Annunciation
Sep. 18th, 2011 03:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dedalus_1947And in the sixth month,
the angel Gabriel
was sent from God into a city of Galilee,
called Nazareth,
to a virgin espoused to a man
whose name was Joseph,
of the house of David:
and the virgin’s name was Mary.
And the angel said unto her:
“Hail, full of grace,
the Lord is with you:
Blessed are you among women”.
And when Mary was troubled
at what she heard,
the angel said, “Fear not, Mary,
for you have found grace with God".
(Luke 1: 26 – 32)
I’ve been visiting the county jail on a weekly basis for over a year. The route to this remote, hilly location is almost second nature to me now, and the prison environment is no longer as shocking and threatening as it once was. Although I’ll never be immune to the harsh sterility of the corridors and dayrooms, being ignored or overlooked by the guards, or seeing the flashes of violence that sometimes erupt in the cells; these things are no longer foreign to me. I’ve settled into the predictable routine of the Catholic Chaplain’s program in the jail. I report to the facility once a week and usually team with Justin, an assistant chaplain, in co-facilitating a session of the recovery and rehabilitation program called “Finding the Way in Jail”. However, with the passage of time, I’ve noticed that I’m not observing the men as carefully as I once did, nor listening to their stories as intently as before. Oh, I listen to what they say, but only with half an ear while my brain is busy thinking about what question to ask next, or how to involve more men in the discussion. I stopped being the wide-eyed, open-eared “tenderfoot” in these sessions long ago, and became one of the conductors, asking questions and directing the discussion during the sessions. The volunteer work was slowly becoming a job, like what elderly retirees do when leading tours in museums and public galleries. I mention this because after a two-week hiatus from the jail, doubts suddenly began arising in my mind about my desire to continue going as a volunteer.
You see, due to a series of scheduling conflicts, I hadn’t been to the jail for over two weeks, or seen my partner Justin in three. The only other time I’d missed so many Wednesday visits was during the summer when we were out of town. I was feeling a little guilty over this second long absence, and, yet, a little resentful about feeling that way. Weren’t volunteers supposed to be free of these pangs of obligation? Ordinarily, when these scheduling conflicts arose, I’d simply substitute a Monday visit instead; but the last two Mondays had also been reserved for other family activities. So I finally decided to just take a two-week leave of absence from the jail.
During that time I found how easy it was to fill my 5-hour commitment to the jail ministry with other activities. I was amazed at how comfortable and relaxing it was by simply NOT GOING to jail. I didn’t have to change clothes, make the hour-long drive to the far borders of the county, sit in an uncomfortably, frigid dayroom with a handful of convicts, or wonder if the session with them would be valuable or not. It was easier to fill that time with leisure activities: television, reading, dinner, and conversation with my wife Kathy or friends. Then at the end of that break, I learned that my Aunt Ana Maria (Tillie) had died, and the Viewing & Rosary was scheduled for Wednesday. I was tempted at first to just add one more week to my leave from jail – until some inexplicable impulse stopped me. When Kathy asked me what I was finally going to do about jail, I simply said that I’d go on Monday and attend Tillie’s rosary on Wednesday. However, even after that decision, there came a moment on Monday afternoon, when I hesitated going.
“Wasn’t I trying to do too much this week?” I argued with myself. “I prefer working with the Wednesday contingent of chaplains more than the Monday group. So, wouldn’t it be easier to stay home one more week, and just go next Wednesday?”
Somehow, I managed to push those questions aside and stopped debating with myself. Jail had always been a no-mind practice – an action without thought; a response without the stimuli of gain, benefits, or reward. I just went there. So I did that again. I showed up at jail – as I always had.
Justin’s face lit up with a smile, from across the room, when he saw me enter the office door.
“Tony,” Gavin, the Head Chaplain, exclaimed, looking up from the computer keyboard he was torturing on his desk. “I didn’t expect you until Wednesday. What happened?”
“My aunt’s vigil and rosary is being held that night,” I explained, “so I was hoping I could exchange days and work tonight.”
“Of course,” Gavin said, rising from his chair to give me a welcoming hug. “You are welcome any day, just let me know where you want to work tonight,” he said, returning to his computer tasks.
Greeting the other 3 volunteer chaplains who were assembling in the office, I saw Justin standing by the supply room door. He pointed his index finger at me, at himself, and then at the door, suggesting that we team up for tonight’s program, as we normally did on Wednesdays. I nodded a vigorous “yes” in reply and made my way to his side.
“Tony, how good to see, hombre!” he exclaimed. “It’s been a while,” he noted, pounding my back in celebration. “So, you want to do a program together, tonight?” he asked.
“Sure,” I replied, “that would be great. Where do you usually go on Mondays, the first or second floor?” I quizzed him.
