The Bar Mitzvah

For a little while last week I thought about writing a piece about Lance Armstrong’s fall from public grace, our society’s insatiable appetite for details of the fall, and the equally insatiable debate that always rages between our demand to know if he’s really sincere (“Is he ashamed because he was caught or ashamed because he sinned?”) in his confession and our desire to give our fallen a “second chance”.  The topic of “second chances” intrigues me – as you can imagine – and I jotted down a fair number of notes, dialog really, about what I’d say to Mr. Armstrong if given the chance.

But, I was sidetracked by a documentary and it got me thinking a different way.  So, Mr. Armstrong will have to wait; but the idea, at least from my way of thinking, that “the truth will set you free”, applies here as well.

The story takes place in Bergen-Belsen, a notorious Nazi death camp.  The chief Rabbi of Amsterdam was there along with thousands of other Jews.  He maintained his faith and organized the prisoners as best as he could.  One day, he approached a young Jewish boy in the camp.  “I understand you will soon turn thirteen.  Would you like to study for your Bar Mitzvah?”  The boy, at first stunned by the offer, agreed.

Each morning the Rabbi would wake the boy at 4:00 and they would sit outside and read from a small Torah.  The boy learned his lessons in Hebrew.  Soon it was time for the ceremony.  But, the Nazi’s frowned on acts of faith.  In a bunkhouse, with the windows covered, the boy was led up to a makeshift altar.

Before he began there was a knock on the door and a lone woman entered.  It was his mother.  They had been separated on arrival at the camp.  The Rabbi, however, had found her and had her smuggled across the camp.

In those filthy, dismal conditions, with hundreds of Jewish people he did not know, the boy recited the text that had carried his father’s people forward from generation to generation.  Through slavery, freedom, captivity in Babylon, pogroms throughout the centuries, he repeated the same prayers every Jewish boy says at his Bar Mitzvah.  At the conclusion, with the ceremony over, the boy was handed a small piece of chocolate as a gift.

Weeks later, the Rabbi again pulled the boy aside and gave him the Torah.  “Keep this and tell the world what took place here”, the Rabbi told the boy.  The Rabbi would not see the end of the war.  But the boy - he survived and made it to Israel.  He would become a scientist and design an experiment that was carried into space on the Space Shuttle Columbia by an Israeli astronaut. 

And the Torah, that small Holy collection of the word of God, was also carried into space.  It was Columbia’s last flight, the fateful re-entry when the space shuttle broke apart over Texas.  The old man who’d been that boy once movingly said the Torah had been “From the depths of hell to the edge of space”.

I love that imagery.  Life is a very difficult proposition.  No one’s life is free of trials or difficulties.  Some, like the boy’s, are thrust on us by the evil that seems to permeate human kind.  He experienced more trial, more difficulty, more inhumanity, than most can comprehend. 

Others, like me, find ourselves in great difficulty and trying circumstances because of our own sin.  We struggle to come to grips with our behavior, our wrongs, and the consequences of our actions even as our lives go further astray.  And the consequences, we realize much too late, are usually beyond what we anticipated or deserved.

Life can break you; it can stretch you and wear you down.  Unless you learn a few simple truths.  First, you always have to have hope.  Without it, there can be no faith.  And faith can move mountains.  It can lead a boy from the concentration camps of Nazi Germany to a life of family, friends and science.

You also have to be kind, in spite of the anger launched against you.  The Rabbi understood that.  It is a lesson I teach myself over and over in here as I deal with a wide array of broken, angry, dysfunctional men and the program system that perpetuates the disgust of prison. 

Finally, you have to forgive and let go of the hurt and pain.  How do you forgive when you’ve been hurt so deeply?  I have spent literally every day of my confinement asking that question.  There isn’t any easy answer.  It’s like the Nike slogan – you “just do it”. 

