de Accion de Gracias

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER, 2014.

            Its Thanksgiving evening 2014 and the lights in the building have finally lowered. I’m watching as “Number 9,” the new guy in bed 9, throws his mattress over his shoulder. What the hell is he doing? I think. “Number 9” wasn’t there Wednesday night. Sometime after midnight – early Thursday morning – they moved him in. The bunk was open after “Cheesy Sidler” moved from “9” to “91.” “Cheesy Sidler,” college graduate, whiz on the computer, child sex fiend. I name everyone and “Cheesy Sidler” was no exception. We were standing around one morning waiting on breakfast and this guy sidles up to us. One minute he isn’t there, the next you can feel his breath on your neck. And, he has this big toothy “I just farted” grin … “Cheesy Sidler.”

            The Cheese is in on a sex crime with minors. He’s smart and, he’s in total denial. He has the arrogance of so many child sex offenders: “I’m innocent; I’m not like them.” I try not to emote anger around him but it’s tough. He looks like what I look like to the young black guys in here. Cheese was raised in Africa; his parents – Baptist missionaries. Fifty-eight years old, daughters, grandkids, a wife. They visit. He has become an Orthodox Jew. He goes to “7” building every morning to wear the small wooden box on his forehead and rock and pray. He’s Orthodox, but is he Godly? Can he atone in rhythmic chants for his perversion and crimes? It’s getting dark in the building and I wonder if that’s the real meaning of “grace,” coming to grips with your sins.

            Back to “Number 9,” he tells the CO, “I don’t like it here.” I crack up and ask my neighbor O if that works. Can I just say, “I don’t like it here,” and that’s that? 9 then gets all his stuff – a plastic trash bag of dirty, balled up clothing and his pillow – and drops it beside his mattress thrown down by the trash can in the day room. I’m exhausted but can’t go to sleep because I’m witness to a train wreck.

            “Look,” says the CO. “You can put your stuff back in your bunk area or go to the hole. It’s your choice.” Old 9, he ponders “option A” versus “option B” and chooses to return his things to his bunk … at least for the night. I climb in bed and read my verse from the morning one last time, pray, and then think about how pretty Thanksgiving sounds in Spanish, “de Accion de Gracias.”

            2008. I had lousy Thanksgivings before. There were times we thought we should split; I never told her I blamed her for losing my dreams. Maybe that’s wrong. I was willing to give every dream up just for one time hearing “I love you,” or “thank you,” or “I appreciate what you’ve sacrificed.” Instead it festered. But, pretend happiness works. So does turkey and good Scotch and oysters on the half-shell. Ah, food and drink and family and friends … an overstuffed table with wine glasses clinking. Not 2008. There were the letters; the newspaper article a week before said I stated “in open court in a clear voice ‘guilty,’” as each count was read. Counts – 1, 3, 6, it didn’t matter. I had highlighted the part where she said, “I’m praying you die in there.” Funny thing is, I prayed the same thing.

            Thanksgiving at the jail and they bring trays to the pod. It’s two-toned pressed turkey meat – low-cut, cold lunch meat, - instant mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. I’m not even hungry; I’m nauseous, and worn, and depressed. “I don’t like it here.” I wish I thought of saying that back then. “In all things give thanks for this is the Lord’s will for you.” God, I was learning had on off-kilter sense of humor. “Thanks God for ruining my life!” That I remember. “de Accion de Gracias.”

            Thanksgiving 2014, my sixth here. I arrived a week before Thanksgiving 2009 and remember that first dinner, the heaping tray with real turkey and pork roast, and candied yams and real mashed potatoes with broccoli and greens and stuffing and rolls. There was sweet potato pie and cake with banana cream frosting. I had told myself I wanted out, wanted to die and now, one year later I’m smiling, enjoying Thanksgiving in prison. In prison! That’s crazy! But, the food, the smells, the conversation, I was ok. Was it like the quail during the forty years in the wilderness? The food “appeared” and the people were sated.

            This year we’d decided to keep out regular work-out schedule. So, big meal at 12:30 (4A ate first!), a nap – why not!?) – then outside at 3:45. For a day and a half it had rained. The track, the weight pile, nothing but mud. Five of us head out in 40° mist. “Go quick,” O says because we know dark is only forty-five minutes away. We’re running, slogging through puddles, and curling bars, then dead lifting. I’m out of my shirts, so is O and Moose and our heads are steaming. I never dead lifted 240 before; I’m on 210, then 225. “Screw it” I yell and squat and lift 240, 3 no 4, no 5 reps and drop the weight with a primal yell of success. I take off at full throttle through the puddles and I’m buoyed. I don’t know why, but I feel … free and alive. “de Accion de Gracias.” I get what Paul was telling those struggling church members in Philippi while he sat alone in prison. “Live above your circumstances,” Paul exhorts his fledgling flock. No matter what, He is in control of our circumstances. Maybe that’s the toughest lesson to learn: We want life our way, in our time, on our terms. And, we keep messing up.

