Sacred Neighbor. Sacred Self. Part 3

I once worked for a church where I felt very much scripted.

This was only natural, as I had to memorize and recite literal scripts as I stepped up on stage. Modern-day liturgies, I suppose. Though, if someone’s journey toward the Divine began with a pastor reciting a committee-approved script, then so be it. I try not to knock it too much.

If someone’s journey of self-healing and redemption was launched because I spent a few extra minutes looking in the mirror, recalling my lines as I ensured no more cat hair remained on my slimmed jeans; if the soft music arose at the precise time on my speech; if I inserted all the pregnant pauses in all the appropriate areas and made my voice quiver the very moment my attendees’ hearts should be quivering—who am I to say it wasn’t a genuine genesis of something real and enduring?

I tell myself I’m not bitter…

That’s what I tell myself…

But I wanted somewhere where there were no lights or smoke. No salvations to count and plug into the metrics system at the end of the night, compare our locations to others.

I wanted someplace raw and broken to experience God, where I wouldn’t be concerned if my boss from the corporate offices of my church would be in attendance or if a cute volunteer I had a mild crush on might smile at me warmly as I single-handedly switched the eternal destination of those who raised their hands from one of unending torment and pain to one where they get their own mansion or something.

My experience with God was looking pretty polished during this time, and no relationship that is polished can ever be that real.

It’s in the grit that we’re at last able to meet someone.

So I went to prison.

The first time I went to prison I met a gentleman named Elliot.

I liked him immediately.

He was the pastor of the “young adults” group within the inmate-led church on his yard, and he had a lot to say. In fact, I’m sure he is talking now as I recall my warm feelings about him. He is wise and warm. Raw, yes. Rough, yes. And real, yes.

Dirt and Soul.

He was my introduction to the plight of The Other—the marginalized underbelly we like to pretend does not exist in our world, who we construct dividing fences around in order to cosplay our fantasies of peace and calm, predictability and safety.

I fell in love with Elliott that day—his heart and knowledge, his demeanor and glow. I saw my reflection immediately.

To this day, I look back at that chance encounter and attribute his warm welcome into his community as the arbiter of an adventure I wouldn’t trade for the world.

It’s amazing how a simple encounter with one of God’s forgotten Beloveds is all it takes to remove the shells from the eyes.

The second time I went to prison was for one of Elliott’s Friday night services.

I arrived in simply support mode, though I quickly learned every time I would attend an incarcerated church service, I would be pulled to the front to talk about what God was doing in my life. I would also talk about the latest concert I attended or how the Oklahoma City Thunder had been performing. God was equally there.

There’s an adage in prison that the age you were locked up as will be the age you remain.

Not only do we incarcerate bodies.

We incarcerate potential.

The ages of the men were eighteen to thirty-five, who, without intense intentionality, would forever be incarcerated as eighteen to thirty-five.

The services were indeed raw, and cold.

There are a lot of cold rooms in prison. Many of them smell like my middle school football locker room.

I watched my would-be friend Curtis lead the men with a simple, slightly out-of-tune acoustic guitar. There were no lights or smoke, no in-ear monitors, loops, or backing tracks…

Just yearning.

The men responded as if his out-of-tune guitar was the direct arbiter of the presence of God, so I tried my best to join them in their yearning, though it proved difficult at the time. I didn’t need God nearly as much as they.

Though incarcerated, the men of Joseph Harp Community Church still tithed and offered their finances to a larger pool of money.

I use the term “money” loosely, because no money actually exists. It’s not like they can go to the local ATM and draw out cash at their leisure, or jump online and buy the latest Air Jordans with a few strokes of the keys.

No. Their “money” is just a series of numbers that follow them around on their books, exchanged occasionally but never touched.

It’s not so different from our own—just numbers we’ve agreed to let define us, to separate us, even decide who lives and who dies.

The absurdity of it all doesn’t take long to unearth.

We’ll often see it the moment we grab a shovel.

But the men had collectively pooled their numbers together and purchased some Kool-Aide and coffee from the canteen for the evening services that day.

The young man in the back, skinny, with dark-rimmed glasses and a smile, who looked to be around my age, asked me if I wanted a cup of black coffee or a sample of extra stout Kool-Aide. I watched him pour the sugar in and opted for the coffee. It was stale, but at least I’d be driving home with a stable amount of blood-sugar levels.

There was something about the way he carried himself, even in this place, that stuck with me, that honored me. Wherever he was, it wasn’t prison. I saw my reflection in him just as quickly as Elliott.

He was an eternal soul named David.

I hadn’t a clue he’d one day change my life.

I hadn’t a clue he’d become my best friend.

More on that later…