Along
with the everyday stressors of life in prison, the past 100 days have been made
all the more stressful due to the vitriolic rhetoric of our soon-to-be former
president as he continued to promulgate lies, send out dog whistles, and stir
up racial strife in an effort to retain power. I had to try very hard not to
internalize his hate mongering surfeit of malarkey. My heart soared and my eyes
wept with a much longed for lighthearted exuberance on 11/7 when Joe Biden was
declared president-elect. It bolstered my hope for change. I look forward to
this new administration keeping their promise to shutter all for-profit prisons
and encouraging nationwide reform.
Beyond
summer turning into autumn, All Saint’s Day ushered in the holiday season. My thoughts
now focus on family. However, I often feel like an unwitting unyielding zax on
the prairie of prax as the world passes me by. I just want to be remembered. I
feel, now more than ever, that I am being forgotten; left behind even. It’s
been 2796 days since I last saw my daughter. Who knows if I am even a picture
on an offerenda, included in a photo album, or appear on anyone’s timeline
anymore. Meanwhile, I search every virtual audience background on TV just
hoping to catch a glimpse of an image of my children, or anyone I know and love
on the large Zoom walls.
I have
had plenty of time to search Zoom audiences because we have spent almost half
of the past 100 days under Covid-quarantine lockdown, with little to do other
than watch television. I’m often “♬bored
in the cell, and I’m in the cell bored♬”.
I frequently wonder why the Lord gave me such good gifts and talents only to
set in a jail cell not being able to use them. More often than not I find
myself with the mindset of just living “tray-to-tray”. However, I also have had
a lot of time to watch some very good TV ministry teachings as well as spending
time in the Word finding encouragement and strength.
Strength
is often found in the struggle. Sometimes loss leads to gain. Flawed
circumstances don’t make you what you are; they reveal what you are. 4
The Word promises us beauty for ashes 5, but I think that we need to
look for beauty in the ashes, or better yet, to see the transcendent beauty of
the ash. The ash heap that I sometimes think my life has become has within it
the inherent ability to make my future more exciting and to give it greater
value than if these 3000-day old circumstances 6 had never happened.
An
ancient Japanese world view says that nothing lasts, nothing is finished,
nothing is perfect. It advocates for simplicity: encouraging that beauty comes
with age, when life and its impermanence are evidenced in its patina and wear.
This concept of flawed beauty helps me derive true contentment of heart in the
middle of lack and shortage while gaining a deep and profound understanding from
these desolate and loneliest of conditions. Quarantine has reinforced to me
that Jesus is the One who brings shining beauty from dark, imperfect, and ugly
aspects of my incarceration.
Beautiful
ashes. Beauty in the ashes. Beauty for the ashes. Healed wounds. Flawed beauty.
Polished scars. Kintsugi. I am convinced that, moving forward. The Lord intends
to use the gifts and talents that He built into me, combined with the
experiences of the past 3000 days, to create new opportunities to serve Him for
my good and His glory. Wabi-sabi thinking can change our perception of the
world to the extent that a chip or a crack in a vase,7 or a life,
makes that vase or life more interesting and gives it greater depth of
character.
Isaiah
encourages us, as servants of the Lord, that even though we may be bruised,
that we are still useful; to not be discouraged, and that there will be
justice.8 God also promises to harden our flawed beauty to
difficulties and to uphold us in His righteous right hand.9 He will
strengthen us in the ash. “The bruised reed He will not crush…and He will
release from captivity those who sit in darkness.”8 Weaponized false
allegations of abuse may have been used to bruise and break me 10,
but they have actually caused scars, patina, and wear that shows through as
beauty in the healed woundedness of my soul and will make my future more
interesting and give it greater value.
Footnotes
1. Year 8- 9/1/2020- “Pejoratives”
2. SCOTUS.gov case # 19-8476
3. 10/21/20 – 10/28/20
4. John Maxwell
5. Isaiah 61:3
6. 4044 days since the original lie told by Myrtha Mikel on 10/21/09 that began this saga
7. Day #1500- “Shards”
8. Isaiah 42:3
9. Isaiah 41:10
10. Isaiah 42:3,7