“It’s a beautiful, warm evening tonight”, he noted. “What about trying the upstairs dorms and using the open-air dayroom on that floor?”
“Great,” I said, enthusiastically. “I haven’t been up there in months.”
“Perhaps our old friend Juan will join us tonight,” he added, mentioning a prisoner I met in my first visits to the jail. “Do you mind doing it in Spanish?”
“No,” I replied, “Spanish is fine as long as you’re leading the session. I’m still not confident about doing it alone in that language.”
“We’ll do it bilingually, then,” Justin compromised, “so the men can speak English or Spanish in the session.”
Justin and I had been teaming up together on Wednesday nights and conducting the Catholic Chaplain’s program for over six months now. We had been concentrating on the first floor of the maximum-security cellblocks, the dorms reserved for long-term inmates serving 20 years to life. We rarely got to the second floor cells because they only had a dayroom with an open-air ceiling, which was exposed to the elements and outside temperatures. This was the only room available for inmate services, and it had always been either too cold or rainy to use. Even though Justin and other chaplains visited the men at the bars of these cellblocks, this would be our first opportunity to conduct a program there in almost 6 months. After getting permission from the Watch Sergeant to conduct the service, I went to the bars of the three dorms to invite the inmates to attend our program, as Justin arranged for the chairs.
When the first group of men entered the exterior dayroom, and made their way to the circle of chairs in the center of the room, I noticed that Juan was among them. I hadn’t seen him in a long, long time. He was a short, solidly built man of 40 to 45 years of age, with graying black hair and a trimmed mustache. He still looked fit enough to do a break-dancing routine that he once boasted of during a long ago session. After serving over a year in jail, his possible 30-to-life sentence was still pending.
“Juanito!” I exclaimed, greeting him with an expansive hug, “it’s good to see you, old friend. Thanks for coming out.”
“Of course,” he replied with a shy smile. “I wasn’t going to miss the chance of talking with you and Justin again. It’s been a long time.”
Three other men entered with Juan, and they seated themselves in the circle of chairs. Two looked familiar to me, but the third was a complete stranger. He was a hawk-faced Latino, with bronze skin and complex tattoos on both of his thickly muscled biceps.
“Welcome,” I said, greeting him first and shaking his hand. “Thank you for coming out and joining us tonight”.
“Your welcome, “ he replied sternly, shaking my hand in a forceful manner. “You know,” he added in a whisper, “I can’t believe you came tonight. I was feeling really bad in there,” he said, nodding to the barred cell that lay on the other side of the thickly glassed windows of the dayroom. “I really needed to get out of that place tonight. Maybe we can talk later,” he added urgently.
“Of course,” I replied, surprised by his hushed intensity. “We’ll talk later.”
Once all of the seven men who came out of the cells were there, we arranged ourselves in a tight circle. Justin introduced himself and began the session with a prayer that was different from his usual offering. Ordinarily he would ask the men for any special petitions or requests and incorporate them into the opening prayer. Tonight, however, he asked the men to sit silently, and listen to the solace and mercy of God who was present in their midst. It was a reflection on opening oneself to God – hearing and feeling the love of God in the breezes that circulated in the dayroom, and the chirping of birds flying over the steel-meshed, ceiling above our heads. After a while, Justin asked us to be conscious of our breathing, as we inhaled and exhaled, marveling at the life God had given us on this day, a day that allowed us to gather in his name. At the conclusion of this novel opening prayer, he explained the topic of tonight’s session.
“This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day,” he began. “So I thought we would read and reflect about Mary, the mother of Jesus. But before we begin, I’d like you to introduce yourself and share a saying, trait, or lesson your mother taught you, or something you can remember about her. I’ll go first to give you some time to think. I remember my mother was always working at her job. My father was a musician so he was always gone too, traveling with his band. It was my grandmother who actually raised me until I was five or six and I came to the United States. She was the first mother I really had. She taught me my first prayers and songs. I remember that she greeted every morning by singing, and she told me that each day was a wonderful miracle that we needed to celebrate. She died three weeks ago,” he added, and then stopped to quiet the trembling in his voice. “Flying to Mexico for her funeral gave me a lot of time to think,” he resumed. “I thought about how important she was during my first years of life and how much she loved me”. He stopped again to look around the circle, and held his gaze on Juan, who had once shared a song he had written for his mother on Mother’s Day (see: Can You See My Eyes).
“Juan,” he said in a stronger voice, “tell us about what you remember of your mother?”
In this fashion we went around the circle, each man introducing himself and sharing something about his mother. The first remarks were short and perfunctory, the men extolling their mothers as strong, hardworking, and long-suffering women. The shortest statement came from Steven, the hawk-faced, young man, who had spoken to me with such hushed intensity about getting out of his cell, and wanting to talk later.
