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.

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.

 

When Will They Ever Learn?

As I was working out a few weeks ago, Pete Seeger’s song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” ran through my head.  After each stanza, from flowers to girls to young soldiers, to graveyards, Seeger ends with the same refrain, “When will they ever learn?”

To say I was unprepared for arrest and jail would be an understatement.  I was taken to the jail – in shackle and handcuffs of course – wearing my navy blue blazer, oxford collared shirt, khakis and Kenneth Cole dress shoes.  As opposed to most guys who know they’re about to get picked up and have on four pair of t-shirts, boxers and socks, I had one v-neck tee and a pair of green Italian silk boxers.

They took everything from me except my underclothes.  I was given two sets of puke green, elastic waist scrubs and a set of “Jackie Chans”, jail lingo for the 99 cent shower shoes they give out.  I was told by the property C.O. I could order my own sneakers, boxers and t-shirts from commissary.  And, feeling sorry for me – I was a pathetic mess – the officer helped me fill out my first “store” order.  I’d shown up in jail with $400.00 in my wallet that was immediately taken and put on my “account”.  I ordered three sets of white tees, boxers and socks and a $20.00 pair of Velcro sneakers.  “You’ll be able to get your stuff next Monday”, the officer told me shortly before I found myself in my first jail pod with no daylight, no quiet, and no hope.

That first week was horrendous and I fought desperately against self-destruction even as my whole “real” life was crashing around me. I barely survived that first weekend, had my moment of begging God to not abandon me, and somehow made it to Monday morning.  And, shortly after 9:00 that morning, the intercom called me to commissary.  That entire first week I lived in the same t-shirt and underwear.  Each night in my cell, I’d wash those clothes out with my state issued bar of soap and hang them to dry.  And I’d sleep “commando” in that uncomfortable jail-issued scrub set.

The sneakers.  I put them on at the commissary window and headed back to the pod.  It was the first moment of normalcy I’d enjoyed since my arrest.  Back in my cell block I walked around feeling – well – better than I had in a week.  Then I saw him. 

He was a young, muscular black kid, no more than eighteen.   He was sitting on a table, saw me and climbed down and began heading toward me.  I noticed his smile, devious is a good way to describe it, and also noticed the ten or so other guys in the dayroom suddenly moved toward the walls.

“Nice shoes”, he said.  Before I could respond he added, “Give em to me or else”.  My mind raced a thousand miles an hour.  I was forty-nine and wanted to die – or so I thought.  But, his words did something to me.  I put myself in a fighting stance, on the balls of my feet, hands fisted.  Then and there I decided I might get my ass kicked, but I’d always keep my dignity.

Divine intervention?  At that precise moment the young, female psychologist walked by our pod windows in a silk blouse and jeans that accentuated her petite frame.  My would-be assailant saw her and turned his attention to her.  In one of those tragic-comic moments you only see in prison, he began uttering lewd, grunted words to her while exposing himself.  In a matter of seconds the dayroom door sprang open and three beefy officers lifted “Casanova” off the floor and out of the pod.  I never saw him again.

There have been other situations where I’ve been threatened, sometimes by guys for whom violence has been a way of life.  It’s funny, but I don’t worry about it.  As I told a friend one time, it’s better to get beat up and keep your dignity intact than live with yourself out of fear.  But, those experiences have convinced me of the needless waste that is violence.

The other night a fight broke out in here.  Like most fights this one arose out of a stupid thing, a wager gone awry, and one skinny loudmouth telling a much larger guy “you ain’t gonna dispect me, bro.”  Within seconds the big man had lunged at skinny, landed at least six heavy “Whumps” to the head and chest, then began to choke him out.

And as with most fights in here, we all stopped and tried not to look, but also didn’t intervene.  In a minute or two it was over.  Skinny slinked off to his bunk gasping for air, only the blackness of his skin hiding his bruised and bloodied face.

I’ll never get use to the violence in here.  It jolts me and offends my sense of dignity and compassion.  And the more I see of it, the more I realize it’s just a stupid, stupid waste.

