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Friday, June 24, 2011

Memorial Day

It’s Memorial Day weekend, a time when the nation turns its thoughts to veterans, especially those who’ve paid the ultimate price on the battlefield.  Post 9/11 much has been made about the respect this country now shows those who served.  “The country has healed from Vietnam”, is a common refrain heard in the popular press.
Yet that perception doesn’t match reality.  It is a disturbing truth, but veterans of this nation‘s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have higher levels of suicide, homelessness, PTSDs, drug and alcohol abuse, than the general population.  And, they end up in prison and judges don’t care that they risked their lives oversees.
Of the 96 men in my side of the building, 34 served in the military.  Twelve of those served in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Two older inmates are combat veterans of Vietnam.   For those fourteen who served in combat “defending this nation’s freedom” as so many commentators like to point out – meant little to them as they faced significant prison sentences.  Judges, juries didn’t care that they fought in Fallujah or Helmut Province.  But for some hardworking volunteers from the American Legion who come out and meet with these vets and assist them with access to benefits they earned, they are largely forgotten.  Like their homeless brothers suffering from PTSD and drug and alcohol problems, there are no thank yous for these vets.  America should be ashamed.

One of my students is a bright New Yorker named Pauly.  He served two tours with the Marines in Iraq and was in the bloody battle of Fallujah.  His photos of unit friends, two of whom were killed, line his locker.
Pauly returned to Virginia (his wife’s home) after his second tour.  He began taking pain pills (“help me sleep”). When he couldn’t get enough, he forged four prescriptions and four checks to cover the cost.  Convicted, a Chesterfield Circuit Judge told him “you survived two tours in Iraq; you can do three years in prison.”  Nice comment your honor.

There’s Rick.  His wife left him while he was in Afghanistan for a second tour.  He returned to Southwest Virginia with no job, no wife and a house he couldn’t afford.  He took an unloaded shotgun to a local bank and got $6000 (“I didn’t care if they shot me”).  The judge told him “a lot of men went to war and didn’t rob a bank” as he sentenced Rick to ten years.  I’m not sure what the judge knows about being in a combat zone; he admitted from the bench “he never had the privilege of serving.”
There are dozens of stories like that in here and hundreds of pages of trial transcripts confirming the words.  Then there’s Saleem.  He served as a medic in Vietnam.  He risked his life daily to save the lives of dozens of wounded men.  Why was he a medic?  Because he was a pacifist.  Rather than seek conscientious objector status, he agreed to serve.

Later, during a drug deal gone bad – a drug habit that began in Indochina in that war zone – Saleem killed a man.  He received a life sentence with parole eligibility after twenty years.  Every year, since his twentieth year in, he comes up for parole.  Every year, for twelve straight years, he has been denied parole.  It is possible Saleem will never leave prison.  That is wrong.
DC’s father served in Korea as a black infantryman.  He fought in some of the bloodiest campaigns there and endured terrible racial hostility.  “I went because that’s what I was supposed to do.”  DC’s older brother, a baseball star drafted by the Phillies, died in Vietnam.

All these men who fought bled and in some cases died, did so because they believed in the ideals this nation espouses.  They deserve the same. They deserve second chances.
General William Tecumseh Sherman said “war is hell”.  So is prison.  These vets deserve our gratitude, our forgiveness for their wrongs, and their freedom.  

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Tryin to Hang Touch - Think Baruch

I read an interesting piece about a little known Old Testament hero this week.  Baruch was secretary to the Prophet Jeremiah whose message was delivered at a time of extreme calamity for the people of Israel.  Their society was plundered and the populace exiled to Babylon.  Quite naturally, Jeremiah’s preaching, pointing out the sinful ways Israel had followed was not popular.  Jeremiah was beaten and thrown in prison. Jeremiah asked Baruch to record God’s words and read them aloud in the temple.  Baruch could have said “no thanks”.  He knew what the consequences of doing what Jeremiah asked would be.  In spite of that, he did read God’s words in the temple and there were consequences.  His hopes and dreams were shattered.  He was courageous but he to felt that he had reached the end of his rope.

In one of my favorite verses in Jeremiah (45:33) he cried out to God as all of us do when the trials we face overwhelm us.

“Woe is me! For the Lord has added sorrow to my pain, I am weary with my groaning and have found no rest.”
In one of those “twists” that only come through in the Bible, God asked him if he was speaking out to bring himself honor or God honor.  And then God promised him, though his life may not be as Baruch imagined it, God would protect him no matter what.

I sit in here and reflect on Baruch a good deal.  Every dream he had for his life – a home, a family, a career – lay in tatters, but God promised him “do as I command and I will see you through”.  No matter how hopeless our situation seems, God’s promise endures.

That is a message that resonates with me.  I can’t change the past.  I can’t make family love and forgive me or friends stand by me.  I can’t make the Virginia legislature reinstate early release.  I can’t make the Governor commute my sentence.

The day I was arrested I had simple decisions to make:  do I come clean and begin the process of getting right with God or do I play the system the way I’d been trained?  Do I contest a divorce and fight over property or do I just say “take it all, whatever you want”?  I chose to do what I thought God required of me.  For almost three years almost every piece of news I’ve received has been bad.  Not a week has gone by that I haven’t found myself, like Baruch, bemoaning my circumstances and asking “what else God?”

Yet if given the same choices today, I’d do the same thing again.  God never promised Baruch that doing the right thing would be easy.  He did promise him He’d never leave him.  And, God always keeps His word.

Bob at 70

This past Tuesday Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman) turned 70.  There are three “Bs” that I consider life directing:  the Bible, baseball and Bob Dylan songs.
That he turned 70, that through almost my entire life I’ve found meaning in his words, is not surprising. Almost every day some lyric of his springs to mind as I live through this experience.
As I’ve written before, mere moments after both my sons were born I held them and gently whispered in their ears the words to “Forever Young”: 

“May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
And may you stay forever young.”

I sing those words to myself almost every day during my run as part of my daily prayers for my sons, so far removed from me.
“May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of change shift.”