“I don’t remember much about my mother,” he began. “She ran off when I was 3 or 4. My aunt and father raised me until I left home in junior high school. Since then I’ve been in and out of detention halls and jails, so I don’t see them much.”
I’d just gotten used to these brusque, stereotypical characterizations of mothers when Gustavo, a baby-faced, young man with fierce tattoos around his neck and forearms began speaking in halting Spanish, intermixed with English. It took me a while to realize that he was narrating a memory from the point of view of the 10-year old child he was at the time of the occurrence. He began by telling us that his mother, Graciela, was 15 or 16 years old when she met his father in Mexico and he convinced her to leave home and move to Los Angeles. From that point on his mother lost contact with her brothers, sisters, and parents. Graciela had 5 children, with Gustavo, the fourth, being followed by a younger brother. He remembered his mother as doing everything for them– working at two jobs, cooking, cleaning, and raising the kids. His father was a stay-at-home dad, who worked as an auto mechanic and also did odd jobs, like gardening and landscaping. Sometimes he took the two youngest boys with him to help cut lawns. The youngest boy was a little retarded and very slow in understanding orders and following directions. When his father became angry at his slowness, Gustavo remembered him chasing the small child with the weedwacker, whipping it at his brother’s shoes and ankles, and making him jump in fear and cry out in pain as he ran away from his father. His father also drank a lot, and he became angrier and more abusive when he was drunk. He yelled at his mother, calling her names and threatening to hit her, but Gustavo never actually witnessed a beating. The situation came to the point where the mother couldn’t take it anymore and she managed to contact her family, who had moved to California and lived in Palmdale. One day she told the father that she was taking the children to Disneyland for the day. In Anaheim, she explained to the 5 children that they were making one more stop before returning home, and she took them to her parent’s house in Palmdale. There it was decided that the 3 older children would stay with their grandparents and Graciela returned home with the two youngest boys. When the father asked where the three children were, the mother was silent.
“Mujer,” the father exploded, “how is it possible to leave in the morning with five children and return with only two?”
The mother simply replied, “My children are in a better place than here.”
Frustrated by the woman’s refusal to reveal the location of the children, the father waited until she left for work and then began interrogating the two little boys. Since Gustavo was his concentido, or favored-one, the father did not press him when he said he couldn’t remember. Instead, he pressured the youngest, threatening to beat him if he didn’t confess. His mother returned during one of these tearful interrogations and violently shoved the father away from the boy, standing defiantly between them.
At that point of the story Gustavo began weeping. Brushing aside the tears that were running down his face, he apologized for his weakness, but confessed that he had forgotten this memory of his skinny and undersized mother standing up to his hulking father and pushing him away from her children. That this tiny woman could finally confront this mean and abusive drunk was astounding to him. He was sure that the only reason his father didn’t beat her was fear – fear of her three older brothers who she swore would seek him out and kill him if he touched her. That night she took the two remaining boys and left the house for good. Still fighting back tears, Gustavo recalled asking his mother at some later time how old she was when she challenged his father, assuming she was a mature 34 or 35 years old at the time.
“I was 25, mi hijo,” she replied. “But I felt older after living with your father for so many years.”
She remarried, Gustavo continued with the tale, and had a daughter with her new husband. At first Gustavo and he got along well because the stepfather treated his mother with kindness and consideration. Unfortunately, Gustavo added, regretfully, their relationship slowly deteriorated because of his gang associations, and they stopped talking over the criminal choices he was making. However, his mother never lost faith in Gustavo or any of her children. Even his arrest for possession of a gun and his current incarceration had not cut it off. His mother still visited him and put money into his book so he could use the phone and buys things from the jail store.
There was a long pause after Gustavo finished his story, apologizing again for crying as he wiped away the remaining tears. The men seemed to be digesting what they had heard and seen from this young man. Gustavo’s tears, mixed with his understated admission of a drunken and abusive father, and his conflicted emotions toward a mother who both allowed the abuse for many years, but finally challenged it, opened the door to a lot more honesty from the men who followed in the circle. They also shared stories of alcoholic and violent fathers, mothers who tried to keep the children safe, and barrio gangs that substituted as families.
When all the men had spoken, Justin asked for a volunteer to read the pamphlet we were using that day.
“Can I read it in English?” Steven, the hawk-faced, young man asked.
“Yes, of course,” Justin replied, handing him an English version of the pamphlet titled, “Why Do We Honor Mary?”
In a halting, uneven manner, Steven struggled through the reading of how the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to ask Mary to accept a startling task – to bear a son named Jesus who would rule the Kingdom of God forever. He read how Mary accepted this task and then immediately went to help her elderly cousin Elizabeth, who was pregnant at the time.
