Take Root Devotions

AND, WHO ARE YOU?

 

A beloved member of my family lay dying in the hospital. All of us who orbited around her kept a firm grip on denial of the obvious. I was not the least delusional. Yet, like the rest, I hoped for a miracle. The intense dynamics of grief would soon test the strength of my severely dysfunctional family.

Two days before her death the Holy Spirit engaged me in a meditation that pushed the envelope of my limited experience in contemplative prayer.

I was on a 4’ ladder painting windows and I sensed it was a good idea to offer my imagination to God. I tried to offer him a blank page, so to speak. Quickly I felt like I was standing before my Heavenly Father. And, I knew he wanted me to ask him who he was. Now, no words were being exchanged. I was simply following the course of my offered-up imagination.

”Who are you?” I asked.

“I am”, he answered.

Then he said to me. “And, who are you?”

I felt a bit tense, as if this were a test or even a trick question. I wanted to answer well. Soon, I decided I could not impress God with my answers so I decided to satisfy myself. I asked myself, who am I really? I thought of some teaching from Brennan Manning, Richard Rohr, and Henri Nouwen who I’d been studying. Eventually I decided on heartfelt simplicity.

“I am Daddy’s child, I answered.

Silence followed. I sensed strength in my thoughts. Having no instruction I repeated the exchange.

“Who are you?”

“I am. And, who are you?”

“I am Daddy’s child.”

And, so it went. “Who are you?”

“I am. And, who are you?”

“I am Daddy’s child.”

Eventually I realized I was using God’s name to tell him who I was. I am Daddy’s child. After repeating this many, many times I heard this.

“Who are you?”

“I am. And, who are you?”

“I am Daddy’s child.”

“I love to hear you say my name.”

“I am Daddy’s child?” I answered.

“Yes. We share my name. It is our family name.”

Over and over for hours as I was able in my work-a-day world as a painter I kept up this contemplation. For two days it was intense. Most of the contemplation took place during work hours. Then the center of our world died. And, my precious, troubled family melted down. Extreme toxic levels of drunkenness, anger, swearing and toilet hugging sickness ensued. Much of what was said was forgotten the next day. However, I was not intoxicated and the rejection and cursing I endured was seared, tattooed in my memory.

Down, down, down I felt my self-esteem spiral. Gloom and near despair lifted ramparts to attack the weakened citadel of my faith. Until I remembered my two days of prayer and contemplation.

"And, who are you?"

"I am Daddy's child."

The darkness said I was a lousy brother, a horrible husband, a weak father but the light said my identity was not defined by association with a grieving accuser, but I am defined as Daddy's child.

No matter how true an accusation may be or how powerful and clever a false accusation may be we must remember it is the devil who is the accuser.

All God expects of us is to come to him as children. In true spiritual reality none of us is any better than the other. By nature we are all children of wrath. However, by God's call and glory we can come to him as children and receive cleansing and new life.

Our self-image must be conformed to the truth that we are our Daddy's child. That is how we must define ourselves. God prepared me to withstand a devilish assault during a difficult time of grief. He set up a shield of love and comfort to protect me from slander and accusation. He, in fact, pulled me into his lap.

The Little Flower once wrote, "Don't drag yourself any longer to his feet, follow that first impulse that draws you into his arms. That is where your place is."

Gano Rinehart

His book They are All LIfe Sentences can be found on Amazon.

EASY TO BE HARD

                           

He was completely naked; alone in the tiled shower section of the quiet prison dorm. His shining body, his natural ebony skin tone, stood in stark contrast to the old, poorly constructed concrete block building. It was built with inmate labor in the 1950s. The glare of institutional ceiling lights wrapped an eerie halo about him. He was alone. He was wet, potentially visible to at least 70 pairs of eyes. He was shaving his groin and legs.

For all the dreariness and relentless sameness of prison there are occasional and exceptional moments of strangeness, ugliness, beauty or uniqueness which have tattooed themselves in my memory. This was one.

It was off-putting and a bit jarring to observe this moment of reckless immodesty, primping and vanity. Could he be doing something he found personally satisfying? Was he grooming himself for some convict he was sexually attracted to? Or, was this part of his practice of sexual trolling, his purpose to draw to him a partner to hedge against the loneliness of the crude and rough environment he lived in. Or, an advertisement to attract another lonely man who might have coffee or potato chips or cigarettes to trade for a hidden moment of quick sex in the mop closet.

It was just a thought, an attempt to explain to myself a completely strange sight. I shifted in my bunk to remove this sight from my field of vision and continued reading my book.

Such an image becomes indelible and invites personal reflection and attempts at explanation or commentary. The perpetual pressure and intense interior physic hegemony of loneliness is common to the vast majority of God’s children and is magnified in the prison environment. The methods used to mitigate the pain of loneliness and to assuage the intolerable thirst it causes may vary widely. However, it certainly would unfold into predictable patterns of behavior that would surely include most, if not all, of humanity.