            Thirty-three years ago. I stood in a church and looked a beautiful girl in her eyes and recited vows. You know, looking back, I didn’t take all that seriously. I knew what I wanted and I wouldn’t let anything stop me. We chose Thanksgiving weekend because, well it fit right before my law school exams. At jail I dreaded Thanksgiving and the knowledge that I failed … and those dreams,

            “If dreams were lightning thunder was desire

            This old house would have burnt down a long time ago”

            Dreams. Vows. Weight lifted – real and imaginary. “de Accion de Gracias.” Cheesy Sidler, Number 9; I’m ok. I’m falling asleep thinking about what was, so long ago, and what will be.

            “Just give me one thing that I can hold onto

            To believe in just living is just a hard way to go”

            Live above your circumstances. I keep thinking about those four words in the meaning of “grace,” accept God’s forgiveness and be what He intends you to be. You can’t run from, or hide from, your past but you can overcome. Maybe Nike is right, “Just do it.” “de Accion de Gracias.” I like the sound of that.

Letter from Long Ago

I found myself spending a good deal of time this week reading over the Apostle Paul’s letter to the citizens of Rome. Commentators note that at the time this letter was written it didn’t receive much notice. After all, it was a letter from a prisoner, a citizen of Rome, who in exuberance decided to explain to his countrymen what “God is up to.” Pretty heady stuff, even when ending a sentence in a preposition!

            Paul couldn’t shake the world-altering events from thirty years earlier when time – in his mind – went from “before” to “after.” It meant something profound, something life changing and he wanted to understand it; he wanted to explain it. He had quite literally, seen and talked to God. And that conversation, that moment on a desert road on the way to Damascus changed everything for him. This letter penned to his Roman compatriots was his way of explaining what that moment – that first Easter Sunday was to mean to every man and woman. What is God up to? Paul tells the Romans in passionate prose.

            As I said, I found myself thinking and reading Paul’s words a good bit this week. The A/C unit broke in our building last Sunday. Even with fans running 24 hours a day, it was hot and sticky. The temperature inside hovered near 90°. The air hung heavy with the smells of 76 men crammed together. And guys new to the system whined and carped and bitched. Me? It wasn’t as bad as receiving so I just took two extra showers each day and laughed it off. I learned early on in this adventure to laugh in spite of any of it.

            And a few things had me thinking. One, I was in a meeting with a college person I highly regard. We discovered a problem – VA benefit problem – that is – with a few of our students. I was explaining to her and her associate that men in prison believe the worst. Everything is a lie, a con, a plan to screw them. “There is no optimism in here,” I said. “There are a lot of injured, broken people in this place.”

            Her response caught me off-guard. In a soft voice, she said, “there are a lot of injured people outside.” I thought of Paul. People have a hard time. They screw up; they’re let down; life becomes disillusioning. Paul says, “Shake it off.” God pays no attention to what others say – or think (or even what you think) about you. He makes up His own mind and He always keeps His word, even when the whole world is lying through its teeth. “God,” Paul says, “always sets things right.”

            So often we focus on our failings, our hurts, our wrongs. Life seems hopeless. And the hopelessness, the hurt builds and breaks us even further. Paul says that isn’t what God sees. We criticize, we condemn, we suffer, and God still loves, God still saves.

            What’s all this about? I’ve been thinking a good deal about my future. What I’ve learned through all this is God got me out of the mess I was in. He didn’t do it in the way I wanted – the deus ex machina way where He’d show up and I’d be delivered without consequence – no, He broke me and then He restored me, and He put me where He needed me to be.

            Paul says we learn to shout praise even in the midst of our troubles and trials because we learn troubles build patience and patience forges virtue and virtue keeps us alert to God’s next message. And I get that; I get seeing the positive even in our difficulties.

            Like I said, there are a lot of injured people: people injured by others and themselves. Prison is a reality and a metaphor. The reality is, I’m in prison. I’m doing a sentence for breaking the law and I knew the ramifications of my actions and have to accept the punishment. Fair? Maybe, or maybe not. But, I did the crime, I must do the time.

            Prison, however, is also a mindset. So many are in prison due to hurts, wrongs, and regrets from before. And that prison overwhelms, and stifles, and destroys. The psychologist Viktor Frankl understood that. He saw it in the Nazi death camps; he saw who survived and who gave up. “Meaning,” he found, mattered. Find meaning in your life, in your suffering, and lift yourself beyond the prison. Paul – another Jewish intellectual – must have been smiling. After all, Viktor sounded like he’d read the letter.

