He's a porter in a state prison, cleaning showers so he can have the
'privilege' of making 15 minute phone calls and going outside in the cooler
evening of the desert to run, his only exercise. He has very little free choice
about anything. He has to navigate a closed society of violent offenders and
armed guards with high school degrees. He's not the norm - he stands out.
He shares a 10x12 space with a 27-year-old man and they mutually suffer the indignity of having to go to the bathroom with no privacy short paces from their concrete bunks protruding like appendages from the wall. They eat a cold sack lunch every single day of 4 slices of white bread and two slices of questionable bologna, and a small apple. He reads and studies 50+ hrs a week seeking purpose and managing anxiety. He keeps trusting God from this dark place.
He has 70+ books, none of them fiction, most academic, stacked neatly on the narrow shelf that also holds his typewriter with a clear body on which he types letters and research notes, and clippings that he files in expandable folders. The Wall Street Journal and four magazine subscriptions, as well as the mountain of printed internet research he requests that is done by his mother and mailed in 4-5 large 13 oz. mail envelopes per week keep his insatiable appetite for learning and for purpose satisfied. A plastic crate beneath his bunk holds extra food and vitamins that can be purchased once a quarter by someone on the outside to supplement the bleak and unnourishing prison food. The limit of thirty pounds of provisions to last 3 months also includes toiletries, running shoes, under garments, etc. As much food protein as is possible is the priority, cellophane bags of fish and chicken, beans and rice, powered milk, instant coffee, lots of green tea to help stay healthy, but it must rationed so he doesn't run out and suffer from hunger and bad nutrition the last part of the quarter. Thirty pounds isn't much. He keeps a plastic band on his wrist to floss his teeth often so they stay healthy and don't fall out, like the teeth of many inmates. He's constantly battling entropy in this netherworld.
He sees his parents every 5-6 weeks for a total of 8 hours. They drive 12 hrs round trip. He worries when they travel. What if something happens to them?! He's entirely dependent on them as a lifeline. He's cut off. He has no rights.
He's classified as a 'lifer' and those men are on tighter restrictions because "they have nothing to lose and are considered more dangerous" - but he's not - he never has been or would be. Except to protect himself - that's happened once. He had to fight back to protect himself or risk being killed or seriously injured. If you just lay there and take it and don't fight back - you are considered weak and the abuse will continue to happen. You earn respect in this alternate universe by fighting and defending yourself. He's had to learn that the hard way. He was jumped by a gang of four White Supremacists (yes there are gangs in prison). They beat and kicked him for 23 seconds which seems to be some kind of weird "thing" they do until the shot-caller ends it considering the person "disciplined." Disciplined for what you might ask. Because one of the guards caused it - after all, most of the guards are only high school graduates. Some, who are little more than criminals themselves, make extra money bringing in contraband, like cell phones and drugs, and selling it to the inmates for exorbitant prices. They get bored, and after all, they have power - absolute power. Some abuse it - too many. Oh, and here's the most important thing...
A manipulative prosecutor created a false narrative and used false evidence. A female police investigator destroyed evidence. Lies were told. The media does what the media does - sensationalize and dramatize. Do they care about the truth? No. No one does. Confirmation bias ruled. Was there any evidence to prove his guilt? None! It was plain and simply surreal and a world we never thought we'd witness much less be involved intimately in.
That is the perspective I now have. It's a perspective that colors everything. And it's not a bright cheerful primary color. It's shades of gray transitioning into depressing black. It's a perspective impossible to understand unless you live it. It didn't just change my son's life. It changed our lives. We have been knocked off our axis and our orbit is radically different. How we think, what's important to us, what isn't important, who matters, God, each other, forgiveness, justice, so much. I see the vanity and some of the vacuous pursuits of this world and how little it matters in a cost/benefit analysis and I am dismayed by the waste - of resources and of the gift of life.
Pain recognizes pain. I see it in people's eyes from across the room. I rarely did before. Our eyes find each other and have silent conversations. No words need to be spoken.
He was an intelligence officer in the United States Navy, nominated by a Congressman to go to the Naval Academy. He looked so handsome, so proud, in his white uniform. He oversaw the subplot division with 15 ensign subordinates on the USS Enterprise, personally briefing the commander of the aircraft carrier daily on all friendly and enemy ship positions. As a civilian, he was nominated for the top innovation award of his large international company in 2011.
