Thoughts on the Governors

Governor Bob has had his whole life exposed during these past 5 weeks. We’ve learned his marriage was in disarray and his wife was a loud, abrasive, near psychotic who could have given Lady Macbeth a run for her money. We’ve also learned Bob was corrupt.

Now, the Gov.’s future, his freedom, rests with a jury. Hey Gov. – I’ve been there. The difference between you and me is I knew what I was doing was wrong; and, I “manned up,” admitted my wrongdoing and took the heat. I didn’t defend my actions on the back of my wife and our problems.

I had a bemused reaction the other day when I heard Mr. McDonnell say he wished he acted in a different manner, but all of us do things we regret. No kidding. As Governor, he could have applied that philosophy to thousands of men and women behind bars who deserve a “second chance” and who shouldn’t be doing time just for time’s sake.

But he didn’t. He supported the present criminal justice system that sends way too many to prison for way too long; it’s a system forged in retribution and vengeance that costs the commonwealth dearly in destroyed lives and communities.

A quote about liberals goes like this: “A liberal is a conservative who’s been arrested.” Governor Bob will soon learn his fate. Perhaps this will be Mr. McDonnell’s Damascus moment when he will find his real calling and his soul. That would be a better result than sending him to prison. I know from personal experience. 

And out new Gov. – Governor Terry? He’s presiding over a budget meltdown. He has the chance to do something extraordinary and change the money-sucking criminal justice/corrections operation in the state.

Like Moses to the Pharaoh, hey Gov., “let these people go.” Institute meaningful early release. Restructure sentencing. Fire your DOC head and his sycophant managers and bring in real reform-minded leadership. Re-establish a parole system that rewards good behavior.

What is happening is DOC has to find $43 million in immediate cuts. “Buy less office supplies” is the message to staff. Are you kidding me? Virginia’s prisons are too full, too expensive to run, and have too many non-violent offenders just “doing time.”

Come on Governor Terry. Be courageous; be bold; make real savings happen. 

The Promised Land

            I had an extraordinary moment the other afternoon. And like most extraordinary events in our lives, it occurred in the midst of a very ordinary day, a day that began with me reading a devotion based on the Exodus story.

            It’s a story almost everyone knows, made popularly famous by director Cecil B. DeMille, and Charlton Heston portraying a man to whom he would be forever linked. The Exodus, the story of God freeing His people, the Israelites from the yoke of slavery and oppression in Egypt and leading them to “the promised land.” It is an amazing story of plagues, the Passover, and the drying of the waters momentarily to allow the Israelites to escape. It is a remarkable story remembered each spring in Jewish homes around the world as they gather at the Seder and they remember the Lord, their God.

            Life in here ebbs and flows for me. There are – surprisingly – very joyous, happy times. Then, there are times of immense loneliness and difficulty. Those times of great ebbs have, thankfully, come less and less frequently. A year ago, I was in one of those ebbs. At one of those dark points, a card arrived. There was no return address, but a local postmark. I thought I recognized the handwriting. The card was a beautiful, inspirational message of faith and hope. And there was a simple message: the sender was praying for me and she told me to maintain my faith. It was signed “Martha.”

            “Martha.” I knew no Marthas. I assumed Martha was an alias referencing the Biblical Martha whose brother Lazarus was raised from the dead by Jesus. That night I thanked God for the card and I thought of my old life …

            The Exodus. God calls on an exiled Israelite shepherd named Moses who had fled Egypt years earlier after killing an Egyptian soldier. Moses saw the burning bush and heard the voice of God, but Moses was afraid to go back, afraid to return; his faith, his understanding of the power of God, compelled him. God said, “I have heard the cries of My people.” And Moses trusted God, and the people followed Moses, and the Israelites left oppression and walked into the desert a free people.

            It must have been hard, you know, to leave what you know and go forward. There was fear and tears. The story of the Exodus records numerous times when the people of Israel questioned their decision to follow Moses. “Perhaps Pharaoh will appreciate us,” they remarked and the hurt and injustice they had felt for so many years gave way. The old days, the life they left, didn’t look so bad compared to what lay ahead, the unknown.

            Over the next six months, I received more cards from “Martha.” There were references to sermons she’d heard that reminded her of my plight, or a Bible reading about Paul in prison that would lead her to write and say “I’m praying for you.” I was so sure I knew who Martha was; and like the Israelites in the desert, I was so convinced things were so much better for me “back when.”