It was a Dylan song that inspired me in 1980 when I realized I was hopelessly in love with a beautiful young college freshman.
“I came in from the wilderness
A creative void of form
Come in she said I’ll give you
Shelter from the storm.”

After hearing she had begun dating last January, I listened over and over to “If you see her, say hello”.  Every emotion I deal with finds meaning, finds substance in those song lyrics.
“I once loved a woman
A child I’m told
I gave her my heart
But she wanted my soul
Don’t think twice it’s alright…
I ain’t sayin you treated me unkind
You could of done better
But I don’t mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
Don’t think twice it’s alright.”

That song carried me through the misery of my divorce.  It would be our thirtieth anniversary this year.  Before my arrest I was attempting to get an original recording of “Emotionally Yours”, one of the most beautiful love songs Dylan ever wrote as an anniversary gift.  I sang that song often as I struggled in jail before the divorce was final.
Dylan understands my alienation and loneliness.  Listen to “Like a Rolling Stone”, perhaps the greatest rock song every written. 

“How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
A complete unknown
Like a rolling stone.”

It was Dylan who wrote about friends abandoning you:
“You’ve got a lotta nerve
To say you are my friend
When I was down
You just stood there and grinnin.”

 It was Dylan who caught the nation’s conscience when he asked:

 “How many years must a mountain exist
Before it is washed to the sea
How many years must a people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free
How many times can a man turn his head
Pretend that he just doesn’t see.”

He sang about a post-apocalyptic world after nuclear war in “A Hard Rains Gonna Fall”, using references from the book of Revelation.  He spoke of the dangers of the military industrial complex in “Masters of War”.  There was a Dylan song for every issue.  It was Dylan’s Chimes of Freedom that many dissidents in Eastern Europe claimed gave them hope to overcome their totalitarian regime.  He told us “you don’t need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows”, a reference to public opinion.
Dylan conjured up images in his songs.  He drew pictures with his words.  In one of my favorite songs he sang the following:

“Man thinks cause he rules the earth
He can do with it as he please
And if things don’t change soon
He will
Man is inventing his doom
First step was touching the moon
And there’s a woman on my block
She sits there as the night grows still
She says
Who’s gonna take away his license to kill.”

I don’t know what it was about his songs, but I am drawn to the words just as I am drawn by David to his Psalms.  His songs spoke to me like they did for millions of others.  And I gained more respect for him after he said there was nothing special about what he did.  People tried to make him out to be a prophet.  “I’m just a troubadour”, he responded.
And his lyrics messed with people’s minds.  They tried to find deep philosophical meaning in everything.   “Experts” dissected “When the Ship Comes In” for theological messages.  But Joan Baez told us Bob wrote the song on a napkin after he was turned down for a room at a Holiday Inn while on tour for looking too scruffy.  When his ship comes in, he’ll be able to get his room.

Philosopher/writer Isak Dinesen said:  “All sorrows can be borne if you put them in a story.”  I believe that that explains in large part why I write.  But I also think all my stories can find rhythms and melodies in Dylan’s songs.
My life is so much different than it was when I first heard Bob sing “Blowin in the Wind” and “Baby let me follow you down” when I was ten.  So much different from where I was as a 22 year old married law student thirty years ago.  Yet the songs remain the same.  He’s 70, but the words hit me just like when I was ten and he was in his late twenties.

As he said in “My Back Pages”,
“I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now.”


Sunday, June 19, 2011

Another DOC Week

Time moves on.  Days roll into other days.  The world goes on and so does DOC.  This past week the Virginia Attorney General announced settlement was reached with a Muslim inmate at Greensville (a high level 2 and a low level 3 facility) to allow him to receive Islamic CDs.  For seven years this inmate fought DOC for the right to receive audio discs of Islamic services.  He continued to win and DOC continued to balk until finally, after expending thousands of taxpayer dollars defending an indefensible position, they settled and agreed to reimburse him for all his costs.  As I’ve written in here before, you take a man’s freedom and you force him to think, really think about everything.  And thinking can be dangerous.  Guys figure out novel ways to challenge the system.
Society wants to lock people up; that’s their prerogative.  But there is still a little document called the United States Constitution and little words like “due process” that dictate how government can treat people.  And those rights don’t all cease when you are incarcerated.  I never stop being amazed by the people that will wave the flag and tell you how great this country is, but forget the founding fathers were deeply suspicious of over-reaching governmental power.  And no power is more dangerous than the power to arrest and imprison a person.
DOC would rather fight inmate suits than admit their policy is arbitrary and bears no legitimate relation to security of the facility.  As I’ve written before, DOC has a sweetheart contract signed with Jones Express Music (JEM) that requires all CDs purchased by inmates to be purchased (1) through the inmate’s account and (2) from JEM.  The Muslim inmate has now won a battle against the JEM exclusivity arrangement (they don’t carry spoken word CDs or foreign language CDs or religious CDs).

This week, a relative sent me a CD from Barnes & Noble.  “Barenaked Ladies Live”.  Property advised me I couldn’t have the CD.  That afternoon, I filed a grievance challenging the department’s CD purchasing policy.  It’s a fight I’m willing to bring.  BNL tunes hit me emotionally.
Try this from their song “Adrift” about a broken relationship:

            Ever since we said our goodbyes
            The onion rings, the phone makes me cry
            Something isn’t right
            Like the Deep Blue without the Great White.

            In the morning open your eyes
            The waterfalls, the fire flies
            You’re an abacus
            And my heart was counting on us.

            Crescent moon sings me to sleep
            The birches bark, the willows weep
            But I lie awake
            I’m adrift without a snowflake.

Per instructions from DOC, disciplinary rule III (“stealing”) now includes inmates re-moving food from their own trays to take back to the building (this is to prevent fresh fruit and vegetables finding their way into inmate meals in the building).  This has always been treated as a 200 series contraband charge.  100 series charges lead to raised security level (meaning you are moved from a level 2 to a level 3 prison) and loss of good time. With a series 200 charge, an inmate who has never been in trouble before can receive an “informal resolution”, meaning a letter goes to your file.  Six months charge free and the letter is removed from your file.
But here at Lunenburg, the new Assistant Warden has decreed that informal resolutions can no longer be used even though they are a part of the DOC disciplinary process.  More significantly, he has decided to not consider charge reductions on appeal.  What does that mean?

