“For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” – Ephesians 2:10
It was a perfect summer day, a day for swimming. I was young, probably six or so. My mom had brought us to the home of a family friend to spend the afternoon in their beautiful inground pool. It was surrounded by a concrete patio area where the mothers sat at tables, chatting away, while my sister and I and a small pod of kids played games in the pool.
The mothers were supposed to be keeping an eye on the toddler who was too young to go in the pool, but they were distracted by their conversations. The little girl toddled away from the moms’ tables to the edge of the pool and leaned over to touch the water. Her center of gravity was not designed for such a lean and she plopped into the water with hardly a splash and sank to the bottom like a stone.
I was the only person in or out of the pool who saw it. I was in the middle of the pool, so I swam over, dove under the water, picked up the child, and put her back on her feet. It took only a few seconds. The little girl was only wearing a diaper, which was now soaked with pool water. She spluttered, then headed for her mother with her arms out, dripping water and crying.
As I went back to swimming, the mom tables erupted in shrieks! What happened? Did she fall in? Oh my gosh! That kind of stuff as the moms tried to decipher what had produced the dripping, crying child. I shouted to them that it was okay. She fell in. I picked her up out of the water. No big deal. But let’s just say the mom crowd was much more attentive to their children after that.
But what if I had not been there to see the child plunge to the bottom? Or what if I had also been distracted playing games with the other kids? Reflecting on it now, it was as though I’d been placed in that particular moment to do something that God wanted me to do. I was given a specific task to accomplish in God’s grand plan for his creation, or as the Apostle Paul put it, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
Think what this means for our lives! God has structured his creation in such a way that we are integral to his accomplishment of good works in the world. And with those opportunities for good works comes great responsibility. Remember, we humans are flawed. We are not perfect. And even though we have been created in Jesus Christ, we can be stubborn and foolish, resisting these divine moments where God asks us to step up and do the right thing.
Back to the toddler on the bottom of the pool. Imagine that I had seen her fall in, but I was having too much fun in my water games to turn aside and rescue her. That’s our human self-centeredness. Or worse, imagine if I had seen the girl tumble into the water and simply didn’t care. That’s our human apathy. Or imagine if I simply figured that somebody else would come to the aid of the toddler and did not feel a need to get involved. That’s our human tendency to shirk responsibility.
Most of us may never be in a position to save someone from drowning. But what about those other everyday good works that God has prepared for us? How many times have we seen a need, an opportunity to do good, and rejected it? Dismissed it as inconsequential in the grand scheme of the universe? Even simple situations where we shirk our good work responsibilities can have life-changing ramifications. Here’s an example.
In here, each cell block of about 120 inmates has a counselor who is tasked to track our progress, make sure that we are taking our prescribed programs, and ready us to see the Parole Board. Our cell block’s counselor was terrified of us. She was near retirement age and was so thin that you could see her facial bones clearly. With long black hair flipped back over her head like the grim reaper’s hood, she was labeled “Skeletor” by the inmates.
And when I say that Skelly was terrified of us, I’m not exaggerating. She never came out of her office unless she had to. She only moved throughout the institution when the walkways were free of inmates. And if she happened to be on the walks when inmates went by, she would move to the closest building and stand motionless, like a frightened rabbit freezes when it’s scared. There’s a word for this that the rabbits used in the novel “Watership Down.” The rabbits called it going “tharn,” which the author describes as “that state of staring, glazed paralysis that comes over terrified rabbits, so that they sit and watch their enemies approach to take their lives.” Skelly went “tharn” in the presence of inmates she had been hired to counsel and shepherd through their time in prison.
She was apparently equally afraid of computers, unable to make the leap that the rest of the DOC had into the age of electronic records management and reporting. But she wasn’t afraid of paper. She loved paper, and her office was filled with piles and piles of the stuff, as though she were building a paper wall to separate her further from the inmates. She also loved Post-It notes. It looked like someone had pranked her by covering every available surface of her office with yellow squares, accented with the occasional orange or blue.
When you met with Skelly, she would shuffle through the stacks of documents, searching for the files that told her about you. My first encounter with Skelly was when she and the PSS (psychological support staff – or “psych lady” for short) were holding my review prior to my annual meeting with the PRT (psychological resource team). Because I take a pill for anxiety I have to meet with the PRT every year. I had been supposed to meet with Skelly for my annual review (a general review of your progress as an inmate), but we were eight months past my my annual review, and she had never called me to her office.
So at this Pre-PRT meeting the psych lady asked if I had any questions. I said that I had a question for my counselor. “When am I going to have my annual review?”
“On your DOC anniversary date,” Skelly told me.
I told her that was eight months ago.
“Then that’s when I did your annual review.”
“Without me present?” I asked.
“No,” Skelly said. I met with you then.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s wrong. You haven’t even spoken to me in the year plus that I’ve been on the block.”
She gave a loud sigh, and said, “I most certainly did meet with you.”
What I didn’t realize until later was that the rest of the staff were on to Skelly’s incompetence. The psych lady leaned towards Skelly and said slyly, “Well then, his annual review should be in his file.”
As the psych lady started to leaf through papers, Skelly grabbed the folder and said, “I’ll find it.”
It wasn’t there. Skelly had never performed my annual review. So she proceeded to give me the two-minute condensed review while the psych lady rolled her eyes and smiled behind her hand.
