Waiting

The Lenten season began this morning.  More traditionally observed by Catholics, since my incarceration I have tried to use Lent as a day of fasting and reflection each week.  I spend time trying to figure out what I am called to do.  Who, I ask, does God see when He sees me?  Lent, I’ve come to appreciate, is a time of reflection, confession, and anticipation.  Lent gives way to Easter and in Easter I find hope.

At 3:50 this morning Lent began for me.  During my devotional period I read Psalm 102.  A verse jumped off the page: 

“From heaven the Lord gazed upon the earth, to hear the groaning of the prisoner….”

That verse has sustained me for much of the last five Lenten seasons as I have dealt with my incarceration and the losses that flowed from that.  Where I am now in that spiritual journey is a long way from where I began, as my life – on that sunny August Monday – collapsed around me.  Over and over those first few days I asked myself why, why was this happening to me?  The truth was, I put all that was happening in motion years earlier when I strayed from the course set out for me.  And, the decisions I made had consequences.  The problem was consequences, I always assumed, bore a rational relationship to our action.  Embezzle and be arrested, you deserve to make restitution, spend some small amount of prison time (maybe), and endure a minimum amount of public exposure.  But, that wasn’t how it played out. 

I was scared, angry, and lonely for longer than I care to admit.  I found myself in a foreign world.  Everything I thought I knew didn’t make sense “inside”.  Right and wrong were blurred as both inmates and officers felt justified in behaving expediently. 

There were a number of people who claimed to be my friends who withdrew from me almost immediately after my arrest.  A few came by the jail for visits.  But, I soon realized they weren’t there to lend support.  I was an animal in a cage.  They looked, left, then told our wide circle of acquaintances how I’d fallen.  I thought of Bob Dylan’s bitter “Positively Fourth Street” on more than one occasion.

“You got a lot of nerve

To say you are my friend

When I was down

You just stood there grinning.”

Almost immediately, I knew my wife would leave me.  I had resigned myself to that fate years earlier.  You know the feeling, when you look at that someone and don’t see back what you crave, what you need.  The divorce took its toll.  I heard a minister remark one day that nothing is more painful than rejection.  It was one of the purest truths I ever heard.

I built up scars.  Trials will do that to you.  I lost hope weekly and somehow found it with a letter, a visit, a story, or a simple prayer.  And I decided I wouldn’t let this place, this experience, define me.  I survived perhaps the worst four months of my life going through DOC’s Receiving center and landed here, a low custody facility with an overwhelming need first for GED tutors and later college tutors.

It was as if God’s hand had directed my journey here.  Slowly, Bible verses I had read dozens of times at the start of my incarceration (in my prior life, I was “too busy” for Bible study) began to make sense.  I understood Deuteronomy 8:2.

            “You shall remember all the ways which the Lord your God hassled you in the wilderness…that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart….”

Five Lenten seasons.  Five years of preparation and reflection.  Five years of waiting.  For a man whose main attribute was impatience, waiting has been a struggle.  My friend DC – no odder pair of friends may exist – told me once he felt for me.  How ironic, a man locked up forty years felt sorry for me. “You know the world out there.  You know what you could be doing.  You know how the system plays and creates different results.  Every day must feel like a month to you.”  He was right.

Prison isn’t’ easy for anyone.  And, I’ve learned no matter how heinous the crime, with few exceptions, most people are redeemable.  But that redemption won’t come from places like this.  Even at a low level facility, prison is a dehumanizing experience.  There is nothing to be gained rehabilitatively by locking a man – or woman – away.  We as a society should stop lying to ourselves about prison being about rehabilitation and re-entry to society.

If we want to punish and break people and subject them to a Thunderdome world of filth, violence, heartbreak, and hopelessness at least be honest and say that’s what we believe.  But, we won’t say that because we’d have to admit this Judeo-Christian nation doesn’t give a damn about the tenets of that theology and we’re no better than anyone else.

But, this is about Lent, and reflection, and anticipation.  As I fasted today I realized there was much to be thankful for in this experience.  For one, things could be much worse.  My prison experience is not even comparable to the experiences some of the men I know have endured.  Nor is it on par with the problems so many face around the world.   I have a wonderful support network – close family and friends and others who hold me up in prayer.  My ex and our sons are doing well, very well in fact.  My parents are healthy and together – fifty eight years this May.

Me?  In small ways day in and day out I seem capable of touching the lives of men in here.  This week, three more of my GED students passed the exam and earned their diplomas.  I’ve been able to use my life experiences – my successes as well as my failures – to help some younger men in here who never had a father.  It’s funny, but many of these kids have become like sons to me.   They have helped fill a void I miss so terribly.

I began this blog telling you I ask myself, who does God see when He sees me.  The answer, I’ve concluded is simple.  He sees one of His children and in God’s eyes each child is precious, each child can be redeemed, no matter how far off the path they wander.

If God could continue to love me, to hold me close even as I drifted farther away, how could I do any less?

I don’t know who reads these postings and it doesn’t matter if you knew the “Old Larry” versus the “New Larry”.  I’ve learned one important lesson the past five years, and it’s a “father” lesson – I will never give up hope in my sons, in my life and in my future.

There is a lot I could write this week about prison.  But, this isn’t the time.  It’s Lent and it’s about anticipation, reflection and waiting.  I’m waiting on Easter and Easter is hope.