Todd is a 28 year old white Jewish kid finishing an eight year sentence in 2012 for drug distribution.  He gets Kosher meals which include onions.  For his entire bid he has never had a charge.  Three weeks ago, he attempted to sneak his onion out of the chow hall to use in a Passover meal he was preparing with two other Jewish inmates.  He was caught and turned the onion over.  Todd was cited with a III and convicted.  His punishment?  A written reprimand.  Here’s the problem.  Three days before Todd’s incident, six black inmates were also charged and convicted of III violations.  They all appealed to the warden who promptly reduced the charge to a 224.
Todd appealed to the warden who rejected his request for a reduction.  “You know the rules”, was the basis for the denial.  So, Todd now faces transfer and loss of nine months of good time.

I filed an appeal for him and raised race and religion grounds.  The simple fact of the matter is the warden treated black and Muslim inmates differently.  If the prison wants to enforce this rule, the inmates can’t complain.  It’s in the disciplinary handbook.  But that doesn’t mean the rule can be enforced selectively.
Finally, there’s the story of “Zippy”.  I won’t use his real name to protect him from further embarrassment, but one of our “distinguished” college aides was tucking his shirt in his pants the other day at work when he hit a snag.

Craig and I looked over to see him doubled over.  “I’m hooked”, he kept saying.  And hooked he was.  He had to walk to medical, doubled over and climb on a gurney while the horse doctor and a cute nurse gave him an injection to numb the area and remove the zipper from the non-named portion of his anatomy.
Once he returned, standing erect (no pun intended) we named him “Zippy”.  Funny, but without telling the nursing staff they came up with the same name.  It makes a great story:  “so how’d you get your prison handle Zippy?”

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A final, non-DOC thought –

            In the past few weeks I’ve been asked by guys in here and family outside, about my capacity to remember minute details of events in my life:  meals, outfits my ex wore, words spoken.  It’s something I’ve always been able to do.  But, this week, reading a book about a writer’s marriage, I came across an amazing quote by the Roman poet Ovid that helps explain it”

“Parsque est meminissee doloris.”

“It’s part of grief to remember.”

What's He Thinking?

The assistant warden is at it again.  Every week this chucklehead does something else to upset the inmate population and make the lives of his officers that much worse.  And the warden, the actual guy in charge of this place, the guy that makes Barney Fife look like a Navy Seal?  No one sees him.  He’s nowhere to be found.  He’s turned operation of this facility over to an arrogant nitwit who hates inmates, hates educating inmates, hates any programs to rehabilitate inmates, oh yeah, and hates flowers.
This week’s latest pronouncement involved, among other things, the visitation room.  From the inception of the prison level system (low level 1 up to high security level 5) the policy has been more contact, more programs, more movement at lower levels.  In the “old days” there was really only one level.  You went to prison, did your sentence and made parole.  But back then only seriously violent criminals went to prison.  Now, you’ve got 40,000 men and women locked up at dozens of prisons.  At level fives, inmate movement is tightly controlled under officers in gun areas.  It’s called “moving under the gun”.  But, at level 2 – like this place – movement is less restricted.  At least it was until this clown showed up.
This past week a young guy – Brandon, age 22 – collapsed on the weight pile on our side.  He was in the dirt twitching violently.  The guys were screaming for an officer, any officer, to call medical.  No one could get to a building door because – per Assistant Warden Einstein – gates must be locked.  Even worse, there was no officer in the tower observing the rec yard (you would think placing an officer in the tower overlooking the yard would provide more security than locking fifty to four hundred guys behind multiple gates with no supervision, but that’s just my opinion.  I’m not a trained assistant warden).

Ten minutes Brandon was unconscious twitching on the weight pile before the officer on the boulevard saw the commotion and radioed medical.  Then, two nurses and an officer came casually pushing a stretcher to the yard.  By the time Brandon was finally loaded, unconscious on the stretcher and transported to medical, twenty-five minutes after the seizure began had passed.  Yeah, this new emphasis on security is making this place run much more smoothly!
Back to the visitation room.  The ass warden (I’m not sure I abbreviated that correctly) has painted the visitor picnic tables.  One side is painted red and marked “offenders only”.  The other side is for guests.  Inmates can no longer sit beside family members.

In the visitation room, a red line has been painted three feet in front of the vending machines.  The red line states “No offenders beyond this point”.  Even when I was at Receiving with level 5 inmates there was no line by the vending machines.
Then there is school.  This coming Friday is graduation.  The principal here, Ms. C, makes a big deal out of GED graduation and guys completing vocational certification.  The Community College even participates and awards Associates Degrees as part of the ceremony.  Last year, over one hundred inmates received GEDs, another hundred vocational certification and three Associate Degrees.  As I wrote last year, with these men having family and friends present it was perhaps a more moving ceremony than my own high school or college graduation.  I knew I’d succeed.  For most of Lunenburg’s graduates, that ceremony marked their first academic success anytime in their lives.

And every year the warden and assistant warden show up because they know education matters.  That is, until this year.  The little weasel warden isn’t coming (sent his “regrets”).  And the assistant?  He remarked “why do I want to go to that thing?”
While Director Clarke is busy telling the press about his “mission” to rehabilitate Virginia’s inmates, perhaps he could take a little side trip to Lunenburg and kick these two losers in the ass.  This place is deteriorating.  Programs will suffer.  Both inmate and officer attitudes are souring and that’s a bad mix in a prison.  What, I am asking, is Director Clarke thinking putting these nuts in charge?

In the Company of Criminals

Prison life is a very weird experience.  It can be debilitating and transforming.  You have to struggle and find meaning, the reason behind what you’re going through, in order to come through without great emotional baggage.
I usually don’t discuss the truly evil side of life that I’ve experienced in here.  Something happened the other day that led me to write a letter to a close friend detailing how “things were”.  He’s a friend from home who hadn’t corresponded with me for over three months.  His letter was heartfelt:  “We (he and another close friend) figure you’ve had a very rough winter.”  He then went on to tell me I was making a difference in inmates lives with my tutoring and writing class.
I got hung up on the words “rough winter”.  I knew those guys had no idea how rough winter – my winter that has now lasted thirty-three months – has really been.  The guys in here tell me all the time to “keep it a hundred”.  That’s prison speak for keep to the truth, no holds bar.

