Race...Again

Last Saturday night most TVs in the pod were tuned to CNN as “Breaking News” came in announcing a verdict in the most recent racially charged case out of Florida since the Trayvon Martin murder trial. The new case, involving a white middle class man named Dunn who pulled a gun out while in a “7-11” parking lot and proceeded to empty a clip into a red SUV parked beside him, killing the driver, a seventeen year-old black kid names Jordan Davis and wounding his two black friends. And people immediately compared this shooter (Dunn) to the Martin shooter (Zimmerman); and the case broke on racial lines just like the Martin case; and once again America was treated to the idiocy of Florida’s “stand your ground” law and way too many talking heads on TV inflaming the situation.

            The cases aren’t the same. There were major differences between Zimmerman and Dunn. Zimmerman stayed at the scene, Dunn left after firing. Zimmerman was in his own neighborhood, sober, and “observed” a “suspicious” man walking through. He contacted police who told him to “not interact” with the walker (advice he ignored). He confronted the hooded black teenager; a scuffle ensued and Trayvon Martin lay dead.

            Dunn had been to the wedding of his son from whom he was estranged. He had four rum and cokes at the reception and stopped at the 7-11 on the way home. His girlfriend testified he was in a “not so good mood” and immediately upon parking next to the red SUV with the three black teens in it, stated to her how much he loathed “that f---in loud rap music.” For some unknown reason, Dunn then felt “threatened” by the three teens. He claimed – well after he was tracked down for the shooting – that one of the black teens “brandished” a gun; only after seeing the gun – he claimed – did he pull out his piece and fire in self-defense. Funny thing was, there was no gun in the SUV. Dunn’s girlfriend said there was no gun that she ever saw and she never felt in fear. Not good testimony if you’re trying to build a “self-defense” defense.

            As any reasonable person would expect, Dunn was found guilty of two counts of attempted murder (the two wounded black teens) and the count on brandishing a firearm. However, the jury hung on the first-degree murder count, and that is where the problem with race comes in.

            Guys in here were livid. “M – F—er got away with murderin’ another black kid. It’s open season on young brothers.” CNN’s own anchor fanned the flames with outrageous, anecdotal comments and hyperbole (and yet, Don Lemon remains of the air – go figure.) And I watch it all and realize it is so easy to jump to conclusions and make over-generalized statements especially when it comes to races. America is a unique nation because it enjoys a prosperity and internal peace in abundance all the while being a very heterogeneous population. And yet, the elephant in America’s living room remains race.

            It’s weird really because I always considered myself racially fair (for lack of a better word). I told myself I didn’t judge people by their color (hell, I thought Halle Berry was the most beautiful woman in the world!), but it was easy saying that out there because I lived a racially segregated life. We had no black or Hispanic friends, and no races other than white attended our church. I had black employees; our kids went to school and played sports with black kids; but that was the extent of it. Then I got locked up and I shared cells, and chow hall tables, and my life with men who did not look like me and I realized all the preconceived ideas I had that involved a person’s skin color, National origin, religion, or sexual orientation were unadulterated bullshit.

            Race will continue to torment this country corporately and many of us individual until we overcome those preconceptions. Where is the empathy for the mothers of the two boys gunned down? Shouldn’t any parent be able to feel the loss these women feel? Why should our view of crime, politics, music, anything really be governed by the skin color of those involved?

            Dr. King urged America to judge a person “by the content of their character not the color of their skin.” Sometimes that’s tough. It’s always easier following preconceived notions. But, it isn’t right. Until we come to grips with the fact that a teenager was senselessly gunned down and not worry about his color, we are doomed to repeat the same tale over and over.

            This past week white fraternity members at Ole Miss placed a noose around the statue of James Meredith. The same day, a black Ole Miss student had a drink thrown on her from a passing car as the driver yeller the “N” word. It’s time to stop the ignorance.

Failure and ...

This was a difficult week for me.  There were a fair number of reasons for that.  Some, I’m exploring in a piece I’m writing.  Some, I’m ignoring.  But, in the midst of my personal circumstances there were some issues affecting guys in the program now and one guy who left that made me question if it all matters.

Ms. C let me know late in the week that one of our released graduates (seven have left; four more go in April; four more in May) was back in custody.  “John” went AWOL from Goodwill his second day out.  Within a week he was picked up by police passed out on the side of the road. He was high on crack.  He’d spent less than a week out of here before he fell back into his drug addiction.

