I
find it easier to read Spanish than speak it. My accent isn’t great. The words
on the paper, however, make sense. And, I read an Easter message – “Pascua
Mensaje” in Spanish which made sense to me. It was about the three parables
told in Luke 15 about the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. The
writer said the parables’ meaning is determined by where you’re sitting when
you hear – or read – them. If you’re sitting with the Pharisees and scribe
(i.e. the law-abiding citizens of the time) the “lost” stories will concern you
(“why such a big deal about a lost, sheep, coin, or errant boy?)
But,
if you’re in the dirt, sitting with the sinners, the broken and disenfranchised
fringe people, you see the message in a different way. Put another way, for
those on the outside looking in, the three parables all point to a God who
actively searched for “the lost” and rejoices when they are found. It is the
ultimate message of God’s grace fully revealed on that, first Easter morning.
And
the funny thing is, the parables were told so that everyone would understand,
“I’m one of the lost.”
I
know, you’re wondering what that has to do with prison? A lot. This is the
world of the lost. Hundreds of the men here, roughly two-thirds, are on their
second, third, even fourth trips to prison. To a man, they will tell you, “I
ain’t never comin’ back.” Yet, they return to streets worse off each time
feeling more victimized, less empathetic, less responsible. They return to the
same lives they lived each time before. And, like a patient suffering from
schizophrenia, they believe the results “this time” will be different.
They
are lost, hopelessly lost. Worse, they don’t even know it most times. I think
that’s where the Pharisees and scribes (and most “good,” law abiding folks)
were when they heard the story. “I’m ok; I’m not lost.” Been there.
Monday
morning, April 1st, the day after Easter, my friend Gras will leave
this place he’s called home since 1995. Seventeen years locked up. He came in
as a young, Cuban-American, man the son of naturalized U.S. citizens – exiled
from Castro’s Cuba – who was 26 when the gate closed and now goes out a 44
year-old man. Twenty gets you seventeen. Seventeen years, seventeen years in
the wilderness that is prison.
We
said our goodbyes yesterday and he had the look of a man ready to live his
life. He told me he “found himself,” in here. I knew what he meant. His
seventeen years wasn’t wasted. He earned his BA, then went and earned a secondary
college degree from a Mexican University. He became a licensed, master
electrician, HVAC specialist, and plumber. “I was given a second chance,” he
told me and I thought of the lost son. “Pascua,” he told: “Easter.” “My folks
celebrated last week. My dad told me the line the father said in the parable of
the prodigal son, “for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he
was lost and has been found.”
The
significance of the Pope’s Maundy Thursday trip to an Italian juvenile
detention center didn’t escape me either. The leader of the 1.2 billion member
Roman Catholic Church went and washed the feet of a dozen juvenile inmates. The
church, the new Pontiff has proclaimed, must get out into the streets with the
people. What better way to begin but in a prison. I pass no judgment on the
problems facing the Roman Catholic Church, but it’s hard not to be awed by a
man who would do what he did.
Pescua
Mensaje, an Easter Message, God gives second chances; God searches for the
lost. It is a message that resonates with me, never more
so, than in here.
“Feliz
Pescua. Dios liberar los presos.”
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