So I disclosed some things I experienced during this journey, things I never told anyone.  I started each paragraph with “rough winter” and I set out some things about prison and the abandonment and rejection I received.  I told him about going to Powhatan Receiving Unit, a dilapidated facility (built pre-1900) where men are locked into stale, stifling hot cells twenty-two hours a day.  There is no hot water in the cells. The base around the commode is rotted out.  The toilet and sink are cracked and stained.  Roaches and ants roam the eight by eight foot space at their will.  The only light is a sixty watt bulb above the top bunk that has to be screwed in and out to turn the light on and off.  The cell was despicable and was, ironically, the most redeeming feature of the entire experience.
As bad as the cell was, the operation of the facility, the lack of security and control, was worse.  No person deserved to be treated the way Virginia DOC operates their receiving facility.  It is, simply put, immoral for society to claim legal justification (“they broke the law”) to subject people to those conditions.

I wrote my friend and described the fact that DOC places all offenders together regardless of crime, violence or history.  I was a nonviolent, fifty year-old offender and was placed in a cell with a twenty four year-old gang leader serving seventy-six years for a double homicide.  It was his third trip to prison.  He also suffered from psychotic episodes.  He asked me to review his appeal.  Included in that was a psychological profile.  He suffered from explosive anger syndrome and “heard voices”.  He deliberately refused to take his psychotropic meds (he’d sell them to other inmates) to be ready for “any gang fight”.  And, ironically, except for one day when he threatened to kill me, I got along with him.
What I couldn’t get along with was the young kid a tier below me who every night screamed in terror.  He was mentally ill and would have to go from 8:00 pm pill call until 6:00 am pill call without meds.  Every night he would hallucinate and scream “Oh Jesus! Help me!”  Guys in the cells around him would cuss and taunt him.  The staff did nothing.

Then, there was the evening my “cellie” decided another man disrespected him.  He pummeled him, then pushed him over the third tier railing, forty feet above the concrete floor below.  The man held on literally for dear life until “Lil P” relented and two other inmates drug the beaten man back over the rail.  He then “checked in” – had himself placed in the hole for protection.  Imagine asking to be placed in solitary confinement in a cell next to the prison boiler where the heat is unbearable, to save your life.
One afternoon gang members beat another inmate to a bloody pulp in the stairwell.  Two participants were hauled off to the hole.  Blood stains still remained on the concrete floor when we exited for chow that night.

A young homosexual inmate was viciously assaulted in the bathroom by a group.  He said nothing about his attackers.  He just went to the hole.
Receiving was a place of violence, degradation and inhumanity.  And it all occurred under the watchful eye of employees of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Almost every day I would look up at that third tier railing and think it would be so much easier to just take a dive.  But.  I didn’t.  Instead, at night during the screams from the deranged kid and his tormentors, I’d pray “God, give me back my family.”  God, I discovered, had a warped sense of humor.  While I was going through all that, my wife had already met someone new and my kids were choosing to treat me as though I never existed.  To the three of them, I was already dead.  I couldn’t have handled knowing that back in receiving.  Just keeping my humanity, just keeping my sanity, just staying off that railing, required me to believe my family loved me.  Rough winter.  I found out his past winter how truly rough it was.
As I wrote the letter I was overwhelmed with despair.  Not one prayer I’d prayed had been answered.  Actually that’s not true; I prayed every day after the divorce that my ex find someone she loved.  Leave it to God to answer that prayer!

So I finished the letter and I felt like crap.  I had tried to do the right thing every day, tried to treat people kindly and with compassion and mercy (the old heads tell me I’m a bad judge of character.  “These guys are scum.   You always give them the benefit of the doubt”), and not a single thing was going my way.  I frankly wondered why God was silent, why He said He loved me and let me suffer this way.
That night in my mail I received next month’s devotionals.  A second booklet was included “When God is silent to our Prayers.”  I read the thirty-four page booklet within the hour.  It quoted a Psalmist saying the exact words I had uttered as I thought about my situation, my rough winter.

I came away from my brink of doubt with renewed appreciation to the power and mystery of God.  Those whom I thought loved me may flee, but God doesn’t.
So what does all this have to do with the “company of convicts”?  I have spent the past three years questioning every decision I made as an adult.  Everything I held dear has been taken from me.  Every relationship that I believed was “forever”, unbreakable, has been cast aside.  There have been days when quite literally, if I ceased to be, only a handful of people would give a damn.  And yet, I’ve made it this far unscathed.  I have seen and heard horrible things but I am more convinced than ever that no one is beyond redemption.

I finished my letter telling my friend that at the end of all this, people will say “he never quit; he never gave up”.  That comes from 1Corinthians 13, where Paul explains God’s love for us and demands we do the same.  “Love never quits…love never gives up.”
Here’s what “company of convicts” means.  We’re all convicted.  Every single one of us does wrong.  In God’s eyes, we’re all sinners.  In God’s eyes, there is no difference between the church elder and the murderer.  Both fall short of His glory.

It is alright to hate the evil perpetrated by someone.  But it is never alright to hate the person.  In God’s eyes they, we, are all his children and He never gives up on any of us.  Too many of us think we deserve God’s love because we look so much better than “that guy”.
God loves all of us without condition.  Those are easy words to say, but a tough path to follow when you’ve seen some of what I’ve seen.  But it is the truth.  I realized each day I’m being led down a path that God intends me to follow.  I just have to keep going.

There is nothing wrong with the men in here.  In God’s eyes, they are His children and there is still hope.  Perhaps it’s time to look at not just the criminal justice system, but life itself through God’s transforming eyes.  We all experience “rough winters” and we’re all promised to be led through them.
A minister I know wrote me the following recently:

“We should be more concerned about showing God’s love to those who do wrong than about demanding our rights.”  That thought helps lead me to spring.  