            As I started this, the building had cooled. Things were back “as they were.” I was thinking about a picture of her. I haven’t seen her in almost six years. I’d been afraid to; I wasn’t sure how seeing a photo would tear at me. Then the photo came in the mail. She’d aged since we last saw each other (who hasn’t). But I looked and realized, it was ok. The hurt, the anger and frustration, it was gone. I saw a pretty woman and I was able to smile, say “Ok,” and move on. For the first time in years I felt good, just like Paul said I would once I understood.

            Almost 2000 years ago a Roman prisoner penned a letter about God being reliable, a message of hope in a time of despair and difficulty. This week, I finally understood what he meant.

If Only

Yesterday, another group of men were conferred degrees and certificates by our sponsoring community college.  As it was on prior occasions, the ceremony was joyful and uplifting with the graduates mingling with faculty and family just like graduates in the “real world”.  And, as with other college graduations I’ve attended in here, there were moments for me of bittersweet memories as my mind ran through “If only, Larry”.  More on that later.

The other weekend I was at visitation with my folks.  Every month, they make the ninety mile drive from their home in North Carolina up here.  They are both healthy, late-seventies people, and that gives me hope for a lot of years post prison.  Our conversations run the gamut of what’s going on with whom, and where people are.  Invariably, my mom will make an aside about my former church and the minister there.  At my worst, as I sat in the Henrico County Jail trying to find any reason to go on, he refused to come see me.

For a long time that treatment – by people I worshiped with and helped – gnawed at me.  How can my own minister turn his back on me?  2012 was an epiphanal year in my life.  And a fair number of issues and emotional baggage I’d been carting around slowly began to go away.  Things that had seemed to hurt me so deeply didn’t really matter too much.  In fact, I began to appreciate the pain they caused.  Call it rationalization, or maturity, or salvation, but I began to understand what the Apostle Paul meant when during his imprisonment he wrote “And in all things God works for the good of those who love Him according to His purposes.”

Paul was a heck of a writer and his words struck at the mystery that is faith in times of deep trouble.  Those words – I recited that verse literally dozens of times on my worst days as I tried to will myself into believing nothing was happening that God in His infinite power and grace couldn’t work out for my benefit.

I have a dear friend, an Episcopal minister, who regularly visited me at the jail and the receiving unit.  He has provided counsel, and support – even getting his congregation involved in my circumstances, and has listened during my Job-like periods when nothing made sense.  He stayed in touch, writing and visiting me even while undergoing chemotherapy.  His friendship is a true blessing in my life.  Here’s the irony.  I never would have met Gary had it not been for my own minister’s snub.  Another friend, one of Gary’s parishioners, asked him to come see me after my own church rejected me.  “If only”.  Somehow, I think Paul is smiling and saying, “Larry finally gets it.”

Back to college graduation – I sat there and watched our students march in and I remembered I missed my older son’s college graduation.  A wave of emotion – sadness, guilt, loneliness – hit me.  “If only”, I thought, and I felt myself growing back into the guy who struggled so long in here. I started thinking about Paul’s words.

The ceremony ended and I was eating with a few friends and two college faculty members when one of our graduates came up.  “Larry, my parents want to meet you.”  I walked over with him and said hello.  An elderly black woman with a cane stepped up, then threw her arms around me.  “Thank you”, she said.  “You helped our son so much.  You answered our prayers.”

Funny thing, that same reaction happened eight or nine times after that as grad after grad got me and introduced me to parents, grandparents, spouses, children.  “This is the guy who got me through my academic classes.”

I thought about Joseph in Egypt.  Sold into slavery, sent to prison, forgotten and then saves Egypt during a terrible drought.  Through divine intervention he is reunited with his brothers who fear for their lives.  Joseph, in one of the Bible’s great lines of mercy forgives his brothers.  “You meant to harm me, but God meant it for good.”

“If only.”  Sometimes we focus too much on the regret and not on the blessing.  I couldn’t help but think about Paul, and our graduates and their families, and my prison journey.  “In all things God works for the good….”  Even in embezzlement convictions, incarceration, and divorce that message applies.

 

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.

 

Thanksgiving 2012

I just “celebrated” my fifth Thanksgiving behind bars.  The fact that I can use the word “celebrate” to describe anything in here should tell you how far I’ve come since that first November at the Henrico County Jail.  “In all things, give thanks.”  I never felt at ease with the Apostle Paul’s admonition until this year.  Now, looking back, it makes perfect sense.

In November 2008, I was barely hanging on to my sanity and, quite candidly, my life.  I’d been in jail over three months by the time that first Thanksgiving rolled in.  I was pale.  My muscle tone had deteriorated and I’d lost almost thirty pounds.  The weight wasn’t an issue.  For the past year I’d binged on rich meals and booze in a state of guilt and depression knowing I’d inevitably lose everything.

But as Thanksgiving approached, I was in an alien place, with little or no control over even the most rudimentary aspects of life.  The week before, I’d appeared in court and plead guilty to all six counts presented against me.  A reporter from the local Richmond paper wrote about my appearance in court – as she did every other hearing – and once again I was big news.  Don’t believe the old adage “any publicity is good publicity”.  I was constantly hounded by other inmates begging for help with any and all issues.  And, to a man, none could honestly assess their lives, their problems, or their futures.

