Other People’s Children – shoutforjoy.us

Great Times and Great Opposition in Philadelphia Prisons

The Temptations

During my short tenure serving as a volunteer chaplain in Philadelphia prisons, I had increased the number of volunteers under my oversight from three to close to 500. We expanded services to both sides of the Women’s Detention Facility, which was severely under-served beforehand. We started GED and literacy tutoring for the Women for the first time. We started Project: Lydia providing toiletries and other personal items in a homemade cloth bag to every female inmate. We started GED and literacy tutoring in the House of Correction. When PICC opened, we immediately provided Sunday evening services and weekly Bible studies there, as well as tutoring. We brought the first rock concerts into the House of Correction. We brought The Temptations into PICC, without any outside publicity. They did it for the guys without any publicity for them. This was while I was starting Hispanic services at Graterford State Prison and leading two Bible studies a week there, and coordinating all of the protestant, evening services and Bible studies at Montgomery County Correctional Facility. I also organized training of all of the Liberty Ministries volunteers and reorganized the aftercare program for it to re-open in Schwenksville, after they closed the house in north Phila.

All of this activity attracted some attention. It also engendered jealousy. When I started serving in the prisons, I immediately made some changes to approach due to what I saw, and laid down some rules. The first thing I did was to eliminate the “invitation” in services to come forward and “get saved”. Inmates are in desperate need of friends. They will do just about anything just to have a friend. There was a fellow who had a “ministry” in Berks County prison who published a newsletter every month. In it, he published the number of souls he had saved.Most months that number was far more than the total number of inmates who had passed through the institution that month. Talk about jailhouse religion! I told our volunteers that the invitation and decisional salvation was a con. We were offering them a quid pro quo. That is not the gospel. The gospel is supposed to be about unconditional love. So we were not going to play a con. We were going to be their friends and sit down and talk with them and listen to them, etc., at the end of the service, without them having to play any games or make up a testimony.

The other thing that set us apart was that we allowed anyone to come to our services or studies regardless of their dress or orientation. People want to get out of their cells! If that means they come shoot the breeze with us, fine. Other chaplains started to look askance at us. Apparently they had not read those parts that talked about how Jesus was willing to associate with people of low degree or that on of his most famous disciples had been a hooker.

I didn’t help my case any in my Bible studies or messages. So many of the men had taken in so much of the hard-nosed, fundamentalist preaching, and were very judgmental. Many could quote Bible verses out of context to promote bigotry and all sorts of nonsense. One Friday morning in PICC, I decided to use their proof text hermeneutic and make it tie itself in a knot.

A favorite passage among those who condemn homosexual love is Romans 1, where Paul asserts that homosexuality is the very depths of depravity. I quoted that, then I quoted what Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 1:15: “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.” What Paul was saying was not only did he consider himself to be the worst of sinners, but that everyone should accept this saying for themselves and consider themselves to be the worst of sinners. Well, who did Paul consider to be the “worst of sinners”? We know very clearly from Romans 1, it was homosexuals. Paul was telling us that we needed to consider ourselves to be homosexuals as he considered himself to be. We were to look down on no one! This stands fundamentalism on its head and brings us firmly back to the gospel as Jesus preached it, which is summed up in the two most ignored words that he spoke: “Judge not.”

I told the men I’d gladly keep company with the Apostle Paul and, like him, declare myself to be the chief of sinners.

This was during the height of the AIDS epidemic. It hit Phila. hard. It was hitting the jails and prisons especially hard. The prison superintendents asked the Interfaith Chaplains Board for our input on whether or not they should distribute condoms in the prisons. This led to a heated debate. I was very disappointed. The only two who supported distribution were the Roman Catholic Chaplain, Frank Menei, and myself. Those opposed to distribution stated that all sex was prohibited in the prisons, so this would be a mixed message. Frank and I pointed out that we all knew it took place. Sometimes it took place with less than willing partners. At least, this may give them an opportunity for some protection. We also said that as people of faith and conscience, should not our first duty be to the preservation of life, not the enforcement of our morals? I went a step further and said, if there were a safe way to distribute and exchange needles, I would be in favor of that, too. This did not make me any friends with the evangelicals and fundamentalists.