When I think of this man in what seemed to me an extreme exhibition of narcissism, I am troubled when I couple it with the familiar saying, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

It is indeed troubling to think that any expression of human behavior is potentially a mirror of who I am or who I could be. It is possible to take it even further and ask myself, “Is what he is doing really worse than what I do? Or what I think?”

It is easy to judge, easy to be hard, easy to think myself superior in the light of extreme, shocking or bad behavior. What we are required to do in our ancient holy faith is to see what disturbs us and to be thankful that Jesus Christ has paid for that behavior in his own blood.

Jesus could not say – the only human who could not – “there but for the grace of God go I”. Instead he says, “Any evil that can be properly judged must be paid for. And, in my death it is taken care of. It is paid in blood.”

So I must say to any memory of any person or behavior that I find disturbing, “the same blood flows for us all, because we all sin. And, we are all loved.”

 

Gano Reinhardt

Gano the Lizard King

 

As I was returning home from my morning walk I spied a skittering lizard; quick, quick across the sidewalk, leaping on to a weathered, tottering cedar fence, and slipping through a knot hole not unlike Alice. That little fearful reptile alerted me and I began to count. I saw them in azaleas, on fences, in a concrete access to a water meter in the easement of the road, in a rose garden. . . . I counted until thirteen before becoming bored with it,

In the past two years I have saved the lives of a handful of lizards. I have rescued them from the windshield of a moving vehicle, from a bucket of exterior latex paint and from the mouths of cats. If lizards used Facebook or other social media I am sure that some of these who ran for their lives would have, instead, been friendlier. As it was my ministry among lizards has gone completely unnoticed.

It is in moments like this I rely on my Catholic faith which teaches me the value of unheralded good works. It supports random acts of kindness, not for accolades but for the good of God’s kingdom, his church and the whole world. This is a noble attitude. It is the moral high road.

I remember my Kairos weekend. Kairos, like Cursillo, is a three and a half days retreat where the participant encounters the love and kindness and truth that is the Christian faith. There are five to ten people who give talent, time and money for every one person who benefits from the retreat. This work, not random but orchestrated, is an overwhelming act of kindness. One of the rules in this work is there is no room for individual glory and that our thanksgiving should be first of all to God.

 

GAno Rinehart

REMEMBERING MY FORMER INVISIBILITY

 

Jon Troneck was wild. Way too wild to be a Little League pitcher. However, his father, owner of Troneck’s Grocery the only store at the time in Folly Beach, S. C., sponsored the team. Having uniforms was the payoff for allowing little Jon his time on the mound. Years later I had reason to recall his pitching style.

An Optometrist was examining my eyes. “I can see by your retina that you received a blow to the head, maybe years ago,” she said. Immediately, even though I had not thought of him in years, I blurted out, “Jon Troneck. Little League pitcher. Man, was he wild! I wasn’t even playing. I was a spectator. I was on the sidelines.”

The blow to the head knocked me out. I woke up on a table with a bag of ice on the side of my face. When I arrived home my mother was greeted with a son whose face was at least 25% larger than when she saw him four hours earlier. She gave another ice treatment, some aspirins and put me to bed. The lack of alarm over my wellbeing seemed normal to me.

That was about fifty years ago. Old school parents were prone to do home treatments and stay away from the expense of a doctor. Nevertheless, I have often wondered what I would have done had the same happened when my children were teenagers. I am convinced I would have known a concussion needed medical attention. In that growing older gives us the gift of perspective, particularly in hind-sight, I have come to regard my childhood as a time of my invisibility. It was probably more common in the 1950s and 1960s when children were to be “seen and not heard.” I know my brothers and some of our friends suffered from the same affliction.

My father had a conflict. Although he loved his sons and provided faithfully for his family, he was reluctant to grow up. He had a night life that kept him busy and a job that had him all over the southeastern United States. He was often absent. For that reason I was usually invisible to him. My mother, suffering from anger, betrayal and depression because of my father’s habits operated in a robotic mode where she mindlessly plodded from task to task from within her perpetual black gloom. Her sad predicament blinded her to much of life, making my brothers and me rather invisible.

As a result of this invisibility we basically kept whatever schedule we wanted. We left when we felt like it and returned home as we found it convenient. My older brother and I kept to predictable and acceptable limits. We rarely raised the eye brows of our neighbors and friends. My younger brother was, by comparison, completely unbridled.  He went to school when it suited him. When there he was prone to display his considerable skill as class clown. He never finished the 8^th grade. By sixteen he was on his own traveling the highways using his thumb and 18” hair as his passport. I was also a hippie and was with him on many of his adventures.

I have many regrets and very little nostalgia for those days. My lost-ness was rooted in my innate embrace of my invisibility. We could ruin our young lives because we were invisible. We didn’t really register on anyone’s radar screen, except as a colorful aside in the talk of folks who felt superior to us.

A few weeks before I graduated from high school, Shepherd, our neighbor across the street was in our living room getting her graduation gown hemmed and fitted by my talented mother. My younger brother was near and reached over to feel Shepherd’s gown, commenting on how pretty it was. In distain over his gesture she snipped, “Get a good feel. It’s as close as you’ll ever get to a graduation gown.”