Friends by the dozens bailed on me.  My church neglected me.  My spouse wrote vindictive, hateful letters all the while demanding I give her everything.  I was embarrassed, ashamed, and defeated.  There was no hope.  And the worst part?  I’d done it all to myself.  I knew long ago what was coming.  But, I somehow thought it was easier to give in to everyone else’s dreams and ambitions.  Everyone would like me if I just delivered.  Who cares if I knew what I was doing was wrong?

There I was, Thanksgiving day, with a disgusting, mostly inedible meal, and I wished I was dead.  There is nothing worse than being alone, without hope.  “In all things, give thanks.”  Paul had no idea what he was saying.  He wasn’t me.

2009 brought even more difficulties.  I was sentenced.  The sentence shocked everyone who had come to court, a handful of friends and former coworkers.  The ink on the sentencing order wasn’t even dry and I was served with divorce papers.  I’d already signed everything over to my wife (our property settlement was a chief piece of my asset settlement agreement with my employer).  I was going to prison for thirteen years, divorced, penniless, and with the exception of a handful of family and friends, alone.

As bad as jail was, it didn’t equip me to handle DOC’s Receiving Unit.  For over four months I saw the worst in men:  stabbings, beatings, extortion.  That I moved in and around such utter violence and chaos unscathed never registered as a “blessing”.  I was just trying to survive.

Then, the Friday before Thanksgiving 2009, I left receiving and came here.  This facility wasn’t even on my “suggested” correction center list.  Two days after arrival I was hired as a teacher’s aide.  Two days after that I ate my first real turkey in over sixteen months.  The meal wasn’t “like home” but it was hot and tasty and filling.

I have eaten four Thanksgiving meals at this prison.  A few weeks ago I found myself wondering how it was that I came to a prison on the cusp of beginning a college program and I would discover a gift, that I could teach.  How was it that I moved so easily, so safely among so much violence and difficulty?

I remembered the words to the old Scottish Psalter, the Doxology, the “Old Hundred”.  It was a song of my childhood and comfort to me in difficult days.  I went for a run and found myself singing, “Know the Lord your God is good, His love for us is ever sure, we are his flock He doth us feed, age to age He shall endure.”

“In all things, give thanks.”  That doesn’t mean you have to jump for joy when your world is falling apart.  It does mean “have faith” God knows what He’s doing, even when we can’t figure out His ways.

Thanksgiving morning 2012, I ran in thirty degree weather in short sleeves.  And the words to the “Old Hundred” played through my head.  And, I thought of other Thanksgivings – good and bad.  Barefoot on the cold concrete, stretching, I thanked my Maker for this journey.  There really are blessings in trials.

Life Lesson

My friend DC learned last evening that his father passed away.  Death is never easy to grasp; in here it is even more difficult.  For fifty years DC’s father has regularly visited.  With his age and health deteriorating his visits to spend time with his incarcerated son became less frequent.  Recently, DC’s mom traveled alone or with DC’s wife for their regular monthly visits. 

When DC took me aside last night and told me the news, I found myself struck by the grace and dignity he possessed.  Later that night as I prayed, I stopped and wrote a few things that in the light of this beautiful, warm, January day surprised me.

But first, a little about DC’s dad.  I had the privilege of meeting him once, up at visitation; but in truth I knew him well through DC’s stories.  He was an infantryman in the United States Army and served in some of the bloodiest battles in Korea.  He served his country and fought and watched friends bleed and die all the while being repeatedly referred to as “boy” and “colored” and being denied basic civil rights living in the segregated south of the ‘40s, ‘50s and early ‘60s.  We, as a people, tend to gloss over our failures, our evils, our sins.  I’ve learned in this experience that too often we like to see things neatly, “us versus them” and the “us” is always right, always justified.  That, I believe, is why it’s so easy for “us” to justify our anger at a whole host of peoples overseas, why “we” so easily support this nation incarcerating two million.  “We” are honorable; “we” are decent.  “They” are terrorists, “they” are criminals.

The truth is, there is no “us” or “them”, there is only “we”.  We all fail, we all have the capacity to hurt and be hurtful.  We all can act a little more humanely.

So DC’s father and mother moved to the District married in ’46; drafted he was sent to Korea.  They raised a house full of children; buried two.  DC’s dad bought a liquor store on the edge of Georgetown.  Kept it his whole life.  Never robbed, never burned during the riots.  DC’s Pop was respected in the community and DC – he was feared.

