The Code

Inmates talk endlessly about “the code.” The conversation always begins with “Back when the penitentiary and doing time meant something, guys lived by the code.”  It’s funny, but the guys that say that weren’t doing bids back in those penitentiary days. The guys who were – those men down twenty, thirty, even forty years – know that “the code” was just a fancy word for mind your own business, ignore what you see, and don’t snitch.

            It was a brutal world where every man had a blade hidden for protection, where extortion and rape were daily occurrences; and where the officers had little control over the lives of the inmates. Ironically, that’s still the way prison is. By the time guys get here from the higher levels, where they walked through the mine fields and either were victim or victimizer, they can see home and aren’t willing to tack on more time to their sentence. Give a twenty year old thirty years and he can’t comprehend it. What’s he do? He fights, he steals, he does whatever he has to do to make a name for himself and protect himself.

            But, ten years in and now he’s thirty and his girlfriend has stopped writing. Friends have moved on. He has little left outside and he realizes all the time he’s done so far only accounts for a third of what he must do. The realization sets in that he may never get out. Most go to “the code.” They see nothing; they say nothing; they do nothing. And, like the stranded boys alone on the island in “Lord of the Flies,” tribalism and Darwinian observation like the strong preying on the weak, become the inmate’s daily existence. It’s all about survival. Nothing more, nothing less.

            I’ve been thinking about “the code” a good bit during Lent. Every morning during this Lenten season I take a three by five index card and jot down a meaningful verse or two from my morning reading. Throughout the day, I’ll refer back to the card to focus on what I consider the important thought of the day. Every verse I jot down is contrary to “the code.” How we live in here, how we conduct our lives in here is contrary to what God expects. But, here’s the irony – so is the way I lived “BP” (before prison). I keep coming back to the Proverb: the wisdom of man is foolishness to God.

            What does all this have to do with “the code?” I find myself going against the grain. I’m being pulled two directions most times. My eyes tell me the vast majority of men I’m locked up with are full of malice. They feel victimized; they lack empathy. Ignorance flourishes in here. Each day I try and fight the urge to berate someone for being disrespectful, dishonest, or just not caring enough about themselves or their loved ones to get right. Simply put, almost every day I find myself thinking, “I hate this place and the men in here.”

            But then, there is the other side, the side that tells me to empathize and be compassionate toward even the worst. Call it an attempt to atone for my own misjudgments, but I try and see the good in all. So, I butt in when the code says “butt out.” I tell guys what I think even when I’m warned over and over to keep my opinions to myself. Under “the code,” truth is a casualty.

            Why am I writing this? I don’t really know. I’ve had a few weeks of confrontations that have only emboldened me. One of cards I carry has the words from Isaiah 40:10-13 on it. It is one of the most moving pieces of scripture I know. It says:

“Do not fear, for I am with you.

Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you, surely I will help you;

Surely I will uphold you …

Those who war with you will be as nothing and non-existent.

For I am your God, Who upholds your right hand,

Who says to you, Do not fear, I will help you.”

            Here’s what I take that to mean. You do the right thing and you know God will have your back. There is no “code” above His. Too often men in here do the expedient thing to get by. Too often out there, the same thing is done. It’s a pretty radical idea, but it’s one I’m trying. Too many men fail in here. Too many fail out there. There has to be a better way

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.