Four months later I was called to Skelly’s office for the regularly scheduled annual review. She did not greet me or even acknowledge my presence. I took a seat in the empty chair so that we sat on opposite sides of her desk with a large computer monitor and stacks of paper between us. I could not see her. So I shifted my chair to the right to be able to make eye contact. She adjusted her own position to her right so the monitor remained between us. Every time I moved to be able to see her, she hid behind the computer screen. She asked me a few required questions and then told me to send the next person in.
This was the person whose job it was to guide me through the system. She would be voting on me to determine whether or not to recommend me to the Parole Board when that time came. And she couldn’t even look me in the eyes. It was the same for everybody. She hid from us and filled out papers. And if you asked her a question, chances were that she didn’t know the answer. Or else she knew the answer and just didn’t want to do any additional work that might result from that answer. Imagine if someone needed serious assistance from her in her role as counselor? I don’t have to imagine, because I saw it play out in real life.
Enter D- Morgan, my friend. I mentioned him in another blog as “M-” (for Morgan) where I wrote about the way he took great care of an older, wheelchair bound inmate, “Mr. H-.” Morgan was in his early forties, a quiet, small-framed guy who stayed away from trouble. He had a history of drug problems, and had successfully completed the TC (therapeutic community) program while in prison. He had also taken the HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) vocational training course and received his certifications. In fact, he had done so well in the class that the HVAC instructor hired him to be the class tutor.
Morgan was getting close to his minimum date and had been granted parole. And as part of the parole process, he had to develop a home plan; that is, find a suitable place to live upon release. It’s not easy. Many inmates do not have the support of family to fall back on. Or if they do have a family that’s willing to take them in, sometimes there is more than one ex-offender in a family unit, and there are rules against residing with graduates of the prison system. If there’s no family option, then inmates look for a house or apartment, a financial impossibility for most inmates who leave prison with the clothes on their back and an empty wallet. If you do have some savings, many landlords will turn you down because you have a criminal record.
As a result of lack of housing options, many inmates are sent to halfway houses. The state-run halfway houses are called CCCs (Community Correction Centers). These are transitional facilities for inmates who live in a spartan, rule-based housing setting as they look for work and other housing. There are two main problems with halfway houses. First, you’re around other recently released inmates who may have established less than wholesome plans for their future, which usually include getting high, connecting with their old bad influences, getting high, thinking up new ways to get in trouble so they can hurry back to prison, and getting high.
The pull of drugs and alcohol is omnipresent for inmates reentering society, even in CCC facilities that are offering drug and alcohol treatment programs. And this creates the second problem: the drug dealers know where the customers are. Since most halfway houses are located in socioeconomically struggling areas, drugs are readily available. And as inmates head out to search for a job, the dealers are there to give them what they want. Not a new start in a life free of addiction and criminal behavior, but a taste of their former existence that is curled and waiting like a boa constrictor, ready to wrap them up and crush the life out of them.
Morgan had a history of drug and alcohol addiction, and he knew what would happen if he went to a halfway house. He also had a history of mental illness, which amplifies the challenges of staying clean and sober. In here they call it “double trouble in recovery.” So he was looking for alternatives to his regional CCC. Through his own initiative, resourcefulness, and letter writing, Morgan was able to locate an apartment tower in his home city that provided subsidized housing for seniors and those with disabilities. His history of mental health issues meant that he could qualify for an apartment. The tower was in a better neighborhood, and he would be away from many of the risks to his successful reintegration into the real world.
He went to Skeletor with the information. He needed her, as an agent of the institution, to complete a resident application and submit it to the housing facility since, as you might expect, the housing facility was skeptical of any information that an incarcerated felon might submit on his own.
Skelly scribbled something down, and Morgan’s request disappeared into her piles of papers and Post-It notes. Days went by, and Morgan had no response. He wrote her request slips. No response. Finally he stopped her on the block and point-blanked her. She went full “tharn” on him, and managed to whisper a nervous “I’m working on it” before scurrying past him.
By chance Morgan had a family-friend connection to one of the prison’s administrators. And he had this family friend contact the administrator, explain the situation, and ask what could be done. Within days, Morgan was called up to the front offices (this never happens, unless the Feds are there to interview you), and the administrator introduced Morgan to one of the administrative assistants, who was told by the administrator to take care of Morgan and handle his housing application process. Morgan was so thankful and appreciative that you could see the relief in his face, in his whole being.
The administrative assistant gathered his information, contacted the housing authority, and got the process moving. But a few weeks later, the helpful assistant, who was pregnant, had to take an unexpected and extended medical leave. It was just weeks until Morgan’s parole date, and the housing application process was not complete.
And so the process was back in Skelly’s feckless hands. Morgan stopped by one day to check her progress on the housing application. And from behind the piles of paper and computer screen, she said, “I’m just going to send you to a CCC.”
Morgan pleaded with her to help him apply to the senior towers. Skelly’s response? “You can have the CCC staff take care of your application when you get there.”
When I shook Morgan’s hand on a July morning to say goodbye, he was nervous. He was paroling into a world of risk, and he knew it. What Skelly had not seen, but what Morgan knew, was that he was in danger. He was like that toddler who had tumbled into the pool and was sitting on the bottom wondering why somebody had not come to his rescue. Wondering why Skelly had failed to do one simple good work that would have changed his life.
Morgan died three months later of a drug overdose. Everything that he had feared came true, and his three months of parole into a toxic setting ended his life.
Garrison Keillor of “Prairie Home Companion” fame once said something like this: “There’s not a lot of good that you have to do in this world, but the good you have to do, you have to do.” God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. What good works has God prepared for you? Do them. Do good works. You can change someone’s life as you join God in achieving his divine plan for the life of the world, and you may even save a life.