Years passed.  There was the day in 1968 when his dad came to school and picked him up.  Driving home his dad lowered his voice and gently said “Paul’s coming home.  He was killed over there.  We have to be brave for mom.  She needs us.”  Paul was DC’s older brother.  DC idolized him.  He was drafted by the Phillies one week, the best pitcher they’d ever seen in D.C. they told the family.  Two weeks later the army drafted him and Paul ended up fighting and dying in Vietnam for a war that made no sense, fighting for “freedom” for a foreign people while his own family was denied equal rights in the nation’s capitol. 

Years later, DC asked his dad about the war, if he was angry about Paul dying for such a senseless cause.  “I don’t think nothin of it”, he said.  “I respect your brother cause he went, he fought, he did what he thought was right even knowing the risk.”  DC told me that story a few months after we met during a particularly tough time for me.  “You’re a stand up guy…even in here.  My Pops says that counts for something.”

DC’s dad.  He turned DC’s life around.  As I’ve noted in this blog, DC was one of the most feared, brutal inmates in the Virginia Prison system for years.  A week ago, I began writing a story – an essay really – built around DC.  I’ve been stuck for an ending.  See, my view of DC, the man I know today has largely developed as my faith has grown.  For obvious reasons, I call the story “Damascus”.  I’ve always been intrigued by Paul’s faith journey.  The Apostle Paul was ruthless in his pursuit of members of “the way”.  The blood of dozens was literally on his hands.  And then one day, on the road to Damascus, on the way to attack more Christians, he was struck down.  Why, I wondered, can church people, “good people”, accept that God could change Paul, but not someone like DC?  (You’ll have to wait for the story to come out to get my answer).

This afternoon I found my ending.  DC came by the cut while I was writing.  He just needed to talk about his dad.  So I listened as my friend spoke.  “My daughter was with Pops when he died.  He gripped her hand and called her close and said ‘tell you daddy to remember the goose’.  Then his hand went loose and he was gone.”

DC then told me what that meant.  Back in the early ‘80s, when DC was at Mecklenburg Corrections Center and in the middle of eighteen months of segregated living, i.e. “in the hole”, he was called to a surprise visit.  Visits in segregation are non-contact.  You talk through phones and Plexiglas.  “It was Pops.  He’d come down by himself to see me.”  For hours they talked.  Finally, his father with the phone close to his mouth asked DC why.  “Why do you keep doing this to yourself in prison when you got so much waitin on you out there?”  DC hemmed and hawed.  He had no answer.  “Figure it out son, before it’s too late.  You figure it out and we’ll get you out of here.  And you and me’ll share a bottle of Grey Goose and we’ll talk.”

Ten years later, DC had figured it out.  His dad was at another visit only this time the man sitting in front of Pops wasn’t the same angry, brutal man behind the Plexiglas.  Instead, his dad saw the DC I know, a man of peace, kindness and decency.

“It was about fear, Larry”, DC told me and I felt as though I was looking in the mirror.  Fear had driven me to my own self-destructive meeting with prison and divorce.  “I asked Pops why he came to see me that day in the ‘80s.  He told me a guy called him.  Said he’d just gotten out of prison and knew me.  And he told my Pops if I didn’t get reached soon either the state would kill me or another inmate would kill me, but I’d never make it out.  He just got in his car and drove down to see me.”

There are times in this experience when I’m not sure I can make it another day.  And then there are times, like these past twenty-four hours, when I thank God for this.  I don’t know why all this has happened, but I know I’m a better man for meeting guys like DC.  And I know life; death; pain and joy make so much more sense to me having been put in this place.

DC’s hurting right now but he’s also very much at peace.  He’ll have his time with his dad.  And I promised him, after we’re both out, we’ll go see his dad and have a glass of the goose.  May God bless DC’s Pops.  May God bless DC.  May God bless us all.

Bob Sold Out, Martin and Moses Didn't

I read an article this week about Bob Dylan taking his tour on the road all the way to China. In order for Dylan to perform there he had to agree to strict government censorship of his songs. He agreed to abstain from performing “Blowin’ in the Wind”, “The Times They Are A Changing”, “Chimes of Freedom”, “Desolation Row”, and “Hard Rains Gonna Fall”. For the opportunity to finally perform in the world’s most populated country, Bob sold out.



What’s left to believe in now that Bob gave up his message for a show? Like the little boy who ran into “Shoeless Joe” Jackson on the street shortly after his lifetime ban from baseball was announced by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, I want to run up to Bob and cry out “say it ain’t so Bob; say it ain’t so”.


Selling out is a funny human trait. We abhor it, yet we tolerate it, we expect it and worst of all, we do it. In here, selling out comes in a couple of different forms: being a snitch is one noticeable one. Buddying up to the officers, ratting out a fellow inmate to make your life easier is wrong. The job of the prison staff is to maintain order and discipline. The job of the inmate is to do their sentence. It is not the inmate’s job to police the compound.


Another sell out is the way guys react to this environment. You should never get comfortable in here. Too many men in her consider this place home. This is not home. This is a government imposed penalty; a court sanctioned “time out” in effect. Everything an inmate is given was fought for and eventually conceded to as a means of maintaining security, discipline and control.