“Thank you, Steven,” Justin said when he finished reading the page. “Now I’d like you to think about this story. It’s not only the story of how Mary was selected to be the mother of God; it’s also a story of how God communicates to us and what he asks of us. Mary is our example of how to respond. Here she was, a thirteen or fourteen year old Jewish girl being asked to be the mother of God by a spiritual apparition. She was engaged, but not yet married to Joseph. Jewish law required that unwed mothers be stoned for adultery. To the angel’s difficult and dangerous request Mary said YES, and then she went off to help another person. All of you said YES to God tonight when you came out of your cells to join us here. But to be a follower of Jesus we need to believe even when it is impossible to believe. Just coming out of the dorms is not enough. We need to be willing to take on difficult tasks and we need to share the Gospel with others, and help those in need of assistance. How can you do that in jail? Steven, what do you think? How does one say YES to God in jail?”
“Well,” Steven replied, unsurely. “I believe in God, you know. I was baptized a Catholic and went to catechism, but sometimes it’s hard. It’s hard to have faith that God will take care of everything. But I believe in Him, you know.”
“What about you, Gustavo?” Justin asked. “What do you do to keep your faith in God and not give up?”
“Well, I pray, you know,” he began, “and I try reading the bible. I’ve been doing that lately. When they have Prayer Call the men will get together to read parts of the Bible. But I’m not that good at reading and some parts are hard to understand.”
“You can’t give up, man!” Steven suddenly interrupted, from across the circle, leaning forward in his chair and speaking with a certainty I hadn’t heard before. “I’ve been in lock-up all my life, and now I’m facing 30 years to life. But when I pray I don’t ask God to get me out. I ask him to watch over my wife and children. I put them in God’s hands, you know, and I have faith that he will also take care of me. But everything changes when you’re facing a court date, you know. You get tense, nervous, and edgy before going to court. When that happens, I forget to pray and I can’t concentrate on the bible. But man, that’s when you most need it, you know. I know God’s watching over me, and taking care of me, because he sent these two chaplains to us tonight. You see, I have a court date tomorrow. But man, I can’t control any of it. I don’t know what’s going on in the judge’s mind, the D.A.’s, or my lawyer’s. I don’t know what kind of night they had, what’s going on in their lives, or how they will feel about me when they get to court. I was starting to lose it in the dorm, you know. I was getting all tense and angry. That’s when the chaplain showed up at the bars to announce church, and I decided to come out. I’m glad I did, because it reminded me that all I can do is leave it in God’s hands. That’s how we should pray, man, leaving it in God’s hands.”
“You know Steven,” Justin interjected, “I think the reason you were called to come out tonight was to speak to Gustavo like this. That’s how God works, I think – through each of you, and the way you treat each other. Tony and I are not priests, or preachers; we’re just men who screw up, struggle through life, and come to visit you in jail. I learn how to get through my own life by listening to your stories and taking the advice you give to each other. You are the teachers here, because God acts through you when you let him. Thank you for coming tonight.”
At the end of every evening in jail, before leaving for home, Gavin insists that all the volunteers gather in the Chaplain’s Office to debrief. It’s a practice that can become arduous at times, especially when there are long delays in getting together. Sometimes it seems to take forever for all the volunteers to return from their sessions and complete their clerical tasks in the office, before standing quietly in a circle. But I’m beginning to appreciate Gavin’s insistence that we meet to describe what happened to us that evening, or recount a notable experience. When our turn came to speak, Justin and I said we were truly humbled by the gratitude the men expressed at our visit, and embarrassed by how little we had done to earn it.
“The men had a lot to say tonight”, Justin explained, “and we did more listening that talking. We didn’t even finish reading the pamphlet we were using. You know, after coming here for almost two years, I really believe that the inmates are the teachers in these sessions, and I’m the one who learns the most.”
“I used to be a teacher and a school principal by profession,” I added, “so control was always important to me. As a teacher, I needed to set up the classroom ahead of time, prepare a curriculum, and deliver a lesson. I can’t do any of those things in jail. We don’t control any of those factors here. All we can do is show up, and hope the men come out of their cells to join us. And yet they believe that this action is so important they always reserve a special prayer of thanksgiving at the close of the session for our coming. I’ve never been blessed so often, and felt so unworthy.”
I’ve finally come to realize that these debriefings give us the means to address the doubts and questions that always seem to hover like clouds over the heads of all prison ministry volunteers: Why do we come? What do we do here? Who do we help? Without answers to these questions, there is the temptation over time, to treat volunteer service as just another job, as work. I was starting to do so before I arrived on this particular Monday, a day I wasn’t scheduled to come; but listening to Gustavo, Steven, Justin, and the other men in the circle, helped me realize how important these weekly visits were to me. I’d only been away from jail for two weeks and yet I came close to saying “NO” at the impulse of coming tonight. Perhaps it was a prayer from one of the jail inmates we had visited on another occasion that helped me say, “YES”.
the angel Gabriel
was sent from God into a city of Galilee,
called Nazareth,
to a virgin espoused to a man
whose name was Joseph,
of the house of David:
and the virgin’s name was Mary.
