Tuesdays with Paschal

Becoming a Spiritual Warrior in a Fierce Landscape
Tuesdays is my morning with my inmate pod (residential unit) at the county jail.
We are now in our 23rd month of a new program that teaches inmates to welcome jail as the "boot camp" they desperately need to face and change their lives. We have a lesson almost daily by a volunteer who gives one hour per week to this ministry, all recruited by me, and all diverse in their approach to the journey into this Mystery we call God.

This program is a real spur to my own spiritual life, helping me become more reflective, more energized, and more inclusive in my loving. Other volunteers report the same effect. We are the gainers. We are always needing volunteers, even those who cannot come weekly.

This is no softhearted, soft handed approach. We do not coddle, console or counsel them, but give them a program of behavioral change to radically change their entire life style, by everything they do. We respect all the Wisdom traditions, although most profess a Christian faith.

We listen to no gripes and are not interested in anyone's criminal history. We accept each as a child of God, lost and needy, and share ourselves, our own struggles, telling stories and challenging each of them to change.

We use the spirituality of the desert fathers, the early monks, so we teach the urgency of self-discipline, meditation, listening, bible study, self-evaluation, feedback, sharing, learning friendship. We call the program "The Fierce Landscape..." as noted above.

The response is very positive. We have now built over many months a strong community presence where they are meeting daily on their own, taking turns in leadership, with openness, courage, forgiveness and some tears.

The workbook we have developed consists of many inventories, checklists and reading to help the offender face themselves and change. I have some 17 years experience in consulting in correctional settings, and a number of handouts and checklists developed from that.

Screening to join this group is required. Each completes an inventory of five questions and an interview before transfer. Selection is necessary. We also are developed a program of transition to job, training, follow up support, place to live, etc. , via Lexington's own Opportunity for Work and Learning, Inc.

Here is the introduction for the inmate, outlining the program's philosophy:

You, each of you, have been placed in a "DESERT."
The DESERT is a solitary and fierce landscape that is unforgiving and rude.
You either respect the desert or it will punish you. It can punish you severely.

Jail or prison is a kind of desert.
You survive by respecting the total environment. Which is a solitary, fierce, unforgiving and rude landscape.
Here, you will either grow in spirit
or die in spirit. You choose. Daily.
Actually you choose minute by minute
by what you choose to focus on.
If you grow in spirit,
you will leave a better person.
If you die in spirit, you will leave more angry, and in reality, less able to cope and survive in the real world.

One of the reasons you are here,
most of you, maybe not everyone one of you, is because you have not respected others, the feelings & rights of others.
You were determined to do it Your Way...
Regardless of how others and loved ones and family-others felt.
You were headstrong, maybe even arrogant, in claiming your needs were urgent, more important than those of others.

For anyone to do this is to remain in a stage of adolescent rebellion, fretting and pushing against the way the world is, because it does not meet YOUR needs.
Now here is the paradox for each of you. You are in a place where you will either learn and grow OR you shall become more bitter and self-centered. It is a kind of fierce landscape.
You are in a spiritual desert --
You either face yourself and learn what you have neglected to learn up to now;
Or you continue downhill on the private easy road which will cost you and your loved ones even more in the future.

Many men today are still emotionally adolescent, stuck in a teen-age immaturity. Are you one of these? Still a boy?
The desert forces us to choose.
You can keep to yourself, go along to get along, get by, fake it, and reserve to yourself your angry and bitter thoughts,
OR
You can begin facing yourself.
You can begin to pay attention to the feelings of others. You can begin to grasp what kind of cage your life up to now has kept you in by your blindness to others.

Funny strange, isn’t it?
One of the reasons you are here is that you have ignored the feelings of others, and perhaps many others.
Now the only way you can grow and learn is by learning to listen and pay attention to the feelings of other around you. And by continual self study and self-examination.
A key question is whether you are still a "boy" emotionally, in a man’s body, or whether you have decided to grow up.

Many men are still "boys" inside.
Are you one of these?
Unless you use this opportunity, face yourself and seek feedback from others,
you are sure of nothing. Nothing.
How will you know?
How open are you to feedback from others? (This is one secret key to the Mystery of your life) © Paschal Baute. 11/04

Have a good day!