Prisons are in place to house inmates. They aren’t places for treatment or rehabilitation, at least not as they are currently structured. It is the responsibility of the incarcerated to do their sentence and to challenge the status quo, the “that’s just the way things are done” attitude that permeates DOC when “the way things are done” is unjust.


This past week the English students were assigned Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s, “Letter from the Birmingham Jail”. Forty students; twenty-two African American, eighteen white and not one of them had ever been exposed to the letter before this week. As I’ve written before in this blog, there is perhaps no other single piece of writing by any American clergyman that as profoundly and persuasively spells out the moral obligation of Christians to challenge injustice.


To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: “An unjust law is a human law that is not rated in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.”


I broke the law. The Commonwealth of Virginia has the absolute right to set a just punishment for my law breaking. The Commonwealth doe not; however, have the right to operate an unjust sentencing apparatus and prison system. And, there can be no mistaking this simple fact: Virginia’s prison system degrades the men and women it holds. The system is unjust.


“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”


What does Dr. King mean by that? He means that everyone, especially people of faith, should care how a state punishes those who break the law. It is the moral responsibility of every person of faith to ensure that justice is done – even to those who break the law.


As I said earlier, guys in here sell out regularly. They feel hopeless. They see a system that not only has deprived them of their basic freedom, but then continues to break them down. They believe the system is rigged, that the poor, the uneducated, the nonwhite, receive harsher more frequent sentences.


And they see me and they are amazed of the harsh, unjust sentence I received and they wonder “what did you do to deserve being treated like us?” And they ask “how can you still have hope?” Simple, I tell them. Because in a dark, lonely cell God saved my life and told me He loved me. And my God is a God of justice and He is stronger than any prison, any prejudice, any predicament.


The Apostle Paul commanded believers to:


“Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves are also in the body.”


Remember the prisoners –


If the Commonwealth takes your freedom then they must provide an adequate, nutritious diet;


The Commonwealth must provide adequate, competent medical care for inmates;


The Commonwealth must provide adequate personal mental health, drug and alcohol treatment programs for those in prison;


The Commonwealth must provide meaningful access to rehabilitative programs and give inmates a just opportunity for early release and restoration of their rights as citizens.


Disparity in sentencing must be eliminated.


This past week my Old Testament lessons were from the Exodus. As I sat here each morning I pondered the story. We all know the ending, but the story itself, how Moses – a murderer – went to the leader of a powerful nation and delivered a simple message, “God says let my people go”. The Egyptians, under their “rule of law” had every right to hold the Israelites. They scoffed at Moses. The Bible even goes so far as to say “Pharaoh’s heart harden”. Over and over, God sent signs. Over and over, Moses repeated “let my people go”.


This coming week, the Jewish inmates here will celebrate the Passover as a reminder that God is a God of justice. He demands the same from us.


Bob sold out. Martin and Moses didn’t and there are 40,000 incarcerated people in Virginia that can rest assured that justice will be done.


Remember the prisoners. Remember the Exodus. Remember justice.

Easter 2011

It is a week before Easter and I’ve been reflecting on what that really means. In my “other” life I never gave Easter much thought. I accepted on faith it was “the day”, but really it was more a chance to go to church as a family, make disapproving glances at the “twice a year” churchgoers, and have a nice meal. When the boys were small we’d hide eggs and put Easter baskets together. Family and friends would come over and we’d eat, we’d drink and we’d say a rote blessing thanking God for our “good” life.



In 2009, I spent my first Easter away from my family. I was struggling, just weeks removed from my sentencing, and I heard the judge’s pronouncement ringing in my head. I wondered if God had pulled a fast one on me when He convinced me not to take the “easy way out”.


What kept me going was a belief that I’d be the recipient of an Easter miracle. About two weeks before Easter, a friend came to the jail for a visit. He and his wife were part of our “circle of couples”, those three or four families that seemed to do everything together. I confided in my friend that I believed an Easter miracle was coming. “She’ll come see me. She’ll tell me she loves me and appreciates me signing everything over. She’ll tell me our marriage will endure this.” My friend looked at me and just smiled.


The Friday before Easter, I received a letter from her. It was not what I expected. “You told [insert name here] you expected an Easter miracle. You’re a f---ing idiot! I’ll never come see you. Why would I be interested in you? You have nothing; your credit is ruined; you owe millions; you’re a convicted felon. You’re not much of a catch”. And those were the nice parts of the letter!


“The tomb is empty.”


I remember spending the reminder of the weekend and the next week in a fog. Each night as I lay down, her words scrolled through my head. “Happy Easter”, I thought. God so loved me that He allowed me to be utterly destroyed. And, to make matters worse, He waited until after I promised to see it through before He really put the screws to me. Resurrection was just a word.