When I met John as a student in our program he was almost five years into his fourth trip to prison; thirty-eight years old and four bids.  He’d spent a total of eighteen years locked up, all in three to five year trips.  And it all was because of drugs.  Well, drugs were what he turned to help him deal with the pain of a failed, fractured life.

Four times during his year in school John quit.  “I can’t do this shit”, he’d announce.  Four times I cajoled him, berated him, uplifted him to keep going.  “You can do this”, I’d tell him.  “Show these bastards you can do this.”  And he made it.  At graduation he had no one there.  His family had moved on long before.  He asked to take a picture with me.  In it, he’s grinning.  He told me graduating was his first real accomplishment in life.

Two weeks ago I saw him leaving breakfast.  He was headed for the front gate.  He called out to me.  “I’m getting out.”  But, he didn’t look happy.  No, he looked scared, very scared.  I walked over to him and quietly said, “You can do this, John.  Be strong.  You can do this.”

But, he couldn’t.  And every night I’ve prayed for him just like I do about dozens of other guys in here and people on the outside who have walked away from me.  Drugs, I’ve learned, are terrible, terrible things.  And so is self-loathing.  I turned to my modern language Bible, to the Beatitudes.  It began simply “you’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope….”  I couldn’t help but think of John.

That evening, a young student named “Fifty” came back from English early.  I cornered him as soon as he came in.  “I’m quitting Larry”, he told me.  “I can’t do it.  I got too much on me.”  He then proceeded to tell me that he’d been called to medical that afternoon.  He’d tested positive for TB (the entire compound is tested annually).  When he explained he’d had false positives before, he was told “go on meds for nine months or go to isolation”.

“Fifty, you can’t quit.  Do you know what happens to young, black men who go to prison?  This is your life, Fifty.  College is all that will keep you out of here.”  I was in his face and I was pleading with him.  He put his head down.  “I’m not gonna quit, Larry.  I know I need this.”

DC and Jay heard my conversation.  They both have told me in the past I wear my emotions on my sleeve for these guys.  DC even told me he felt for me being in here.  “Guys like you Larry.  You do things out of love, fear, whatever.  You do them and you know their wrong ad you think you deserve what you get.  You don’t deserve this.”  I hate this place and I hate what it does to so many of these guys.  It’s a vicious cycle and you have to be strong to break out.  John couldn’t.

We had a failure.  Statistically, it’s going to happen.  The men in this program all register high for recidivism.  Many have baggage – drug and alcohol abuse, screwed up family situations, they lack education and job skills.  They’ve been told they don’t matter.  They’re expected to fail.

And in the middle of it is me.  I feel lousy, but they don’t know it.  They see me joking around, laughing, and they think “he’s got it all together”.  They don’t know how I ask God every night to tell me what it means.  They don’t see the failure I see in myself.

So, I pray about John and all the other struggling souls in here.  And I check on Fifty and make sure he’s alright.  And, I remember that no man is a total failure.  Dr. King said, “Every man is somebody because he is a child of God”.  What does it all mean?  I wish I knew.

The "F" Word

Words matter.  No doubt about it.  Words paint mental pictures for us.  They can sway our emotions, feeling heartbreak, joy or blinding anger.  Words are important.  And, many times it is the simplest words that carry the most power.  Think of Moses in Exodus, who asked God “who should I say sent me?”  Exodus records God’s simple, yet powerful words, “I am”. 

Hemingway once wrote a six word short story.  You can’t help but be moved by his words, “For sale.  Baby shoes.  Brand new.”  What, we wonder, is the story of the baby?  Why are the shoes for sale?  And our minds suddenly envision a grieving couple looking at an empty crib.  Baby blankets and sleepers and diapers folded neatly on the dresser.  But there is no child.  The baby has died.

Words matter.  Woody Guthrie soulfully singing “This land was made for you and me”.  Bob Dylan hoarsely calling out “The answer is blowin in the wind”.  Dr. King in his soulful, rich baritone calling forth “Free at last.  Free at last.  Thank God Almighty.  Free at last.”  Yes, words matter.

Words can lift up or bring down.  Perhaps that’s why both Solomon and James focused some attention on taming the tongue.  From my own life I know I have a gift for words.  Yet my gift can be a demon.  Too often I have said things in anger, in haste and hurt those near me.  Words are powerful.  Words can create or destroy.