He is an avid learner with an MBA and was only 3 academic hours from receiving a PhD in Organizational Leadership from Pepperdine, also volunteering several hours a week at a sober living home in San Diego. He was working on his dissertation which concerned a new innovative economic model for delivering social welfare specifically to marginalized poor people, including prisoners upon re-entry into society. He's traveled around the world to 38 countries and been to four Olympics including China where he's been twice, walking on the Great Wall. He was 37 with his whole life before him.
Now he's 41 and he scrubs showers. He's a 6'3" blond, blue-eyed very handsome man who now cuts his own hair with his shaving razor to keep it neat - to keep looking like himself. He's surrounded by heavily tattooed men covered with gang symbols, mostly hispanic. Violent men. Guilty men. He doesn't look like he belongs in this world. He doesn't. He stays mostly to himself - studying. He said - "They can imprison my body but they can't imprison my mind. In my mind I am a free man. I'm only a prisoner if I believe myself to be a prisoner." He trusts God to free him - to reveal the injustice - to restore his life and his reputation. He's been called "a Joseph" by people who know his story.
Unless his appeal to the California or US Supreme Court is successful, he will never travel again, except between state prisons if he's transferred. He can never enjoy laughing with friends again. He can never fall in love and marry. He'll never know the joy of holding his first child. He'll likely never see most of his extended family like uncles, aunts, cousins, grandmother's ever again. They may forget about him and later generations will talk about the family member who was in prison most of his life but they don't really know too much about him.
He won't be able to go to his grandmothers' funerals and probably not that of his own parents. Who will take care of him or visit him when they are gone? He can't go on camping fishing trips with his brother, or get together with him for holidays, or grow old together. His brother also feels alone sometimes. His only brother - his big brother - has been stolen from him.
I now bring all this impossible reality and perspective into the relationships I have. It's a perspective impossible to understand without the experience. It's not an experience I'd wish on any of you, or even my worst enemy - well if I'm being honest I might wish it on the ones who put my first precious child in this hell. Only so they'd know. They'd understand. This was about so much more than a great notch on their career belt. They got it wrong. They broke the rules to do so. The rules don't matter. It's all an illusion, starting with 'innocent until proven guilty.' But I must forgive, right? I'm a Christian, a God-follower. Forgiveness is not a feeling, not yet, but I say it.
So when I get preachy or pontificate about things with friends or family, please understand my heart and my words are coming from a new deeper well of painfully learned experience, the pain of feeling I have no voice. I am Powerless! That awful day when I heard the verdict and knew my son's fate, was my Isaac moment. I had to lay my Isaac down and trust my Father in heaven to make a way. I could no longer do what mothers do - protect my son. I think that's the day my faith grew. Not being "capable" makes you "dependant" and I was truly dependent on God in a way I never imagined. I didn't understand his own sacrifice until that moment. I didn't understand Jesus' love and obedience, an innocent man if ever there was one, beaten and killed for....for what? Was it in vain? No it wasn't! I knew how Jesus earthly mom felt standing at the foot of that killing cross watching her precious and innocent child crying out in pain and dying - not being able to help him. Having to trust that God had a plan. I know in my heart God has a plan for my son. Some days I'm stronger than others. I've learned to compartmentalize so I can continue my life. I literally cling to all the promises of God. I "get" the stories in the Old Testament that were just bible characters before. No, they were real flesh and blood people slamming up against a broken and sinful world and persevering through faith that God had a plan. That He was a good God. That He wanted to bless us not curse us. That all things work together for good to those who love the Lord. I do love Him. I regularly crawl into the safety of the "cleft" in the Rock and he covers me with his hand. I trust Him with my child - that's something else I didn't know before. I also know I love Jesus more than I love my son. Don't know if you understand that - I adore my son. I would die for my son. I think I may have loved my children more than Jesus...before.
Life is messy. Sorry, it just is! No one has it all together I don't care how it appears. You can't always fake it till you make it - it's exhausting! I know God will use this experience because as another friend said, "God doesn't waste pain. I hope I can be the one that's there for broken people God puts in my path like the dear Christian friends he's put in my life. People I didn't know before this are now my dearest friends. All things work together for good to those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose. That's not just words - that's a promise.
