The caged bird dreams

May 1, 2011

Dear Dee,

I had a visit from Joe last night. [See 12/18/2011 post, “Goodnight, Joe”] I knew, of course, that it was a dream but I reached out and touched him and he was solid and real. The tipoff was, he was Joe in his 20s, dark hair and unlined skin. He sported a big smile and a gleam in his eye that suggested that he knew he was cheating death by coming to see me. I don’t remember much of what we talked about, but I do know we laughed a lot. I came awake with tears in my eyes. But they were happiness tears because I finally got a last visit with my best friend. It didn’t happen here but rather in some neutral place because this place is off limits in my dreams. As I think I have mentioned before, my dreams have become sacred to me because they enable me to experience normalcy for brief periods. I look forward to that when I close my eyes each night.

Now for this morning’s church. The chalice lighting was the one you gave. I enjoyed your regard for your childhood chores as a gift, relating it to working at the church.

Notes on the sermon: The sermon Kent read was a Skinner Sermon Award Winner in 2010 called “Caging Violence” by Lynn M. Acquafondata . There were two readings. The first was by the Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh, in which he explains the Buddhist principle that you cannot separate the good from the bad. He uses “Roses and Garbage” as his example, “Without a rose, we cannot have garbage; and without garbage, we cannot have a rose. They need each other very much. The rose and garbage are equal. The garbage is just as precious as the rose. If we look deeply at the concept of defilement and immaculateness, we return to the notion of interbeing.” The second reading was “The Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou which ends as follows:

The caged bird sings
With a fearful trill
Of things unknown
But longed for still
And his tune is heard
On the distant hill
For the caged bird,
Sings of freedom.

The sermon itself continues the theme: “Clearly if anyone is the “garbage” of society, it would be prisoners who have committed violent crimes and sometimes continue to victimize fellow prisoners. We, of course, would be the roses. Thich Naut Hahn says that there cannot be one without the other. He would say we are all responsible at some level for what happens in prisons. Can that be true? The concept is not easy for most Americans to grapple with because our society is set up largely around black and white, this or that, thinking…Though our country was founded on values which were influenced by some prominent Unitarians and Universalists, our prison and court systems have a long way to go before they truly respect the worth and dignity of each individual. Our systems have not reached a balanced reflection of the justice, equity and compassion we espouse.

I was so moved by Maya Angelou’s poem, far more than if I had read it before my incarceration. The sermon itself, although it seems to make the erroneous assumption that everyone in here is violent, does make the point that all of these people are human beings and that mistreatment of them is not only inhuman, but it stokes the fires of resentment and anger that burns in the hearts of these men, making them an even greater threat when they are released. I see some men in here who have covered every inch of their bodies with tattoos. I just know that they have long since given up any hope of a normal life, job, and family once they are released.

And I do see resentment in the hearts of men who have not been violent in the past. One, a cellmate of mine, cheered when those shootings happened in Arizona. He is so bitter over what the government has done to him that he was elated when a congresswoman was shot and a federal judge killed. I said, “What about that nine-year-old girl who got slaughtered?” That shut him up for a while anyway. When the revolution broke out in Libya, he supported Qaddafi, saying he should be killing his own people if they are trying to overturn his regime. That’s how twisted people can become in here.

I loved the final paragraph, “…when we reach out with love and compassion and mutual respect, we can heal broken places in our own hearts and we can turn the world toward a safer and more compassionate place for all people." Amen to that!

Love ya’, Kent

Getting old—Thinking young

April 24, 2011

Dear Dee,

It was a good Sunday this morning, with a chalice lighting and a sermon that were both of particular meaning for me. The chalice reading was from a woman who could not deal with the loss of her mother until she was willing and able to let go of her grief. I am still struggling with the loss of my freedom. I know that letting go of this struggle is something I really do need to do.

The sermon was “Great Trees of Life” using trees as a metaphor for getting older. Before I came here, I spent very little time ruminating about my advancing age. I guess that’s because I tend to think young. It’s not really denial. It’s just how I’ve always thought. I have a cellmate who is two years older than I, but from the way he acts and thinks, he could be my grandfather. For all that, however, I’m well aware that my time grows shorter. I wrestle with that a lot, feeling so unutterably stupid for having done something that resulted in losing six and a half years from a life that doesn’t have that many left in it.

There is, in here, a distinct dislike of older people, with the exception of Mexicans whose culture teaches them to respect their elders. A couple of weeks ago, I was working in the chow hall, filling cereal pans as fast as they were emptying out. This young kid was standing in the doorway between the serving line and the kitchen, blocking everyone’s way and talking about how old people were in everyone’s way. I was working, he was doing nothing. So I invented a reason to go into the kitchen, brushed past him and said, “Excuse me—you’re in the way.”

Love, Kent