And the angel said unto her:
“Hail, full of grace,
the Lord is with you:
Blessed are you among women”.
And when Mary was troubled
at what she heard,
the angel said, “Fear not, Mary,
for you have found grace with God".
(Luke 1: 26 – 32)
I’ve been visiting the county jail on a weekly basis for over a year. The route to this remote, hilly location is almost second nature to me now, and the prison environment is no longer as shocking and threatening as it once was. Although I’ll never be immune to the harsh sterility of the corridors and dayrooms, being ignored or overlooked by the guards, or seeing the flashes of violence that sometimes erupt in the cells; these things are no longer foreign to me. I’ve settled into the predictable routine of the Catholic Chaplain’s program in the jail. I report to the facility once a week and usually team with Justin, an assistant chaplain, in co-facilitating a session of the recovery and rehabilitation program called “Finding the Way in Jail”. However, with the passage of time, I’ve noticed that I’m not observing the men as carefully as I once did, nor listening to their stories as intently as before. Oh, I listen to what they say, but only with half an ear while my brain is busy thinking about what question to ask next, or how to involve more men in the discussion. I stopped being the wide-eyed, open-eared “tenderfoot” in these sessions long ago, and became one of the conductors, asking questions and directing the discussion during the sessions. The volunteer work was slowly becoming a job, like what elderly retirees do when leading tours in museums and public galleries. I mention this because after a two-week hiatus from the jail, doubts suddenly began arising in my mind about my desire to continue going as a volunteer.
You see, due to a series of scheduling conflicts, I hadn’t been to the jail for over two weeks, or seen my partner Justin in three. The only other time I’d missed so many Wednesday visits was during the summer when we were out of town. I was feeling a little guilty over this second long absence, and, yet, a little resentful about feeling that way. Weren’t volunteers supposed to be free of these pangs of obligation? Ordinarily, when these scheduling conflicts arose, I’d simply substitute a Monday visit instead; but the last two Mondays had also been reserved for other family activities. So I finally decided to just take a two-week leave of absence from the jail.
During that time I found how easy it was to fill my 5-hour commitment to the jail ministry with other activities. I was amazed at how comfortable and relaxing it was by simply NOT GOING to jail. I didn’t have to change clothes, make the hour-long drive to the far borders of the county, sit in an uncomfortably, frigid dayroom with a handful of convicts, or wonder if the session with them would be valuable or not. It was easier to fill that time with leisure activities: television, reading, dinner, and conversation with my wife Kathy or friends. Then at the end of that break, I learned that my Aunt Ana Maria (Tillie) had died, and the Viewing & Rosary was scheduled for Wednesday. I was tempted at first to just add one more week to my leave from jail – until some inexplicable impulse stopped me. When Kathy asked me what I was finally going to do about jail, I simply said that I’d go on Monday and attend Tillie’s rosary on Wednesday. However, even after that decision, there came a moment on Monday afternoon, when I hesitated going.
“Wasn’t I trying to do too much this week?” I argued with myself. “I prefer working with the Wednesday contingent of chaplains more than the Monday group. So, wouldn’t it be easier to stay home one more week, and just go next Wednesday?”
Somehow, I managed to push those questions aside and stopped debating with myself. Jail had always been a no-mind practice – an action without thought; a response without the stimuli of gain, benefits, or reward. I just went there. So I did that again. I showed up at jail – as I always had.
Justin’s face lit up with a smile, from across the room, when he saw me enter the office door.
“Tony,” Gavin, the Head Chaplain, exclaimed, looking up from the computer keyboard he was torturing on his desk. “I didn’t expect you until Wednesday. What happened?”
“My aunt’s vigil and rosary is being held that night,” I explained, “so I was hoping I could exchange days and work tonight.”
“Of course,” Gavin said, rising from his chair to give me a welcoming hug. “You are welcome any day, just let me know where you want to work tonight,” he said, returning to his computer tasks.
Greeting the other 3 volunteer chaplains who were assembling in the office, I saw Justin standing by the supply room door. He pointed his index finger at me, at himself, and then at the door, suggesting that we team up for tonight’s program, as we normally did on Wednesdays. I nodded a vigorous “yes” in reply and made my way to his side.
“Tony, how good to see, hombre!” he exclaimed. “It’s been a while,” he noted, pounding my back in celebration. “So, you want to do a program together, tonight?” he asked.
“Sure,” I replied, “that would be great. Where do you usually go on Mondays, the first or second floor?” I quizzed him.
“It’s a beautiful, warm evening tonight”, he noted. “What about trying the upstairs dorms and using the open-air dayroom on that floor?”
