Life After Prison is Hard

I haven't written in a while...and this is not originally what I had planned to post on my first blog back. But, I "friended" one of my "kids" on Facebook when I saw that he made a comment on his brother's page. I haven't talked to him in quite some time. After he accepted my friendship, he wrote and asked me how I was doing. I gave him a quick response and asked about him. This is what I received in return:

Well i just relized... life as an adult is hard. I so missed the days at camp and comin to ur house to play around.everything now is just so complicated u know.i went to the pen. For sellin drugs. Did 3 & a half years. Now im out.have been 4 about 2 months and lookin 4 work. Its so hard u know.ur suppose to come out with this view of how the world is so beautiful and anything is possible when thats not the way it is at all. I want 2 work and no one will let me when i didnt want 2 work everyone offered me jobs!! For the first time since i was a kid im strugglin. I dont know what to do.i do know that if i return to my old methods of gettin money i will make plenty but at what cost.so most days i pray until i cant knees hurt and other days i think until my heart hurts.but pain is growth so im growin.but im bleesed and i know this just waitin 4 my miracle.and im full of joy it may not sound like it but i am. Ive seen a lot and didnt close my eyes heard a lot expanded my mind hurt a lot but grew stronger with time

He is probably in his mid-20s now. He grew up with a mother who was always either strung out on drugs, looking for drama, or looking for the next way to get drugs. He was raised by his dad. I don't know the full extent of his environment there, but I know it wasn't probably the best or easiest home situation either.


It is because of people like him that I feel second chances are important. It's because of statements like these that make me realize that being a part of a system that does everything in it's power to prevent people from voting, getting a job, living in an apartment, isn't a just system. It doesn't mean that after 15 years of doing the wrong thing, he would all of a sudden be the perfect citizen. But when he has paid his dues as deemed by the courts, he should at least get an opportunity to try to do it right. Unfortunately, our system makes it extremely hard to do that.

Book Review: Evolving in MonkeyTown

Evolving in MonkeyTown by Rachel Held Evans wasn't necessarily the most eye-opening or inspiring book to me. Perhaps that's because I've already started figuring out what she writes about--it's not about figuring it out! It's about the process and the questions...and that's ok.

"The problem with fundamentalism is that it can't adapt to change." ~pg. 18

Being a Christian isn't about biding my time until death. It's not about attending certain religious services. It isn't even about making sure to associate with other Christians. Christianity is about embodiment. It's about living as Christ lived and embodying that spirit with people. It's about messing that up on a daily basis and continuing to work toward that example. It's about having conversations with people...conversations that question and challenge each other in a back and forth seeking of understanding and coming to new realizations about what it means for me to be a Christian or a person of faith.

"...faith must adapt in order to survive." ~pg.212

"What my generation is learning the hard way is that faith is not about defending conquered ground but about discovering new territory. Faith isn'g about being right, or settling down, or refusing to change. Faith is a journey, and every generation contributes its own sketches to the map." ~pg. 220

My faith has been and is still a journey. It's my journey. Faith isn't a set of answers someone can hand to me to prepare for the "test." Faith is my own study, exploration, and discovery. And wherever I am on that point is just fine. It's a continuum that none of us will ever fully achieve. It's not possible. So there is no need to judge or ridicule anyone else for their journey. We challenge and question each other, have the conversation, and aspire to be better people.

See Rachel Held Evans' blog here.

Being a person of faith in a Christian nation

Faith.

Why does my faith challenge me so much?

Is it because crazy people like Terry Jones use Christianity as a shield to schedule things like a Quran burning? Is it because Christians feel it is their obligatory duty to evangelize people and often make assumptions about what people do and don’t believe and how they should and shouldn’t profess and demonstrate that belief? Is it because the financially better off Christians often seem to want to help the poor, but don’t want to live next to them or be a part of their every day lives? Is it because people who claim Christianity feel it is ok to make disparaging comments about people?

I guess if I were Muslim my faith might be challenged in the same way. I would wonder why the extremists have to kill and I would be angry at the ones who take the Quran and use it to abuse women. I suppose that every religious sect has sections of people who seem to distort and then justify their message.  I also guess I have to realize that we are all flawed.

Some recent events have caused me to think about what and how I believe.

Eat Pray Love (the book...not the movie) caused me to reflect on my own faith...my internal faith--what I believe when no one else is watching. Realizations: Faith is my own spiritual journey. When I focus on myself, it radiates out. Not through evangelism or piety, but in how I interact with others. Faith is internal that results in horizontal relationships with people and a vertical relationship with my God. My hope would be that my horizontal relationships and interactions with people would cause others to seek to create these as well…which would cause them to begin to find their own vertical relationship with God or, if they already have a relationship, they would reflect and continue to seek to improve. Eat Pray Love helped reinforce the conclusion I was already moving toward. It’s not about my evangelism. It’s about changing myself from the inside out.

This morning, I finished A Lesson Before Dying (by Ernest Gaines). Toward the end of the book, I found myself reading quicker, wanting to figure out what the “lesson” was going to be. Mr. Grant Wiggins seemed to have faith struggles much like my own. He had stopped going to church. The preacher, his aunt, and the other ladies in the community constantly raised their eyebrows and shook their head, yet never thought to seek an understanding of what he did believe. Their judgment didn’t make him desire to go to church, but reinforced his decision not to. The irony of this was that Mr. Wiggins had a better ability to create a horizontal relationship with other "unbelievers"...the ones the preacher and the church-goers desperately wanted to "save." 

