infamous) Bart Simpson retort.
In response to my use of that quote, I always hear, “Nice try.” That Bart saying rarely flies as a legitimate defense, even when said jokingly to a friend or loved one.
That became even more painfully evident when the Postal Inspectors who came to my house, the Federal Prosecutor, and his F.B.I. sidekick all excoriated me in the same fashion:
You saw the red flags, you should have known, you were being willfully blind!
Willful blindness isn’t a crime you’ll ever see in the penal codes. No one gets charged with it by name. Instead, it’s a legal doctrine — a way courts instruct juries that choosing not to see can carry the same weight as actually knowing.
If someone suspects wrongdoing, has the means to confirm it, but deliberately avoids the truth, the law may treat that avoidance as knowledge itself.
But outside the courtroom, willful blindness is also a human condition. It’s the times we sense something isn’t right — in our work, our relationships, our choices — yet we look away. We convince ourselves we don’t see, because seeing would demand change. Seeing would change the outcome we were hoping for. It may cost us something.
That term still resonates with me. Willful blindness is not just legal language, but also a powerful metaphor for life: when we refuse to face uncomfortable truths, we become complicit in the consequences.
In my own story, there were red flags that I ignored, questions that I left unasked, and warnings that I brushed aside. The pieces of the puzzle were on the table, but I closed my eyes.
That refusal to see didn’t spare me; like an ostrich burying its head in the sand to avoid a predator, it left me facing consequences I could have avoided. That choice to see nothing meant everything.
Incarceration stripped away my excuses. I couldn’t hide behind “I didn’t know.” What I didn’t want to see was precisely what I was accountable for.
And yet, that’s where growth begins.
If willful blindness is the refusal to face reality, then willful sight is the decision to open our eyes — to admit harm, to acknowledge impact, to stop hiding from the truth. Painful as it is, that’s the place where change takes root — and where redemption becomes possible.
The bottom line is that doing the right thing is not always pleasant. You may lose business, money, or relationships, but it is a form of integrity that cannot be taken away from you.
So even in the small things — in the times that seem trivial, in the decisions that no one will know (so you tell yourself in the moment) — do the right thing. Walk away. Say no.
However, do not close your eyes to the truth. When your spider senses are going off, when your gut feeling talks to you — listen.
The real danger isn’t what we see — it’s what we refuse to see.
THE SNOW GLOBE
by Stuart Anderson
While in quarantine—a kind of solitary confinement—I sat beside an old wooden window on the third floor, looking down at the yard. It was a bitter February in South Dakota. The early morning light rose slowly in the east, inching its way into the day.
Leafless trees stood frozen in time, their tangled branches glazed with frost, their trunks buried in clean white snow. Then a breeze moved through, and the frost released—scattering like dandelion seeds carried on a summer wish. The particles shimmered in the sunlight and drifted slowly down across the snow-covered lawn.
Even the snow on the ground seemed to twinkle, as if the night had left a few stars behind. It was genuinely majestic—a reflection of God’s greatness in all things. Words cannot quite capture what I was seeing. I had never witnessed anything like it.
Sitting there, I felt sealed inside a shaken Christmas snow globe: contained, observed, unable to step beyond the boundaries that held me. And yet, inside that small world, beauty still moved.
When I stared outward, the globe became its own kind of torment. It reminded me of the life I had left behind—my wife and son living without me; the routines, the warmth, the ordinary privileges I never noticed until they were gone. A personal and professional life cracked open, the pieces still recognizable, but no longer whole.
So I turned my gaze inward—to what was still here, still within the glass. The quiet mercies. The dignity of paying attention. The strange truth that even in a place built to shrink you, the soul can still expand. The snow did not change my circumstances, but it changed the air inside me. It reminded me that confinement is not the same as meaninglessness.
Most of us live inside snow globes at some point—illness, loss, job endings, failed relationships, seasons when the boundaries tighten and the exits disappear. We can spend those days pressing our faces against the glass, mourning what lies beyond it. Or we can learn—slowly and imperfectly—to look for what still glitters inside.