            I found myself playing “what if” the other day. What if the Israelites blogged about their experiences as they fled Egypt. Would Pharaoh have read the blog postings and been moved by their descriptions? Or would Pharaoh think everything written was about him? Would his blood boil, his anger erupt, as he read of the Israelites travails and think “I gave those people the best years of my life. How dare they!” See, that’s the thing with Pharaoh, God told Moses. Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. He couldn’t see the truth. His own ego prevented him from understanding the pain, and hurt, and damage he’d done to the Israelites.

            The people of Israel wandering in the desert hoped Pharaoh would now see their worth. They dreamt of Pharaoh accepting them as his own and acknowledging that their toils, their efforts, were appreciated. But that wasn’t Pharaoh; and that was why the people had to move on.

            And we know what happens. It takes forty years of wandering in the desert for the people of Israel to humble their heart and their minds to God and realize Pharaoh’s respect, Pharaoh’s appreciation, Pharaoh’s love, wasn’t needed. They were children of God. Pharaoh didn’t love them the way their God did.

            “I’m sorry I haven’t sent you any cards in the last few months, but I have prayed for you every day.” I looked at her and said, “You’re Martha?” She told me my stories touched her, but my outlook gave her hope. She told me people she worked with knew me in my prior life. “They said you were the nicest guy they’d met. Never say no to anyone. And, they felt so bad for you.”

            I had been wrong about who Martha was. Like the Israelites, I too had hoped my Pharaoh would realize what I was enduring walking through this desert. But, that isn’t in Pharaoh’s heart. Sometimes, forty years in the desert turns out to be almost six years behind bars. And God, in that time, teaches you that He is your shelter from the storm; He is there when, as David wrote, “a host of enemies encamp against me.” Throughout those forty years the people of Israel clung to the hope that Pharaoh missed them, that Pharaoh worried about the dangers they faced, the struggles they overcame. But Pharaoh frankly only cared about himself and what he had after the Israelites left.

            The Exodus story isn’t about Pharaoh changing. Pharaoh doesn’t change. The Exodus story is about a people, you and me, realizing Pharaoh’s heart has always been hard and about Pharaoh putting himself first. And there is no turning back. You go forward into the unknown trusting in God, and you head to the Promised Land.

            The funny thing about the Exodus story is that for Pharaoh the story was an end, but for the Israelites it was the beginning. I thought about how much time I’d wasted waiting, hoping, worrying about Pharaoh instead of looking forward to the Promised Land.

            I heard a song on the radio and realized it could have been sung by the Israelites – or me – in the wilderness:

            “I’m giving up on you

I’m sorry I couldn’t get through

            To you.”

            And I’ll hear those words all the way to the Promised Land.

Memory Matters

A few weeks ago, a new student started working with me in our afternoon GED class. “CJ” is a thin, gray-haired, sixty-two year old man who has spent the last thirty-eight years behind bars. He’s one of the “old time” inmates. Given a life sentence with the possibility of parole (odd, isn’t it, life but parole eligible), he is one of the approximately 7,000 Virginia inmates who are given perfunctory “parole hearings” annually. CJ’s annual review sheet shows his release date as “none.” Still, every year he appears before a parole examiner via Skype, answers a half dozen questions, and waits three weeks to receive his form letter denying him parole.

            CJ reads at less than a fourth grade level. His math skills are only somewhat better. But, a strange thing happens. I spend a fair amount of time reading to the guys in class. I’ll read a “social studies” piece about the Nazis and concentration camps. A day or two later, CJ will put down on paper with perfect recall every camp name, town, battle, General. It’s freaky to see, as if his mind hears the words and the spelling, then creates a photograph of it to be recreated by him on paper. He has amazing recall. “Larry, you said last Tuesday … “It’s a memory thing.

            I regularly read the story of Moses and the Exodus, the wandering through the wilderness by the people of Israel. I find comfort in knowing God never gave up on Moses. He had a plan for Moses’ life and neither his murder of an Egyptian, nor his fleeing Pharaoh to start a new life as a shepherd, would prevent God from carrying out His will.

            One message comes through over and over in the wanderings of the Israelites. “Remember,” They are told, “what your God has done for you.” It’s a message I keep close: “Remember; always remember.”