Holy Moses! A Running Insight

I was out getting my laps in on Sunday morning and thinking, as I usually do, about the Bible passages I read at 4:00 am.  I was a guy who in my past life, my “good” life, thought I understood everything there was to pretty much any subject.  And religion was no exception.  I’d sit in church every Sunday and run intellectual jousting matches in my mind with the minister’s sermons.
Perhaps one of the very good things in having gone through this is all that arrogance and self-assurance has been stripped bare.  I never believed people were “born again”.  That misconception was stripped away from me in the fear and despair of a jail cell.
Still, I never cease to be amazed at the relevance of my morning reading on my current circumstances.  Such was the case Sunday as I lapped around the gravel track.

The story is pretty simple.  The Israelites have left the bondage of Egypt.  God has parted the Dead Sea to make their escape and prove His power.  He’s provided water when they were thirsty and “manna” – food – when they hungered.  The Israelites are camped at the base of God’s Holy Mountain.  Moses heads up the mountain to talk to the “Big Guy”.  He tells his brother Aaron – the chief priest – to keep everything as is.  “I’ll be back in a little while.”  Off goes Moses with his trusted charge, Joshua.
And what happens?  Moses’ tent flap isn’t even fully closes when “the people” decide he’s gone forever, never to return.  “We’re in the middle of nowhere.  Do something!” they shout at Aaron.  “Make us a new God to lead us.”  Aaron does just that.  They take gold and make a calf idol and then have a huge party.

Meanwhile, up on the mountain, somewhere into his forty day visit, Moses is given God’s laws.  The Ten Commandments.  And God let’s Moses in on a little news:  the Israelites have made a gold idol in place of God.  God, understandably, is pissed.  “That’s it.  I’m wiping them all out.  I’ll find another chosen people.”
Imagine God, having performed miracle after miracle for the Israelites and every time a little difficulty arises they immediately act out of impatience and show they have no faith in His promises.  They turn to idols instead of God.   As I ran, over and over I thought “impatience”, and reacting, turning to idols instead of quietly, faithfully trusting in God’s promises.

But then Moses does something extraordinary.  He talks, really talks, to God.  He spoke to God as a friend and asks him “Let me handle this.  Don’t give up on these people.”  And God heard him.  God said “OK Moses, we’ll do things your way.”  Can you even imagine just talking to God like you would your best friend and God saying “OK, I hear  you.”
The story continues with Moses and Joshua carrying the stone tablets back and Moses sees the Israelites, his people, running around a golden idol in lust and immorality and he snaps.  He’s so angry he throws the stone tablets and breaks them.  He finds Aaron and says “what the hell is going on?”  And Aaron whines and tells him “they made me do it.”  Moses ends up getting a handful of righteous guys together and they slaughter 3000 of their fellow Israelites who were leading the orgy.  Moses can’t believe it.  He had done everything he could to get his people to the Promised Land and look how they acted!

He tells them to go into mourning and repent and he heads back up the mountain.  This time, having another conversation with God, he has to convince Him to keep leading “His people”.
My mind played through this story over and over as I ran.  See, the past few weeks I’d been running more, as if some way I could outrun the disappointment and hurt I was feeling about being replaced in my family and with so many of my friends.  I figured if I just ran long enough all that junk would dissolve into laps.  As I ran Sunday, the story kept rewinding.  What did it all mean?

Impatience.  Things happen and human nature tells us to “act”.  “There’s no time to waste.”  Unhappy in your circumstances?  Disappointed with your spouse?  Do something.  Except, over and over God says “Hold on.  Be patient.  Have faith.”  Too often, we react, take matters into our own hands and rationalize the consequences.  Whether it’s justifying stealing $2 million, or divorcing your spouse of 28 years, we act based on our finite understanding of the circumstances instead of saying “OK God.  I’ll ride this out.  I’ll wait on you.”
And our answer to our problems almost always involves creating an idol.  We find comfort for our decisions in things:  new cars, vacations, shopping sprees, or in our self-righteous attitude, “Look how well I’m doing!” or we rationalize our less than Godly behavior “Of course I had to divorce her.  I need to be fulfilled.”  And things get worse.

Then there are the other two parts of the story that hit me as well.  The first was Moses’ anger.  He spends all this time convincing God to let him handle things and he sees everything he worked for in shambles and he reacts and smashes God’s law to pieces.  Anger destroys.
And then there was Moses talking to God.  God spoke to him as a friend.  What an image.  God saying “talk to Me Moses.  Tell Me what you think.”  It’s funny, but in my worst days I would go out and run and just tell God what a mess everything was.  I’d tell him how much I was struggling and, within the day, either a verse would spring up, or a letter would arrive that would let me know God was saying “I’m with you.”

So what did I learn on my Sunday run?  To be patient.  God will handle things in His time and in His own way.  My responsibility is to be patient, trust Him and keep talking to Him.
And there’s one other thing I was reminded of.  Anger solves nothing.  Love, on the other hand, never quits.  Love never gives up.

The actress Jodie Foster made a remarkable statement the other day about her close relationship with the embattled Mel Gibson.  Foster, an atheist said more about a Christ like approach to relationships than anything I’ve seen in a long time.
“I can’t defend what he does…but, he’s someone I love.  And when you love somebody, you don’t run away from them when they’re struggling.”  Holy Moses!  We could all use a friend, a soul mate like that!

The Assistant Warden Speaks

The stress level here has been steadily increasing as the new administration makes itself known.  You would think the warden would run things at the prison, but at least with these two guys, it’s the assistant warden who’s calling the shots.
The rumor mill in a prison is amazing.  On almost any given day you will hear a dozen rumors floating across the compound, everything from “they passed 65%”, to “they’re doin’ a special shakedown”.  Almost every rumor you hear is false.  One of the things a couple of us like to do is start a crazy rumor to see how long it takes to run across this place.  We’ve recently told the guys Richmond announced there’d be steak and shrimp served at chow in honor of the new warden.  Our personal favorite:  we convinced about one hundred guys that the warden was going to require everyone in the college program to wear ties to distinguish them from “ordinary inmates”. 
Still, anytime there is a new administration there is stress on the compound.  This time, the stress is through the roof.  As I’ll detail below, in the long run, the assistant warden’s ideas and changes may be good.  But, when they’re jammed down your throat without any showing of respect – and respect is all many imprisoned men have left – tensions will rise.

