Folsom Prison’s Greystone Chapel is perhaps the most famous California prison chapel, thanks to Johnny Cash. Open to all inmates is a great beacon of hope for everyone in a place that is, by all definitions, a massive failure of a social engineering experiment. Yet within the structures of the prison and deeply embedded into the life of the chapel are opportunities for renewal, and people who offer themselves and their lives in audacious ways—and at incredible risk—for the good of all. This is true when inmates break ranks from gang affiliations in pursuit of a lifestyle change, bonding together with members of other races from the newfound community, seeking a way out of the intense life on the yard, however deep they may be into the prison dynamics.

The era of mass incarceration is ending in California. We are sentencing fewer people to prison, prison sentences are getting shorter, and those who are released from prison are increasingly less likely to return for violating conditions of their paroles. Whether you think these changes are for the better or not, they are happening, and they provide us with two staggering challenges that if met—with vigor, with empathy, and with practicality—will make California a safer and more humane place for all.

The California spirit of innovation and transmogrification showed itself when Alex Grey’s “Purple Jesus” oil-on-wood painting made its way to San Francisco. It was purchased by a shrewd collector, Mark McCloud, who turned the image into what became Purple Jesus Blotter in the early 1990s. Through a complicated history and even more complicated philosophy of psychedelia, the lasting significance of Jesus for both McCloud and the California narrative highlight the significance of this trippy Jesus story.