            I spent almost a year at a jail before transfer to DOC’s receiving unit. During that year I saw daylight exactly five times with three of those times being driven in a police car to court hearings. I arrived at receiving with a sickly pallor. I was a pale as I’d ever been. The first afternoon at receiving, my cell door opened for the daily thirty minute call. I walked out into the sun and heat of an August Virginia afternoon and saw the one-tenth of a mile track around the perimeter of the small rec yard. Without a second thought, I took off and began running. My chest heaved and my legs felt like rubber, but in just a few short laps it all came back, all the runs I’d had in my normal life. And, I ran and remembered running in the woods or around town or on the beach. It was as if the memories wired into my muscles reset the memories in my mind.

            “Remember.” So often guys in here try to forget who they were, where they are from. They create “new” persons who bear no resemblance to the real them. It’s so obvious: Ignore your past at your peril. In almost every letter he wrote to the small churches in Asia Minor, Paul reminded his flock where he came from. He never hid his truth, his life, because the miracle that was Paul’s life was his Damascus Epiphany. “Look where I was; look what I did; and then, God …”

            For a long time, I felt captive by my memories. I tried not to remember; fearful they would haunt my sleep. I would replay scenes over and over trying to understand why and hoping that “this broadcast” would lead to a different result. But, like that first run at receiving, my memories came back, but in a good way. I saw the joy and heartache as pieces of my life with many pieces still to come. And, as guys got to know me, they realized the man they saw wasn’t trying to be somebody he isn’t. As the great philosopher Popeye said, “I am what I am.” What I am is the product of a loving God who never gave up on me even as I went down some paths I shouldn’t have.

            “Remember.” Memory matters. Remember where you came from, who you are, and the path you followed to find your way home. It’s a lesson worth carrying in your heart in this place.

 

Saying No

The PBS news broadcast “News Hour with Jim Lehrer” had a story last night about California’s response to the U.S. Supreme Court recently declaring – in Brown v. Plaza – that the state’s prison system was “inhumane” and ordered the release of 33,000 inmates over the next two years to partially alleviate the excessive overcrowding that exists in complete violation of the Eighth Amendment.

What has California decided to do in response?  According to the news report, they are just saying “No”.  The DOC director (query:  how do you keep your job after the stinging rebuke received from the court?) announced that “no inmate will be released early”.  What is their solution?  Force local jails – already overcrowded and straining under the pressure of excessive prisoners and budget shortfalls – to keep state prisoners up to three years.  As one sheriff noted “we can’t afford to have the inmates we already have.  We don’t have the space or the money.”

The few men in the building who watch PBS news instead of BET’s “Freestyle Friday” (a “rap off” hosted by the incredibly attractive “Roxie”) came over to my bunk, heads hung low.  “They aren’t doing what the court ordered”, I heard from a number of men.  “We break the law, we go to prison.  They break the law and nothing changes.”

I smiled and uttered four small words:  “You gotta have faith”.  I have never been a patient man until…until all this.

California’s DOC director is not the first political leader to “say no” to justice.  History is full of men who arrogantly presume they know better.  And those men end up as mere footnotes to the transcendent power of human beings to overcome.

It was then Governor George Wallace who stood on the steps of the University of Alabama refusing to let black students enter.  “Over my dead body” he roared.  “Segregation now and forever.”  Wallace, the loudmouth bigot, is gone as are his sick views on race relations.  Young men in my writing class find it hard to believe that fifty years ago the idea America would elect a black President was “beyond reason”.

Few people recall that the case of Brown v. Board of Ed was heard and decided twice.  The first case was held over by Chief Justice Warren.  A new justice came on board, arguments reheard and by a vote of 9 to 0 the United States Supreme Court ruled “separate but equal” unconstitutional.

Southern states thumbed their nose at the court.  The public school system my own sons attend(ed) in fact closed for years rather than integrate, all part of Virginia’s “massive resistance” campaign against integration.  Hey Virginia, how’d that work out?

My faith tells me good triumphs over evil.  Imagine sitting beside your radio in the darkest days of the Great Depression, 25% unemployment, the Midwest bread basket turned into a dust bowl.  There on the radio you heard Roosevelt say “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.

Imagine being an Israelite, enslaved for 400 years, crying out to God “when Lord, when?”  And a fugitive shows up.  Wanted for murder, this shepherd goes up to the most powerful man in the world – Pharaoh – and says “I have a message from God.  He says ‘Let My People Go’”.  Pharaoh?  He says “no”.  Plagues and pestilence follow and Pharaoh still says “no”.  Each action by God hardens Pharaoh’s heart even further.