The other day I learned a new reader – “Tonya” – popped up and was clearly not happy with me.  I wrote a number of witty replies down to “zing” her.  See, I know “Tonya” isn’t “Tonya”.  I know everything that occurred at the office for months after my arrest and my arrest leading to someone being fired did not occur.  But, I also know it’s easier to blame others when we find ourselves in situations we don’t like or understand.  As I’ve said many times on the pages of this blog, what I did was wrong.  But, what I’ve been through and what I lost does not balance with my sins.  And that, I’ve learned is alright.  So I keep hoping.  And I keep believing because my faith tells me that hope does not disappoint.

I had intended to write about falling and your chance at redemption.  Come to think of it, that’s what I wrote about.

Funding Cuts, Falsehood, & the "Stan the Man" Effect

I’ve had a lot on my mind the past week or so.  Sometimes, your worst enemy in here is your mind.  You find yourself thinking way too much about things you can’t control.  I heard a preacher recently say that you can’t control what others do, you can only control your response.  There’s a great deal of truth in those words.

Shortly before our college graduation, DOC informed the school that grant money earmarked for inmate higher education would no longer be available due to “budget constraints”.  Did DOC Director Clarke tell our graduates that when he showed up at the ceremony to tout his – and the Governor’s – support for education and credit the graduate’s successes as part and parcel of the administration’s re-entry program?  Of course not.  It was up to us to break the news to guys who already lack trust in the system.

So, I lie.  I tell them people really do care.  “You matter.  You getting an education, going out there and raising your kids, being a good father, husband and taxpayer, that’s what everyone wants.”  I used to believe that.  Now, I think “they” like sending guys to prison.  After all, 13,000 state jobs rely on having full to capacity prisons.  And companies that sign exorbitant contracts with the states to provide “prison services” make great profits for their shareholders and they pay huge contributions to politicians’ campaign funds.  It’s a vicious cycle of money, ignorance, and crime and I’m beginning to realize it’s more powerful than mercy, common sense and real justice.

Falsehood.  I heard a former NFL coach make the following statement as the news about Lance Armstrong, or Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o, or some other athlete broke.  He uttered the old adage, “The truth will set you free.”  “We all mess up; some worse than others; but the lie, the lie does you in.”  He’s right, so very right.

I know in my own situation I lived a lie rather than face the fears – the truths really I knew deep down about myself and my relationships.  And, the lies caught up to me.  So I came clean, landed in a place I abhor, but now sleep soundly at night.

The funny thing is, I see guys all around me pretending to be something they aren’t  Every small drug dealer wants me to think they’re Tony Montana (a/k/a “Scarface”) or Pablo Escobar; every two-bit thief wants me to believe they stole the Hope Diamond. They can’t admit they can’t read, can’t admit they had nothing.  They lie, and they keep on lying, and they stay imprisoned forever. 

I’m not a schadenfreude guy anymore.  I don’t relish another’s short comings.  I felt for Lance Armstrong.  And, I see and understand a lot more about the folks “outside”.  They really aren’t that different from the guys in here.  We all keep secrets, things that would embarrass us if they got out.  The truth is, they have nothing to do with who we really are.

It struck me in an ironic way, all these celebrities and athletes with their mea culpas, and the lies the government peddles about prisons, and crime and punishment, and then I hear Stan “the Man” Musial died. Stan is a Baseball Hall of Famer.  Twenty-two seasons with the Cardinals.  One of the greatest players ever and yet, because he played in St. Louis instead of New York, he never got the notoriety he deserved.

But that was OK with Stan.  He loved his wife of seventy-one years; he loved his family, St. Louis, and baseball.  By all accounts, he was one of the most decent men you could ever meet.

He passed away at age ninety-two, a year after his wife.  A few years ago, a baseball writer asked him to tell his secret for baseball longevity and success.  He said he jogged one mile every day.  He occasionally smoked cigars so he didn’t have to inhale.  And with a twinkle in his eye added, “And it didn’t hurt to hit above 300 all those years.”

I love that.  Two out of three times he came up, he never reached base.  But, he stayed the same – consistent, decent, hardworking.  There’d be less need for prisons, less public embarrassments, if more of us emulated Stan Musial.  And, I think Mr. Musial would tell you not to be like him.  Be yourself.  Be honest, and kind, and try even when you make an out.