He shares a 10x12 space with a 27-year-old man and they mutually suffer the indignity of having to go to the bathroom with no privacy short paces from their concrete bunks protruding like appendages from the wall. They eat a cold sack lunch every single day of 4 slices of white bread and two slices of questionable bologna, and a small apple. He reads and studies 50+ hrs a week seeking purpose and managing anxiety. He keeps trusting God from this dark place.
He has 70+ books, none of them fiction, most academic, stacked neatly on the narrow shelf that also holds his typewriter with a clear body on which he types letters and research notes, and clippings that he files in expandable folders. The Wall Street Journal and four magazine subscriptions, as well as the mountain of printed internet research he requests that is done by his mother and mailed in 4-5 large 13 oz. mail envelopes per week keep his insatiable appetite for learning and for purpose satisfied. A plastic crate beneath his bunk holds extra food and vitamins that can be purchased once a quarter by someone on the outside to supplement the bleak and unnourishing prison food. The limit of thirty pounds of provisions to last 3 months also includes toiletries, running shoes, under garments, etc. As much food protein as is possible is the priority, cellophane bags of fish and chicken, beans and rice, powered milk, instant coffee, lots of green tea to help stay healthy, but it must rationed so he doesn't run out and suffer from hunger and bad nutrition the last part of the quarter. Thirty pounds isn't much. He keeps a plastic band on his wrist to floss his teeth often so they stay healthy and don't fall out, like the teeth of many inmates. He's constantly battling entropy in this netherworld.
He sees his parents every 5-6 weeks for a total of 8 hours. They drive 12 hrs round trip. He worries when they travel. What if something happens to them?! He's entirely dependent on them as a lifeline. He's cut off. He has no rights.
He's classified as a 'lifer' and those men are on tighter restrictions because "they have nothing to lose and are considered more dangerous" - but he's not - he never has been or would be. Except to protect himself - that's happened once. He had to fight back to protect himself or risk being killed or seriously injured. If you just lay there and take it and don't fight back - you are considered weak and the abuse will continue to happen. You earn respect in this alternate universe by fighting and defending yourself. He's had to learn that the hard way. He was jumped by a gang of four White Supremacists (yes there are gangs in prison). They beat and kicked him for 23 seconds which seems to be some kind of weird "thing" they do until the shot-caller ends it considering the person "disciplined." Disciplined for what you might ask. Because one of the guards caused it - after all, most of the guards are only high school graduates. Some, who are little more than criminals themselves, make extra money bringing in contraband, like cell phones and drugs, and selling it to the inmates for exorbitant prices. They get bored, and after all, they have power - absolute power. Some abuse it - too many. Oh, and here's the most important thing...
HE'S INNOCENT.
A manipulative prosecutor created a false narrative and used false evidence. A female police investigator destroyed evidence. Lies were told. The media does what the media does - sensationalize and dramatize. Do they care about the truth? No. No one does. Confirmation bias ruled. Was there any evidence to prove his guilt? None! It was plain and simply surreal and a world we never thought we'd witness much less be involved intimately in.
And in this messed up broken world, this is called "justice."
That is the perspective I now have. It's a perspective that colors everything. And it's not a bright cheerful primary color. It's shades of gray transitioning into depressing black. It's a perspective impossible to understand unless you live it. It didn't just change my son's life. It changed our lives. We have been knocked off our axis and our orbit is radically different. How we think, what's important to us, what isn't important, who matters, God, each other, forgiveness, justice, so much. I see the vanity and some of the vacuous pursuits of this world and how little it matters in a cost/benefit analysis and I am dismayed by the waste - of resources and of the gift of life.
Pain recognizes pain. I see it in people's eyes from across the room. I rarely did before. Our eyes find each other and have silent conversations. No words need to be spoken.
He was an intelligence officer in the United States Navy, nominated by a Congressman to go to the Naval Academy. He looked so handsome, so proud, in his white uniform. He oversaw the subplot division with 15 ensign subordinates on the USS Enterprise, personally briefing the commander of the aircraft carrier daily on all friendly and enemy ship positions. As a civilian, he was nominated for the top innovation award of his large international company in 2011.