My mother, with pins held firm in her clenched lips, looked up at Shepherd in disbelief. She looked at her youngest son. She felt sorry for him and at the same time hoped he’d be motivated by a little negative gibe. He stepped back in an awkward embarrassment of silence. Shepherd kept her nose in the air while my mother returned to the favor she was doing for her neighbor, while ignoring her son’s hurt feelings.

This invisibility gave people permission to insult us in our own house, even in front of our parents. My older brother’s friends were free to bully me in my own house and on occasions even destroy my possessions in “fun”. Even with the perspective granted by fifty years of living I have trouble reconciling much of what happened. I am thankful we did not endure, as did many of my peers, psychological disorders, brutal physical or sexual abuse. My pain rates as small potatoes compared to what many endured. Nevertheless, we all still feel the long shadows of childhood and can only pray and process the memories. It is the good and the bad that makes us who we are.

Only Joseph and Mary, in my opinion, did everything right as parents. And, as they were a gift to Jesus even so my parents and my youth were a gift to me. It is not easy to juggle this idea of them being a “gift” with the painful memories. Yet, we are not juggling with only one ball. My grandparents  presented a similar paradox to my parents, even as, I must admit, I did the same to my children. We have to keep all these balls in the air as we reconstruct our memories and make sense of our lives.

My parents were God’s gift to me. I am God’s gift to my children, even though I do not feel that I was that great of a dad. It is my Catholic faith and trust in the providence of God that allows a healing balm to sooth my recollections.

Your way was through the sea,

Your path through the great waters;

Yet your footprints were unseen.

You led your people like a flock

By the hand . . . .     Psalms 77: 19f

Looking back at the “great waters” I traversed, I can now see I was not alone. I can see that God can and does draw straight with our crooked lives. I sometimes cringe when I wonder what memories or complaints my own children have against the home I provided. Allowing God to take us “by the hand” we find strength and comfort to forgive as well as to ask for forgiveness. Maybe I felt invisible. Maybe that was a problem. But, God is also usually “unseen”. He is unseen but he is not blind. His love makes us beautiful to eternity and to the angels. Eventually, we will all enjoy what is called the beatific vision. No one will be invisible then and everyone we see we will love. This love will render us all visible and beautiful.

Gano Reinhardt

Beauty, Lies and Other Horrors

Beauty, Lies and Other Horrors

On Christmas Day 2006, I was two months away from my fifth year in prison. All morning long and into the early afternoon I enjoyed near bliss. I was disappointed that I got no visitors but by a learned tactical skill in prayer I was able to leverage the sorrow and gain God’s presence. If you have to spend Christmas in prison there are ways to discover beauty, although the path can be difficult.

I did go outside for a very brief time. The canteen line was impossible. At least thirty-five or more men. It was unruly, wide and long, and the men were wet. My thoughts of picking up a few small gifts to brighten someone’s day vanished quickly. The cul-de-sac that connects the buildings was crowded with refugees from the cramped, cold dorms who were taking advantage of the brief pause in the rain.

An acquaintance caught my ear and began “conversating”. I succeeded in remaining silent and smiling through most of this short conversation. My attention was drawn to the faces of the men on the basketball court, the faces of the men who were standing along the cul-de-sac, the faces in the canteen line, the lost lonely men lingering near the doors of their dormitories and the hardened masks of the correctional officers who were all bunched together under the only exterior shelter. They stood with faces like flags giving false signals of who they are, what they want and where they are headed.

Each face was a portrait of pretense and fear penciled in, shaded and colored in lies. Lies now proud and polished by their regular rehearsals. Lies that invent an alternate reality. A filter had been lifted from my vision so that each expression revealed the naked horror of an inward reality. The courtyard was full of ugly men in drab state uniforms, raggedy sweats, T-shirts or thermal tops shredded with age about the necks and elbows. Ugly men with their faces painted in desperate strokes meant to convey to their peers confidence, strength, intelligence, coolness, toughness, aggression, superiority. It is a look that only works during the daytime because when night time come the visual certainty of real life vanishes and darkness encroaches on the borders of our lives bringing with it thought, memory, and conscience. Powerlessness drifts in like a fog to fill in the space left by the departure of the light. Expressions become meaningless when the lights go off so faces are no longer flags. They become, rather, portholes from which the brain peers out from darkness into darkness. No flags unfurls in this darkness to dispel the truth about the interior moral cargo. There is no one out there taking notice, except, of course, God who patiently, lovingly waits without for an invitation. Darkness hides from light and wraps the ugly with bitter loneliness.