Everyone pretty much knows the rest of the story: An angel appeared and convinced me I was needed. My wife realized I was a good man and organized our friends to help me. I was leading a wonderful life. Wait a minute, that’s not what happened to me. That’s Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed in “It’s A Wonderful Life”.


No, my “Easter miracle” went from her “love” letter to having my motion to reconsider my sentence being denied. The Judge “misplaced” my paperwork for seven weeks leading me to foolishly conclude he was seriously considering my request. Instead, he lazily scribbled one sentence to my original sentencing order. Within two days of getting that “good news”, my wife, my soulmate, the love of my life, served divorce papers on me that reserved her right to later ask for alimony and child support (I guess she wanted to cover all the bases. When you get everything without asking you might as well ask for more). In one of my few displays of humor at the time, I told a friend at least she didn’t ask for organ donations or blood (as Bob Dylan said “I gave her my heart, but she wanted my soul”).


Yeah, Easter 2009 was, in my humble opinion, a crock. And, things continued on their downward spiral. I was transferred to DOC Receiving and learned my marriage of twenty-eight years was legally dissolved on the twenty-ninth anniversary of our first date. Of the few friends I had left, a couple of them dropped off the map. I apparently couldn’t be as much fun behind bars as I was when I was the life of the party on the outside. And, I would learn later, my newly declared ex-wife was so traumatized by the divorce and being a single parent that she was involved with a married Canadian before the divorce was even final. Yes, 2009 sucked.


“He liveth.”


I found myself re-assigned to Lunenburg and in early 2010 I began working as an academic aide. I’d also been writing the entire time since my arrest and felt a strange pull to teach a creative writing workshop. A teacher at the school shared my vision and we began teaching creative writing. I was in the classroom, she oversaw editing pieces. By Easter 2010 I had a crazy idea to start this blog.


Truth be told, 2010 was another lousy year: more heartache and pain from the divorce; no contact with my sons; a few more of my dwindling number of friends abandoning me. But, I held on. I remained for the most part, hopeful. I knew things couldn’t – theoretically – get any worse. And, people I came in contact with were actually thankful for my efforts.


I started 2011 convinced miracles were coming. Just like ’09, I was kicked in the teeth. All those feeling of utter despair and hopelessness came charging back to me just as they hit me at Easter 2009: my ex, my sons, my life, all gone never to come back. I was being drowned in a tidal wave of disappointment, abandonment and rejection. One thing, however, was different. This time I knew I wasn’t alone.


I thought about something Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians. He said “we do not lose heart”. In Modern English it goes like this:


“So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without His unfolding grace.”


I thought about the Easter story. Palm Sunday, Jesus rode into Jerusalem as a hero, the Messiah come to save Israel. Within five days He was betrayed, abandoned and given over to the authorities. He was beaten mercilessly and publicly executed. His followers scattered fearful that they would know the same fate, ashamed that they sold him out.


There on the cross Jesus was executed with two criminals. Then one said to him “you don’t deserve this. I do. Remember me.” Jesus did.


Easter is about miracles. It may not be the miracle of brining my ex-wife and sons back to me; it may not get me released early; but I’m like the criminal on the cross. I made a mess of things but God still loved me enough to remember me and give me a new life.


Knowing that, I won’t ever give up hope. I won’t ever lose heart. Happy Easter!

Things I Learned This Week

It never seems to surprise me, but when I’m at my weakest, most self-pitying self, I get slapped in the face and reminded I really am blessed. So, here goes:



My Mom. A friend in here – “J” – told me the other day “as long as your mom still believes in you, there’s hope.” We were talking about a guy in here who really is trouble. “You can tell he’s scum; even his mom gave up on him.”


I have put my mom and dad through hell. I let them down in more ways than I can count. They grieve over the divorce, worry about my ex and our kids (and still maintain a loving, family relationship with her). I know it kills them each time they come up for a visit. Still, every month they show up.


My mom has never given up on me. Even after my arrest and conviction, she loved me and prayed about me. My father was furious. For months he didn’t speak to me. He was through with me. The stress in their 50 plus year marriage was evident. Still, my mom loved me.


One day I called home from jail. My mom just said “Larry, talk to your dad” and thrust the phone to my father. That simple act started he and I communicating again.


As I pondered how truly blessed I was to have these two people as parents, I remembered a verse from Isaiah 49. God is telling His people who are feeling forsaken and abandoned how great His love is. “Can a woman forget her nursing child and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely, they may forget, yet I will not forget you.”


My folks came for a visit last week. It was extremely emotional. I had to apologize for a lot and let them know how much I loved and appreciated them as parents. It was something that I said to the court the day I was sentenced that I felt I needed to repeat.


