In My Pocket

We wear state issued blue button collared shirts.  The shirts come short sleeve or long sleeve.  In this hot weather I’m a short sleeve inmate.  Anyway, I carry a few index cards with me whenever I head out.  The other day Opie saw me looking through the stack.  Opie – being Opie – quickly goes and gets “Live” and two other guys and they circle around me.

“Whatcha lookin at in you pocket Lawrence Old Bag” (this is the respect I get).

So I show them.  One card has scribbled song lyrics. There’s a verse from “No Woman, No Cry”, the great Bob Marley song:

“My fear is my only carriage

So I got to push on through”

There’s John Prine, Bob Dylan and a Van Morrison verse that reminds me so deeply of my feelings for my ex.

There’s a second card with Bible verses I try and remember when things are bad:  A verse from Job 2, words from Habakkuk 3, and these paraphrases:

God works everything for our good according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

God is in control of everything (Psalm 103:19).

I also keep little reminders, things that have hit me when I’ve been struggling.  There are short things like:

·         Don’t lose heart because you don’t understand why.

·         Don’t make quick judgments; trust; have faith.

·         Have a sense of gratitude even in your despair.

·         Pray continually.

·         Don’t judge another’s actions.  You don’t know what they are feeling.

·         Forgive.

There are things I have experienced and learned during this trial that I’m grateful for.  I realized for one thing I wasn’t living the life God intended me to live. I got way too hung up on pleasing other people and making myself look good than doing what I knew was right.

I also know I wasn’t the best listener or most patient husband and father I could be.  There’s this wonderful imagery in the Bible about losing our life in fact leads us to a more abundant life.  I think about that a good deal.  The most selfless things I’ve ever done have occurred after my arrest.

I wonder sometimes if my ex and my sons know that I loved them so much I didn’t care about my charges, sentence or future.  It’s funny, the guys in here will tell me I was a fool for walking away from everything and pleading out my case, yet they’ve all individually come to me and said “I don’t know if my dad would’ve done that for me.”

My cousin sends me quotes in every letter she sends me.  A good number of them find their way to my locker door or in my stack of note cards.  It may sound trite, but words help.  You realize through another’s words that you aren’t alone.  Somebody else out there has felt what you’re feeling and dealt with it.  There is no exclusivity in loneliness, heartbreak, despair or hope.  We’ve all been there and really, we all can appreciate when someone’s hurting.

Last weekend my three closest home friends came out for a visit.  As I mentioned before, I hadn’t seen them since the beginning of my “winter of discontent”.  At one point I realized I’d been talking almost nonstop for an hour telling them how I was, what goes on in here, how I’ve made it through.  I apologized for dominating the conversation but they preferred to hear what was happening “in here”.  I am, they told me, still part of the old circle.  Their wives still care about me; they worry about me; they’re in tune with what I’m going through.  It was nice.  It reminded me why I tend to be the exuberantly hopeful guy in here.  I know in my heart good will come of this.

At a moment of deep despair a few months back, “Live”, my gang leader friend spoke to me about love and hope.  He said “you can’t ignore how you feel.  The heart feels what it feels, hopes what it hopes, no matter how stupid it sounds to the brain.”  “Live” was right you know.  I put that on a card next to my three main prayers.