“Forgiveness is the scent of a flower on the sole of the shoe that crushed it.”
Forgiving those that take advantage of others in a broken and corrupt justice system or
the people that by commission or omission do us wrong can be challenging. To say “I forgive
you” and truly mean it in your heart of hearts can be one of the greatest obstacles to a life
well lived. Being at this camp has challenged my integrity, what I’m made of and who I want
to be. It is very easy to forgive your friends and those you love. But what about the people
that are ignorant and don’t give a flying flip about others that are now in their orbit?
The ones that are loud, rude and cause problems for everyone because the choose a different way to do their time.
Camp is a “social melting pot” comprised of people from all walks of life and backgrounds. There are Doctors, Lawyers and business owners as well as street level drug dealers and those dealt a bad card and born into a situation that is set up for failure. I surmise that life here, in many ways is better for some than on the outside and in all likelihood the reason several will return. When you are assigned to a particular dorm or wing as it is called, it is prison camp roulette.
When I first arrived I came in (by chance) with another guy from the Boston area and we became fast friends.
We were given a walk thru by another camper who’s job it is to show the new guys where everything is and how to get around. When it came to bunk assignments he looked at me and said “You got very luckily” and to the other guy “You not so much”. The wing I’m in is relatively quite at night and my new roommates were very easy to get along with. Contraband of any kind was not tolerated and that was perfectly fine with me. I have since moved to a different cubical in the same wing with people who have similar values and we hold each other accountable. Then the roulette wheel spun and a person,
while not a bad guy per se but has a history of questionable behavior came back from the SHU (the hole) and was assigned to my cubical. However, the roommate situation could be much worse and It is not a forever thing, its just a thing. The campus is small, has about 250 residents and people will generally “find their people” that they hang and associate with on a friendship level. It is challenging to look at people that do not carry themselves as those in my circle try to and that have a different value system without passing judgement on them. It is something that I am conscious of and work on everyday.
I think and plan about getting out of here for several hours daily. There are an overwhelming number of choices to earn a living and I will be fast tracking my plan when I return. There are better and greater things to do with my time than grinding to make money, so I will get that problem out of the way quickly to focus on things that matter. I have learned that I do not need as much as I thought I did before coming here. One thing for sure, I will continue to live the debt free life I enjoyed for the past several years. Overpaying for stuff and putting it on credit card or having a car loan on an asset that is losing value faster than you can pay it off is a suckers game and the basis for the American way of life, so the system wants you to believe. Last night was our weekly poet’s meeting which has become more of a support group and a place to express your feelings and the changes that happen to your soul and outlook on life. I’m very thankful for this group of guys and these meetings have become one of the highlights of my week. After last nights meeting one of my friends from that group came to my cubical and asked if I could post his poem on Prison Professors Talent. The irony is after he shared it in the meeting I was going to ask him If it was OK to share it here. That is the power of finding like minded people to encourage, challenge and build each other up. This is an original poem that he wrote entitled OH LORD and asked that it be shared anonymously:
Oh Lord
Your name is inscribed in vein on the dollar bill
Defeats your son’s message still
God of mammon you can not be
Even the blind man can see
Eye on Pharos Pyramid speaks
of pagan secrets and mead
Free Masons were thanked
In Wall Street they banked
Rolling the bill with cocaine and your name
High ready for Hell
In your name we trust the FDIC
In Privatized profits and socialized losses from sea to sea
Condemned to a mortgaged life
With rollout collection of credit cards
and a couch wife
From birth to six feet under
is this all I wonder?
Here at the monastery though
Like an obedient Monk
We learn to obey
Shut up in silent vow