While this was going on in Phila. prisons, we had another storm brewing in Montgomery County. It involved Chick Tracts, The Nation of Islam, and Liberty Ministries board member Glenn Alderfer.

Fred

Fred’s presence was always a little more than one could contain. One never knew quite what to expect, except that he would be high energy, assertive, and want to be involved.

Fred Benjamin lived on the streets for over twenty years. He landed there after his dad died and the pre-paid rent on the loft he had shared with him ran out. That was the story as I heard it from Fred. I learned at his funeral, it wasn’t as simple as that. Fred had a brief marriage and there was a son left behind along the way. Fred was proud of his son, when he finally mentioned him. He is a career military man, stationed overseas. I met him at Fred’s funeral. Man, was he pissed! He let his dad have it in the most honest eulogy of the day, speaking from a broken heart, like only true love can.

Fred volunteered with The King’s Jubilee regularly. He liked to take charge, a little bit too much at times. He had a different perspective than your average, suburban volunteer. After 20 years living in a box, a social worker approached him to help him move off the street. Part of the process was a psych eval. Fred asked her, “What? Do you think I’m crazy?” She replied, “You have been living in a box for 20 years. Do you think that’s normal?” Fred conceded, “OK. Point made.”

He was able to move off the street into an apartment. Fred had a temper and could be ornery, but he was loyal and with his charm and smile, one could not stay angry at him for very long, even if he got out of hand. He kept fights away from volunteers more than once or twice. One time, he pulled a knife in response to someone who attacked a woman. We rebuked him for going too far. He said he had to take care of things the way he knew how to. He stayed away for a few weeks , until things simmered down, then came back calmed down and resumed serving.

Fred and I led three tours of how the homeless live in center city Philadelphia, in 2010. This painting is based on a vidcap of Fred explaining how he lived in his box under the bridge by the police station. It takes a special set of skills and knowledge to live homeless. These people are not just “bums”. They are survivors!

After four years in his first apartment, they moved him to a different apartment. He had adopted a cat. His blood sugar had gotten very erratic and he had some episodes where it went dangerously high. The Wednesday before Fred died, I spoke with him on the phone to get together with him to go over nutrition and supplements to more naturally, better control his blood sugar. We were to get together the following Monday. His mother could not reach him on Saturday morning. She went to his apartment and had police and fire break in, when Fred did not respond. They determined time of death to be 7:08 am, July 18, 2015.

There was a meal after Fred’s funeral. Fred’s mom did not invite any of his homeless friends to attend. I asked her why not. She said she didn’t want her lady friends to be worrying about their purses. I said, “Do you realize Fred lived in a box for 20 years?”

I did not attend. I waited outside for my ride.

Scott

Scott was a good friend of mine in junior high. He was on the ski jump team. At Theodore Wirth Park, there was a huge, wooden ski jump. Next to it, was a smaller jump built into the hill. Scott would be there, training with his jumping skis. I would be skiing on the downhill slopes on the park board slopes on the Saturdays I couldn’t get away to Wisconsin, or after school. One Saturday, Scott found me and let me use his jumping skis on the smaller jump. What a thrill! He tried to coax me to go off the big, wooden jump. I knew I didn’t dare. The likelihood would be I would jump off the wrong side of it. Another Saturday morning, Scott finished with his jumping practice. He had forgotten to bring his downhill skis and didn’t have a ride home until later. He found me and persuaded me to share my skis. He let me use both my poles. He just used a single downhill ski. He taught me how to ski downhill on one ski! That was a useful skill. The rope tows were a little tricky. I would end up slowly wilting to one side and pull all of the other passengers on the line down with me into the snow.