Were it only in here, I’d write it off as some depraved state of the incarcerated; you know “what do you expect from criminals?”  But then you watch the news; Syria, Egypt, Afghanistan, Chicago, Richmond, on and on the news details fighting and killing.  Gandhi once said “with an eye for an eye the world will soon be blind.”  Gandhi was a very smart man.

Violence is never the answer.  Violence begets violence.  I have watched too many men beat each other senseless in here.  Then again, I saw too many young men die and kill in the rice paddies of Vietnam and the sands of Iraq.  “When will they ever learn?”

I shared with a friend in a recent letter how much prison has changed my outlook on life, on people, on things in general.  Years ago, after that initial confrontation over my sneakers, I began getting up at 4:00 and reading the Bible.  I guess I wanted to understand why, why God, why things were the way they were.  I found more questions than answers.  But, I began to come away with a deep sense of awe over the infinite mystery that is God.

And I began to understand that we are all flawed.  Perhaps that’s why I keep thinking it all boils down to kindness, mercy, and forgiveness.

When will they ever learn?  After the fight, the big guy came up to me to talk.  Everyone else was joking on him, he said.  “Not you.”  And he told me he felt like crap about doing that, pummeling the loudmouth, skinny guy.  “I hate that.  Hate getting so angry.  Hate how I feel afterwards.” 

When will they every learn?  Maybe never, or maybe….

Let Freedom Reign

The other day I watched as millions of ordinary Egyptians stood in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria and demanded an end to the tyrannical, repressive regime headed for thirty years by Hosni Mubarak.



I was transfixed when word came out that Mubarak had left the country. Ordinary Egyptians tired of terror and disappointment screamed with joy “we are free”. I saw fathers with tears in their eyes lift their children toward heaven. Men fell to their knees and prayed, reciting over and over “Allah Akbar” “God is great!”


A news clip then came on showing President Obama laud the transfer of power. He spoke about a peoples’ inherent desire, their absolute right to live free. In an amazing display of historical perspective, a news announcer reported that it was “exactly twenty-one years ago today” that Nelson Mandela stepped through the gates of a South African prison and walked forward a free man. After twenty-six long, lonely, brutal years, Mandela walked into freedom. He stepped to the microphones set up before him and in a firm voice said “let freedom reign”. President Obama chose those same three words in his remarks on Egypt.


“Let freedom reign.” I’ve re-read the story of Moses this week. Moses, a man who murdered an Egyptian and then fled rather than face the wrath of Pharaoh. God, however, had other plans for Moses. In spite of his failures, his crime, God saw in Moses righteousness. He called out to Moses, told him to “have courage” and then instructed him to “lead my people to freedom”.


“Let freedom reign.” I re-read the prophet Jeremiah’s words to the captive people of Israel. “God is with you. He shall restore you.” Jeremiah suffered grievously in his life. Imprisoned, beaten, starved, abandoned by his own people. There were many days Jeremiah wondered, “Has God forsaken me”. Still, he found the faith to tell his countrymen living away from home under the oppression of a Babylonian despot, living in captivity, “do not lose hope. God hears you. You will be restored”.


I have had a difficult past ten days. I have felt abandoned, lost and lived with a deep sense of hopelessness I haven’t felt in years. Many times during these difficult days I’ve fought back thoughts that my future looks bleak. I fought against thinking I would serve my entire sentence and be released to live my remaining days alone, lonely and destitute.


I’ve wondered why, why has all this happened? I’ve accepted responsibility for the decisions I made. Still, the punishment I have been handed is substantially more severe than the crime. I’ve lain in bed and asked God over and over this week how much more I must lose. Yeah, I’ve been feeling sorry for myself. And, maybe I deserve all that has happened.


As I was watching the news, watching the Egyptians celebrate, my workout coach stood in my cut.


“I know you’ve been strugglin’ this week,” Randy said. “You’re not like most men I’ve met. You’re a good man. Good men make bad decisions, but they overcome.”


“Let freedom reign.” That’s a tough sell this week. I want my freedom. I want a future. That seems so far away right now. Still, hope dies hard. This dark period shall pass. I’ll find my bearings. I’ll believe and hope again.


Freedom is precious. I’ll make it through somehow. I watched the joy in the Egyptian man’s face as he cried out “God gave me my freedom’. I know my day is coming.