Ugliness, I have discovered, since becoming incarcerated anyway, is pervasive in the prison system. Handsomeness or beauty is so rare that it is startling when it appears. You could mark it up to the harshness of the free State soap that causes a disturbing level of dandruff and severe flaking skin on the forearms and shins of many of the men. Another factor is the quality of haircuts that serve to accentuate the lack of symmetry of the ears, the lumps, protrusions, scars, growths, tattoos on the scalp, and cowlicks on the head that would otherwise be hidden by a more complimentary hairstyle. However, it is more likely the ugliness comes from the drudgery and sameness in the routine, the repeating tasteless menu, the loss of hope, the personal powerlessness over one’s environment, the severe dress code that subliminally enforces the labels of “loser” and “pariah”. Nevertheless, whatever the reason or assortment of reasons there is a pervasive ugliness that registers in the face, and seems to rumble from deep within. Ugliness with depth. An essay sculpted in the frightening lines and contours of the face.

With the return of the drizzle I hastened to my room. Each face I passed placed a weight like a rock on my back as I negotiated the crowd of men. The haven of my room beckoned me, yet like a moth to a flame my stare sought out faces as I passed through. Each expression a flag of pride, indifference, arrogance, superiority that served to deflect notice of the despair, the fear, the confusion. The despair hung on the crowd like Spanish moss on a live oak. The faces leaped out at me as I snaked my way through the bored mingle of do-nothings who make the best of this enforced idleness by doing the dance of profane levity. Each face like a specter ballooning, pulsing, billowing its ugliness, emptiness and gloom. As I passed, the ghosts of these pre-dead were hectoring me, haunting me, “Ugly. Ugly. Ugly. You, too. Find your mirror. Unfurl your flag, if you dare. Look at yourself.”

I found 2200 wing, E-Dorm; E2-207, my house. I turned in. Fortunately, I found it empty. I leaned over the stainless steel lavatory-toilet and pressed my forehead to the 4” by 8” opaque plastic mirror which I did not peer into. In a vain attempt to relieve stress I slowly pounded the palm of my hand onto the cold concrete block wall. The ugliness clung to me. The sculpting of years of incarceration into the expressions on each face with my refusal, due to fear, to compare my image in the mirror to the images haunting my imagination taunted me.

Christmas day. Until then it was a blissful day of prayer. A quiet day of contemplation, praise and intercession interspersed with a few moments of limited but satisfying social exchanges. I thought of the Christmas cards which, in violation of F. D. C. rules I had taped up attractively on my wall. One from Sister Dorothea was the prettiest. A Madonna and child. I thought of it. Mary. God’s beauty.

Queen of heaven! How can it be? A natural born human being. Eternal beauty. Elevated above all angels. Having a beginning, yet now without ending. As will we, if we love her Son as she does. Beauty. Yet, human. Complete absence of ugly. Perfect beauty. Through her God took on flesh. By her faith and obedience the second person of the triune God became human. Human DNA in the Godhead inherited from Mary. Does God, the Son, resemble Mary as most children resemble their mother? This ironic, impossible stretch of the human experience was startling. Humanity presented in the throne of God. Humanity branded eternally in judgement by the horror of evil. And, Mary, our Queen mother, the bridge of hope between the two.

With my forehead against the dull, scratched mirror my palm continued its slow therapeutic thumping against the dirty, drab block wall. I felt the stretch – the twist, the chill – of paradox. Like a man overboard hanging bravely onto a piece of flotsam I felt dizzy and adrift in a sea of ugliness yet my mother, Mary, is no less human than I or than the men whose face-flags deny their deviancy. Yet, she lives unstained, un-ugly. Is this why the Church for years has called her “Help of Christians”?

I had transitioned from a morning of peace and meditation into an unwanted, unsolicited, but possibly God-inspired awareness of the horror of sin. It had the shock and precision of focus as jumping into icy waves. And now, in my not so solitary situation, I willed myself by use of my imagination to be alone in prayer. I prayed:

            Mom, I need your help. There is no one here I can go to and express myself.

            Who in here could I turn to with this strange burden I now feel? I need a

            human being, a person to help me in my appeal to God. I need my mother. I

            cannot look in the mirror for fear of seeing what I cannot run from. Help me

to move towards the beautiful and away from the horror. To hold Christ near

me as you did. As you do. I see in you such beauty. Such hope that the ugliness

can be dispelled. Washed away. Pray for me. Stay near me. Never leave me.

I turned to look at the Christmas card. The Madonna and child. So beautiful. So hopeful. I thought of the human experience and how both the majestic beauty of holiness and the horror of sin each are presented in the human life. I thought of God’s goal in human history – the Church, the bride of Christ. And, how in Mary this goal is realized, even idealized. In her we see our destiny. I take courage. I look in the mirror. I do not see it. I do not see the eternal beauty in the scratched plastic. However I have hope. I have a Savior. And, I have a mother.

Ice Water in Hell

 

Part I

That difficult, anxiety-filled week prior to my sentencing hearing I had two special encounters arranged by the Holy Spirit to prepare me for my entry into prison. I did not want fantasy. I needed a faith that was courageous in the face of my harsh reality.

First, I had a short, simple dream. In my dream I was staring into the face of a woman. Very attractive, very sad. Looking at me as if she were my mother, with an expression that exuded wisdom and compassion. I saw her from the shoulders up. She was sad because of me. Her sorrow was sympathetic. It gave me a feeling of foreboding about my appointment in the courthouse. However, it kept me from feeling alone.

