Incarcerated Family Member
“We…covenant to promote and affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person.”
—Purposes and Principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association
Unitarian Universalists hold justice to be a particularly important aspect of right relationships among human beings. Among the Principles and Purposes that UU congregations covenant together to affirm and promote are “justice, equity and compassion in human relations,” and “the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.” And among the sources from which our living tradition draws, we lift up “words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love.”
But how can we temper justice with mercy?
For justice may judge, but mercy forgives. Justice may punish, but mercy heals. Justice may try to sever the connections that sustain and renew life, but mercy works to build and strengthen and reaffirm human worth and dignity and the connections that are, ultimately, our daily experience of the Sacred.
Personal Story
The knock on the door came early on a Sunday morning. My son was up and dressed, but still barefoot. “Can I have time to put on my shoes, sir?” he asked. I stood in the hallway, trembling with tears that would not fall, and watched the police lead him to the squad car, hands cuffed behind his back.
He did not want us to come to the court hearings, did not want us to hear the details of the charges, and his response. We honored his wishes – the only way we knew to grant him dignity.
Whatever the details, we knew he had done wrong. People had been hurt because of his actions. We had been hurt. Watching him walk away is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. And still something in me said that others had done wrong, too, and had lived to outgrow it, lived to make different choices – better choices. Now he would never have that chance.
I mourned him – his presence, the unfulfilled possibilities for his life, my dreams for him, his dreams for himself.
The next time we saw him, he was in prison. We could hear his voice through the telephone, see him through the glass. Sometimes, I would hold my palm up to the partition as though, hand to hand, we might make a deeper connection. And still, I mourned him.
And then, incredibly, a friend asked me to read over something she had written: notes and reflections on a summer spent working as a chaplain in a prison. Without thinking, I said yes. Without thinking, I began to read. And I read of prisoners writing their stories, writing poems, sharing hard-won wisdom with each other and the chaplain. I read of prisoners working, worshipping, learning, growing, growing up. I read between the lines that my son’s life was not over. There is life after prison, at least for some. But even more heartening to me, there is life in prison.
That’s what got me through the first three years. That – and not talking about it.
Now, nearly ten years later, he is in prison again. He served a two or three year term in state prison, and was released on parole. Five years later, he was re-incarcerated. He is scheduled to be released in four more years. His younger brother served about a year in state prison on entirely unrelated charges. He was released last year.
I rarely tell people these truths. When asked about my sons, I usually say that they are grown, and are living out of state. It’s true, but it is far from the whole truth.
For me, these truths, and the stories behind them, are shrouded in shame, in fear, in internalized blame: how, why could my children have grown up this way? What should I have done differently, and when, and how? What can I do now, to bring compassion, to bring healing, to my sons, to myself, to the rest of my family?
Sometimes it’s difficult to reconcile my deep faith in the inherent worth and dignity of all people with my feeling that my sons’ transgressions are somehow my fault. Ultimately, it is my own worthiness that I doubt. In the secret depths of my own heart and mind, I blame myself for not being a good enough mother. In my fear and confusion, I struggle to feel that I deserve to care for and care about myself. I struggle to find and hold appropriate boundaries with my sons, who still ask me for money (mostly), and who will play on my sense of guilt if they think that will make me say “yes.” I struggle to know how to affirm and support them emotionally, while maintaining my own self-respect.
On my best days, I fall back on two truths – one simple and practical, one more spiritual and complex.
First, the simple truth. When I am tempted to blame myself, I remember the words of a wise teacher, who told me: You are not that powerful!
In the complicated fabric that is my life and my sons’ lives, I am an integral part, I am an important part, but I do not have the power to shape them, to make them, or to break them. This they do for themselves. The shape of their lives reflects the choices they have made and the choices they are making, day by day. Influenced by my example and my teaching, certainly.
But when it comes to making choices in the world, I am responsible for my own life and they are responsible for theirs. Try as I might, I do not have the power to change their lives – not for better, and not for worse. I am not that powerful.
The other truth is that we are connected. My sons and I are inextricably bound in a network of memories and hopes and dreams. You and I and they and every person and thing that is, are woven into what Unitarian Universalists call “the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”
For me, divinity—God—is present and is felt and is known in these connections that are the energy of life and love. These connections are fragile, and can be severed by fear or violence, by ill-will or careless neglect. And these connections are strong, and resilient—strong enough to hold us in our times of weakness, of doubt, of need. These connections can be created, and re-created, in all the little ways we enter into relationship with ourselves, with one another, and with the Divine.
And so, on a good day, I know that writing a letter to my son is an act that strengthens connection between us, and affirms both his worth and dignity and mine.
On a good day, I know that saying “no” to a plea for money may be the most loving answer I can give, one that honors both my own needs and the possibility that he can stand firm on his own feet.
On a good day, I know that telling even a little bit of my story—of pain and shame and struggle and hope—strengthens connection between myself and you, and affirms both your worth and dignity and mine.
On a good day, I remember that we are connected.
When I remember that I am not that powerful and that we are connected, then I can be merciful with myself, with my sons, with the judgment that lives inside of me and all around me. And in mercy is forgiveness, is healing, is all that is holy.
A Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love,
Help me always to remember that I am held in a delicate and resilient web of connections that support and sustain me,
Help me to be strong enough to reach out, to sustain the connections that hold me, and to weave new ones, even through prison bars, even across fear and shame and self-doubt.
Help me to be gentle enough to know that I am only a part of the web; that I am not responsible for what others think or do.
Help me to temper justice with mercy, that I may live in forgiveness, in healing, in all that is holy.
May it be so.
A Spiritual Practice
Meditate, journal, or reflect on these two thoughts: I am not that powerful and we are connected.
How does each of these statements resonate with you? Do they feel, to you, like “truths”?
How do these statements balance or temper each other?
Where in these statements can you find affirmation of your own inherent worth and dignity?
Where and how do these statements reflect on the inherent worth and dignity of your loved one in jail or in prison, and on your connection with them?
“For what is it that is required of you, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly in the world?”
—Micah, adapted
- Incarcerated Family Member - November 11, 2011
You are right… you are not that powerful, but God thru you is. You can change people by bringing truth to them in the name of Jesus Christ. With His spirit living in you, you can do ALL things thru him who strengthens you.