Scott was a beautiful boy, and charming. He had a fort he had built behind his house. In the summer after 8th grade, guys and girls would hang out at his house. Couples would use his fort to make love. I was not aware of this until my girlfriend told me it was “our turn”. I declined. I was caught completely off guard. That ended my relationship with that redhead. That was OK. I am so glad I waited until marriage.

During junior high and into high school, Scott was one of those who called me on a few occasions contemplating suicide. My sister, Sue Ann, and I, it seems, were known as the suicide counselors for our junior high. How that came to be is anybody’s guess. All I know is that Scott and I spent time talking, listening, crying, laughing, renewing a reason to live.

We went to different high schools. The night in 1972 in our junior year when Scott killed himself, he did not call me. It still hurts. Scott was the fourth of my friends to commit suicide.

(You may purchase this painting on my art sale site: www.shoutforjoy.net )

Monochromatic Hero and Suicide

On Sunday, I painted my first monochromatic painting. It is an 11″ x 14″ acrylic on stretched canvas of André Trocmé in burnt umber. He is one of my heroes. That turned out so well, I followed it on Monday with an 11″ x 14″ painting of Bobby Glaeser in phthalocyanine blue. Bob was a classmate and neighbor of mine growing up. In early December 1974, a year and a half after we had graduated high school, he killed his parents, his younger sister Ann, and himself, with a 12 gauge shotgun.

André Trocmé was a Huguenot pastor in southern France. Before and during the Nazi occupation of France, he led his city and the neighboring city and surrounding countryside to give refuge to Jews fleeing Hitler’s genocidal death camps. It started with the boarding school his church ran. He did not believe in discrimination, so the school accepted Jewish students, who wore the school uniforms and lived lives indistinguishable from the Christian students. It grew into families sheltering families. He trained them on how to blend in and how to respond to the authorities. They set up an underground railroad to help families escape from France to safety in non-Nazi occupied countries. No one in their network betrayed a refugee into Nazi captivity. His nephew’s class was raided, where he was teaching a few dozen Jewish children. The Nazis seized the children to take them to a camp. Trocmé’s nephew insisted on going with them, as their teacher. He died in the concentration camp. It is estimated that they saved over 3500 lives.

I read Pastor Trocmé’s story over 30 years ago. It was also made into a movie. As always, the book was better. He had corresponded with Dietrich Bonhoeffer and with Gandhi. He was a pacifist and had a strong ethical belief in honesty, charity and non-discrimination. He never made excuses for having to lie to the authorities. He felt that it was still sin, but to tell the truth would make him complicit in the deaths of fellow human beings, which would be a greater sin. He had been taught a hard lesson by his strict father, when he was a lad. He learned that it was not only right to do good; “it was essential to do the good on time!” It was his position that Hitler’s rule, the rise of the Nazis, and World War II was totally preventable, if only people of good conscience in Germany had done the good on time. Once he and his cohorts were in power, it was too late to stop him without doing evil and causing death and destruction. This is an important lesson and one that America needs to heed today.

We have both major parties putting forward the most despised presidential candidates in our history. Both are bigots. One is a capricious fool; the other is a shrewd politician committed to endless war. One would incarcerate Muslims and Latinos here; the other would (and already has) kill Muslims, Latinos and others overseas. They have 30% acceptance rating between them from the electorate. Yet people are deciding their votes on fear of one or the other, instead of doing the right thing and rejecting both.

It is time to do the good on time.

Bobby was a good friend in grade school and junior high. His family lived two blocks away from mine in Golden Valley, Minnesota. We would bicycle together, sled and skate together in the winter, and sometimes camp out in our backyards together in the summer. He was a beautiful boy! He was handsome, with thick, dark hair, athletic and smart. All the girls loved him. Most of the boys wanted to be him. He did not appreciate all the attention. He was shy and became more withdrawn in his junior and senior year in high school; to the point of not allowing any pictures of himself to appear in the yearbook. This painting is based on his two pictures in the 1971 Robin. The pose is from the soccer team’s group shot, but his eyes were closed, so I looked at his yearly picture for details of his face.