The second experience occurred as I was praying earnestly on my knees. I was asking God for a miracle. I was distraught that my life had been ruined and my reputation destroyed. Still, I wanted God to lessen the financial, spiritual, and emotional trauma to my wife and children. And, also, I was very frightened at the prospect of living in prison. I begged God to speak to me. I don’t remember if I opened the scripture at random or if the reference Acts 20: 23 just dropped into my thoughts. I just can’t recall but I do remember the shock of these sobering words on March 6, 2002, two days before I was sentenced: “. . . that prison and trouble wait for me.”

It was a prophetic word from God. It was shocking, but I accepted it. I was void of courage. I simply relinquished my fantasies and hopes for a miracle and tried to trust in God who promised to go with me through this fire.

Once incarcerated, I encountered what Joan Didion refers to as the “shallowness of sanity.” My mind fell prey, automatically, to improbable, even hysterical scenarios of escape. Keeping my mind free from magical thinking became a difficult ongoing struggle.

When I was a professional counselor in the child protection field, I often met with dysfunctional parents, who in the face of shame and the loss of their children engaged in magical thinking. Magical thinking is an emotional dysfunction that, unfortunately, can mask the practice of faith. An emotionally distraught child of a fresh divorce may say, “I’ll go to bed when I should, I’ll do my homework on time, and I’ll be nice to my little brother and then Daddy will come home.”

Most inmates practice magical thinking. To hear functionally illiterate men arrogantly spouting the fine points of criminal law is to witness the futility of magical thinking. Or to hear a man you know is stealing, lying, engaging in random homosexual practices or dope smoking speaking of God’s personal promise to reduce his sentence is to hear what I’ve begun to refer to as hysterical religion, which is simply a pious mask on magical thinking.

I will not insult the Holy Spirit by referring to his promises to me as hysteria or magical thinking, as his promises to me were of fellowship, strength and endurance and not magic. However, I did have to go through some sifting of my thoughts, some bathing of my prayers in reality, as well as bathing my reality in prayer. I am confident I will have, against all odds, a successful, fulfilling, and happy second half of my life. It probably will not include a miracle of early release. I have God’s promise but I do not have his schedule.

The ugly injustice of my misfortune weighs on me so. I have been treated so unfairly. My two youngest children are growing up fatherless, stigmatized by my imprisonment. My father is sick and I cannot visit him. I have missed four funerals. Another one of my adult daughters will have a wedding without her father to walk her down the aisle. I have not even met the man she plans to marry.

These are valid, stinging sorrows. They make life very difficult. Still, I have learned to discover joy. It is always there. I may as well look for it. The finding of joy in this unlikely spot has let me to the metaphor, ice water in hell. It depicts nicely the serendipities I receive from fellow inmates (men of all faiths or no faith), from visitors, from volunteers who minister through the chapel and from personal prayer experiences, all of which ameliorate the struggle of prison life.

This ice water strengthens and refreshes and equips me to not only find my own ice water but to have enough to share with others. I try to find opportunities to give the water of good works, acts of kindness, listening ear, prayers, etc., to those with whom I make personal contact. I hope you who read these short works find refreshment in what is meant as ice water from hell.

 

 

I HAVE A FACE

I HAVE A FACE

 

Standing on a concrete pad where a large diesel tank had been removed, I stared out through the 12' security fence, topped with razor wire.  I saw the parade of men in blue going to lunch.  It was very cold, windy, at most 45 degrees.  It was so cold in the dorms that morning that one of our guards did the 7:00 a.m. count wearing gloves, insulated jacket, ear muffs and a hat.  The living, moving swatch of blue shivered under cloth caps (if they were lucky) and cotton jackets.  A fortunate few had long johns.
One man stood out.  Octavio.  I felt proud I finally remembered his name.  He speaks almost no English.  He is always enthusiastic in his greeting to me.  Of the fifty or so men who flow by he is the only one I think I know.  The way he walks.  His posture . His face causes him to stand out against the river of men draped in state issue blue.

All prisoners dress alike.  We live under strict dress codes.  It is an attempt by the Florida Department of Corrections to separate us from our identities.  This discourages staff from seeing us as individuals.
Separating us from our individuality facilitates the on-going negativism, condescension, cursing and regular issuance of suffering from F. D. C. staff.  In some camps this allotment of trauma and fear comes from other state employees such as medical personnel clerks, classification and work supervisors.  When this culture of fear is strong in correctional officers the non-security employees often buy into it and look for opportunity to taunt and torment the inmates.

Judges hand down our sentences.  F. D. C. staff, primarily correctional officers, put the sting to it.  The state employees who embrace this culture of hate do not appreciate the depth of suffering endured in the inmates' loss of family and friends, children becoming fatherless, wives falling into poverty and promiscuity, removal from satisfying work and a pressing into an absurd counter-culture that forces an institutionalization that robs a man of his maturity, self-worth, and works to mold him into a childlike dependence on the state.

