Delighting in Life

I did not like Carmen when I first met him.

Something about him just rubbed me the wrong way. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but he just did.

Whenever he tried to join one of our existing programs at the Atlanta Transitional Center, I would politely tell him that he’d have to wait until we finished the current class and started another. My strategy worked – until it didn’t.

This fall, we launched a new program, Alpha, at the Center, open to every resident. Alpha is a six-week course designed to create a space for nonbelievers to learn more about Christianity. Not surprisingly, Carmen signed up. When we broke into small groups, I was relieved to see that he wasn’t in my group. Whew.

However, he was in Adrienne’s group. After several classes, without any prompting from me, she told me that she enjoyed having Carmen in her group, that he was insightful and respectful to all. These observations did not match the man I thought I knew.

As Alpha came to a close, one man, Aston, signed up to be baptized. We conducted the baptism right there in the basement of the Center, using a bowl I normally use for food because the Center’s pipes had burst and there was no running water. Following Aston’s baptism, another man stood up and asked if he could be baptized too. His name was Rocky, the same man that had asked for his small group to pray for me.

Afterwards, Carmen walked up to me. “Man, something about this program is real. I know that guy, Rocky, and since he started Alpha, he just isn’t the same guy. I used to stay away from him. But something real is happening in him. He’s not the same.”

I smiled politely and thanked Carmen for sharing. A few weeks later, Rocky approached me. “Man, you’ll never believe it. I got sober for that Alpha program and I talked to my daughter for the first time in 8 years yesterday. We were up all night talking. Something’s happening, something good.” I patted Rocky on the back, telling him how happy I was for him, how proud I was of the change I saw in him.

Shortly afterwards that same evening, another gentleman came up to me. “Yo Spence! Guess what! I finally got permission to have a cell phone and I reconnected with my grandson yesterday. We haven’t talked in 17 years. Look here!” He gingerly swiped through the photos of his grandson on his phone, unsure of how to work the phone. He’s been locked up for 30+ years now, the whole world has changed.

He continued to speak. “When I was at another prison, my daughter died. My grandson had to move in with my ex’s dad, his great-grandfather. He’s pretty old, in his late 70’s. When I got this phone, I reached out to my grandson. He didn’t want anything to do with me. He said he felt abandoned and alone. Can’t blame him, imagine being a kid, living with a great-grandad, and your family’s all dead or locked up like me. But the craziest thing happened, we kept talking over the next several days and last night he texted me and said, ‘I love you Pops.’”

Tears filled his eyes. My own did the same.

I’ve since become good friends with Carmen. At our family day at the Atlanta Transitional Center recently, he painted a small canvas with his fingerprints and wrote in Sharpie, “Me and fixing my life for the good.” I don’t quite know what exactly he meant with those words, but I know this to be true – God is on the move in that prison. Something good is happening. Families are being reunited, and men are giving their lives to Christ.

William Blakes writes, “Everything that lives is holy; life delights in life.”

May we all delight in life this week.

Have a great day.

Spencer