The last time I saw Bobby was in the spring of 1974. I was visiting a few of my friends at the University of Minnesota’s main campus. At that time Pioneer Hall was for both men and women; every other room for each gender. I greeted Bobby as he darted stark naked from the showers to his room. I was shocked at this, not because of modesty, but his apparent lack of it. He had changed, and changed radically. Early December, 1974, we heard the news that Bobby had shot and killed his father, his mother and his sister, Ann, then himself, with a 12 gauge shotgun in the middle of the night in their Golden Valley home. A neighbor discovered their bodies four days after when North Memorial Hospital called her to check on his father, because he had not showed up for his on call assignment. He was a doctor.

Bobby’s case was written up in a feature article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He had suffered some sort of mental breakdown prior to this and had been in treatment. He left the treatment and had been alienated from his family. They reached out to him. He was home for dinner that night to discuss re-entering treatment as an inpatient. After they had all gone to bed, Bobby got his hunting gun and shot his parents and his younger sister while they lay in their beds. Then he shot himself.

The four of them had a joint memorial service at Valley of Peace Lutheran Church. Their were four, beautiful Christmas wreaths on stands in the front of the packed church. Pastor Stine gave this horrible message. He said, “Heaven is God’s gift to us at Christmastime. Bobby gave his family their Christmas gift early.”

I got up, then and there, and walked out of that church! What an ass! This was the same ignorant pastor who had kicked me out of confirmation class one month shy of completion for asking too many questions about heaven and hell, and how one gets to heaven, after my best friend, Steve Rainoff had died by falling through a skylight, chasing a soccer ball, in a locked school in New Jersey.

In the spring of 1975, the Mpls. paper had a feature article on Angel Dust. The authorities had just seen a rise in its use. The symptoms of its use and long-term effects sounded just like Bobby. I have always wondered if he could have been exposed to that, and that is what changed his personality so never know.

I painted his portrait in monochromatic phthalocyanine blue, from a happier time in his life. Bobby was a beautiful boy. He had all the advantages. That could have been me.

X

Many years ago, I wrote an article in The King’s Jubilee newsletter about the Autobiography of Malcolm X, in which I recommended that every white man in America should read it. I got some feedback on that! Of course, the negative feedback was all from people who were too narrow minded to read it. Several people said that “everyone should read it!” That missed my point. To overcome racism, it is important to gain understanding from other perspectives. Malcolm X became a hero of mine not because I agreed with everything he said or did, but because he had the courage to live a self-examined life in public. He was not so proud that he would not change his course when confronted with hard new truth.

I painted this with acrylics on 16″ x 20″ stretched canvas. It is available for sale at www.shoutforjoy.net

I actually published a book!

Finally I have compiled a number of “Other People’s Children” into a book that will move you and inspire you. I wrote and edited more chapters to meet the deadline as well. Nothing like impending open heart surgery and a good 40% off coupon to get things onto the front burner, eh?

Seriously:

This little book is an invitation to YOU to step into a new comfort zone with your sisters and brothers in this world. We are all frightened children trying to find the silk edge of the blanket at times. Let us be kind.

The plan is, that this is just the first of several little volumes. This book contains 16 original paintings by me, plus one ‘artistic photograph’, so it is a large undertaking. The book is 8″x10″ in full color so you can appreciate the art along with the stories.

Buy a hard copy. You will want to hold this in your hands. Then you will want to give more copies as gifts.

Nebraska

Oh, to be young again!

Or, in my case, for the first time. I spent most of my time as a child with adults, or at least older children. I would help my older sister with her homework. My brother took me to college when I was 13, got me drunk; and I still held my own in theological discussions with the divinity graduate students into the wee hours of the morning. I still remember the discussion nearly 50 years later! I was born old! This was not the case for Nebraska.