I must resist with much effort the twisting of my personality and character  this system imposes on the human soul.  I must maintain my individuality, my personality, my character.  This takes concerted effort, a perpetual pushing against the tide.

The foundation of my struggle is prayer.  I must maintain the divine conversation.   My habit is to use count times where there is some period of enforced quiet, usually 15 to 30 minutes four times a day during waking hours.  A prisoner must search diligently for opportunities for solitude and meditation or they will be wasted.

As I continued to watch the crowd in blue move by I was grabbing a few minutes for prayer.  Then like an illumination, this thought came to me, "I have a face!  Octavio has a face!"  I see inmates flowing by.  I do not know most of them.  To me they have no faces, no names, no identities.

But Octavio does.  He yells out, "Louis!"  He points to the sky to  indicate our mutual faith in God.  he smiles, lifts two fists in the air as a gesture of triumph.  I return in kind.  To Octavio I have a face.
When correctional officers come t know inmates there is always a possibility that a type of friendship will occur , usually a twisted kind that is formed behind a power imbalance.  When this happens the staff initiated imposition of suffering usually lessens.  Through the fog of this twisted culture molded by the Florida Judicial System and the F. D. C., some officers actually begin to see some inmates as human beings.  To me, it is one of the odd and counter-intuitive proofs of a loving and caring God.

As Octavio walked off I began to consider that God knows my face.  I do not disappear in a crowd.  He treats me with dignity.  I thought of the angel encountering Gideon.  He did not see a faceless Israelite oppressed by fear of his enemies.  He knew his name.  He called him a man of valor, a champion.  Likewise, the angel said to the mother of the Lord, "Hail, favored one, full of grace."  He called her by her name and remarked on one of her character traits.  The angel saw their faces and was aware of their personalities.

God is not on staff at the F. D. C.  He sees my face.  If I continue the divine conversation perhaps I will also maintain my face and resist being pressed into the mold of this dysfunctional sub-culture that is tax payer funded and geared towards making bad people worse.

By God's grace, the intentions and good will of my Savior and rigid devoted observance of the divine conversation I will maintain my face.  Perhaps, my individuality and dignity will remain intact.  Prison cannot keep me from holiness.

A judicious word on holiness is, "Holiness increases as you become exactly what God wants you to be." That works for me.  I must withstand and maintain my individuality.  The face that God gives me.

Singing to the Devil

 

Romans 16:17   Be on the watch against those who cause dissension and scandal, contrary to the teaching you have received.”

This prison environment is such a fish bowl that – even if you seek a low-profile and wear “blinders”, as I do—you can’t help but see the testimony of every Christian out on “front street”.    Often, those who practice faith in a disciplined and sincere manner are singled out for harassment. Some inmates invite offenses and never miss a chance to argue or cause confusion. Funny thing is, those who are most likely to cause dissension and scandal are those who are the first to point it out and vociferously judge it.  They always want to trip up those who try to live their faith. And, the weak in faith and the new Christian are the most likely to hear and accept the scandal and dissension as “gospel truth.”  They are like babies who will put anything in their mouths and try to eat it.

We are all subject to the unending tedium of the prison environment, but there is always a few who keep an appetite for all scandal and gossip.  As I write I am again the object of hatred and scandal.  My roommate’s complaints against me inspired his thug buddies to rob me.  I lost a lot—thermals, food, socks, t-shirts, shampoo, lotion, deodorant, bowls, cups, toothpaste, etc.  It takes days or weeks to replace those things, if you have money and know the chain gang barter system.  Otherwise, it could take months; and months.  

In response to my shock, disappointment and anger I prayed and decided I needed to please God in spite of the violation.  So, next opportunity when the wing was quiet I sang real loud, “All Hail the Power of Jesus Name.” I have a Baptist Hymnal, and so, had all the verses.  The way I deal with the demon of anger and revenge is to remain thankful to God, and do the opposite of what the devil does.  I didn’t really know what to do.  I felt I had to do something. You cannot just lie down in this environment and let the aggressive bully you.  I have always heard praise is a powerful spiritual weapon so, I sang loud. It was obvious this was my response to the robbery.   I found out later the thieves heard my praise. There may have been better ways to respond. I was struggling with fear and anger. This was my way.

A white Muslim is the leader of this little pack of locker thieves.  He walked into my room a few days later and tried to “boo me up”.  He threatened rape and subsequent transmission of HIV. Evidently, my song indicated I had not been hurt enough. However, the peace of God was so present that I stayed calm and he left in about five minutes, sort of stumbling over his words.  “This is weird,” he stuttered. “You must have grace or something helping you”.  It was a clash of cultures and it was also God’s light shining on my poor practice of the faith.  

Through all these hardships I never feel alone.

 

Four-leaf Clover from St. Therese

 

“I will prove I am speaking with you,” said St. Thérése. “Bend down and pick up a four-leaf clover.” I’d not seen a four-leaf clover in at least twenty years and the barren, trampled yard where I was standing showed more sand than weeds and grass. But, I asked for a sign that I was really enjoying a valid time of prayer this morning and not just fooling myself.

