Consider This

This blog was written in October, 2014. 

            I found a quote recently from Albert Einstein. He said, “Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy truth.” Al knew truth was relative. Truth, the good professor understood, doesn’t depend on your socio-economic status, color of your skin, or luck to be born “here” instead of “there.” We place so much respect in “our way” of life, “our” notions of justice and decency and being “right” all the time. And in doing so, we may miss the larger truth – the real truth.

            I was fortunate as an undergrad student to have an advisor who was a symbolic interactionist (he was also an ordained Methodist minister). I’ll never forget him saying, “Where you stand (on an issue) depends on where you sit (live economically, racially). Think police are doing a good job? Chances are you aren’t black. Einstein and my advisor were talking, to large extent, about the same thing. You have to be able to see the other guy’s perspective. Truth is universal; so is empathy.

            I love the study of history. I am fascinated by the human capacity to proceed forward, in spite of our sometime best efforts to destroy ourselves. I am awed by the seemingly ordinary man who goes forth and does the extraordinary. Joshua Chamberlain, commanding officer of a depleted Maine Regiment commands the far right flank of the Union line at Gettysburg. He and his few hundred men are all that stands between the confederate forces under General Lee and a straight path to Washington D.C. “Hold at all cost,” he is told.

            And Chamberlain, a Professor of classics at a small college, what does he know about military tactics? He knows what he must do. Exhausted and out of ammunition, his men respond when Chamberlain orders “fix bayonets” and leads them on a charge into the advancing enemy. The battle turns; the Union is saved.

            “Unthinking respect.” Every day I tell these young college students to judge what they hear on the news or read in the paper with a critical eye. What is driving the story? Obama is neither the best – nor the worst – president in this country’s history. What, I ask them, is the writer’s perspective?

            What, you may ask, does this have to do with a prison blog? A lot. I was one of those guys who knew “everything.” Republicans were always right; we were justified in whatever we did in the Middle East. Morality, justice, truth – those were “Pax Americana.” I wrapped myself in a civil Religion that told me God sang the National Anthem and 3000 dead in New York city was worse than 80,000 incinerated in Dresden, or Nagasaki.

            And a funny thing happened after my arrest. I met people who I would have crossed the street to avoid. I met black men, young and bright, who had the same dreams my son had, only their climb for those dreams was so much more difficult. There were nights I felt like Scrooge in Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” I would ask God “Why are you showing me these things?” All the crap I spouted about “justice” in my former arrogant days was all because I was the beneficiary of a rigged game. You know who empathized with me in those terrible days after my sentencing, after my divorce? It was those young, black kids, the gangbangers and drug users, the dregs of the American dream. They told me, “you deserve better;” they showed me compassion.

            I was befriended by a man twice tried for capital murder who faced the death penalty. That man is like an older brother to me and every day I am reminded that redemption is possible in every life. It was DC, in my worst days who reminded me what his “Pops” told him, “A real man will hold the line and do what’s right in spite of the cost.”

            “Truth.” The prison system is a failure. We, as a people, do our best when we show compassion rather than power. The Beatitudes are the real declaration of independence. “Love your enemy,” means just that. God is neither Pro-American not anti-American. He is pro-His children even as we make a mess of this world and our lives.

            This week, I wrote (as I do every month) our college newsletter. I wrote about General Ulysses S. Grant at Shiloh. His Union army was caught off guard and badly mauled. At the end of the first day of battle it appeared his line would collapse. His second in command, William Tecumseh Sherman, found the General sitting beneath a tree on the banks of the Tennessee River. “Rough fight today,” Grant said. “We’ll lick em tomorrow.” Sherman noted in his diary that Grant had the air of a man at peace. Grant gave Sherman orders for a massive counter-attack the next morning, which roared through the Confederate lines. The Union held.

            “Great suffering can change a person.” Eleanor Roosevelt said that about her husband, a man who was born of privilege and yet, his struggle with overcoming polio, the pain and difficulty with walking and standing, transformed him into a president who was prepared when the nation needed him. “The only thing to fear is fear itself.” Crazy, nonsensical words, and yet they are true.

            Consider this: truth isn’t where you sit. Truth exists in our capacity to see our commonality, to understand no one is hopeless, to do right and to remember no government has the market cornered for justice. What does that have to do with prison? Everything.

Why?

I had half dozen topics to write about this week.  Then, as I returned to the building after a long run and workout on a day off, I noticed the eerie quiet.  Dozens of guys were huddled around their TV’s watching as the news broke about the tragic and senseless shooting of children at a Connecticut elementary school.

“What is wrong with people?”  Those were the words of a twenty-eight year old father of two who just happens to be doing three years for drug use.  “Children?  Why?”  I wish I knew.

I have seen a great deal in prison and learned many painful lessons about human failings and the consequences of our behavior.  They have not been easy lessons.  And, I have seen a great deal of senseless violence.  I’ve written much about the fights – and worse – that I’ve seen.  Candidly, it’s my way of dealing with it.  But, children?  What, indeed, is wrong with us?

Were this an aberration, a once-in-a-lifetime event, you could rationalize that a crazed person, unhinged, brought such mayhem and destruction forward.  That is not the case.  Columbine, Oklahoma City, Aurora, Newtown.  Each name evokes images of fear, death and disbelief.  We are I am coming to believe, an angry, unempathetic mess. 