Words.  For the young boy struggling with his sexual identity being called “fag” tears at his soul.  For the young learning disabled girl called “retard” her heart aches.  She feels loneliness and shame.  Words are a sword that cuts and slashes the fabric of our being.

I hear all kinds of words in here.  Each day is a cacophony of expletives.  I’ve heard every imaginable word to describe every race, every ethnicity.  And, I’ve heard words of hope, of longing, of regret, of comfort.

There is one word, the “F” word that matters most to the 2.3 million men and women in America’s prisons.  That word is “Felon” and the stigma and stain it carries does as much as anything to define which released person succeeds or fails.

As Margaret Love, former US Pardon Attorney recently noted,

“Felon is an ugly label that confirms the debased status that accompanies conviction.  It identifies a person as belonging to a class outside many protections of the law, someone who can be freely discriminated against, someone who exists at the margins of society…a legal outlaw and social outcast.  No passage of time,” she says, “or record of good works can erase the mark of Cain.”

Love notes that labeling a person convicted of a crime as a “felon” for life survives even “forgiveness”.  It is, she argues, an unhelpful label for people who have paid their debt to society.  It is also deeply unfair.

Until the late 20^th century prison, criminal justice was seen as a temporary period.  You broke the law, you went to jail.  But, upon your release you returned home.  However, in the last three decades America, under the dual mantras of “war on crime” and “tough on crime” made an industry out of penology.  And the law expanded with literally hundreds and thousands of new crimes created for social behaviors.  Punishment became key and what better way to punish than make a person wear the scarlet “F” for the rest of their life.  As scholar Nora Demleitner has pointed out, using the label “felon” creates a state of internal exile for those wearing the mark.  Today that label applies to more than 20 million Americans.

Labeling those who have paid their debt to society is directly contrary to the expressed goals and efforts to reduce the number of people in prison, and encourage those who are to rehabilitate and then re-enter society as productive citizens.  And, it mocks the myth of America as a land of second chances.

“Felon” arouses a sense of fear and loathing in “law-abiding” citizens.  Who would want to live – or work – with a “felon”?  In Virginia the fact that one is a felon can be used to deny a person employment and access to many grants, loans and benefits programs.  It shouldn’t be that way.  Love correctly argues that it is time to scrap the word “felon” and the equally reprehensible word “offender”.

In Virginia, over 90% of those currently behind bars will be released.  Governor McDonnell has correctly noted that any recidivism is too much recidivism.  He has made re-entry of released prisoners a cornerstone of his administration’s agenda.  But, it is idle words if the stigma of “felon” remains.

Words matter.   So do actions.  It is time to lay to rest “felon” from this nation’s lexicon.

In Black and White

As opposed to most white Americans, I live in an integrated world.  Our “learning community” – the “Campus within Walls” is just over 50% white and just under 50% black.  Those percentages are an anomaly in prison where almost 70% of the inmates are African Americans.  One of the eye opening parts of my prison experience has been coming face to face with my preconceptions, my prejudices, about race. I’ve written about it before.  I live it every day.  I’ve learned quite a bit in four years.  First, that for the vast majority of whites, we haven’t a clue what it means to be black in America.  Second, that the vast majority of Black Americans don’t hate us should come as a pleasant surprise.  And third, that race continues to define and damage this country and will do so until we come to grips with it.

I write this as race again rears its ugly head with the news of the shooting of a 17 year-old black teenager by the name of Trayvon Martin (in Sanford, Florida).  His death was senseless.  That the shooter remains free should concern every parent.  When President Obama – a man I don’t often agree with – said “If I had a son he would look like Trayvon Martin”, he spoke from the heart.  Unfortunately, in America, race matters.  Whether “driving while black” or walking back from a convenient market with skittles and an ice tea “while black” it is tough, sometimes deadly to be black in America.

A few weeks ago during a visit, a relative leaned in and whispered to me “Obama hates white people”.  How do you know that?  I asked, realizing the President’s own mother is white.  “It was on the internet”, came the reply.

And it made me think of my own upbringing.  I grew up in an upper-middle income family in upstate New York who had zero black neighbors or friends.  My high school had one black student.  Our church, a 400 member Presbyterian congregation had one black couple.  I still remember cringing as a middle-schooler in the late ’60’s when my mom remarked once that Shirley “is a credit to her race.”  I wonder what that makes me, now a member of the tribe of felons?

