Bend, Don't Break

DC came by to talk to me the other night. As I’ve written before, DC is one of the most interesting guys I’ve ever met. Though we are from completely different worlds, I feel a kinship with him I’ve seldom felt. Prison is terrible, but survivable because of the friendships I’ve been blessed with. I count DC as one of those blessings.



He knew I’d been struggling in a valley these past few weeks. He knew I felt beaten down and abandoned by friends whom had been there for me, yet now when I so desperately needed to hear from them, utter silence. He knew I was dealing with another round of rejection from loved ones that had set me back months, if not years. He came by and sat down and never once mentioned my situation. Instead, he told me something his father told him when he was sitting in the hole years ago.


His father, a Korean War infantryman, told him “take every day at a time. Bend, don’t break. When you lay down at night, thank God He saw you through.” DC then stood up, headed back out of my cut. Before leaving, he looked at me, told me he respected my courage, my compassion for these guys and my decency and simply ended “just bend”.


I went to bed that night like I do every other evening by reciting the words to the 103rd Psalm, by praying that my ex find someone she can love and trust and in turn loves her unconditionally, that my sons are joyous, secure, forgiving and loving. I prayed for my parents, for my cousin and her husband who have been so steadfast in their love and support for me, and for friends – even as some pull away from me. Those are difficult prayers at times for me as I struggle with issues like rejection and abandonment. Still, I pray. That night I added one additional prayer: “Please don’t let me break, God. I know you’re listening. Let me bend, not break.”


There’s a lot going on right now. I am working an extraordinary amount of hours, close to twelve a day, helping guys with their college studies. I’m paid forty-five cents per hour for thirty hours of work. The money isn’t necessarily the issue. No, I’m working my butt off to keep guys motivated who have an initial reaction to difficulty to quit. I’m working my butt off for guys who are all going home in the next one to two years (max), many of whom are here for their second or third time. Meanwhile, I still have ten years remaining on my sentence.


As I lay in bed I began to think I must be crazy. Everything I knew, everything I built, everything I longed for, was gone. And, here I was putting out all this effort and I had nothing to show for it. All night I tossed and turned. I finally got out of my bunk at 3:30 and began to pray. “Please let me bend, not break today” I prayed. I noticed my devotional was from the Sermon on the Mount. As I read the Beatitudes I wondered what they really meant. “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” I reached for Big S’s modern language Bible.


“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you, there is more of God and His role.”


“Your blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.”


Those words rolled through my brain. “At the end of my rope.” I’d been there almost every day the past six weeks. Not a day had gone by that I didn’t wonder what was my breaking point. I was hanging by a thread, reaching for a small light that grew dimmer each moment. “Lost what is most dear to you.” Let’s see, rejected by my wife and kids, loss of my freedom, loss of my wealth, abandonment by friends. Things were so bad I’ve had crack addicts doing their fourth bid tell me “damn, your life sucks.”


“Bend, don’t break.” Those words kept hitting me between the eyes. I remembered an anonymous quote I picked up shortly after my arrest. It said simply,


“Pain is synonymous with spirituality. When you’re in the most pain you are closest to God.”


The simple fact was, I realized, that there was absolutely nothing I could do that day to get me out of prison right then, or make my ex-wife love and forgive me, or make my kids tell me they loved and missed me, or make a close friend take five minutes out of his day to write me back. But, I could make a difference in these guys’ lives.


So that afternoon, I led a review session in the dayroom for a group of English students on critically evaluating a social science piece called “Can Money Buy Happiness?”