I started this blog bemoaning Virginia’s short-sighted approach to educating the incarcerated.  I was ticked off and discouraged.  But, thinking about Stan Musial’s advice, I know these guys will get another time at bat.  And, they’re due for a hit.

 

In Memoriam (MAB)

Wednesday morning at 8:00 I was called into the counselor’s office.  “You need to call home”, Ms. G told me.  I knew immediately why.  It was a call I’d anticipated having to make for months.  It was a call no one ever wants to make especially from in here.

My brother, my only sibling, passed away at 5:50 am in the Duke University Hospital Oncology wing.  My Mom and Dad were with him as he took his last breath.  He would have been 49 this November.  He leaves a wife and two daughters.

Mark did not have an easy life and he was not an easy person to get along with.  For much of our life growing up he lived in my shadow.  School came easily for me; I made friends.  Mark had learning disabilities and a caustic personality that rubbed people the wrong way.  And, bullying isn’t some modern phenomena.  Kids were cruel in the 60’s and 70’s and Mark was always the kid that got picked on.

I didn’t let people pick on Mark, but I was, honestly, embarrassed by him.  And I was a lousy brother.  He deserved more from me.  That he and I weren’t close, that for much of his life he resented me was no great surprise.  He didn’t know what I was going through.  He just saw his older brother, successful in school, successful in a law career, married to a beautiful woman and thought “this guy gets all the breaks”. 

And Mark and I grew further apart.  There were horrible fights.  He brought out a side of me I didn’t know existed, a rage and a disgust that made me look at myself in the mirror.

Mark was diagnosed with cancer years ago.  My initial reaction?  Of course he was.  After all, he had tried every religion, every lifestyle, done anything he could to fit in, why would sickness surprise me?  Around that time, my own life was coming apart.  I was completely over my head with embezzling money and knew I couldn’t get out; my wife was further from me than I could ever remember, absorbed in her career and being supermom while I knew I was just a check, just a guy put in place to complete her life.

I read Lance Armstrong’s book about his battle with cancer and learned even mean, negative people can overcome the disease and I thought damn, Mark’s not that unique. My wife told me to make peace with him.  “You’ll regret it if something happens and you hadn’t”, she told me as he underwent a stem cell replacement.

I listened to her and went to Durham.  He was the same old Mark; bitter, demanding and negative.  And, I’m not sure why, but when I got ready to leave I leaned over, kissed his forehead and told him I loved him.

Years ago my mother came across a book she asked me to read.  “Brother to a Dragonfly” by Will D. Campbell.  She told me it would help explain the difficult relationship I was having with Mark.  I was too arrogant and headstrong to read it.  I didn’t need someone explaining to me how frustrated I was over my brother.  While at the jail, going through daily crises like divorce, stories in the paper about me, and my kids and friends turning their backs on me, I found an excerpt from the book.  And, it did explain a lot. 

Last year I was sitting here one weekend when my brother drove up on his Harley.  The sound from his bike stopped inmates in their tracks.  “You know that guy Larry?”  “Yeah”, I told the guys, impressed and awestruck that I’d know a Harley owner.  “That’s my brother”.

We spent almost four hours together that day just talking.  Before then, I don’t think he ever understood my situation.  I know I didn’t completely understand his.  After that we exchanged a few letters.  He always said “I’ll be back up”.  About three months ago Mark was hospitalized.  The cancer was spreading and his liver was shutting down.  He was angry, afraid, abusive at times.  I prayed a great deal about him these past weeks and months.  I knew he deserved, like everyone, some peace.  He hadn’t had much of that in his life.

I took the news in stride on Wednesday.  The guys here those “bad men” who “deserve what they’ve gotten” – huddled around me:  dozens of words of condolence, pats on the back.  It reminded me that we miss the humanity that exists in all of us.  There is a soul that flickers, even in the worst.  None of us are beyond redemption.

The night before his death my aunt sent me a picture of my brother and me.  I was perhaps 8, he 5.  We were smiling.  After I learned of his passing I prayed that God welcome him and give him the peace he so longed for.  I closed my eyes to sleep and wept because, well I loved him.  He was my only brother.