Why Use A Pen?

English students of all ages learn early on what “homonym” means:  two (or more) words that sound the same but mean entirely two different things.  Think “break” or “brake”.  I’ve been thinking about that concept as I wondered this week about writing about life in here.  What does it mean to use a pen in the pen?  OK, so it’s not really a homonym, but the meaning of the two is as wide as an ocean.

“The pen”, slang for the penitentiary.  Prison, a waste land of lost lives, failed people.  It’s dirty, dangerous, hopeless.  And, for most people, a world for “them” – you know, the bad guys which we want nothing to do with. 

Then there’s the “pen”, fancy or plain, it is known to be “mightier than the sword”.  It can express our collective dreams:  “we hold these truths to be self –evident…”; a source of comfort – “fear not, I am with you…”; and love, appreciation or desire, “And I will always love you…”.

This week, I was asked why I continue to write about this place.  Why don’t I write about travel and life outside, why focus on this prison, why use my pen to write about the pen?  A friend, a guy from a world as far removed from mine as is possible and yet who has become like a brother remembered a piece I shared with our writing class.  It was about writing from inside here.

The pen quite literally saved my life.  Imagine going in a few hours from the life you’ve lived your entire time on earth and being dropped into the middle of a completely alien world.  You looked out of place; you didn’t speak the language.  It appeared dangerous, dark and hopeless.  And, there was no getting out.  Everything you knew “before” was leaving you:  family, friends, wealth, status.  You were in a brave, new world and those familiar with both sides were betting you wouldn’t make it.

So, I began writing a daily diary recounting all I saw, all I felt and experienced, to keep my sanity.  There was pain and sadness, but also notes about meals and card games, and simple acts of kindness being shown.  It was cathartic and enlightening.  And after a short while, I realized I knew very little about the world so many I saw came from.  But, at the end of the day, most had the same hopes and dreams I had.  People, I began to realize, weren’t “us” or “them”.  It was “we”.  We all want to be loved and appreciated.  We all want a chance at happiness.

I started the blog almost three years ago as a way of bringing my two worlds together.  It began as a dream to let my family – and me – heal but also explain to those out in the “real world” what prison is all about.  Many times I write about very ugly things, people not being “the better angels in themselves”, to borrow from President Lincoln.  And the longer I’m in here, the more confused I become about our collective inability to see right from wrong, to do justice, and to walk humbly before our God.

There is much to be discouraged about when living in here.  Guys do things that don’t make sense.  But, society is like that.  We all, I fear, fall short of the mark.  And even in this place I am constantly surprised by the decency, the humanity of men who “good people” think are beyond redemption.

Redemption.  Maybe in the end that’s what this is all about.  I’ve learned that society’s views on crime, punishment and rehabilitation are flawed.  We can, we must, do better.  Too many lives are being lost.  It’s a vicious cycle of hopelessness, despair, and ignorance.  Drugs, violence, prison, it repeats over and over.

Today is the first Sunday in Advent, the beginning of the “new” year for those of us touched by God’s grace.  Advent is a season of hope.  It’s a time when the word “Emmanuel”, “God with us”, stirs in our hearts and souls.  And the pen, this writing implement helps me record the hope I feel despite of what I sometimes see. 

The “pen” is a tragic, lost place.  Words, however, are stronger than any fence, wall or darkness in the human condition.  Perhaps that’s why it makes such perfect sense to read the Apostle Paul’s words of encouragement to the church at Ephesus.  “Rejoice”, he wrote, “in the Lord always.  Again, I say rejoice.” 

He wrote that from prison.

 

Jersey (and others) Goin’ Home – The Message on a New Year

Graduation day is fast approaching.  There’s less than a month until the first class of college/IT certificate recipients are recognized in a “behind the wall” ceremony conducted by Southside Virginia Community College.  Thirty-two have completed the program.  One – “VI” went home in October.  Three more leave before graduation and one, “Tattoo”, leaves the Monday after.

I write about these guys so you see they aren’t much different from folks you see every day.  In Virginia today, a state of slightly more than eight million residents, there are in excess of 350,000 convicted felons still denied the right to vote.  Add to that the number presently incarcerated in DOC (or waiting shipping to DOC facilities) and the number approaches 400,000.  That’s 5% of the state population, an astounding number. 

The men in here - as much as DOC and the courts, and even the general public want to make them mere numbers – aren’t just statistics.  They are living, breathing men with families and friends.  Some have committed horrendous, violent crimes.  Others are, in many ways, victims of the ignorance and poverty and despair that surrounded their lives “out there”.  But, they all breathe, all live; they all age and die little by little in here.  And their stories confound me, and move me, and yes, sometimes disgust me.