“Great,” I said, enthusiastically. “I haven’t been up there in months.”
“Perhaps our old friend Juan will join us tonight,” he added, mentioning a prisoner I met in my first visits to the jail. “Do you mind doing it in Spanish?”
“No,” I replied, “Spanish is fine as long as you’re leading the session. I’m still not confident about doing it alone in that language.”
“We’ll do it bilingually, then,” Justin compromised, “so the men can speak English or Spanish in the session.”
Justin and I had been teaming up together on Wednesday nights and conducting the Catholic Chaplain’s program for over six months now. We had been concentrating on the first floor of the maximum-security cellblocks, the dorms reserved for long-term inmates serving 20 years to life. We rarely got to the second floor cells because they only had a dayroom with an open-air ceiling, which was exposed to the elements and outside temperatures. This was the only room available for inmate services, and it had always been either too cold or rainy to use. Even though Justin and other chaplains visited the men at the bars of these cellblocks, this would be our first opportunity to conduct a program there in almost 6 months. After getting permission from the Watch Sergeant to conduct the service, I went to the bars of the three dorms to invite the inmates to attend our program, as Justin arranged for the chairs.
When the first group of men entered the exterior dayroom, and made their way to the circle of chairs in the center of the room, I noticed that Juan was among them. I hadn’t seen him in a long, long time. He was a short, solidly built man of 40 to 45 years of age, with graying black hair and a trimmed mustache. He still looked fit enough to do a break-dancing routine that he once boasted of during a long ago session. After serving over a year in jail, his possible 30-to-life sentence was still pending.
“Juanito!” I exclaimed, greeting him with an expansive hug, “it’s good to see you, old friend. Thanks for coming out.”
“Of course,” he replied with a shy smile. “I wasn’t going to miss the chance of talking with you and Justin again. It’s been a long time.”
Three other men entered with Juan, and they seated themselves in the circle of chairs. Two looked familiar to me, but the third was a complete stranger. He was a hawk-faced Latino, with bronze skin and complex tattoos on both of his thickly muscled biceps.
“Welcome,” I said, greeting him first and shaking his hand. “Thank you for coming out and joining us tonight”.
“Your welcome, “ he replied sternly, shaking my hand in a forceful manner. “You know,” he added in a whisper, “I can’t believe you came tonight. I was feeling really bad in there,” he said, nodding to the barred cell that lay on the other side of the thickly glassed windows of the dayroom. “I really needed to get out of that place tonight. Maybe we can talk later,” he added urgently.
“Of course,” I replied, surprised by his hushed intensity. “We’ll talk later.”
Once all of the seven men who came out of the cells were there, we arranged ourselves in a tight circle. Justin introduced himself and began the session with a prayer that was different from his usual offering. Ordinarily he would ask the men for any special petitions or requests and incorporate them into the opening prayer. Tonight, however, he asked the men to sit silently, and listen to the solace and mercy of God who was present in their midst. It was a reflection on opening oneself to God – hearing and feeling the love of God in the breezes that circulated in the dayroom, and the chirping of birds flying over the steel-meshed, ceiling above our heads. After a while, Justin asked us to be conscious of our breathing, as we inhaled and exhaled, marveling at the life God had given us on this day, a day that allowed us to gather in his name. At the conclusion of this novel opening prayer, he explained the topic of tonight’s session.
“This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day,” he began. “So I thought we would read and reflect about Mary, the mother of Jesus. But before we begin, I’d like you to introduce yourself and share a saying, trait, or lesson your mother taught you, or something you can remember about her. I’ll go first to give you some time to think. I remember my mother was always working at her job. My father was a musician so he was always gone too, traveling with his band. It was my grandmother who actually raised me until I was five or six and I came to the United States. She was the first mother I really had. She taught me my first prayers and songs. I remember that she greeted every morning by singing, and she told me that each day was a wonderful miracle that we needed to celebrate. She died three weeks ago,” he added, and then stopped to quiet the trembling in his voice. “Flying to Mexico for her funeral gave me a lot of time to think,” he resumed. “I thought about how important she was during my first years of life and how much she loved me”. He stopped again to look around the circle, and held his gaze on Juan, who had once shared a song he had written for his mother on Mother’s Day (see: Can You See My Eyes).
“Juan,” he said in a stronger voice, “tell us about what you remember of your mother?”
In this fashion we went around the circle, each man introducing himself and sharing something about his mother. The first remarks were short and perfunctory, the men extolling their mothers as strong, hardworking, and long-suffering women. The shortest statement came from Steven, the hawk-faced, young man, who had spoken to me with such hushed intensity about getting out of his cell, and wanting to talk later.
“I don’t remember much about my mother,” he began. “She ran off when I was 3 or 4. My aunt and father raised me until I left home in junior high school. Since then I’ve been in and out of detention halls and jails, so I don’t see them much.”