Had any one noticed me at the moment I heard those words ring interiorly within my imagination they would have noticed only a 53year old prisoner keeping to himself within a crowd of other prisoners, locked inside an enclosed yard waiting on the gate to open. Yet, for me it was a moment of providential experience wherein I crossed a boundary into a deeper understanding of the divine conversation where the Holy Spirit is the engine of grace.

Thérése of Lisieux, also known as St. Thérése of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, became very dear to me early on in my 8 1/2 years in prison. Suffering can be very intense and unending in prison and she taught and demonstrated that suffering can be a road to power, to sainthood and even a grace itself. But most of all she taught me faith.

In prison I became Catholic. Nevertheless, most if not all of the prayer experiences and epiphanies I practiced are available for Christians of any stripe. I was a Pentecostal pastor who converted to the Episcopal communion. By study and prayer, I developed a hunger and eventually adoration for Holy Communion. In prison I found no access to Holy Eucharist except in the weekly Catholic service hosted by Sister Dorothea Murphy. Mary, the Blessed Virgin, had already become dear to me so it was not too difficult to make application to be received into the Roman Catholic Church. I jumped all the hurdles and followed the instruction from Sister and shortly became Catholic. It was a sweet and holy transition.

Soon I began to study and experiment with the communion of the saints. Out of loneliness really. Very little opportunity to find good friends within a prison environment. It can happen but it takes time, risk and good luck. So, I asked the Holy Spirit to provide me with prayer-friends to help me learn what I came to call the divine conversation. Through a few books and pamphlets that “magically” appeared I began to learn of Thérése. She wrote, rather prophetically, “In heaven one sole expectation makes my heart beat fast. It is the love that I shall receive, and the love that I shall be able to give . . .. I think of all the good I shall be able to do after my death. . .. I will help priests, missionaries, the whole church.” When one is in extreme circumstances as I was and so hungry for love, hope and holiness such words can have a marvelous and powerful impact. I was part of “the whole church”. So, I assumed she would be willing to help me.

It made me want to experience divine things. Yet, Thérése halted or softened such desires. For I found her words, “I love the Blessed Virgin and the saints very much, yet I do not desire to see them. I prefer to live by faith.” So, I decided it was not experience I wanted but faith; and, of course, peace. Nevertheless, quite a few experiences were granted me.

Her example and words encouraged me. She lifted suffering up to an accessible mystery with a deep spiritual value. Sensible joy was not vitally important to her. Peace certainly was. She helped me lift my suffering up to heaven to transmute it into something valuable for my soul and for the power of my brand new life of intercession. She wrote:

It must be made known that these transports and joys are only in the depth of my soul. It would not greatly encourage souls if they believed I had not suffered much . . . peace is not always accompanied by joy, not at least by sensible joy. To suffer with peace, it suffices that we truly will all that God wills.

God’s will. All that God wills. This is how Thérése chose to anchor my new experience in faith. To Thérése faith was a matter of supernatural confidence in God’s love that led her into an intimate audacity in her holy communication. This set an example for me to experiment in prayer. Within the bounds of reason, church teaching and tradition as well as her guidance I began to explore a new dimension in prayer.

For the two hours before I was let outside and was instructed to reach for a four-leaf clover I’d been on a hard wooden bench waiting for a medical check-up. While crowded cheek to cheek with profane, grumbling, joking and obscene inmates I, with the help of a prayer manual, had spent time in my sanctified imagination, with St.

Thérése.

For two hours I would hear in my spirit such as, “Let’s pray for your children.” And, so we would. We would pray quietly on my crowded bench as I exercised meditations of peace and faith for my children. When I was through Thérése would nudge me (all in my imagination, you understand), “Now go to page 231 and pray the prayer for your children.” So I would turn as she directed and there would be a beautiful prayer for children. Such coincidences and communications occurred for two hours as I sat and waited in the crowded, noisy room. During this time, I would be called abruptly and rudely by corrections staff and then treated indifferently and coldly by medical staff and then returned to the waiting room of bored, impatient, disrespectful prisoners. Yet, in the midst of an environment barren of good will I was enjoying roses fresh from heaven. In my little spot in hell I was receiving ice water.

As I stood outside I wondered if the previous two hours had been a schizoid dream or a moment of religious hysteria. But, when the now familiar voice of St. Thérése of Lisieux said, “. . . bend down and pick a four-leaf clover,” I immediately obeyed. In less than three seconds I was again erect with a four-leaf clover in my hand. Tears streamed down my face. God’s presence and favor were all over me. Thérése had given me a rose. In fact, I taped it inside a card and mailed it and the story to my daughter. 

Towards the end of my sentence I found my need for the Little Flower’s help even more critical. Even though I continued to enjoy the communion of the saints for the whole of my prison experience I found that as I approached the end of my sentence I became filled with anxiety and even horror at the prospects of probation. In Florida probation is so full of trip wires and land mines that very few can successfully comply. To illustrate briefly let me say probation costs a man who is already beaten down, in poverty with very poor job prospects from $250.00 to $1500.00 per month. 

