***GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING***
I met a man in another of our state prisons yesterday, a man who once was a boy, like every man.
As a small boy, this guy’s dad beat and raped him repeatedly for years. He came up to me after our L>h program. He was big, lots of facial hair, 40’s, weathered hardened face, scary looking guy. There were tears in his eyes. I could barely hear him.
He whispered, “Thank you for coming.”
Me: “Thank YOU for coming.”
The People In Our Care (inmates) at this prison didn’t have to come to “A Message from Jessie” and “The Forgiveness Class.” They chose to, they signed up for it.
Him, quietly: “I have so much respect for you, for how you handled your daughter’s killing.”
Me: “Thank you.”
Him: “I wish I could do that.”
Me: “You don’t think you can?”
Him: “I’ve tried everything, all the programs, ‘Thinking for Change’, ‘Anger Management’, ‘The 12 Steps’, therapy, nothing worked. Do you really think this could work for me?” I saw the hopelessness in his wet red eyes and drawn face.
Him: “I have so much anger and pain. My dad and his friend used to abuse me, beat me, sexually assault me. Once, they dismembered someone in front of me. I was just a kid.”
Long pause as we just looked at each other. Not much you can say when someone trusts you with something like that. I tried to just be present with him and let it in.
Him: “Now I’ve hurt people. I can’t forgive myself.”
Me: “Yes.”
Him: “What?”
Me: “Yes. Yes, I think forgiveness can work for you. It works for anyone, and anything. Yes.”
“It will be hard. It will be a process. I don’t know when it will work for you, after the program today, after Lesson #1 in June, after Lesson #10 in September, next year, in twenty years, I don’t know. But I know this, if you follow the process, the map and tools we give you, if you try, if you do the homework, and if you don’t quit, this lifelong practice of forgiveness will work for you, it will change you, from the inside out, it will change your heart and change the way you think and see things, it will set you on a healing journey you can’t see right now. It will set you free.”
So begins The Forgiveness Class at one of our new state prisons this year. About 100 guys and four Facilitators in six correctional institutions will take a journey together to release anger, resentments, and pain, so that healing and peace can show up.
END interpersonal violence. Promote Forgiveness. Presence Love.