Alternately, though the book reinforced my belief that “church people” can often be over-bearing to the point of turning people away from Christianity, it also challenged my thoughts of why we all need to be grounded in faith. Our faith is often not about us. Our faith is often conciliation. Sometimes we demonstrate our faith by doing conciliatory things for others...and sometimes that means portraying faith in a way that helps them feel comfortable.

In our world today, it also has other implications. Our conciliatory nature can be to accept and allow Muslims to build a mosque at ground zero...because conciliation doesn’t mean expecting others to make the compromise. It means that we (because of our faith) make the effort. It doesn't matter how others respond and whether they do something for us in return. Christianity...and many other faith religions...is about what we do...how we respond to situations more so than church attendance. Church and prayer is what keeps us focused on how we're doing and what we still need to work on.

Faith reminds me of integrity…what I do and how I act when no one else is looking. Every day I have new things to work on.

Faith...an important part of who we are

Pardon me for continuing to post news clips of President and Mrs. Obama, but I'm home this week and am able to access much more news than when I'm at work all day. Plus, I think it's important for us to hear what they are really saying...and not the soundbytes that can be taken out of context or misconstrued.

But, more so, I think his words are profound. He acknowledges that religion has often been used in ways that allow us to discriminate and used to divide. He acknowledges that there are people of all faiths who follow very similar principles. He acknowledges that people of all faiths...and of no faith...are important to our work ahead and should be valued for their contributions. He recognizes that we wil not all agree. But also points out that our faith challenges us all to work together.

He speaks of his own conversion not being because of someone proselytizing, but because of what they were doing with and for people in the community. It was their non-discriminatory, non-overtly evangelistic faith in action that ultimately helped him understand the higher purpose Christianity offers...but he continues to understand the goodness in other faiths as well.

I've embeded the video, but I'm also attaching a large portion of his comments (below) because they were encouraging and meaningful to me.

I raise this history because far too often, we have seen faith wielded as a tool to divide us from one another—as an excuse for prejudice and intolerance. Wars have been waged. Innocents have been slaughtered. For centuries, entire religions have been persecuted, all in the name of perceived righteousness.

There is no doubt that the very nature of faith means that some of our beliefs will never be the same. We read from different texts. We follow different edicts. We subscribe to different accounts of how we came to be here and where we're going next—and some subscribe to no faith at all.

But no matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate. There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know.

We know too that whatever our differences, there is one law that binds all great religions together. Jesus told us to "love thy neighbor as thyself." The Torah commands, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow." In Islam, there is a hadith that reads "None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself." And the same is true for Buddhists and Hindus; for followers of Confucius and for humanists. It is, of course, the Golden Rule—the call to love one another; to understand one another; to treat with dignity and respect those with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth.

It is an ancient rule; a simple rule; but also one of the most challenging. For it asks each of us to take some measure of responsibility for the well-being of people we may not know or worship with or agree with on every issue. Sometimes, it asks us to reconcile with bitter enemies or resolve ancient hatreds. And that requires a living, breathing, active faith. It requires us not only to believe, but to do—to give something of ourselves for the benefit of others and the betterment of our world.

In this way, the particular faith that motivates each of us can promote a greater good for all of us. Instead of driving us apart, our varied beliefs can bring us together to feed the hungry and comfort the afflicted; to make peace where there is strife and rebuild what has broken; to lift up those who have fallen on hard times. This is not only our call as people of faith, but our duty as citizens of America, and it will be the purpose of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships that I'm announcing later today.

The goal of this office will not be to favor one religious group over another—or even religious groups over secular groups. It will simply be to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our communities, and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state. This work is important, because whether it's a secular group advising families facing foreclosure or faith-based groups providing job-training to those who need work, few are closer to what's happening on our streets and in our neighborhoods than these organizations. People trust them. Communities rely on them. And we will help them.

We will also reach out to leaders and scholars around the world to foster a more productive and peaceful dialogue on faith. I don't expect divisions to disappear overnight, nor do I believe that long-held views and conflicts will suddenly vanish. But I do believe that if we can talk to one another openly and honestly, then perhaps old rifts will start to mend and new partnerships will begin to emerge. In a world that grows smaller by the day, perhaps we can begin to crowd out the destructive forces of zealotry and make room for the healing power of understanding.

This is my hope. This is my prayer.

I believe this good is possible because my faith teaches me that all is possible, but I also believe because of what I have seen and what I have lived.

I was not raised in a particularly religious household. I had a father who was born a Muslim but became an atheist, grandparents who were non-practicing Methodists and Baptists, and a mother who was skeptical of organized religion, even as she was the kindest, most spiritual person I've ever known. She was the one who taught me as a child to love, and to understand, and to do unto others as I would want done.

I didn't become a Christian until many years later, when I moved to the South Side of Chicago after college. It happened not because of indoctrination or a sudden revelation, but because I spent month after month working with church folks who simply wanted to help neighbors who were down on their luck—no matter what they looked like, or where they came from, or who they prayed to. It was on those streets, in those neighborhoods, that I first heard God's spirit beckon me. It was there that I felt called to a higher purpose—His purpose.