I’d just gotten used to these brusque, stereotypical characterizations of mothers when Gustavo, a baby-faced, young man with fierce tattoos around his neck and forearms began speaking in halting Spanish, intermixed with English. It took me a while to realize that he was narrating a memory from the point of view of the 10-year old child he was at the time of the occurrence. He began by telling us that his mother, Graciela, was 15 or 16 years old when she met his father in Mexico and he convinced her to leave home and move to Los Angeles. From that point on his mother lost contact with her brothers, sisters, and parents. Graciela had 5 children, with Gustavo, the fourth, being followed by a younger brother. He remembered his mother as doing everything for them– working at two jobs, cooking, cleaning, and raising the kids. His father was a stay-at-home dad, who worked as an auto mechanic and also did odd jobs, like gardening and landscaping. Sometimes he took the two youngest boys with him to help cut lawns. The youngest boy was a little retarded and very slow in understanding orders and following directions. When his father became angry at his slowness, Gustavo remembered him chasing the small child with the weedwacker, whipping it at his brother’s shoes and ankles, and making him jump in fear and cry out in pain as he ran away from his father. His father also drank a lot, and he became angrier and more abusive when he was drunk. He yelled at his mother, calling her names and threatening to hit her, but Gustavo never actually witnessed a beating. The situation came to the point where the mother couldn’t take it anymore and she managed to contact her family, who had moved to California and lived in Palmdale. One day she told the father that she was taking the children to Disneyland for the day. In Anaheim, she explained to the 5 children that they were making one more stop before returning home, and she took them to her parent’s house in Palmdale. There it was decided that the 3 older children would stay with their grandparents and Graciela returned home with the two youngest boys. When the father asked where the three children were, the mother was silent.
“Mujer,” the father exploded, “how is it possible to leave in the morning with five children and return with only two?”
The mother simply replied, “My children are in a better place than here.”
Frustrated by the woman’s refusal to reveal the location of the children, the father waited until she left for work and then began interrogating the two little boys. Since Gustavo was his concentido, or favored-one, the father did not press him when he said he couldn’t remember. Instead, he pressured the youngest, threatening to beat him if he didn’t confess. His mother returned during one of these tearful interrogations and violently shoved the father away from the boy, standing defiantly between them.
At that point of the story Gustavo began weeping. Brushing aside the tears that were running down his face, he apologized for his weakness, but confessed that he had forgotten this memory of his skinny and undersized mother standing up to his hulking father and pushing him away from her children. That this tiny woman could finally confront this mean and abusive drunk was astounding to him. He was sure that the only reason his father didn’t beat her was fear – fear of her three older brothers who she swore would seek him out and kill him if he touched her. That night she took the two remaining boys and left the house for good. Still fighting back tears, Gustavo recalled asking his mother at some later time how old she was when she challenged his father, assuming she was a mature 34 or 35 years old at the time.
“I was 25, mi hijo,” she replied. “But I felt older after living with your father for so many years.”
She remarried, Gustavo continued with the tale, and had a daughter with her new husband. At first Gustavo and he got along well because the stepfather treated his mother with kindness and consideration. Unfortunately, Gustavo added, regretfully, their relationship slowly deteriorated because of his gang associations, and they stopped talking over the criminal choices he was making. However, his mother never lost faith in Gustavo or any of her children. Even his arrest for possession of a gun and his current incarceration had not cut it off. His mother still visited him and put money into his book so he could use the phone and buys things from the jail store.
There was a long pause after Gustavo finished his story, apologizing again for crying as he wiped away the remaining tears. The men seemed to be digesting what they had heard and seen from this young man. Gustavo’s tears, mixed with his understated admission of a drunken and abusive father, and his conflicted emotions toward a mother who both allowed the abuse for many years, but finally challenged it, opened the door to a lot more honesty from the men who followed in the circle. They also shared stories of alcoholic and violent fathers, mothers who tried to keep the children safe, and barrio gangs that substituted as families.
When all the men had spoken, Justin asked for a volunteer to read the pamphlet we were using that day.
“Can I read it in English?” Steven, the hawk-faced, young man asked.
“Yes, of course,” Justin replied, handing him an English version of the pamphlet titled, “Why Do We Honor Mary?”
In a halting, uneven manner, Steven struggled through the reading of how the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to ask Mary to accept a startling task – to bear a son named Jesus who would rule the Kingdom of God forever. He read how Mary accepted this task and then immediately went to help her elderly cousin Elizabeth, who was pregnant at the time.