My family moved to Raleigh in the 80’s when I was in law school.  They have no black neighbors, no black friends, no black church families.  They have never voted for a black candidate.  The only contact they have with Black America is when they go to the mall.  And if my mom sees young black men she instinctively clutches her purse and car keys. 

And I wonder, thinking about all that, why no young black man in prison has ever suggested to me “your family hates black people”.  White America, I am convinced, doesn’t understand what it means to be black in this country.

Here are some facts to ponder.  Roughly three out of four black children are born out of wedlock.  60% of all black males between 17 and 25 have a criminal record.  80% of black students don’t go beyond high school.  Four in ten don’t even graduate high school.  The dropout rate, the incarceration rate, the mortality rate, the poverty rate for black Americans is dramatically worse than for the white community. 

Those are just facts.  That doesn’t quantify the number of times blacks are stopped by the police for random pat downs, or the fact that while drug use is proportional in both the black and white communities, a young black caught with drugs will almost always end up in prison.  And the white?  Rehab and probation.

America is not a color-blind society, and it’s a shame, a national shame.  Trayvon Martins lies dead for one simple reason; he was a black teenager walking at night.  I hate saying that, but the truth sometimes isn’t pretty.

Prison is an amalgam of gang bangers, white supremacists, and the rest of us.  I thought when I was first locked up how wasteful and inane the entire gang culture was.  Then, I looked myself in the mirror.  Gangs are a reflection of the sick, pervasive race issues this nation still suffers from.  And it will get worse.  The N.O.I. – Nation of Islam, with their call for race separation and their revisionist history and illogical conclusions passing as “knowledge” grows by leaps and bounds each week behind these walls.  I hear the young black guys discussing their “elements of wisdom” and my heart breaks.  They are being fed falsehood upon falsehood.

Dr. King understood the dangers that lurked for America if we didn’t grasp our race problem.  We are not to judge “by the color of our skin”, but “by the content of our character”.  Those of us who believe in the Gospel of Jesus know well that “in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, free nor slave”.

Trayvon Martin’s tragic death can be a chance for America to be something different, a nation not separated or defined by color.  Surely any parent can feel the pain his family must feel.  And that is as plain as black and white.

Rethinking Justice

As I sit here this week, one week from the college graduation for our first class of IT certification students, during the same week this nation celebrated a national holiday to honor an icon of the civil rights movement, I thought of Dr. King’s prescient words, “Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.”  Powerful words; words that should give every American, every Virginian pause, and decide “is it time we rethink our view of justice?”

Early last week former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour was viciously berated in the media and by political opponents for issuing executive pardons to “murderers and rapists” on his last day in office.  The fact that the U.S. Constitution gives the president and the Mississippi Constitution (and Virginia’s as well) gives the governor the power to modify, amend, or commute any sentence, any conviction, was lost on the critics.  The fact that 189 of the 215 felons pardoned were already out of prison and living in their communities was also lost on the critics.

News pundits blathered on and on misstating facts to suit their ratings drive.

Barbour refused to be baited into the debate.  Instead, he released a statement.  In part, it said the following:

“I am very comfortable with the decisions I made…All this is consistent with the powers given the governor by our constitution…

 My wife and I are evangelical Christians.  Most Mississippians profess to be Christian of some type.  Christianity teaches us forgiveness and second chances.  I believe in second chances and I try hard to be forgiving.   The historic power of gubernatorial clemency is rooted in the Christian idea of giving second chances.  I’m not saying I’ll be perfect, that no one who received clemency will ever do anything wrong.  I’m not infallible, and no one else is.  But I’m very comfortable and totally at peace with these pardons.”

Haley Barbour, a conservative Republican Governor from the heart of the old South made such a simple yet profound case for justice, real justice.  Governor McDonnell would do well to heed the words of Dr. King and Mr. Barbour.  Unfortunately, Virginia’s Governor appears either incapable or unwilling to do what is right.

In a recent story in the Washington Post, Virginia DOC came under scrutiny for its use of solitary confinement.  The Post reported that 44 states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons use solitary confinement yet Virginia – holding almost 2,000 inmates of its 40,000 prisoner population in isolation – accounts for a “sizeable share of the estimated 25,000 people in solitary” around the nation (almost 10%).

