On accountability

July 15, 2012

Dear Dee,

This week’s sermon was another form Ana Levy-Lyons at All Souls in New York titled “Location, Location, Location.” She cites the Hebrew scriptures as telling us to be aware of where we are going and to whom we are accountable. It struck me as odd that I seem to have a better handle on where I’m going than on where I’ve been. I know I’m on a quest to become a better person. Where I’ve been is a bit of a haze representing all the time I spent in an unenlightened state, engaged in activities that I wish I could forget. As for the accountability part, I think I am most accountable to myself, since I will be holding myself to a higher and stricter standard than just about anyone else would.

My first foray into the new Fleck book was meaningful. The chapter, titled “The Blessings of Imperfection,” says that we learn from trial and error, not trial and triumph. It’s difficult for me to regard what I did as an error or a mistake because a mistake is something one makes while trying to do something right and simply making the wrong choice. In my case, I knew from the start that it was wrong. I have to remember as I try to analyze the reasons behind my actions that reasons are not the same as excuses, for there are no excuses for what I did. Whatever else they were, they were most certainly the actions of an imperfect man. In the future, it is my goal to strive for perfection, knowing full well that I will never achieve it, but taking comfort from the knowledge that the effort will result in a better man.

This theme was also useful as I mull over a piece that I want to write titled “To the children in the pictures.” Since I used the internet to do them wrong, it seems altogether fitting that I use it again to seek their forgiveness. It will most likely not reach the intended eyes, but I have to try.

This week I received the draft copy of my divorce papers. I am sad but resigned to this course. I had a few niggling changes, but I will sign it the next time I have access to a notary. Strike three—I’m out!

That’s it for another week. Love, Steve

Oh, brother, where art thou?

July 8, 2012

 Dear Dee,

My brother, Dennis’s, situation continues to decline. He thought he got some good news when they told him that the tumor had shrunk, but what they didn’t tell him until a few days later was that his lungs were full of a cancerous fluid and it has spread to his spine. For this reason, they are not starting radiation as planned. They give him about a 5% chance of surviving for more than a year. It makes it highly unlikely that I will ever see him again unless this transfer comes through. I have been calling Dennis every Friday. I can hear the changes in his voice. He sounded at his best and strongest during the week he had off from chemo.

In the Come as You Are piece this week (the last piece in the book), Fleck pointed out the value in having someone from your youth to grow old with, so that you can share and help each other remember the people and stories from that period in your life. It made me think of Joe and what a devastating loss his death was to me. Of course, Dennis is another one. He’s the only person in the world who shared my misbegotten childhood from its earliest days. When he goes, it will be an incalculable loss.

I liked this week’s sermon by Ana Levy-Lyons, “The Return of the Real.” In it she stresses the need to integrate the image we project to the world with the person we truly are. She points out that “integrate” and “integrity” share the same root word. She says that so many people today will post on Facebook that they are heading out to the soup kitchen to feed the homeless so they can bask in the approbation of others. The real value of the action lies in the doing of it. It called to mind something I remember hearing from, of all people, Dr. Laura on the radio, “Integrity is what you do when no one is watching.”  All of my self-esteem was vested in the image I projected to others, to the point that I believed that this was who I truly was. I talked the talk without being willing to walk the walk. Lesson learned.

Just another day in the life…

 June 24, 2012

Dear Dee,

I really should have gotten an early jump on this letter as it promises to be a fat one. I have a letter of yours to respond to in addition to my usual Sunday ramblings. But here it is Sunday once again and away I go.

I am awaiting the arrival of the TV Guide crossword puzzles you ordered. It takes 12 to 16 weeks for them to process the order? I’m reduced to culling through discarded newspapers looking for crosswords to do. I have found that, once I’ve done one, my mind feels “tingly,” as though it has gotten some exercise. For as much reading as I do (132 books since last Aug. 5), it is a passive activity, only marginally more active than watching TV.

It was interesting to hear you say that it was weird for you to leave without me. For me, being locked up has become the norm. I spend a certain amount of time each day waiting for someone to come and unlock a door so I can go where I need to. When I am finally finished with all this, it will seem strange to walk out the front door whenever I please. The act of sitting down in a restaurant and ordering whatever I want will, I expect, be more than a bit overwhelming in the earliest days of my long-dormant freedom. Still no word from the Bureau of Prisons on my transfer. Having been born and raised in California and with my daughter and granddaughter living there, I am hoping to be able to live there after my release, but I am trying to find out about their living restrictions and voting rights for sex offenders.

Thank you so much for renewing The Week and Mental Floss magazines. I look forward to both.

AS for exercise, I’m really lacking there. I didn’t do nearly as much as I should have when the weather was ideal. Now it is hellishly hot and humid. The guys who do go out there come back soaking wet, looking as if they were hit with a fire hose. There won’t be much relief from it until around late September. Maybe I’ll get lucky and get my transfer to Terminal Island after all, where I can walk the track year round.

Church: RK talked about Earth Day in his chalice lighting. Well, that was the theme of Rev. Bob’s sermon of April 22 wherein he underscored the value of sound environmental thinking contained in the seventh principle: Respect for the interdependent web of existence of which we are all a part. I shake my head in a continual state of disbelief that global warming and climate change are still considered to be partisan issues rather than accepted fact. How far we have strayed from the beliefs and philosophies of the Native Americans who respected and revered their relationship with the earth.

Come As You Are had an impact on me. I thought I was going to dismiss it when I saw its title, “Honoring Your Father and Mother” given that my father doubted his paternity of me and my mother was more involved with her addiction than her children. But Fleck surprised me by admitting that he never liked his father with whom he had a distant and troubled relationship. His father died at the same age mine did—59. He was left with a lot of unfinished business, as was I. He says he moved closer to honoring his father and holds out for the possibility of an afterlife wherein he might get the chance to finish the job.

Chicken Soup for the Prisoner’s Soul extolled the benefits of writing as a part of the rehabilitative process. I think we’re ahead of them on that score.

Whew! I was right. This was a fat one. My hand is sore, so it is time to call it a wrap. As always, I appreciate all that you do.

Love, Steve