I learned something interesting about my mom during our visit. A few years ago there was a terrible auto accident involving a group of teenagers and alcohol. One of the drivers was the son of a woman from my parents’ church. The woman was devastated and withdrew from church. Her son sat in the local jail and later prison on a vehicular manslaughter charge. My mom wrote and called on that woman and wrote the young man in jail. She put her faith in action in ways I never did.


Go Chez. There’s a young guy that’s now part of our little circle. We call him Go Chez. He’s 23 and has another two years on a manslaughter conviction. He’s already served three years. He and his girlfriend were drunk and high returning from a party. He lost control of the car and crashed. He was in a coma. His girlfriend was killed.


Go Chez still bears the visible scars of the accident. His collarbone, crushed and splintered was rebuilt. It now protrudes about two inches off his chest. He bears the noticeable scar from a tracheotomy. He also bears the emotional and psychological scar living each day knowing he was responsible for his girlfriend’s death.


He’s a good kid who made a terrible mistake. I wonder if you ever fully heal from that knowledge.


DC. Another conversation with DC. As I’ve detailed before, DC is one of my favorite people in here. He knew I was struggling and pulled me aside to show me a photo. It was a picture of him in early 1972 at the DC gym he boxed at. He was jumping rope with Muhammad Ali. DC told me he told Ali “I’m gonna be a better boxer than you champ.” He probably could have been. But, he broke the law, ended up in prison in ’72 and has been here ever since.


He told me even after 38 full years in here, he has hope. “You gotta remember Larry, you had more, you lost more, than almost anyone in here. Married to the same woman all those years; education; good career; well-adjusted kids. You’re gonna feel this pain differently than any other guy.”


He told me to just keep being who I am, do the best I can and remember I have no control over how others react to me. “If folks forgive and love you, it will be on their own. You can’t control it.”


The strange thing was, DC said and explained exactly what I had been talking to myself about. After the conversation I felt a great sense of relief. I knew, no matter how alone I felt, how distressed I got, DC was there for me.


I realized I was blessed to have a guy like DC in my corner.


College Guys. Working with these guys I see and hear a good deal. There’s “Toby Three Thumbs”. He has an extra thumb growing out of his left thumb. Even has a nail growing on it. “Helps me in computer typing,” he told me. There’s “G” a guy that knows virtually everything about basketball, and “71/2 mile” who reminds me of Pig Pen from “Charlie Brown”.


Throw in Jeff, an Eminem knockoff, and Lafferty, a goofy kid who reminds me of Waldo. Every one of the remaining 37 guys is unique. A lot of them haven’t been in school in years. They can be needy, annoying and ignorant. Yet, I try everyday to help them.


I was suffering from a case of “why should I care more than them?” the other day. They had corporately ticked me off with their poor study habits, their whining and trying to cut corners. Meanwhile, Craig was teaching a remedial math class to five guys in danger of failing math, and I was designing a grammar review class to start in a week (these guys still don’t know a comma from a semicolon).


But, Wednesday I painfully watched these guys practice public speaking. Most broke out in beads of sweat. They stammered and stuttered and “um’d” their way through.


I told DC and Craig about it. These guys are so use to failure in school, so insecure, so afraid of ridicule. For all their puffing and tough talk, they really are the most fragile men I have ever met.


That realization helped recharge my batteries. I knew people outside of here may have given up on me, but in here I was the last chance some of these guys had to turn their lives around. My perspective on my work in here and myself changed. There is always someone who needs your help, no matter what your circumstances.


Courage. I’ve been giving courage a good deal of thought this week. The entire Middle East is in a state of chaos, despots being overthrown because a poor fruit vendor in Tunisia had finally hit his breaking point. On December 17th, after being run through the corrupt system of his police state life, being deprived of the opportunity to sell fruit, this young vendor, in a desperate act to reclaim his dignity, doused himself with gasoline and set himself aflame.


Within a day hundreds began protesting. Hundreds led to thousands. Thousands led to the Tunisian Government collapsing, the Mubarak regime in Egypt collapsing, Bahrain, Jordan and Yemen protests, and, as I write this, the final days of Gaddafi in Libya. One simple man who had had enough.


There’s another kind of courage I found this week as I read a beautiful piece about the Apostle Paul. The writer pointed out that as Paul approached his death he was abandoned by almost all his friends. He was imprisoned. When he appeared before the Roman court he noted in his letter to Timothy “No one supported me, but all deserted me.” Paul was lonely. He was going through a very trying situation and the people he thought loved him had left him.


The writer pointed out Paul was just like you and me. He wasn’t perfect; he had human weaknesses. He struggled with the discomforts and pain of prison life, the isolation.


But with all his being, he knew God was with him. He forgave those who abandoned him.


I’ve been mired in a good deal of self-pity and doubt these past few weeks. The last strands of hope I was clutching to were, it seems, torn away. But, as I read the writer’s story about Paul and a letter I received from a reader, I felt a sense of peace. I knew God was with me and this too would pass.


Another week went by. It was a week I will recall for a long time.