And what was Governor McDonnell’s response when this issue was brought to his attention during a recent interview?  He said he was unaware of the complaints.

He then went further, stating “People behind bars have civil rights…”  That’s true, Governor McDonnell.  Yet the prison system you oversee daily violates the rights of those behind bars.  Justice is not an eye for an eye.  Justice does not mean giving the state the power to put an offender in a gladiatorial nightmare with rape, extortion, murder and mayhem circulating around.

As I have noted numerous times in this blog, Virginia’s prison system is a cataclysmic failure.  Justice demands something better. 

Justice it seems is coming to Georgia where its current Governor has proposed sweeping prison reform.

Governor Deal, another Republican, noted that Georgia now spends more than $1 billion a year on state prisons and has seen its inmate population double in the past 20 years (sound familiar, Virginia?).  The state, he argues simply cannot afford to keep the current sentencing regime.  “We’re at a point in time where the necessity for doing something has gotten so big that to turn our head and pretend the problem does not exist is not responsible government.”  I wonder if Governor McDonnell is listening.

In a commission study conducted on behalf of Governor Deal it was found that in Georgia, 60% of the prison admissions represented drug and property offenders; not murderers, rapists or armed robbers.  Simply put, public safety isn’t being enhanced by current sentencing.

The Georgia legislature will vote on changes to save money by using alternatives to prison for non-violent offenders.  Make non-violent offenders accountable but allow them to remain out of prison, taking care of their kids and paying their taxes.  Justice, it appears, is coming to Georgia.

All around the South – South and North Carolina, Kentucky, Texas, Mississippi and Georgia – conservatives, many who are evangelical Christians, are leading the push for a new justice paradigm.  And these politicians’ ranks are growing with GOP candidate Newt Gingrich and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush supporting massive prison overhaul.  And where is Governor McDonnell?  Where is Virginia in this debate?

President Obama recently made news with his last official act in 2011 – signing the National Defense Authorization Act.  This law contains a highly controversial, and suspect, clause which allows the military to indefinitely detain terror suspects, including American citizens arrested in the United States, without charge.

Two retired four-star Marine generals joined GOP Candidate Ron Paul and numerous civil rights organizations to denounce the law, deeming it “misguided and unnecessary” and a threat to America’s constitutionally protected right to due process.  Justice.  The founding fathers included terms such as due process having survived a tyrannical regime who used arrest and detention to stifle dissent.  Protections against unreasonable searches, cruel and inhumane punishment, and the right to trial with counsel, all arose because these men lived, bled and died under the thumb of a corrupt, unjust government.

That some 225 years later this nation must still debate issues of basic, fundamental justice is indeed astounding.  “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”  Dr. King knew well.  The time for rethinking justice is upon us.  Justice – mercy, forgiveness – must flow.

Bob Dylan was right.  The times, they are a changin.  Virginia and Governor McDonnell can lead like Governors Barbour and Deal and states like Georgia and Mississippi.  Justice is not mere enforcement of harsh laws.

A Dream

The English students have been working on critical essays the past week. They were required to choose two famous speeches out of a handful given them and break them down, looking at the speaker’s reasons (logos), character (ethos) and play to the audience’s emotion (pathos). One of the speeches available was Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, given on a sweltering August afternoon in 1963.



Dr. Y brought a DVD of the speech into class and the guys sat spellbound as Dr. King, in the classic rhythmic pacing of a black, Baptist preacher over and over slightly raised his voice each time he uttered “I have a dream”. Remember, this is a class made up predominantly by African-American males, yet I was the only one in the room who had ever read the speech before or ever seen Dr. King speak before.


“Let freedom ring”, Dr. King said over and over and the guys leaned forward as he recited the words from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah and the patriotic American song “My Country tis of Thee”. That evening I was telling DC about the guys’ reaction. I told him how choked up I get every time I read Dr. King’s words because he spoke with moral clarity; he spoke with Godly truth.


DC told me an astounding thing. “I was at that speech. My grandmother took me. We walked the ten blocks from her house and I was standing way up the hill near the Washington Monument.”


I sat quietly as DC told me he stood there with his grandmother clutching his hand tightly so he wouldn’t get lost in the crowd.