The bunks were replaced in our building the other day.  It is hard to imagine that anything could make the “dorm” look more trashed, more cluttered, more crowded.  I was wrong.  The building has gone from a dump to a cesspool.
The bunks – “to give more visibility” to the understaffed booth officers – sit only four and a half feet high (rather than the “regular” dorm bunks at almost six feet).  The “beds” – are an open steel grate, only slightly more than six feet long, rather than the old building beds at almost seven feet in length.

The space between the bottom and top bunk is less than three feet.  That’s three feet of head space between the bottom bunk and top bunk.  Lying on a bottom bunk is akin to being in a coffin. And, because these short bunks have no built-in lockers, old rusted metal cabinets have been brought in.  The bottom guy’s cabinet fits in the cut.  The top guy’s locker is out in front of the bed, in the aisle, where, coincidentally, his chair sits.  The aisles are now compressed so that two men cannot pass each other.  The cuts are compressed to even less space than before.  The layout violates fire code regulations and square footage requirements dictated by Federal law to guarantee the constitutional rights of inmates.
In other words, the prison is violating the law.  Ironic isn’t it when you consider “they” are suppose to be “correcting” we’s illegal behavior.  “Hypocrisy”, my older son would say, “is a smelly cologne”.

So, guys are more compressed even on their bunks.  Tempers have flared.  “Viscous”, a gang member, got into a shouting match with “No teeth” over food being spilled in their cut.  “Vis” is a tough, muscular black kid.  But “No teeth” is an equally tough late twenties coal miner from Southwest, Virginia.  He held his own until two other bangers jumped in.
It was then I did and said one of the dumbest things since I was locked up.  I pulled aside one of the gang leaders and one of the NOI (Nation of Islam) leaders and said “I’m not gonna stand by while some kid gets jumped.”  They both told me to mind my own business, but I told them someone getting ganged up on was my business.

Both guys then said “OK Larry.  It’s over.  Nothin’s gonna happen.”  Why are we so quick to turn to violence to solve things?  I ask that almost daily in here, yet as I watch the news each night I remind myself prison is just an extension of an angry, hateful, violent world.
The dorm is a mess all thanks to the new administration’s bunk decision.  And guys are getting written up for a host of charges never before used.  Every day some guy is going to the hole for saggy pants or removing a piece of fruit or an onion from their chow hall tray.

Guys are pissed, literally (they are urine testing dozens of guys to break the drug cartel here) because change throws everything out of balance.  And balance keeps the violence down.
But the assistant warden finally came out and spoke this week to the inmate council.

“The days of gangs running around here are over; homosexuality in the buildings won’t be tolerated.  You sag your pants, you don’t tuck in your shirt, you’ll be charged and moved.”
Yeah, he delivered the message in an arrogant tone, but the message – the terms he spelled out – was OK.  One thing that frustrates me here is that guys see no reason to follow the rules.  Candidly, most of the rules in prison – especially at this level – are ridiculous.  They aren’t in place to enforce security or maintain order.  They are just there to screw with guys trying to do their sentences.

But, if the Governor is serious about re-entry (and that’s still open to question.  McDonnell seems to be blowing a whole lot of smoke up the collective asses of Virginia’s voters), then guys in prison have to be serious about changing their attitudes.
Too often in here guys will tell you nothing will change.  Society will always view them as felons or inmates so why bother acting differently.  There’s some truth in that as well.  Virginia has a reputation for not giving released inmates a fresh start.

As I’ve told the college guys (the gang bangers as well) do your best to make something of yourself and then we can force the Governor and the legislature and the voters to realize guys can be rehabilitated. 
I’m willing to give this schmoo of an assistant warden the benefit of the doubt if he can make this place a little more educationally progressive.  I’ll even overlook that fact that he’s a tool.  But, it’s going to be a stressful few months.

The Force of Wilber

I have been reading “Amazing Grace” this week.  It is the extraordinary true story of British member of Parliament William Wilberforce who led his nation to abolish slavery.  It is remarkable that this one man, by the sheer force of his faith changed his entire country’s view of what morality, what righteousness, truly means.
Most people know the story of the Hymn “Amazing Grace”.  British slave ship captain John Newton watches as his ship is crushed against the rocks off Hatteras during a hurricane.  He is convinced he will die, drowning in the churning waters of the Atlantic.  His life, he realizes, has been a complete mess.  He calls out to God.  And God hears and delivers this loathsome retch.  The song doesn’t immediately come.  Newton has to figure out what “it” all means.  Why did he survive?  He comes to understand how broken he truly is, but even broken he is not beyond God’s amazing life altering grace.

William Wilberforce as a young boy met the “saved” John Newton and through that friendship would use his faith to lead the British people in a new direction.  As author Eric Metaxas notes: 

“Americans have an outsized tendency to romanticize the past…life in eighteenth-century Britain was particularly brutal, decadent, violent and vulgar.  Slavery was only the worst of a host of societal evils that included epidemic alcoholism, child prostitution, child labor, frequent public executions for petty crimes, public dissections and burnings of executed criminals and unspeakable public cruelty to animals.”

English society during Newton’s and Wilberforce’s days was, simply put, immoral.  But before we get too comfortable thinking “that’s not us,” consider the following from the author commenting on how the British allowed such social immorality and evil to exist in their society.
“Just as most Americans today have never visited a slaughterhouse to investigate the grim details of how large animals become the shrink-wrapped frankfurters in their supermarkets, nor have witnessed the degradation and violence of life among the two million people incarcerated in our prisons, so most Britons went about their lives with no idea of the universe of horrors that existed….”
William Wilberforce believed God intended people to live in a different way than in the brutality of life he saw in British society.  And, it wasn’t just words with him.  He was a wealthy, carefree young man who suddenly had an epiphany, a life altering moment.  He was never the same.  He began living frugally, donating his wealth to the less fortunate.  And, he spearheaded abolition.