He is an avid learner with an MBA and was only 3 academic hours from receiving a PhD in Organizational Leadership from Pepperdine, also volunteering several hours a week at a sober living home in San Diego. He was working on his dissertation which concerned a new innovative economic model for delivering social welfare specifically to marginalized poor people, including prisoners upon re-entry into society. He's traveled around the world to 38 countries and been to four Olympics including China where he's been twice, walking on the Great Wall. He was 37 with his whole life before him.
Now he's 41 and he scrubs showers. He's a 6'3" blond, blue-eyed very handsome man who now cuts his own hair with his shaving razor to keep it neat - to keep looking like himself. He's surrounded by heavily tattooed men covered with gang symbols, mostly hispanic. Violent men. Guilty men. He doesn't look like he belongs in this world. He doesn't. He stays mostly to himself - studying. He said - "They can imprison my body but they can't imprison my mind. In my mind I am a free man. I'm only a prisoner if I believe myself to be a prisoner." He trusts God to free him - to reveal the injustice - to restore his life and his reputation. He's been called "a Joseph" by people who know his story.
Unless his appeal to the California or US Supreme Court is successful, he will never travel again, except between state prisons if he's transferred. He can never enjoy laughing with friends again. He can never fall in love and marry. He'll never know the joy of holding his first child. He'll likely never see most of his extended family like uncles, aunts, cousins, grandmother's ever again. They may forget about him and later generations will talk about the family member who was in prison most of his life but they don't really know too much about him.
He won't be able to go to his grandmothers' funerals and probably not that of his own parents. Who will take care of him or visit him when they are gone? He can't go on camping fishing trips with his brother, or get together with him for holidays, or grow old together. His brother also feels alone sometimes. His only brother - his big brother - has been stolen from him.
I now bring all this impossible reality and perspective into the relationships I have. It's a perspective impossible to understand without the experience. It's not an experience I'd wish on any of you, or even my worst enemy - well if I'm being honest I might wish it on the ones who put my first precious child in this hell. Only so they'd know. They'd understand. This was about so much more than a great notch on their career belt. They got it wrong. They broke the rules to do so. The rules don't matter. It's all an illusion, starting with 'innocent until proven guilty.' But I must forgive, right? I'm a Christian, a God-follower. Forgiveness is not a feeling, not yet, but I say it.
So when I get preachy or pontificate about things with friends or family, please understand my heart and my words are coming from a new deeper well of painfully learned experience, the pain of feeling I have no voice. I am Powerless! That awful day when I heard the verdict and knew my son's fate, was my Isaac moment. I had to lay my Isaac down and trust my Father in heaven to make a way. I could no longer do what mothers do - protect my son. I think that's the day my faith grew. Not being "capable" makes you "dependant" and I was truly dependent on God in a way I never imagined. I didn't understand his own sacrifice until that moment. I didn't understand Jesus' love and obedience, an innocent man if ever there was one, beaten and killed for....for what? Was it in vain? No it wasn't! I knew how Jesus earthly mom felt standing at the foot of that killing cross watching her precious and innocent child crying out in pain and dying - not being able to help him. Having to trust that God had a plan. I know in my heart God has a plan for my son. Some days I'm stronger than others. I've learned to compartmentalize so I can continue my life. I literally cling to all the promises of God. I "get" the stories in the Old Testament that were just bible characters before. No, they were real flesh and blood people slamming up against a broken and sinful world and persevering through faith that God had a plan. That He was a good God. That He wanted to bless us not curse us. That all things work together for good to those who love the Lord. I do love Him. I regularly crawl into the safety of the "cleft" in the Rock and he covers me with his hand. I trust Him with my child - that's something else I didn't know before. I also know I love Jesus more than I love my son. Don't know if you understand that - I adore my son. I would die for my son. I think I may have loved my children more than Jesus...before.
Life is messy. Sorry, it just is! No one has it all together I don't care how it appears. You can't always fake it till you make it - it's exhausting! I know God will use this experience because as another friend said, "God doesn't waste pain. I hope I can be the one that's there for broken people God puts in my path like the dear Christian friends he's put in my life. People I didn't know before this are now my dearest friends. All things work together for good to those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose. That's not just words - that's a promise.
