He came to us broken, as they all do, a black man with large-shoulders from uncountable days of weight-lifting, with an oval face and oval brown eyes and a small, thin smile. Not too old, but old enough to be sharing space in a correctional institution that does little to correct that I could see.
We were there because of that word I use a lot, it seems, our calling. We came to minister because, of course, we are well-adjusted Christians and THEY are not. If they but knew who we really were when we arrived...
At the beginning of the three-plus day retreat, they are broken, beaten spiritually and emotionally, lonely, mad, and just about any other emotion you can think of. But those emotions are hidden, because weakness is a thing that can never be shown. Just can't. Ever.
I've learned that for all the reasons they come in the first place, that they come is the big thing.
That we had come was as amazing to them as it was amazing to us, certainly to me, perhaps the most selfish of the lot.
The man told us that in the yard, that massive holding area prisoners are allowed into to play sports, lift weights or mingle outside their dorms, or on the walk, that concrete area they traverse when allowed between twin yellow lines, they put up silent, tall walls, barriers, to feelings. Everyone is kept out. It's the way they must live if they are to survive their "down" time. They must put away those emotions, turn themselves to blocks of ice, blocks of stone, forgetting what they did as best they can and even forgetting who they were, forgetting their families, wives, children in some cases.
Man. Just forgetting. Though inside, they really, really can't. But outside, just putting on an iron mask and a cement facade, well it's as if a light blue shirt with the maroon word I N M A T E stenciled on it vertically is a curtain.
They're hardening hard hearts, I guess. You don't want to offend. This isn't Angola, but Club Med isn't in the offering either.
As he came to talk to us, he told us about that being the way they must live. Then he said, with the salt of perhaps unwanted tears sliding down to the corners of his lips, "But in four days you guys tore all that down."
He said it with almost a degree of disdain, and certainly with surprise, but ultimately mostly with a joy he could not begin to understand, a new degree of peace he couldn't possibly explain. Believe it or not, I really, really know that feeling.
Another young white man, who kept telling us, as if the sound of the prison bars slamming shut wasn't enough to remind us, they were all criminals. He then said, "I saw one man, the biggest man I've ever seen, who I've known about three years and didn't even know talked, man, he was crying his eyes out, dude."
But all of them were wrong.
Nah. We didn't tear down their walls. We really, sincerely, didn't.
God did. If by some small miracle of the blogging world where a new reader happens along onto this missive and doesn't believe there is such a force in the universe, read this slowly. It is impecable, uncontestable, viewed and drenched in truth.
God dipped his finger, not unlike that wonderful painting, toward men who perhaps had never felt loved by anyone in their lives, and He loved, loved, loved, loved until the loving was as warm rain cascading down. God slipped in while we were eating, and wiped a tear. God tip-toed in while we were singing and raised hair on the back of necks. God danced among prisoners and set them free, free for the first time in years for some, decades for others, the first time ever for many.
Nah. We didn't. We really, sincerely, didn't.
He did. We were mrerely the incredibly fortunate ones who were allowed along on the ride. We were the long-snappers on the football team, with a small job however important.
When someone holds your hands and you ask them to repeat the sinner's prayer, or what you can remember of it because it's so rare these days you get asked to help someone to pray it with you, you know the Spirit of the Lord is among you and he. When tears really do fall down like a river's falls, (and they are yours) you know the Spirit of the Lord is among you and them. When your breath is quick and your heartbeat at its max and the smiles are as analgesic to the mountainous aches and pains, you are pretty darn sure that the Spirit of the Lord is among you and them, and then suddenly there is no you and them, there is only us.
For just a moment, you know what Peter felt. Paul felt. The great apostles of Acts.
When the church was made up of different colors, different ethnic backgrounds, different economic backgrounds, different thoughts and feelings (and yes, few women). When people came to Christ and believed for the first time. And the church grew and grew. This weekend, so help me, I think the church universal grew.
You look out and around and suddenly you are dancing like David and joy and love are the table condiments. Whew.
Then someone, ah, someone always has to bring up that question. You know. The question. How long will that great emotion last?
Don't know. Don't really care. They went their way. We went ours. Life began again.
But for this morning, dark as the heart of the sinners we all are, let it be about what God gave and we will see in the long run what was received. Is it any different in the free world?
I was looking for a particular verse when I came across these ones that were more to the point in the Message: "So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out."
Inside the prison, out. Not outside, in.
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