Even though Nebraska had had a pretty hard knock life so far, he remained childlike, cheerful, confident; just a downright happy guy and a joy to be around! We hosted Nebraska (yes, that is his real, first name) for a weekend in our home, while he was staying at Liberty House prison aftercare program in Schwenksville, PA, in 1986. I was Mennonite Chaplain and Volunteer Director with Liberty Ministries at the time and had helped reorganize the aftercare program there, after it had closed in Phila. Nebraska was one of the early residents. He was just 20, and had already been in prison. He had been raised in the foster care system. Who knows if he actually committed a crime? He was a dark skinned, black youth. He was irrepressibly cheerful. That is enough to get one locked up in any number of towns and neighborhoods in Pennsylvania.

We had a great time with Nebraska. The one memory that sticks out is our trip to Ikea. We all went to Ikea together, all seven of us: Bethann and I, our four daughters and Nebraska. Now Bethann and I were about 30. The girls were 9 and under. In the store, we got a little spread out, but we could see each other. One or another of the girls would exclaim, “Mommy, come see!” or “Daddy, come see!” when they saw something they liked. Then Nebraska exclaimed, “Mommy! Mommy! Come see!” loud enough for the whole floor to hear, and they all watched Bethann answer. We have been tickled by that scene every time we have recalled it, in the 30 years since!

We don’t know what happened to Nebraska after that weekend. I was so busy overseeing over 500 volunteers in eight different jails and prisons and starting several tutoring and other programs. We never saw him again in prison or in aftercare, or on the street, so I’m taking that as a good sign. But I don’t know.

This I do know. Nebraska was not a throwaway. He was not a ‘taker’. He was, and hopefully still is, a beautiful human being, and our brother someplace.

Kenny

Kenneth Cobbs challenged me and instructed me like few other persons in my life in such a brief time. I can count on one hand the people who have had this kind of impact in this short a time, and they all seem to totally, irretrievably disappear. At least Kenny left me with a couple books of his poetry, including one poem about me. It is not particularly complimentary toward me. I was alarmed when I read it. Kenny and I discussed it. He stuck to his guns and defended it. This was how he felt. It cut me to the quick. I was grateful for the critique and thanked him for his honesty. I asked his forgiveness, for that was not how I wanted to come off or how I intended our ministry to be perceived. At the time, I published it in The King’s Jubilee newsletter as a confessional, with an appeal to help please, let’s all do better.

Kenny had given me two booklets of his poetry that he had typed up. He managed to photocopy several copies and staple and fold them. He would sell them for $5 each to raise a little cash. I made some copies for him. I told him I would retype and reset the booklets in nicer fonts, with full color covers. I did this. He never showed up to retrieve them or the money for the copies that I sold for him. I never saw him again. I contacted the nuns who he said he was visiting that week. they had not heard from him. I left my phone number. I have searched for him every couple of years, since, to no avail. That was in 1998. I keep hoping that he chose to disappear and become a Buddhist monk somewhere. He was an intense person, wise beyond his years, yet I fear the world was too rough for him. He had been part of the MOVE family and had not recovered from the terrorism inflicted by the city, and the lies and machinations to frame Mumia Abu Jamal for killing a cop; after Mumia dared to report sympathetically about MOVE.

Kenny took me down a peg. I was glad for it. He did it with honesty, in the spirit of true brotherhood and love. I have gone back again and again to our conversations and his critiques to see how I measure up “according to the Kenny scale.” If he knew, he would laugh so loud!

I painted this from emotional memory. Kenny’s skin was darker. I have a hard time with painting dark skin tones and still getting feature definition. Sorry. My counselor and I talked about this painting today. This is the first time I have obscured a part of a face. I think this is because both of us were blocked in some major ways. He was dealing with PTSD from Mayor Goode’s bombing of West Phila. I was a recovering fundamentalist; had been abused by clergy, yet still playing the clergy game. Kenny’s right eyebrow is raised. This was done subconsciously on my part, but it makes perfect sense. Whenever I think of Kenny, I think of our conversations and his piercing, unflinching criticism. It is rare that I can find someone who can give as good as get. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” (Prov. 27:6) I measure my progress on stepping down from my “god complex” and getting over being a “white knight” on the “Kenny Scale”. This is the raised eyebrow and slightly more open right eye. (his right) The background color of orange and shirt as bright red were chosen because of the MOVE fire on Mother’s Day, 1985. My missing front tooth is from that night, as well. But that’s another story.