By the force of his faith Britain went from a degrading, course, violent society to one where decency became common place.  It didn’t happen overnight and it wasn’t easy.  Wilberforce had to fight the conventional wisdom of his day, particularly the Church of England which, the author notes, “was little more than a pseudo-Christian purveyor of government sponsored institutionalized hypocrisy.”
No one today would even attempt to argue that slavery is somehow justified.  Yet, before we get smug about how far we’ve advanced, consider the current state of our society.  How much different are we really from eighteenth century Britain?

The United States incarcerates more people in sheer number and per capita, than any other country in the world.  All those despots, all those tyrants together couldn’t come up with two million people in prison.  Even China, with one billion plus citizens does not have two million incarcerated people.

And, the prisons are abysmal.  They are filthy, violent, degrading places.  They are filled with many people suffering from mental illness and substance abuse problems.  The American prison system is deplorable, immoral and without any redeeming social value.
We, as a nation, pride ourselves on our national morality.  Many people often claim we are a “Christian” nation.  Well to be Christian implies we are “Christ like”.  I have repeatedly posed the question in this blog “What would Jesus do/say?”  Would Jesus have raised an American flag and shouted “USA” when he heard that OBL was shot?  I don’t think so.  Nor do I think Jesus would look at the current sate of America’s prison system (I refuse to use the Orwellian term “corrections”) and say “you’ve got it right America.”  Somehow I think He would tell us to love, forgive and show mercy; three things that are in terribly short supply in this nation, in this world, in each of us.  Like the example He set with the adulterous woman, He would tell us to build a corrections system that measures the remorse and regret of the wrongdoer and “corrects” by knowing we are all wrongdoers.  We all deserve a second chance.

“Anonymous in Alaska” took me to task for comparing POW’s to inmates.  “POW’s were fighting for our freedom”, she wrote.  “Alaska”, criminality is in the eye of the injured.  Ask a German family their feelings as they sat in Dresden in 1944 as the entire city was incinerated by U.S. firebombing at a loss of civilian life in excess of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  There was no military objective in that attack.
Ask the 100,000 Iraqi dead, “collateral damage”, in our “liberation” of Iraq if they think this country’s behavior was justified?  How about the Vietnamese women and children butchered at Mylar or just napalmed during a bombing run?  What reaction would you get from Native Americans to the massacre at Wounded Knee?  Read Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.  Read Grisham’s The Confession.

What “Alaska” missed – what Newton and Wilberforce came to understand – is that we turn a blind eye to the evil and injustice that permeates our lives.  We hold ourselves out with self righteous pride about our goodness because we live our lives in a state of relative morality.  How else can a guy like me explain away being such a liar to the woman I love and took an oath before God to love, honor and cherish?  In relative terms, I was a pretty good husband, pretty good guy.  In truth – in the absolute truth of God’s judgment – I am a filthy, despicable sinful retch.
The amazing thing about that is God doesn’t give up on me or anyone else.  He calls us to live as He intends us to live; showing mercy, compassion, forgiveness and love.

That’s the epiphany John Newton had on that sinking slave ship.  That was the driving force behind Wilberforce’s campaign.  That is why I rail against prisons and pray each day for my ex’s happiness.  We all can do better.  Morality is not relative, and neither is grace.    

Saturday, June 4, 2011

News on the Prison Reform Front

Another week and the papers report more studies concluding incarcerating nonviolent felons is a waste of taxpayer dollars and more states are moving forward with prison reform.  And Virginia?  The Governor decided to go to China for some authentic take out.
Several dozen criminal justice organizations, led by the “Sentencing Project” (and including the National Council of Churches of Christ, the Progressive National Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church) have petitioned Congress to change Federal sentencing policies.  In an open letter to the chairs and ranking members of the Budget, Appropriations and Judiciary committees, they stated the following:

“In this time of economic crisis, our government wastes precious dollars when it incarcerates non-violent offenders whose actions would be better addressed through alternatives that hold them accountable at less cost to taxpayers.  Being sentenced to prison should be the option of last resort.”
Brilliant!  I wish Governor Bob saw that report.  Unfortunately, he was busy choosing between Moo Shoo Pork and Chicken Lo Mein. 

Two criminologists recently released studies concluding spending to incarcerate doesn’t lower crime; depending on police in communities does.  Both Lawrence Sherman of the University of Maryland and Daniel Nagin of Carnegie Melon University reported their findings at a crime prevention symposium in Washington, DC.
Both argued for less incarceration and more contact between the police, the released offenders and the community.

As Daniel Nagin explained “studies have shown that the marginal deterrent effect of increasing already lengthy sentences is modest at best.”
Yes Governor, you can have more rice and tea if you just listen for a minute!

Kentucky’s recently signed prison reform legislation made the news.  According to the Pew Center, Kentucky’s legislation is “at the forefront of research driven criminal justice policies.”  Nonviolent offenders will utilize alternative sentencing rather than take up prison bed space.  The reform package is expected to save Kentucky over $420 million dollars during the next ten years.
$420 million, that will buy a lot of egg rolls Governor!

The Wall Street Journal recently reported on studies suggesting that states need to increase spending on college programs in prison and “expand internet-based delivery” of those educational opportunities.

It is one of the ironies of prison life that they tell inmates “we want to prepare you for your return to society”, then completely isolate us from normal life activities.  Almost every job today requires some basic skill level with technology, yet inmates are prohibited from any access to computers (other than those of us who work on academic programs).  Even our IT students can’t get hands on experience working on boxes.  The instructor wants to let them break units apart.  He has a storage building full of them.  But, DOC security rules prohibit inmate access to the equipment.

The study concludes with a “no brainer” – inmate college education is the single most important determiner in reducing recidivism rates.  An inmate who earns a college diploma in prison will almost never recommit.
Perhaps Governor McDonnell would pay more attention to that message if it was on a fortune cookie.

Another week gone by and more evidence presented that Virginia’s corrections policies need reform.  The billion dollar question is when will the Governor put down the chopsticks and move Virginia in the right direction?

