How to Unite

“’Juice, jam, jelly.’ You guys know what time it is.”

We proceeded around the table. Before us were plates heaping with mac and cheese, pork tenderloin, and baked beans. A song by Wilco played in the background. We ate while we shared one by one.

Here’s how it works. On the third Tuesday of every month, HeartBound hosts a small-group meeting at the Atlanta Transitional Center in Midtown Atlanta. I cook dinner for the men and we all break bread together, play “juice, jam, jelly,” and I then teach a lesson on financial literacy. Past topics have included budgeting, investing, and enrolling in healthcare plans. Practical skills for men who have been locked up since before personal computers were a thing.

After blessing the food, the men choose:

-       One thing that juiced them up (excited them) this week.

-       One song or artist they’ve been jamming to lately.

-       One way they gelled with someone else recently.

Steve went first. He’d been jamming out to Motley Crue. The other men nodded along eagerly. Evidently there were several other Motley Crue fans amongst us.

Tate had gelled with someone who’d recently been transferred to the Transitional Center from another prison. They’d gotten along so well that he’d brought him as his guest to dinner. I welcomed the new arrival. Imagine that – a dinner guest inside a prison!

Luis was juiced up because he’d been accepted into a master’s program at Georgia State and was set to begin as soon as he was released in August. Again, imagine that – applying for a master’s degree from inside prison! As Chaplain John loves to say – Aslan is on the move.

It was Levi’s turn to share. “I got juiced up today when I heard Steve’s name called over the intercom. I knew immediately what that meant.”

I paused and cocked my head to the side, inviting Levi to share more.

“Steve doesn’t do anything that could ever get him in trouble. I knew that when they called him to the ‘Principal’s office’ it could only mean one thing.”

I turned to Steve. A big smile was plastered on his face. He stood up and gave me a big hug.

I knew what the hug meant. He’d been granted parole. He was going home. After 30-plus years of incarceration, of penitence, of prison meals and daily tribulations, he was going to be free.

I could think of few men more worthy. Every week, Steve hosts a men’s discipleship group for the guys at the Transitional Center. He even started a church inside the prison’s walls to spread the Good News of Christ. He didn’t know if he’d ever be released but just in case he was found worthy of freedom, he wanted the next generation to be able to carry on his spiritual legacy, to serve those he would have to leave behind.

Here’s what is even more remarkable about that moment. Many of these men weren’t going home anytime soon. They weren’t up for parole or they still had years and years left on their sentence. Yet, they weren’t jealous of Steve. There was no animosity, just genuine joy for their brother, true excitement for his pending release. Though they would continue to suffer while Steve walked free, they harbored no hard feelings, no visible display of “I wish it was me instead of him.” These men genuinely reveled in Steve’s joy.

One can only imagine how difficult it must be to watch someone else walk free while you remain incarcerated. I know my first thought would probably be, “When will that be me?” rather than, “Good for him!”

My mind flashed back to a sermon I’d heard Steve preach years ago. He spoke of his own trial decades earlier, recalling what it was like to stand before the judge with his ankles and wrists shackled and a shock vest strapped to his chest beneath his county jail uniform. He described the horror of that moment - the realization of what his life had become as he waited to hear the judge’s sentence after being found guilty. He spoke of the shame he felt standing before his family, as well as before those who hated him for what he had done.

The men nodded along; they’d all been in his shoes. They’d all been found guilty. Steve asked them to close their eyes and remember that moment.

“Now, imagine as you stand there, bound and shackled, if someone in the court room stood up and said ‘Your Honor, stop right there. I’ll take that men’s sentence. Let him go free. Cuff me, haul me off to prison.’ You see men, that’s what Jesus did for us.”

A question was posed to me the other day – should prisons exist? Undoubtedly, yes. There must be justice. We must be held accountable for our actions.

But I believe in second changes. In our capacity for change. In reconciliation. My sins are washed free after all. Freedom has been proclaimed to the captives. The story doesn’t end. Sin doesn’t have the last word. There is hope.

Steve’s story is beginning anew. Gathered around the table, all of us smiling, celebrating the start of a new life for Steve, the energy was palpable.

Looking in that room, you wouldn’t see a 29-year-old, two volunteers (shout-out Richard and Leonard!) and a bunch of prisoners. You’d see a bunch of men doing life together. You’d see a group of men who just want the best for each other, who want to be given an honest chance, who want to make things right.

The most common question I’m asked when people learn about my work is what kind of crimes did the people you work with commit? And my answer is always the same – I don’t have a clue. To paraphrase Bryan Stevenson, I don’t want to be judged by the worst thing I’ve ever done, so why would I want to judge someone else for the worst thing they’ve ever done? We’re more than that. We’re human beings, with hopes and dreams and songs. Some of us even like Motley Crue.

The material world seems to have an endless appetite for division. Republican and Democrat. Rich and poor. Black and white. We sort one another into categories, often without ever taking the time to know the person standing on the other side.

Oddly enough, prison has taught me something entirely different: how to unite.

Brother to brother. Sister to sister. Free to incarcerated. Incarcerated to free. We all carry wounds. We all long to be loved. We all want to be seen, valued, and forgiven. We all have fallen short, and we all have the capacity to allow God to make something beautiful from what remains.

Steve approached me at the end of our program that night.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere. As soon as I get out, I’m coming right back. But this time, to serve.”

I shook his hand. I know that’s a promise he will keep.