I’ve learned some things during my stay here:  I’ve learned I know so little about so much.  At the beginning of the Advent season this past December, just a few days past what would have been my thirtieth wedding anniversary to the only woman who ever took my breath away, I began conducting my daily Bible meditations from the Reverend Eugene Peterson’s “The Message”, a complete Bible translation in contemporary language.  In the preface, Rev. Peterson wrote the following:

“Nothing is glossed over.  God works patiently and deeply, but often in hidden ways, in the middle of our humanity and our history.  Ours is not a neat and tidy world in which we are assured that we get everything under our control.  There is mystery everywhere.  The Bible does not give us a predictable cause-effect world in which we can plan our careers and secure our expectations…There is pain and poverty and abuse at which we cry out in indignation ‘You can’t let this happen’.  For most of us it takes years and years to exchange our dream world for this real world of grace and mercy, sacrifice and love, freedom and joy – the God saved world.”

How, I wondered, did Reverend Peterson know so well what I’ve seen and felt for so many years?  I have learned God is here in prison, and in crack houses and homeless shelters and cancer wards.  He’s with gays, and terrorists and pedophiles and good taxpaying, patriotic citizens.  He’s everywhere and He loves all of us, unconditionally.

So, I wish the best for Jersey.  He lived less than two miles from my home.  Early thirties, bright – enrolled in college at Virginia Union and serving in the National Guard, he and his wife began robbing convenient markets to support a drug addiction.  She did three years, he’s finishing five.

Jersey breezed through his college classes and aced the certification test.  His marriage not only survived his – and her – incarceration, it strengthened.  He’s headed home, already admitted to a four-year state University.  Goodwill has helped him line up part-time employment in the computer field.

Jersey should make it.  He’s smart, he’s sober and clean, and he and his wife are in love.

Then there’s Stoney.  Stoney is 44 and is finishing his third bid.  When he was 19 he committed a sex crime.  He did ten years.  Released, he couldn’t find work.  “No one would hire me”, he told me.  He had two children he’d seldom seen.  They needed support.  He couldn’t find work.  He did what so many of the guys do:  he began selling drugs.  And selling drugs is a losing proposition.  He’s been busted and imprisoned twice.

He leaves next week.  He’s scared, deathly scared.  “I don’t want to come back, but I’m afraid no one will give me a chance.”

Stoney is a guy who always has a smile on his face.  He always walks by my cut saying “hey Big Guy!”  And here he was, tears on his face afraid, afraid he’d fail.

“Stoney”, I said.  “I consider it a blessing that I met you, I believe in you.  I know there’s someone out there who’ll take a chance.  It’ll be tough, but I know you can make it.”

I pray about Stoney.  He’s a guy that can go either way.  He needs a chance, just someone to give him a chance, and he’ll be alright.

Then there’s Tex, a fifty year old crack addict.  He did ten years in the Navy, then was discharged for selling drugs while on an aircraft carrier.  He’s been in and out of prison for the last 15 years.  He moves from state to state with his wife, getting high, living in crack hotels, doing odd jobs on the side.

She’s in Texas, at a half-way house waiting on his release after this two year bid.  He’ll tell you he’s learned from this experience and he’s ready to live right.  Then ten minutes later, he’s on the phone explaining to his wife – in code – how to run scams for the extra rent aid and food vouchers.

The sad part is, Tex is a very smart man.  He’s just not smart enough to learn from his mistakes.

Finally, there is Tattoo, aptly named because he is covered in tats.  He shaves his head and has tattoos around his skull.  Twenty-two years incarcerated for murder.  He is one of the scariest looking people I’ve ever seen and also one of the quietest, calmest and peaceful men I’ve ever met.

Prison is not good, but sometimes good can come from prison.  Tattoo proves what Hemingway said:  “The world breaks everyone and some are stronger at the broken places.”  Tattoo has lived the worst prison creates:  the rapes, the beatings, the killings.  And, he’s overcome.  He is scholarly, deep, peaceful.  I count Tattoo as a man I trust and as a friend.

He’s going out into a world he knows little of, yet he has a focus, an inner peace.  Tattoo has paid for his crime.  It’s time for him to live.

Four guys going home.  Some will make it, some will fail.  All have left a mark on me.  As Reverend Peterson said, ours is not a neat and tidy world.  There is mystery everywhere.  And yet, His message remains the same.

May your New Year be blessed.