silence and its implications

a bench under a tree at the grad school I go to in Santa Barbara

What am I saying when I am silent?

when the insecure kid bullies

when the preacher condemns

when the congregation shuns

when some family rejects

 

What am I saying when I am silent?

when an adult rebukes

when neighbors deride

when a parent calls names

when the fight leaves a bruise

 

What am I saying when I am silent?

when the years have gone by

child wonders alone

when I don’t speak up?

justice and reparation

Justice is not just punishment and retribution.

The other side of the coin is reparation.

paragliders off Whidbey Island this summer

Having spent six weeks in prison as a nurse I’ve been especially attentive to articles and radio shows that talk about incarceration and punishment. I’ve thought a lot about the men I see and talk to who live their years behind metal bars. Thousands. I contemplate their sentences and their crimes. I’m called to the scene after they’ve been pepper-sprayed. A young man is brought in to me when he wants to kill himself. I call the doctor, and they lock him up in a supervised cell with a mattress on the floor, in a special restrained gown.

 I check the man pacing in the cell. Open your mouth. I want to see if you’ve swallowed the pill. Then diabetic line. The men say thank you and please.

80% of them are from 23 to 44 years old. I read about the war on drugs, and see how by the thousands we lock them up. Non-violent offenders we call them. Then they get in here and do harder drugs than they ever did on the outside. And get more violent. The United States incarcerates 2.7% of its population. The next highest nation jails 0.6% of theirs. We imprison more people, by far, than any other nation on earth.

I wonder about punishment. And what good it does. Who does it make feel better? What does it repair?

Our country is based on this religious ideal, that the wicked must be punished. So we jail our young men. And when they come out, they are no more equipped to live any better life. In fact they are angrier, more aggressive, less socially skilled or normalized, more frustrated, more apt to snap, or withdraw, or commit an even greater crime.

What about education? What about job training, anger management, emotional literacy, sex education, writing catharsis, financial instruction, social skills, and teaching to care for self?

What about reparation? – Working to give back a gift commensurate to the one you’ve taken, even if grossly inadequate. Does it not do a human good the opportunity to repay, in whatever way possible, the debt? This debt which he can never really repay, but perhaps make symbol and amends? Make a path for his redemption? Perhaps the family, individual, or neighborhood wronged could be the personal recipient of these efforts to repair. Money, art, books authored, songs, furniture built, buildings, personal reparations. Can the soul ever redeem itself?

Are we not all indebted in some never-repayable way, but which it does all parties good to at least try to give restitution? Is not some of our effort valid? Does not this effort change us in some way deeply for the better?

There are and were simpler tribal cultures, where the elders asked the offending member to do a work, allowing his psyche a path back into the mainstream.

I’m not talking blood restitution. That’s punishment. I’m not so sure I want to punish.

I want to make safe. For everyone. Some people DO belong in prison. That small percentage who, no matter what, will continue to kill, or hurt, without a second thought. No remorse. Yes, keep them apart to keep us safe. Not to punish. To keep us safe.

The others, non-violent, greater majority, let’s mend their souls. Address deficiencies directly. Not leave people in cells to rot. In gowns restrained. Yelling and crying. Mental, social, emotional issues must be addressed. Coping skills, mechanisms, patterns seen, taught, encouraged.

These our brothers, sons, neighbors, uncles, nephews, cousins, somebody’s child, our own selves. Somebody’s future husband. Somebody’s future dad. 

I hear about a Scandinavian country that is closing down the majority of its prisons. They’ve found that their education programs are so effective, that their recidivism rates are almost non-existent. Offenders are housed and rehabilitated in facilities resembling the communities and patterns to which they will soon return. Equipped with new skills.

All these thoughts pass through my mind when I hear a program on NPR (National Public Radio) saying:

 

Justice is not just punishment and retribution.

The other side of the coin is reparation.

mental illness

The term mental illness is one that I've long thought needs replaced. We say mentally ill and mentally disabled, which is still better than crazy or nutty, which society used to say a couple of decades ago. We're improving, but we're not there yet.

A mental condition, like schizophrenia, or bipolar, is one that most people are born with, or acquire in life. It is not something that they chose. It is something that happens to them, over which people only have some influence on how to handle and try to live.

in a forest near Seattle

Just a few years ago people were calling me and people like me sexually sick, perverted, wrong. For being gay. Heck, people still do. Over a way of being that I did not choose, that is just a part of me, a central part of me. It is not ugly, or shameful, or "fixable." Wouldn't it be nice if we just celebrated and helped each other live well?

So I don't like any human soul being called sick that is not mainstream. Implying shame over something over which they don't decide. We don't do that for people with cardiac problems, diabetes, stature variances, skin diversity (well, we're trying), cultural medley's, sexual identities, abilities, so let's stop doing that for people with mental uniquenesses of various types.

Let's make them a part of us. In a country saturated with nearly-weekly shootings, gun-violence by individuals who are unsatisfied or marginalized, let's prevent at least some of this by including people into the mainstream, helping everyone feel welcome and valued (even if a person has a head tick movement, or doesn't respond to nuance, or hears voices). Let's acknowledge that some of the terrorist exists inside each of us, not just outside of us in foreign territories. And knowing that, we can recognize our own part in marginalizing others and making people outcasts in their own homelands. Think: how does it feel to be on the other side of hearing these labels?

Next time you see a headline in the newspaper, or hear a conversation about them mentally ill, perhaps you can bring some non-violence to your little nook by speaking about all people with compassion, and maybe use other words more suited to what you believe. And when you see a beautiful person like this on the bus, in the grocery store, in your church, you can be a personal friend. Be someone that includes, prevents, protects, knows, understands, reaches out, blesses, calms, and celebrates.