I began to have panic attacks as I came within four months of my release. I often found my legs trembling in fear as I watched my release date approach. I wanted out of prison but the severe, anti-reconciliation and anti-restoration policies in place in Florida filled me with terror that I would be quickly violated and returned to prison. I already knew that of the five or so places available to me through friends and family I would not be allowed to be housed in any of them. I would need $1000.00 a month for rent at a very old, unattractive motel near the border of the county or as my classification officer told me, “I’ll have to assign you a place under a bridge. I think we can get a tent for you.” (I imagine she enjoyed sharing this story with co-workers and family. However, I did not think of it as a joke. It scared me. For some men this certainly did happen. I was fortunate in that I had friends and family to prop me up. Their payment of the costs of my probation is only one of many of the state’s hidden taxes on the poor).

While in such a mental state of anxiety I was praying my regular daily prayer to St. Thérése when she spoke to me. I can’t remember exactly what she said. It was such a difficult promise – so hard to embrace in the face of my tangible anxiety and fear (terrors, really). She said, “I will begin showering you with roses your last several months in prison and into your time on probation.” I felt she also told me not to worry she would take care of me.

Beginning May 18, 2010, I began to pray, Dear sister, my flower, may Christ be honored by the way you shower roses upon me for the next 108 days (and, beyond). This is your desire. My delight. And, has Mary’s blessings. Amen.” Thérése has spoken to me many times but seldom prophetically and I do not (remember her cautious words regarding faith) covet such. However, after she spoke to me I received the two best roommates possible which meant my last four months were lubricated with rich Christian fellowship and not with screaming, cursing, loud music, bullies or rowdy crowds as I experienced with previous roommates.

I began to receive a series of letters as well as a special visit from a man I met on a KAIROS weekend (prison’s version of Cursillo) who pledged and followed through on a promise to befriend me during my probation/transition period. Retired Bishop of St. Augustine Diocese, John J. Snyder, came through on his promise to keep in touch by phone and visits after my release. Another friend gave a 1998 Dodge Caravan. One of my daughters had it repaired for me in an automotive repair shop she runs. Two other daughters, my mother and wife showered me with clothing, money and many other gifts. Another friend gave me a cell phone with unlimited minutes for two years. Even though I had a mortgage on a home where I lived prior to my arrest I had to live in the motel mentioned above. My mother paid over $20,000 so I could avoid living under a bridge. People in government who make such laws must not realize their laws and civil codes punish and burden the family and friends sometimes more than the released inmate.  An old friend gave me a job painting houses with his company which provided good work, money and easy comfortable safe fellowship. On and on the love has poured out upon me. All of my friends stayed in touch and supported me. Some have given me money and gifts and many prayers. During this time my wife died and in the grief of her loss I found she left me with proceeds of a life insurance policy that allowed me to purchase a home. Shortly thereafter I met up with an old friend of 40 years and she became the love of my life and asked me to marry her. Roses. Just as Thérése promised.

My Protestant friends are amazed when I tell such stories. Hopefully, they will come to believe that the divine conversation is for all believers, but many have no theological mechanism by which to process such experiences. Nevertheless, how can they doubt the facts? St.

Thérése has become a friend and protector for me.

I have roses and a four-leaf clover to prove it.

Below: A scan of the four-leaf clover mentioned in the story. I attached it to a card and mailed it to my daughter. One of the leaves was damaged in mailing and handling. It is still evident it has four leaves. 

56 Our Fathers

 

I was praying the rosary this morning when an idea for a new prayer experience came to me. This idea is rooted in the richness of several different traditions and practices in prayer which I regularly enjoy

I was driving to my mother’s and I knew she would be gone. So, I thought I could employ a half-hour or so in intercessory prayer for lost souls. My heart ached for certain family members and friends. My mind was also weighed down, per normal as of late, with my current miseries which are certainly really and very heavy. But, I recalled the Catholic idea of lifting up our sorrows as sacrifices in prayer. Instead of wallowing in self-pity or bending God’s ear once again with my pitiful state I would instead “lift them up” and pray for others. The Protestants and Catholics both love the Lord’s Prayer. And, moist liturgical folks love the rosary. So, it occurred to me I could pray an Our Father for every bead, medal and cross on my rosary, 56 by my count. I would put aside my needs, lift up my miseries to the Lord as a sacrifice for lost souls, and humble myself by using the timeless words of Jesus for the salvation of lost souls.

I must admit the rug was very soft on my knees, the air conditioning was very comfortable, Trudy, the lovable dachshund good company and so the bar was kind of low in terms of skill and sacrifice needed to complete the prayer. It took a little more than twenty minutes. Before me on my computer screen I had the image of St. Faustina’s Sacred Heart of Jesus.

It was a very devotional time and I felt I connected with God for his desire for souls. Also, I was aware of the and to make reparations to God for the offenses of the many sins we commit.

I think I may do this again. I am sure the Holy Spirit both birthed this idea and received this prayer.

8-11-11

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