Even after the Passover, after the death of the first-born of every Egyptian, Pharaoh still says “no”.  The waters part.  The Israelites walk to freedom.  And Pharaoh and his army?  Swallowed by the waves.

The California DOC director isn’t the first leader to say no to the drumbeat of justice.  And, he won’t be the last.  California will release inmates as will Virginia and every other state.  America can no longer afford the reckless, backward, inhumane prison system it has created.  Politicians may say “no” but the truth sees it differently.

Simon Says

I saw Simon Cowell interviewed the other night. With remarkable understatement, Cowell, when asked about his “comeback” from losing everything to being a multi-millionaire said the following: “you can get things and money back. People worry too much about losing everything.” Wow!



Thirteen years ago Cowell lost everything. He rode to his parents’ home with 5 pounds in his pocket. That was the sum total of his financial wealth. Yet, here he is today, one of the most successful television and music producers in the world.


I thought about the interview a good deal as I worked with students this week. Every day one of the guys will ask me “do you really think I can do this? Do you really think I can find a good job and make it?” I always tell them the same thing: “I believe you can.” Those aren’t just words. I do believe it.


The guys in the building all know my situation: 51; I owe over $1.5 million in restitution; I’ll never practice law again; I gave everything I owned to my wife – who promptly divorced me as soon as I signed the papers – which means I have nothing. Yet the guys always say “but you’ll be fine”. And, I believe I will. The point is, I believe. And, if they can believe in me, they can believe in themselves.


Simon Cowell is right. It’s not about things. Things – money, clothes, homes – can be replaced. I read Isaiah 46 this morning. In that chapter the prophet is noting the siege of Babylon. The city’s inhabitants are fleeing the city and their carts are loaded with the peoples’ idols. The animals strain to move the load. And then Isaiah says this to God’s children:


“Even to your old age, I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you.”


Those words ring in my head everyday: “I will carry you.” Every struggle I endure, every moment of loss I feel over my ex and my kids, I remember, “I will carry you.”


I wonder sometime why, in the midst of some of the worst days of my life, I have the most meaningful influence on these guys. It’s because I’m not doing this alone. I’m being carried. I believe in these guys because I know He believes in me.


For a long time I wondered why God chose Moses – a murderer – to lead his people from bondage. I wondered why He still blessed Abraham with a child after he pimpled out Sarah to Pharaoh; I wondered about Rebekah and Jacob lying to Isaac and David being an adulterer and liar and Peter’s betrayal. I finally realized He carries all of us. We just have to let Him by trusting Him and doing the same for others.


There’s a great explanation of it in Big S’s Modern Language Bible when Jesus said “anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat, I am. Don’t run from suffering, embrace it…What good would it do to get everything you want and lose the real you? What would you ever trade your soul for?”


Today, I helped over twenty-three guys write their second critical essay for English. I’m tired, but not exhausted. I got through another week without hearing what I want from my ex or my kids. But I made it through; I was carried the entire way.

Conversation with Jerry Lee

I was out on the track the other day finishing up my workout when Jerry Lee asked if he could walk a few laps with me. I’ve gotten to know a great deal about Jerry Lee in my time here. I’ve written about him before. He and I come from different worlds, yet have a deep bond between us. I’ve met his daughters, his mother, and his fiancé. I respect his opinion immensely.



He wanted to talk about his still pending pardon application to the Governor that I filed for him three months ago. We are both cautiously hopeful that the Governor will do the right thing, the just thing, and free him.


Jerry Lee recently “celebrated” his 18th year in the penitentiary. He also just turned 40. When he was convicted and sentenced back in 1992 to 35 years, the judge specifically announced “if you remain as remorseful as you appear, with Virginia’s lenient parole rules, you’ll be released early”. Three years later, in a quirk of the Virginia penal system, DOC determined his eight robberies, committed over nine days to support a staggering drug habit, constituted multiple convictions and made him a “three time loser”, thereby making him ineligible for discretionary parole (i.e. early release). Jerry Lee has a mandatory parole date of 2016.


Anyway, Jerry Lee’s time in the system has given him amazing insight into people and the inevitable circumstances we all find ourselves in. He’s not a deeply religious man – not as society defines religious – yet he’s somehow managed to become a very good father (his oldest just graduated seminary last June and has been to Haiti twice since the earthquake). He also has a deeper understanding of the human condition than any of the supposed “educated” folks I used to socialize with.


Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never felt the frustration of dealing with blatant ignorance I frequently feel in here, while hanging with the folks I used to be around. But, there isn’t as much hypocrisy with guys locked up.


