Juice, Jam, Jelly

We can’t will our way to a less cruel world.

Tweeting, putting up a yard sign, even voting, these things are good, but they aren’t going to get us to where we need to be. The just, kind, healthy world we all desire can only arrive one way – through love. God’s love.

I was reading about Jericho the other day. I recounted the old Veggie Tales episode of Jericho, the cucumbers and tomatoes marching around the city, blowing their horns until the walls crumbled down.

My how that depiction was sugarcoated. When those walls came falling down the people inside Jericho were probably terrified and suffered mightily. I have no doubt that countless inhabitants were crushed to death and mangled in horrible ways, trapped for days and days underneath immovable rubble. Women and children suffered just as much as Jericho’s rulers and soldiers.

A few days later, I was reading an article about the Quran and the Prophet Mohammad’s exultations to his followers to conquer the infidels. The article was written from a Christian perspective and was criticizing Islam, a position I’ve heard espoused pretty consistently by church clergy.

Something didn’t sit right with me. That Old Testament God that commanded Joshua to besiege and destroy Jericho – was He asking anything different of his followers than Mohammad commanding his followers to destroy infidels? I was experiencing the beginnings of a faith crisis, I suppose. Was the God I served really different than the Allah I’d heard disparaged over and over again?

Later that day, I prepared a meal for HeartBound’s small group meeting at the Atlanta Transitional Center. On every third Thursday, I and a team of volunteers cook and serve dinner for ten residents and lead a lesson. We’ve taught a wide variety of topics – how to apply for Medicaid, how to open a bank account, where to invest your money – real world skills to help our students prepare for their release back into society.

I’ve known many of the men in our group for well over a year now. The small group setting and mealtime allow us to have more intimate conversations than what I’m accustomed to while teaching at other prisons. There is beauty in breaking bread – all sorts of doors have been opened because of these meals.

A month earlier, one of our regular students shared an exciting update – he was going to be released in less than 90 days. As one of our longest tenured students, I was so excited that he was going home.

But when I showed up that evening, he wore a sad face. At the start of each meal, we work through an activity I learned from a friend:  Juice, Jam, Jelly. Each man chooses to share

1. One thing that juiced them up, or

2. One thing that has them jammed up, or

3. One way that they jelled with someone unexpectedly in the last week.

It’s a fun little game we play to help break the ice and keep up with each other’s lives.

As we went around the table the expression on C.’s face remained unchanged. When it finally came time for him to share, he bowed his head low.

“I’m juiced up about this class. It’s the highlight of my month. Just getting to be with you guys.”

He paused, his voice quivering. The mood was tense. We all knew there was more to come.

“Last month they enrolled me in a course for people who are getting ready to be released. I thought that meant I’d been granted parole and was going home. But turns out they just needed to fill some spots in the class to meet a quota. I’m not going home after all.”

I was crushed for him. As my friend KK recently said, “Hope is a sewer rat,” a mangy, grungy, miserable-looking thing that lives in the shadows and barely seems to survive. Hope is a dangerous thing in prisons – without it, life can become, well, hopeless, but maintaining hope comes with a cost. That life of freedom C. had allowed himself to finally dream of, that life he was so close to obtaining, had been snatched away.

It’s a cycle I’ve seen play out countless times over the five years I’ve worked for HeartBound. I knew from many, many experiences before just how C. was feeling. The other men around the table did too. We all sat in silence.

I was mad at the Counselor who’d put him in the class just to fill a chair. I was mad at the Parole Board for a system that denies so many the second chance for which they are so desperate.

I looked around the table. Blacks, whites, and Hispanics, sitting at a dingy folding table eating homemade barbeque.

I thought back to that article I’d read. I started to share my findings with the men. About how God or Allah or whatever you believed in could be cruel. A thought came to me.

“You see, Old Testament God and Mohammad are more alike than we Christians like to admit. But there’s one fundamental difference, one difference that changes everything.”

The men stared at me quizzically.

Ronnie started to nod his head. He’s a Biblical scholar and pursuing a doctorate in Christian Studies. He knew.

I nodded towards him, “Care to share?” I asked.

“The cross.”

“The cross,” I repeated back. “The God I serve, the God I know, He is love. He sent His son to die so that we might have life. He does not forsake us. He does not ask us to fight our enemies – in fact, He asks the opposite – He commands us to love them. That’s a God I’m willing to serve. Not one that wants me to march around walls and wish death upon my enemies. A God of love.”

Later that evening, Craig thanked me for the dinner like he always does. I shook his hand and reminded him that he continued to be in my prayers.

Back to what I was saying. The people inside our prisons and jails and detention centers – they don’t have horns. Most of them aren’t evil. They’re people like you and me, people with hopes and dreams and families and fears.

The best thing that we can do for them is to love them. Whether it’s by serving a meal or donating our used books and clothes or simply praying for them.

We invite you to come alongside us. Join us for our next Tuesdays Together meeting at the Atlanta Transitional Center. To learn more details, just reply to this email and we’ll talk about ways you can help love our neighbors.

Love is how we build a better world. Won’t you join us?

Have a blessed day.