“We couldn’t see him. We were so far back. But all along the sides were huge speakers and the crowd was completely quiet when Dr. King spoke. I remember when he got to the end and he began raising his voice saying ‘Free at last, Free at last, thank God Almighty free at last’, I looked at my grandma and she was crying. I said ‘grandma why you sad?’ she said, ‘I’m not sad. Your great grandparents [her grandparents] were slaves and they prayed every day they’d hear those words.’”

DC has told me a great many stories in the time I’ve known him.  He’s let me know he was, by his own words, a “knucklehead” who was violent and out of control for years.  I’ve also gotten to know a beautiful, peaceful man, one who is loved by his parents, his wife and his children.

Once before DC told me something that really stuck in my mind. He came back from a visit with his parents, both in their eighties, who make the drive down from Northern Virginia every two months. His dad made an off the cuff remark about his mom not getting to bed early enough the previous night so they could get an early start for the visit.


“I finished praying about you and your mom was still running around the kitchen. I had to say ‘come on woman, we need to sleep’.” DC stopped, stunned and asked “Pops, you prayed about me?” His father is not a deeply religious man – at least to outward appearances. “Every day since 1972”, his father said. “I know the Lord will answer and deliver you.”


This week I spent a good deal of time thinking about faith, dreams and hope. I thought about those things on a personal level and a corporate level: where am I, where are we, as a people of supposed faith, headed? I had my “Good Friday” moment last week, a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach of abandonment, betrayal and rejection, the feeling – a minister friend wrote me – “when darkness is our only companion” and there seems to be no remedy.


At the lowest, darkest moment I ended up reading Chapter 38 from the Book of Job. Funny how devotions tend to pop up at the most opportune time. In that chapter, in the whirlwind, God finally speaks to Job. He finally had enough of Job’s questions about “His way” that He fires back. “Who are you to question my ways?” God asks. “Did you help put the earth on its plane? Did you fix Orion in the sky? Do you control the tides, the wind?”


God, I realized was the Great Debater. He knew the answer to every question He threw at Job. And, more importantly, Job knew as well.


Dreams. A few weeks ago, Ms. Marie Dean died. Her obituary stated she was a tireless advocate for Virginia’s death row inmates. When her death was announced the “old heads” here had a smile for Miss Marie: DC, Saleem, Ty, Kicks, all down more than thirty years, all remember this tiny woman coming into “the walls” (the Virginia penitentiary in Richmond, since torn down) and advocating for the prisoners. Three husbands left her over her tireless work. Her children ignored her. Still, she continued to find lawyers to challenge capital sentences. Each day she worked because she believed in her core the parable statement from Jesus, “when I was in prison, you visited me.” She believed no man was beyond redemption, no inmate deserved to be executed.


And she was not alone. The old heads told me about Sister Irene, a petite catholic nun from Richmond and Bishop Sullivan, the Catholic Bishop of Richmond who worked during their tenures as advocates for prison reform. They believed it was their Christian duty to push for reconciliation, not incarceration.


Dreams. I don’t understand on an emotional level why me ex-wife divorced me. I understand it on an intellectual level. It makes perfect sense. It was logical, rational, a no brainer. But, it’s not what you do when you profess to love someone. I don’t know why friends abandoned me. I don’t know why the judge decided to be so harsh with me. I have every legitimate, logical reason to feel self pity and believe I was treated unjustly.


But, I have dreams. And, dreams don’t die. What I took from God’s discussion with Job is simply this. God’s telling Job “you don’t know what I know. So, you have a choice. You can roll over and quit or you can trust Me.” Job realized God was right. The funny thing is God already knew what Job was going to do. He knew it beforehand because He was willing to let Satan do his worst to Job. God, it seems has more faith in us than we have in ourselves.


Tornados ripped through the Southeast this past week. Watching the news the other night I was struck by a middle aged African-American woman standing in front of what used to be her home. There was nothing but rubble, yet she had climbed out from between sofa cushions, virtually unscathed. She said as the house began to explode around her, she was prepared to die but “God had another plan for me. Others were called, but I was spared in His infinite wisdom.”


Dreams. Many nights as I’ve fallen asleep these past few weeks I’ve just wondered why God wouldn’t let me sleep permanently. I just didn’t feel I was built strongly enough to do day in and day out what I faced. “Who are you going to trust?” But I have dreams. I realized the past few days as I’ve slowly fought myself back to equilibrium, that that is precisely what those vague concepts like justice, mercy, compassion, forgiveness and love are built on. They are built on dreams.


