Singing Beyonce

“To the left, to the left, everything you own in a box to the left.”

I couldn’t hold back any longer. I started laughing, doing my best not to interrupt the scene unfurling before me. 

There we were, in the depths of a prison, men and women, free and incarcerated, black, white, Hispanic, and everything in between, singing Beyoncé together.

What a surreal scene.

Ashley sang, “You must not know ‘bout me, you must not know ‘bout me.” Will, an incarcerated man in his 40s, danced and sang alongside Ashley. Peter, Ashley’s husband, played the guitar. The crowd of 70-plus men and volunteers grooved along.

Again, what a surreal scene.

The world hasn’t felt like a hopeful place lately. Between war, AI-anxiety, swelling prices, and the ever-toxic political rhetoric, things just aren’t what we all want them to be.

So much noise, so much clutter, so much to do, so many places to be, so much…everything.

But there, in that moment, in that prison, none of the outside noise mattered.

We had gathered that evening to have fun. To be joyful. To bring some goodness and light to a very dark place.

I’ve been reading a collection of Plato’s writings recently. One that stood out to me was his “Allegory of the Cave.”

In case you aren’t familiar, a group of prisoners is locked in a cave from birth. They are chained in place and forced to sit and stare at a wall all day long. Behind them is a curtain. On the other side of the curtain there is a fire. The people on the free side of the cave walk around and go about their cave lives, all the while unknowingly casting shadows onto the wall. The prisoners believe that the shadows are real because the shadows are all that they have ever seen. They think the shadows can talk.

But one day, a prisoner escapes. He sees the people on the other side of the curtain. He sees their fire. He runs out of the cave and into the world outside and realizes the shadows weren’t real. Outside the cave there is beauty and goodness.

He does something noble. He returns to the cave to tell his former comrades, to share his findings.

Except they don’t believe him. They can’t imagine a world like the one he describes.

This story resonated with me so deeply because many of the men, women, and kids have spent their whole lives inside a cave.

The walls of the cave are built by generational poverty, lack of educational opportunity, and violence. They’re built by discrimination. They’re built by parental absence and drugs. They’re built by generational cycles of crime, addiction, and incarceration.

Many of those in prison don’t know that there is a world full of goodness and hope and love. Their lives have been one tragedy after another. We know this because we take the time to hear their stories. We meet their families. We help them when they are released from prison. We see their neighborhoods.

They’re living in trailers. They walk or bike to work. They leave prison with whatever clothes they came in with and a pre-loaded $25 debit card from the State of Georgia. Life in prison too often becomes normal to them because it’s all they’ve ever known. Mistreatment, abuse, and misfortune are just normal parts of life.

I recently heard the Atlanta Police Chief speak at an event for at-risk youth. He said that the three best crime preventers are 1. education, 2. economic opportunity, and 3. a stable home.

For the men, women and kids we work with, the crime has already been committed. All we can do is try and prevent future crime – not only future crimes committed by our students, but in their families.

We offer vocational, educational,  therapeutic, and other programming for the prison community – incarcerated people, correctional staff, and their kids. We provide free trauma counseling. We fully fund an accredited college degree program for incarcerated women. We reunite incarcerated parents and their children through programs like Returning Hearts and Malachi Dads and Little Readers.

Each year, 150-plus volunteers provide thousands of hours of programming to men, women, and kids in prison. 

And it makes a difference.

I recently met a former student for lunch. We ate together, then created a budget and organized his finances. I tweaked his resume and helped him find three new jobs to apply for. Afterwards, we sat on a sidewalk outside an ice cream shop, enjoying the sunshine. We both joked about our lactose intolerance and the discomfort that was to come.  

Later that afternoon, I dropped him off at his apartment. The apartment walls were cinder block, the same material that his cell was made of. There was no artwork or decor. Dishes were piled in the sink.

He called out to me as I began to drive off.

“And just think, Spence, I only came to your class ‘cause someone told me you had free food. Look at us now. We ate ice cream together.”

We ate ice cream together.

And sometimes we sing Beyonce.

God is helping us guide people out of the cave.

Thanks for coming along with us as we show people the way out of darkness into God’s glorious light.

Spencer