Learning from the Unexpected

Almost three years ago I received a phone call from Omar Howard at the Atlanta Transitional Center (ATC).

One thing I love about Omar is that he cuts straight to the point and doesn’t spend extraneous time dallying on the phone. He asked me plainly, “You know anything about bees? I got a bee guy here.”

I paused; it was a strange question. I had a job in college where I helped maintain seven beehives so sure, I knew a thing or two about bees. “Yeah,” I replied, “Put him on.”

The voice on the other end of the line was a little shaky, nervous perhaps. He introduced himself quietly, his name was Leonard and he’d completed a beekeeping program at Rogers State Prison some years ago. He was wondering if HeartBound could help him start a beekeeping program at his new facility, the Atlanta Transitional Center.

“Sure, why not?”, I said. We ordered a couple hives and a GA state trooper supplied us with our first few queens. Every week I would go visit Leonard and the bees, often spending idle time outside the hives just sitting and talking about life. We never discussed God or religion. Over time, we grew to be friends.

Gradually, HeartBound introduced more and more programs to the Center. Gardening, drama, painting, all taught by Christians, but the programs weren’t explicitly Christian at their core.

A year and some change after I met Leonard, I attended the Alpha program at Trinity Anglican Church. I’ll spare you the full details, but the program allowed me the opportunity to reconnect with Jesus Christ and my faith. As soon as I completed Alpha, I contacted the staff at Trinity and begged them to bring Alpha to prison. I kept pestering them and finally persuaded Adrienne Christian to accompany me to a financial literacy class at the Center. She helped me serve dinner to the students and then sat and met each of them. Afterwards, we discussed the logistical challenges of an Alpha program and I remember her saying, “I think we can do this.”

Adrienne and I kept meeting and planning an Alpha program for the Center. We settled on a start date of Fall 2024. We decided to host a seven-week program with an interest meeting at the Center to explain the program and kick things off. I told my gardening students about the program and few were interested considering they were already Christians. Two students in particular were largely silent – Leonard and Jeff. Jeff’s a fervent Muslim and I never have quite known what – if anything – Leonard was. Sure enough, come time for our Alpha interest meeting, both were sitting in the audience, looking at us skeptically. Afterwards I flipped through the sign-up sheets of those who had decided to participate. I saw Jeff’s name pretty quickly, but didn’t see Leonard’s. I was saddened. As I prepared to leave the Center, Leonard approached me and quietly handed me his sign-up form. I thanked him politely and told him I looked forward to seeing him in class. He nodded politely in return.

We’ve now had two Alpha classes at the time of this writing. Leonard and Jeff haven’t missed a class. Leonard barely spoke during our first class and Jeff is slowly opening up, asking more inquisitive questions about Jesus and “this Christianity thing.” I’m incredibly proud of the courage they’ve shown to keep showing up and their willingness to be vulnerable. I know God is stirring their spirits, whether they know it or not.

Last Friday I got to do something remarkable. Leonard, Joe (another beekeeping instructor who assists with the program), their supervisor and I attended the 2024 Georgia Beekeepers Association annual conference. We listened to presentations, visited with vendors, and even got to see the back room where the judges were examining honey for a contest. We were walked through the entire judging process and greedily stared at cookies and pies baked with honey. The man who showed us around the conference room was nervous. As we prepared to leave and said our goodbyes, he stuttered and looked down to the floor. “You know, I did two years in the Pen, and during those two years I developed a passion for beekeeping. We’re not all bad and we’re all capable of change. Keep up the good work men, I’m proud of you.”

I thanked him for sharing and we walked into the bright sun. I offered to take everyone to lunch and chose a fancier restaurant with white tablecloths and steaks. I was the first to the restaurant and felt out of place in the austere setting. Leonard and the other two men walked in wearing blue jeans and t-shirts. I prayed we wouldn’t be asked to leave. The wait staff was kind and welcoming and brought out plate after plate of food - crab cakes, fried green tomatoes, salads, Mahi Mahi, salmon. We ate to our heart’s content. Afterwards, we walked to a local ice cream shop where the guys ordered big milkshakes. Their supervisor sat patiently outside enjoying his ice cream. He didn’t carry a gun or taser or handcuffs. He wasn’t wearing a GDC uniform and the guys weren’t in prison uniforms. For a shining moment in time, life was normal. There was no distinction between “free person” and “inmate.” There was no razor wire or guard tower. We were just four friends, hanging out on a warm summer’s day, eating ice cream, laughing and joking like schoolkids.

I walked the group back to their car to say goodbye. My belly ached with fullness. The sun shone down on us. Birds danced through the swaying trees. Light fluttered through the shadows.

Every few months working for HeartBound, I get a small glimpse of Heaven. And friends, let me be the one to tell you it’s a beautiful place full of bees and ice cream and crab cakes.

There’s always been a little fear in me of dying, but I don’t think I’m so afraid of it anymore. I’ll meet you all up there. You’ll meet Leonard and Joe and all our other friends from prison who have been impacted by your kindness. I pray you’ll meet Jeff, the former Muslim, too.

In War and Peace, Tolstoy writes, “While imprisoned in the shed Pierre had learned, not with his intellect but with his whole being, by life itself, that man is created for happiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from superfluity. And now during those last three weeks of the march he had learned still another new, consolatory truth - that there is nothing in the world that is terrible. He had learned that, as there is no condition in which man can be happy and entirely free, so there is no condition in which he needs to be unhappy and not free. He learned that suffering and freedom have their limits and that those limits are very near together; that the person in a bed of roses with one crumpled petal suffered as keenly as he now, sleeping on the bare damp earth with one side growing chilled while the other was warming; and that when he had put on tight dancing shoes he had suffered just as he did not when he walked with bare feet that were covered with sores.”

May you walk in freedom, friends.

Have a blessed week.

Spencer