 

Thoreau in a Week

American philosopher and essayist Henry David Thoreau said, “Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is prison.”  I don’t profess to be the man Thoreau was talking about, though I do know the American Criminal Justice System is broken.  What passes for justice these days is not what our national myths about justice look like.  And prisons are too full of too many people.  America is a land of 47,000,000 convicts.  That is the number, roughly fifteen percent of the country, who have criminal convictions on their records.  Two million are behind bars with over half of those doing time for nonviolent crimes.  Another six million are on probation or parole supervision.

The “Land of the Free” is now the “Land of the Convicted”.  The cost in real dollars, not to mention lives lost, families broken, and communities damaged, exceeds $60 billion annually.  And that’s just the prison/incarceration costs.  Add to that the cost to prosecute (from arrest, arraignment, bail, hearing, preliminary hearing, etc.) and the real costs exceed $250 billion.  That’s a quarter of a trillion spent annually to arrest, convict, and lock up over one million Americans each year.

The system breeds corruption, graft and incompetence.  One need only read one chapter of Conrad Black’s memoir, “A Matter of Principle”, to see that the issues I raise in this blog are not unique to this Southside Virginia prison.  Every day, in every state and in the Federal system, the mismanaged, unjust, failed corrections paradigm is repeated. 

Each day this week, from Monday through Saturday, an incident occurred here which reinforced everything wrong with prison.  As I write this recap of my week on a crisp winter Sunday morning shortly after completing my run and workout, I can’t help but think of the Psalmist’s words of comfort:  “The Lord hears the groaning of prisoners….”  I have no hope in the elected officials of this state or this nation to do the right thing, the just thing, as it relates to the epidemic of unchecked incarceration.  I have the utmost hope in God.

Monday:  At dinner Monday night an old inmate was unable to stand up after eating.  His legs buckled, his head sagged.  He shook, almost as though he had Parkinson’s disease.  “Do you want to go to medical old timer?”  Two different officers asked him.  “No”, he mumbled.  What did the officers do?  They got a wheelchair and had another inmate wheel him back to our building.

College student, you ask?  No.  The “old timer” is a 67 year old man brought in here directly from the local jail to do his last eight months and go through “re-entry”.  He lacks a high school diploma (education level is 4^th grade).  He is hepatitis B and C positive and uses a cane.

He’s brought back to the building where he promptly rolls out of the wheelchair and into his bed.  Shaking violently, he is unable to stand for count.  The officer waits until count “clears” (twenty minutes) before calling for a wheelchair.  They pack his personal belongings up at 3:00 am.

Tuesday:  At 7:30 am we lose water pressure.  The water intermittently returns through 3:00 pm.  When the pressure fails, ninety-two men are denied access to toilets.  When the water returns it is chocolate brown with sediment.  The officers are instructed to turn off the washers and ice maker; “Don’t want to ruin the filters.”  Inmates are told the water is fit to drink yet carts are wheeled around the compound with bottled water for the staff.  After the night shift arrives – 6:00 pm – a memo from the warden mysteriously appears worded as though notice was given about the water problem in the a.m.  By Wednesday, the water has cleared.

Wednesday:  As we are walking up to the school building we notice all the yard men in line on the boulevard while two “drug” dogs swoop around them.  Looking to our left, we see another team of drug dogs with about ten officers heading into building 6A.  Rumors are all over the compound that the dog team “sat” on two guys in 6A.  Drug use, evidenced by dirty urines, is rampant.  The amount and choice of drugs available on the compound right now isn’t from visitors sneaking them in.  Quantities such as these require CO assistance.

Thursday:  “Adaptor Check.  Adaptor Check.”  It’s 8:00 am and the building intercom suddenly announces that everyone need return to their bunks and show their electronic adaptors.  A dozen officers and counselors swoop in.  I show my Sony CD adaptor to a building counselor and intern from the college nearby.  She asks my name.  When I give it she looks up.  A very pretty college junior, I can’t help but think my ex is her intern advisor and she recognized my name.  Tattooing – with homemade guns – is everywhere on the compound.  And, with the weekly turnover of inmates (fifty each week into and out of re-entry) there is a huge black market in electronics.

Friday:  The four academic aides are two weeks into keeping the lid on DVD porn smuggled into the compound.  Guys are getting laptops and then covering them with towels to take into the bathroom.  I wonder if we should spray the computers with luminal and use a black light to see what body fluids we’re being exposed to.  At the least, we are getting disposable gloves.  It is a moral dilemma.  You don’t rat out another inmate.  But, these guys could be jeopardizing the program.  We do what we can and make arrangements to disable the “D” drive eliminating DVD and CD use.

Saturday:  I have my monthly visit with my parents who drive ninety miles to see me.  My father will be 80 this year.  My mother will turn 78.  They are in excellent health and enjoy an active life.  My mother said to me, “I hate coming here to visit you; the pat downs, the loss of privacy….”  Her chin quivered and her voice trailed off.  I understand.  I hate that they have to see me in here.  But, I appreciate their visits and support.

My father is a Korean War veteran.  He and my mother have been married since 1955.  They have paid their taxes, voted in every election, and represent what this country stood for.  They sat silently in the courtroom when I admitted my wrongdoing.  They listened as the judge handed down a sentence harsher than most get for murder, rape or child sex abuse.  For the first time in their lives they saw that their nation’s criminal justice system isn’t fair.  It’s driven by politics and revenge.  Most importantly, my parents visit because they love me and know I am not the sum total of my conviction.  I think that’s why my close friends and other family continue to stay by my side throughout this sentence.

Just a typical week inside this place.  But, it gave me insight into Mr. Thoreau’s remark.  He didn’t say a perfect man.  He said a just man.  Perhaps there is a reason for all this.  Perhaps one small thing I write will make a difference.  Perhaps Mr. Thoreau will be vindicated and justice will prevail.