Last week I finished reading writer Wally Lamb’s powerful 2009 novel, “The Hour I First Believed”.  Set against the backdrop of the Columbine shooting and a survivor watching her life disintegrate, it was an amazing story of a family’s secrets, the seeming randomness of violence and crises, and ultimately about finding faith to go on.  I found the book both personally touching and difficult.  In an “afterward”, Lamb explained why he used so many factually accurate details about Columbine.  He saw the senselessness of it all and how violence begets violence.  That I finished his book less than five days before this murderous rampage is not lost on me.  Why?

This isn’t a platform for me to talk about gun control, or mental health issues, or locking down our schools, and locking up more people.  This is just the words of a guy who thinks we’ve collectively lost our way.  I do time with men locked up for murder and to a man they all sat stunned, wondering “What is going on out there?”

A few days ago, Ms. Jackson buried her son.  He was a player on the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys.  Driving to the church service with her was the man who killed her son.  He was driving drunk, lost control of his car, and crashed.  And Ms. Jackson’s son, a passenger in the car, died.  She asked the driver to go with her, to sit with her family to show anyone paying attention that God expects us to love, and forgive, and be merciful. 

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted;

Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth;
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied;
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy;
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God;
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

I couldn’t think of anything else, so I turned to the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount which tells us more about God with us, than us with us.

This blog isn’t about prison.   On second thought, maybe it is.  “Why?”  I’m not smart enough to know.  I do know there’s way too much senseless, tragic violence out there and in here.  And, we have to start doing better.

Failure and ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bend, Don't Break

DC came by to talk to me the other night. As I’ve written before, DC is one of the most interesting guys I’ve ever met. Though we are from completely different worlds, I feel a kinship with him I’ve seldom felt. Prison is terrible, but survivable because of the friendships I’ve been blessed with. I count DC as one of those blessings.



He knew I’d been struggling in a valley these past few weeks. He knew I felt beaten down and abandoned by friends whom had been there for me, yet now when I so desperately needed to hear from them, utter silence. He knew I was dealing with another round of rejection from loved ones that had set me back months, if not years. He came by and sat down and never once mentioned my situation. Instead, he told me something his father told him when he was sitting in the hole years ago.


His father, a Korean War infantryman, told him “take every day at a time. Bend, don’t break. When you lay down at night, thank God He saw you through.” DC then stood up, headed back out of my cut. Before leaving, he looked at me, told me he respected my courage, my compassion for these guys and my decency and simply ended “just bend”.


I went to bed that night like I do every other evening by reciting the words to the 103rd Psalm, by praying that my ex find someone she can love and trust and in turn loves her unconditionally, that my sons are joyous, secure, forgiving and loving. I prayed for my parents, for my cousin and her husband who have been so steadfast in their love and support for me, and for friends – even as some pull away from me. Those are difficult prayers at times for me as I struggle with issues like rejection and abandonment. Still, I pray. That night I added one additional prayer: “Please don’t let me break, God. I know you’re listening. Let me bend, not break.”


There’s a lot going on right now. I am working an extraordinary amount of hours, close to twelve a day, helping guys with their college studies. I’m paid forty-five cents per hour for thirty hours of work. The money isn’t necessarily the issue. No, I’m working my butt off to keep guys motivated who have an initial reaction to difficulty to quit. I’m working my butt off for guys who are all going home in the next one to two years (max), many of whom are here for their second or third time. Meanwhile, I still have ten years remaining on my sentence.


As I lay in bed I began to think I must be crazy. Everything I knew, everything I built, everything I longed for, was gone. And, here I was putting out all this effort and I had nothing to show for it. All night I tossed and turned. I finally got out of my bunk at 3:30 and began to pray. “Please let me bend, not break today” I prayed. I noticed my devotional was from the Sermon on the Mount. As I read the Beatitudes I wondered what they really meant. “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” I reached for Big S’s modern language Bible.


“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you, there is more of God and His role.”


“Your blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.”


Those words rolled through my brain. “At the end of my rope.” I’d been there almost every day the past six weeks. Not a day had gone by that I didn’t wonder what was my breaking point. I was hanging by a thread, reaching for a small light that grew dimmer each moment. “Lost what is most dear to you.” Let’s see, rejected by my wife and kids, loss of my freedom, loss of my wealth, abandonment by friends. Things were so bad I’ve had crack addicts doing their fourth bid tell me “damn, your life sucks.”


“Bend, don’t break.” Those words kept hitting me between the eyes. I remembered an anonymous quote I picked up shortly after my arrest. It said simply,


“Pain is synonymous with spirituality. When you’re in the most pain you are closest to God.”


The simple fact was, I realized, that there was absolutely nothing I could do that day to get me out of prison right then, or make my ex-wife love and forgive me, or make my kids tell me they loved and missed me, or make a close friend take five minutes out of his day to write me back. But, I could make a difference in these guys’ lives.


So that afternoon, I led a review session in the dayroom for a group of English students on critically evaluating a social science piece called “Can Money Buy Happiness?”