I think I’m doing pretty OK on the “white knight” problem. I’ve been invited to events by black friends. When I have shown up, I was the only white guy there. I overhear their friends ask, “You didn’t say he was white.” My friend says, “Oh, I forgot.” At one party, they replied, “You forgot?!” My friend said, “Yeah. Chill. Just get him a beer. Talk to him for a while. You’ll see he forgot, too.” I think Kenny would be just OK with me now.

You may purchase this painting from www.shoutforjoy.net

Robert and Joyce

I met Robert when he was an inmate in the Philadelphia House of Correction and I was Mennonite Chaplain. He was then transferred to the Phila. Industrial Correctional Center when it opened in 1986. He attended my Bible studies there. He asked me to bring some groceries, a Bible and a few other items to Joyce where she was living, Richard Allen Homes.

When the other inmates heard I was going there, they urged me not to go. They assured me it was far too dangerous for one such as me.

I went. I was shocked to find such deplorable conditions. Joyce was living on the couch in a tiny, bug & vermin infested apartment with an older woman who was dying of leukemia. Joyce was there illegally, but she exchanged care for the woman in lieu of rent of couch space. There was a waiting list to get into RAH. The entry hall had been firebombed and never cleaned up.

I dropped off the groceries. We had a short visit. As I was leaving, I saw that several cars in the parking lot had their windows smashed. Another car with its windows smashed out pulled in just then. The next thing I see is a group of tough guys sizing me up. I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt; nothing to indicate that I was a minister of any kind. This was the kind of trouble the men at PICC had been worried about. Then, all at once, they all focused just above my head. Then I heard one of them mutter to the others, “Don’t mess with him. He’s a missionary man.” The tallest of them then said, “Have a nice day.” I replied with the same and proceeded to my car, hoping to find it with windows intact. They were.

After Robert got out of jail, we had Joyce and him to our house for dinner. There were more grocery runs. Then word came that Joyce had died from AIDS and then word from the street a month later that Robert passed, as well. We knew them less than a year, but they left a mark on our hearts.

They were the first people we knew to die of AIDS. This was several years before World AIDS Day in 1991 and the red ribbon AIDS awareness campaign. I put a little anachronous AIDS ribbon earring in Joyce’s ear in the painting. Once again, these are not accurate likenesses, since we have no photographs, and it has been nearly 30 years. They are likenesses painted out of loving memory.

Ya Gotta Have Art!

“Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.” – Simone Weil

My art has become an obsession. I now have four paths for my art, and it consumes most of my waking hours. This is probably an improvement over thinking about the current election cycle, no?

The first path is decorative; the faux finish subway tiles, including the cartoon characters, etc. The second path is painting portraits to illustrate my book: “Other People’s Children”. These are portraits of people whom I have known whom society has labeled throwaways: the homeless, prisoners, etc. The third path is a challenge from my psychologist to explore the abstract. This is a tall order, as I believe in order to do abstract well, one must have a firm grasp on realism. You see my problem.

The fourth is meta in that it goes beyond all of these to challenge my own stated belief in the universal pro-life position. I need to paint a portrait of serial killer Gary Heidnik that is done with love and respect, recognizing that he was born with all of the same potential and hope that I was. I was once in his presence and could feel evil emanating from him before I turned to see who it was. Yet, immediately I was struck by the fact he was still alive. There was still hope for change, still potential for good. He was still a fellow human being. We should never go down the rabbit hole to attempt to understand why he did what he did, yet there are those two words of Jesus of Nazareth that keep calling me up short: “Condemn Not!”