“Thank you, Steven,” Justin said when he finished reading the page. “Now I’d like you to think about this story. It’s not only the story of how Mary was selected to be the mother of God; it’s also a story of how God communicates to us and what he asks of us. Mary is our example of how to respond. Here she was, a thirteen or fourteen year old Jewish girl being asked to be the mother of God by a spiritual apparition. She was engaged, but not yet married to Joseph. Jewish law required that unwed mothers be stoned for adultery. To the angel’s difficult and dangerous request Mary said YES, and then she went off to help another person. All of you said YES to God tonight when you came out of your cells to join us here. But to be a follower of Jesus we need to believe even when it is impossible to believe. Just coming out of the dorms is not enough. We need to be willing to take on difficult tasks and we need to share the Gospel with others, and help those in need of assistance. How can you do that in jail? Steven, what do you think? How does one say YES to God in jail?”
“Well,” Steven replied, unsurely. “I believe in God, you know. I was baptized a Catholic and went to catechism, but sometimes it’s hard. It’s hard to have faith that God will take care of everything. But I believe in Him, you know.”
“What about you, Gustavo?” Justin asked. “What do you do to keep your faith in God and not give up?”
“Well, I pray, you know,” he began, “and I try reading the bible. I’ve been doing that lately. When they have Prayer Call the men will get together to read parts of the Bible. But I’m not that good at reading and some parts are hard to understand.”
“You can’t give up, man!” Steven suddenly interrupted, from across the circle, leaning forward in his chair and speaking with a certainty I hadn’t heard before. “I’ve been in lock-up all my life, and now I’m facing 30 years to life. But when I pray I don’t ask God to get me out. I ask him to watch over my wife and children. I put them in God’s hands, you know, and I have faith that he will also take care of me. But everything changes when you’re facing a court date, you know. You get tense, nervous, and edgy before going to court. When that happens, I forget to pray and I can’t concentrate on the bible. But man, that’s when you most need it, you know. I know God’s watching over me, and taking care of me, because he sent these two chaplains to us tonight. You see, I have a court date tomorrow. But man, I can’t control any of it. I don’t know what’s going on in the judge’s mind, the D.A.’s, or my lawyer’s. I don’t know what kind of night they had, what’s going on in their lives, or how they will feel about me when they get to court. I was starting to lose it in the dorm, you know. I was getting all tense and angry. That’s when the chaplain showed up at the bars to announce church, and I decided to come out. I’m glad I did, because it reminded me that all I can do is leave it in God’s hands. That’s how we should pray, man, leaving it in God’s hands.”
“You know Steven,” Justin interjected, “I think the reason you were called to come out tonight was to speak to Gustavo like this. That’s how God works, I think – through each of you, and the way you treat each other. Tony and I are not priests, or preachers; we’re just men who screw up, struggle through life, and come to visit you in jail. I learn how to get through my own life by listening to your stories and taking the advice you give to each other. You are the teachers here, because God acts through you when you let him. Thank you for coming tonight.”
At the end of every evening in jail, before leaving for home, Gavin insists that all the volunteers gather in the Chaplain’s Office to debrief. It’s a practice that can become arduous at times, especially when there are long delays in getting together. Sometimes it seems to take forever for all the volunteers to return from their sessions and complete their clerical tasks in the office, before standing quietly in a circle. But I’m beginning to appreciate Gavin’s insistence that we meet to describe what happened to us that evening, or recount a notable experience. When our turn came to speak, Justin and I said we were truly humbled by the gratitude the men expressed at our visit, and embarrassed by how little we had done to earn it.
“The men had a lot to say tonight”, Justin explained, “and we did more listening that talking. We didn’t even finish reading the pamphlet we were using. You know, after coming here for almost two years, I really believe that the inmates are the teachers in these sessions, and I’m the one who learns the most.”
“I used to be a teacher and a school principal by profession,” I added, “so control was always important to me. As a teacher, I needed to set up the classroom ahead of time, prepare a curriculum, and deliver a lesson. I can’t do any of those things in jail. We don’t control any of those factors here. All we can do is show up, and hope the men come out of their cells to join us. And yet they believe that this action is so important they always reserve a special prayer of thanksgiving at the close of the session for our coming. I’ve never been blessed so often, and felt so unworthy.”
I’ve finally come to realize that these debriefings give us the means to address the doubts and questions that always seem to hover like clouds over the heads of all prison ministry volunteers: Why do we come? What do we do here? Who do we help? Without answers to these questions, there is the temptation over time, to treat volunteer service as just another job, as work. I was starting to do so before I arrived on this particular Monday, a day I wasn’t scheduled to come; but listening to Gustavo, Steven, Justin, and the other men in the circle, helped me realize how important these weekly visits were to me. I’d only been away from jail for two weeks and yet I came close to saying “NO” at the impulse of coming tonight. Perhaps it was a prayer from one of the jail inmates we had visited on another occasion that helped me say, “YES”.
Make up tips
Date: 2011-09-29 06:38 pm (UTC)