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.

Saying No

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.