Like it or not, when you’re living 96 to a building, when you can’t even go to the bathroom with any privacy, you learn rather quickly life isn’t all about you. For better – or worse – you learn to live and let live.


That explains in large part, how you can have a flamboyant homosexual in the bunk on one side (I’m talking guys who cut and sew their t-shirts and underwear to resemble bra and pantie sets), and a rabid Nation of Islam follower on the other side and not lose a moments sleep.


We walked and talked and he matter of fact like brought up Moses. He said, “You know, Moses was a murderer. He fled; stayed away a whole lot of years, then God said ‘I got something for you to do.’ So he does it, only it’s not easy. Ten times Pharaoh says ‘up yours,’ and his own people bitch, but he hangs in there. And, he helps the folks. What do they do? Bitch some more. Forty years wandering around, never getting into the Promised Land. Never quit believing in his God or his people, even when they bitched.”


Jerry Lee got his point across to me, and it meant more to me than almost any sermon I ever heard in church.


Sometimes the circumstances we find ourselves in don’t make much sense. Whether we’re in a hell we created (like embezzling $2 million over 12 years) or when it’s thrust upon us (like how my ex-wife and kids had to deal with the news of my arrest). It’s at those times we’ve got to do what God directs, not what our hearts tell us to do.


Jerry Lee told me good men struggle, they question, they have regret over the decisions they made “But”, he said, “You’ve got to see the purpose. Look how many men you’ve helped in school and in court. You don’t think God put you here for a reason?” Funny, I didn’t even know he was talking about me when we first started our conversation.


Yes, sometimes the path God takes too get us where He wants us to be doesn’t go according to our understanding. Sometimes the people we most love and most abandon and betray us, but somehow God keeps moving us forward.


A great deal of news coverage was focused this week on Tiger Woods’ divorce. I couldn’t help but think – as I heard his ex give her “People” magazine interview about justifying her decision to divorce him –about the Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu who said “marriage is three parts love and seven parts forgiveness of sins.”


Observing the broken, twisted lives of so many of the men in here, I realized Lao Tzu’s quote doesn’t just apply to marriage. Life really is about love and forgiveness. Unfortunately, those are the very two things we usually refuse to give out unconditionally.


Like the former Mrs. Woods, we can spend hours, days, months, even years, convincing ourselves we were right to “fall out of love”, right to reject someone, condemn someone, not open our heart and forgive someone. But that’s not what God is calling us to do.


Just like the woman caught in adultery whom Jesus announces “he that is free of sin, cast the first stone,” if God gives second, third, twentieth chances, shouldn’t we?


Jerry Lee hit me at a point when I was struggling to decide if I’d help a young, black inmate. He had asked me to handle a pardon application for him and even got me to speak to his mom on the phone (she’s an evangelical preacher in South Philadelphia).


My problem arose from his crime. He has done 8 years of an 18 year sentence for rape. He was a sailor in Norfolk living in an apartment off base with two shipmates. A female sailor he knew ran into him at McDonalds. They went back to the apartment and started drinking. One of the roommates kept making her drinks stronger. She headed back to the bedroom with the roommate.


A short while later the roommate called the other two back to the bedroom. He had a video camera set up.


“Join in. She’s a freak.” All three guys had sex with a semi-conscious female, and videotaped the entire thing. When she awoke later she saw the videotape and left the apartment and flagged down a police car.


All three guys were arrested. Everything I detailed came right from the young man’s confession, without a lawyer, given immediately after his arrest.


The two roommates took plea deals and received five years. This guy turned it down (“I did wrong, but I didn’t ever mean to hurt her”), went to trial and got 18 years.


I read his transcript and told him, point blank, if I had a daughter I would have wanted to see him beaten within an inch of his life. I had an immediate visceral reaction and I let him know it.


But, here was where it gets tricky. In his file was a letter from the victim. She wrote him after sentencing and told him “I know you’re a good guy. I don’t want you to suffer with such a long sentence. What you did was wrong, but I forgive you.” The victim forgives, yet society punishes.


I’m still torn. But, as I walked the track with Jerry Lee and considered the path God has put me on, I kept coming back to that young woman’s profound, yet simple words. If she could see beyond the act, to the heart of the man, shouldn’t I do the same?


If God didn’t give up on me – even when almost everyone I knew did – don’t I owe the same to a remorseful young man? Maybe Jerry Lee and I can get another walk in.