Dr. King saw a country torn apart by racial injustice but he had a dream that in God’s way and in His day, justice would prevail. Ms. Dean, Sister Irene, Bishop Sullivan dreamed of changing the prison system to be more humane, more merciful, more Christ-like.


Dreams, I concluded this week are what our faith is built on. They remind us to trust in the Lord with all our hearts as the Proverb tells us, even when our friends and family hurt us and our circumstances overwhelm us. Dreams keep us free. Dreams give us hope. Dreams can connect us to God’s way.


His grandmother died while he was in prison. But, she knew he’d get out someday. Even on his worst days, his grandmother believed in her dream that her grandson would live righteously and one day would be free.

Letters

I’ve been writing a number of letters this week. Some I’ll mail, some I need to think about.



It all started after writing class the other day. We finished the fall term and I was presenting certificates to the guys. I was urging them to keep writing because “words matter”. I told them two brief stories. First, I mentioned German Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I told the class at 39, Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazis for his part in challenging Hitler’s regime. He wrote extensively while held in a concentration camp. I keep his “prison prayer” taped in my locker along with a quote from him – “it’s easier to suffer in obedience”.


I explained to the class Bonhoeffer’s words changed the way committed Christians looked at their moral obligation to confront evil. His words, written in a prison, mattered.


I then told the class the story of Dr. King writing his famous Birmingham jail essay on toilet paper and smuggling it out. I told them his words “freedom is a gift from God” echo through every prison in the world. Every person under the yoke of oppression takes comfort in Dr. King’s words.


That evening, as I was working a crossword puzzle, Dom came over to see me. He’s a huge black man who looks capable of squashing a car in his hands. He is a college student and a member of the writing class. He handed me a stack of papers. It was a copy of Dr. King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail”.


Dom told me he’d never heard the story behind the letter or even read the letter. But, after hearing me talk about it he asked one of the GED teachers to print him a copy.


I laughed and told him it was the first time anyone had ever listened to me. Dom turned serious: “Don’t ever say that Larry. We all listen to you. What you say matters. You inspired me to read this and you were right. It’s the most powerful essay I ever read.”


My words mattered. That rolled around in my mind for a few minutes. Every week I write my youngest son and get no response. Twice in the last six months I’ve written my ex, nothing. I can’t get my own parents to read what I write. “It’s nobody’s business you’re in prison. What will people think?”


This week, I wrote my folks. I told them this experience has changed me forever. I then wrote this: “you may find it hard to believe, but God loves the people in prison with me; the murderers, rapists and thieves just as much as He loves the people you go to church with.” Hard concept to swallow when you’re following all the rules, but most of God’s message runs counter to our normal way of thinking.


Then, I wrote my youngest son. I explained to him that a man can’t be judged by a series of acts or failings, but by his heart and character. I then told him Bonhoeffer wrote that too many Christians follow “cheap grace”. We say God loves us, God forgives us, but we don’t think how powerful a message that really is. “You have to love and forgive the way God loves and forgives us.”


I don’t know if my folks will get what I’m saying. I don’t know if my son – or his mom – will understand. But, at least I put on paper something real, something true. I owed it to them – and myself – to try.


I then started a letter to my ex. I realized all these months I’d been hoping for a miracle, hoping that she would magically decide to write me or show up for a visit and say “I’ve always loved you”. That’s never going to happen because she’s incapable of that. She can’t be what she isn’t.


I always wanted her to love me the way I loved her. I would have crawled across broken glass for her. There was nothing she could have done to stop me from loving her, to make me give up on her.


That isn’t the way she felt about me. That’s not how she defines love, marriage and commitment. I’m sad about that, but I can’t make her love me. I can’t make her say “our marriage is worth fighting for; you’re worth fighting for.”


I realized as I wrote that letter, if she couldn’t feel that way for me, she won’t ever feel it. She’s probably lonely and wants companionship. I understand that and hope she finds it. But, she won’t find love because love is tough; sometimes it’s difficult, but it’s always courageous. Love means loving “in spite of”. She, I regrettably have realized, isn’t capable of that. I, however, will always love her even as I know that love won’t be returned.


That letter is not being mailed. The other thing I’ve learned about words is, while they can inspire and illuminate, they can also hurt. My letter to her is the truth. But, sometimes the truth needs to be put in a drawer. The only thing such a letter would accomplish is hurt her. That’s never a good reason for any words.