The Law

I’ve been giving a good deal of thought to the notion that we live in a law-abiding society and yet there’s not a big difference between the guys in here and “good, decent people” going about their daily lives.  Almost every day this week the newspaper had a blip about some group here or there wanting to put the Ten Commandments up in classrooms to restore America’s “morality”. 
I have a stack of letters from well meaning people who remind me that I am a law breaker and they are “good” people.  I’ve spent months thinking about our reliance on “the law” to determine who is good versus who is bad. This blog will probably draw its fair share of criticisms but that’s OK.

John Mellencamp was onto something when he sang “I fought the law and the law won”.  The law always wins and we – fragile, broken, sinful human beings that we are, always lose.  I have to smile when I hear people wax self righteously about the Ten Commandments.  I’m no theologian, but I’ve developed a relationship with my Lord, and what I’ve come to realize is God’s law – those Ten Commandments we like quoting so much – are absolutes, and no one can live up to God’s laws.
That’s why Paul kept telling the new churches (and especially the Romans) the law is death.  No one is free of sin.  Each and every day we break God’s law.  Think I’m wrong?  Consider the following “absolutes”:

·         A prohibition on idolatry (remember that the next time you wave your flag or put anything ahead of your relationship with God)

·         Divorce is prohibited (except for adultery)

·         Envy

·         Gossip

·         Working at any activity on the Sabbath

·         Lust
This list is just a few of the things each and every one of us does day in and day out.   And it’s precisely because these God made laws are absolutes that we can’t live up to them.  The “law” always prevails.
And that is what I’ve discovered is so wonderful about God.  He knows we can’t live up to His requirements, but He tells us “I love you anyway”.

I find myself thinking about grace a great deal.  The entire idea that “you were dead in the law but alive in God…” just overwhelms me with a deep sense that with God at least, there are always second, third and even fourth chances.
All the men in here wear the clothes of lawbreakers.  Yet, we’re all lawbreakers, even the “good” people outside.  I think that’s why I’ve drawn so close to my faith recently.  God doesn’t expect us to be perfect.  He just wants us to treat each other with kindness and mercy.  He just wants us to forgive and love.

There’s a wonderfully sweet Eagles song called “Love Will Keep Us Alive”.  It’s a song that brings bittersweet memories for me.  I can’t help but think of a young girl I fell in love with as a young boy and how much I miss that girl, that feeling of love.  But as I recently read the lyrics, I couldn’t help but think there’s more to it.

“Don’t you worry
Sometimes you’ve just gotta let it ride
The world is changing
Right before your eyes
Now I’ve found you
There’s no more emptiness inside
When we’re hungry love will keep us alive

I would die for you
Climb the highest mountain
Baby, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the Beatles were right:  all you need is love.  Love, God is telling us, overcomes a myriad of our sins.  Love overcomes the law.
Every day people are convicted of breaking the law.  Some, like me violate the criminal code of Virginia.  Others live outside a state of righteousness.  But, I’ve come to realize, the law may punish and people may refuse to forgive, but God forgives, God shows mercy, God loves.

Perhaps, just perhaps, God’s trying to tell us something about our reliance on the law.


Semester Observations

Classes concluded Thursday night.  I now have three months of “free” evenings before a new group of guys start in the IT program.  The current group goes back Monday for all computer classes.  There is an English and Philosophy class for the regular college students so I’ll still have about twenty-five guys to help for the next eight weeks, but the constant cries of seventy guys needing help is over, for a short while at least.   Now, I can return my focus to my writing, the adult basic ed class, the writing program I lead, and “House”. 
I want to share a couple of observations from this semester, working with these men.  First, from Ms. “T”, the computer teacher (she’s in the video with me).  On our last day of class with her, the guys surprised her with a card to thank her for everything she did for them.  She choked up and began to cry as she read their words and thanked them for reminding her why she decided to be a teacher.  After class was over she and I spoke a few minutes.

“These guys treated me with more respect than any class I’ve taught at the college.  I’ve never felt so moved by a group of students.”

That evening we had our last English class with Dr. “Y”.  Before going to the door to shake each man’s hand on the way out, she spoke to the class.  Choking up, she said, “I was apprehensive when I first came here.  I didn’t know what to expect.  You have taught me so much.  Nothing in your past will limit your future.  I am just so happy to have had this opportunity.”

Don’t hear that very often from teachers do you.  The simple fact is, they knew these men hungered for education.  They knew they were making a difference. 

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday as guys received their final papers and grades they’d come in the cut and thank me. 

Lil D – “You’re great Larry, I got an A!”

Dre – “I never thought I could do it.”

Todd – “You did more for me, believed more in me, than my dad.”

Seven ½ mile – “Thanks for not letting me quit.”

No teeth – “My mom can’t believe I made a ‘B’ in English.  I told her she needed to meet you.”

Two guys made me a pizza.  I received a bag of chips and a soda, then a pie.  The “love”, the appreciation, poured forth to the point that I was embarrassed. 

As I sat there reminding myself what a mess I made of my own life, thought about dreams that were shattered, relationships that lay in ruin, I caught myself thinking about Paul’s words:  “In all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, according to His purposes.”

I have been an actor in my own drama watching how the deadly sins of pride and greed can utterly destroy you and I’ve been give a front row seat in the stories of men who likewise failed, yet somehow began working to overcome their circumstances with my help and encouragement.

I learned this week that I mattered, and that I was needed, and that there was a reason to believe.  All the “good works” I did in my former life never led anyone to sincerely thank me the way these guys did.  No assignment I ever undertook at work, or at church, or doing volunteer service, had such an effect, such an impact as what I’ve done with these guys.

They have also helped me begin to put to rest so much pain and disappointment I feel over the divorce and the abandonment by family and friends.

Paul wrote so many wonderful things – most while he was in prison.   I thought about his call to be joyful in our trials.  I also thought about his words that we need to focus on the big picture – God – not the petty, old, sinful stuff.

I’ve learned a lot this semester with these guys.  I wasn’t as good a man outside as I liked to tell myself.   I’m a better, more giving man for enduring this.  These guys taught me that.  Perhaps someday I’ll get the courage to tell my ex “it’s OK.  You did what you thought was best and I love you for that.”  As Dr. Y told me on the way out the door, “I never thought I’d learn so much in prison.”