My globe was still sealed. But that morning the light found the frost, and for a moment it was enough. Enough to breathe. Enough to keep going. Enough to believe this was not the end of the story.
THERE’S NEVER A GOOD TIME FOR A FELONY
by Stuart Anderson
After working strictly as an attorney—first at a firm and later with my own small practice—I shifted much of my focus into the business world. Over time, I formed several companies involved in project financing and commodity transactions.
There were ups and downs, stresses, and problems. At different times, I thought about getting out of certain business relationships, but I always told myself the same thing:
It’s not a good time yet. It will work out.
Then one of my business partners traveled to Africa on one of our ventures and decided to stay there. He moved to Zambia, married a local woman, and remained in the country, leaving me to deal with problems related to some of our other companies.
Things were not working out. My licenses and reputation were increasingly on the line.
But again:
Not a good time yet. It will work out.
That same thinking carried into my personal life.
For years, there never seemed to be a good time to have a child. We wanted to travel. I was working constantly. There was always something else going on.
Finally, at forty-two, I became a father.
Looking back, I regret waiting so long. There was never going to be a perfect time.
While all of this was happening, I had also started handling attorney escrow transactions. That work continued for several years. Here, too, I began noticing problems. I saw things that concerned me. Clients complained. Transactions did not perform as expected. There were inconsistencies and warning signs.
More than once, I thought about getting away from it all.
Again, I told myself:
It’s not a good time yet. It will work out.
Then came the knock at my front door.
Two postal inspectors.
Questions about the escrows.
I was told I should have known better. I had seen the red flags. The government called it “willful blindness.”
In prison parlance, I had caught my case.
And once again, it was not a good time.
I was preparing to start an insurance brokerage with another partner. I had plans. I had things I still wanted to accomplish.
But this time, I did not have a choice.
It came.
Looking back, there was a reason I kept saying, It’s not a good time.
It wasn’t logic.
It wasn’t strategy.
It was fear.
I did not fully understand that until I entered the Residential Drug Abuse Program, or RDAP, at the federal prison camp in Yankton, South Dakota.
RDAP involved a lot of public speaking. During one of our weekly morning meetings, I was assigned to do the Word of the Day. I could have picked some generic word and tied it loosely to my experience, but I wanted to go deeper. I wanted a word that answered the real question behind why I was in Yankton in the first place.
That word was FEAR.
I stood at the podium and spoke:
Fear is an unpleasant, often strong emotion caused by the expectation or awareness of danger or harm. Synonymous with alarm, panic, worry, trepidation, and anxiety.
Fear takes many forms.
Sometimes it is primordial and necessary, like the fear of a lion about to attack you. It is a survival mechanism.
But fear can also be the root of avoidance, anxiety, worry, and procrastination.
Fear of the unknown.
Fear of failure.
Fear of not having money.
Fear of rejection.
Fear of relationships.
Fear of being alone.
Fear of being vulnerable.
Fear of change.
As the definition suggests, fear is often based on the expectation or assumption that something bad will happen.
I had made many poor decisions based on those fear-driven thoughts. I let them steer me down a path that eventually led me to prison.
And when I said that, I realized something.
Fear had not only influenced my decisions.
It had kept me in places I already knew I should have left.
The pattern suddenly became clearer.
It’s not a good time yet.
It will work out.
Sometimes those thoughts may be reasonable. Sometimes waiting is the right thing to do.
But sometimes waiting is just fear.
Now I find myself closer to sixty than thirty.
I have wondered whether it might have been better if my felony had happened earlier in my life. Maybe I would have had more time to dig out, restructure, rebuild financially, and start over.
I have thought about that.
But in the end, it happened when it happened.
I do not have control over that.
What I do know is that I am wiser. I am more spiritual. I am closer to what matters.
Yes, I am poorer.
But I am closer to my family than ever before.
I am still working through all of this, and probably always will be. But I try not to let fear control my path anymore.
There is never a good time for a felony.
But maybe mine came at the right time.
I was forced to take life where it landed and move forward from that point.
And whatever we are all facing—failure, loss, fear, change, or some difficult truth we have been avoiding—maybe there is a right time for that too.
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