Goodbye Cruel World, Hello Heaven
Happy New Year!
We're in the midst of a winter storm here on the shores of Lake Erie in northern Ohio. But far from viewing it as a mess, I find it invigorating. Out with the old and in with the new! I am hopeful - excited even. And although all things must end (my almost non-stop presence on MySpace one of them), I believe every end is an opportunity for a new and improved beginning.
2007 had its high points and low points. I worked for City Buddha for the first six months of the year. I loved that job and the people I got to interact with as a result. Of course their store on W. 25th Street is closed now (lease ran out), and their new, cool store in Cleveland Heights is just too far to drive with gas prices as high as they are - not to mention the hour and a half trip each way (more in winter weather). I also had a volunteer gig at Marion Correctional Institution in support of their Horizon Interfaith program until June - very rewarding, in many ways, but also a two-hour-drive each way. I also began blogging in earnest in the spring of 2007 - partly as a result of maintaining a MySpace page for City Buddha - but also for my own edification. In prison through 2004, I had very much learned to appreciate the value of dialogue. Living in the Interfaith dormitory with a very diverse assortment of men, facilitating conflict resolution and other courses, serving as a literacy tutor, and playing a large role in the prison's well-known Ministry of Theatre program had helped me, to a large degree, to burst out of the shell of shyness that had enveloped me in my youth. My prison experiences taught me tolerance, understanding, and respect. And as a free man I missed the enriching dialogues and discussions (on everything from religion to sports to the justice system to poetry to the meaning of life) that were so much a part of my life and learning in prison. MySpace filled that void for me. Thanks to early friends like Spooner and Sir Lancello, I began to see "blogging" as more than just a way of keeping an online diary. It was a way to engage in (and encourage) dialogue - sometimes serious, sometimes frivolous, and often an odd assortment of provocative, inspiring, enlightening, and just plain fun. Plus it was a way to meet people with similar interests, disappointments, hopes and dreams. It broke down walls, enhanced my understanding (of issues and people), and made me feel that I belonged in this strange world (that had changed so much in my 11 years away) after all. It also resuscitated my faith in reason, in using my mind, in engaging in productive dialogue with people from all walks of life, and in my own ability to make a positive difference in the world by working with it and putting myself into it. Many very cool, interesting, and inspiring friends have followed, including some with whom I didn't always see eye to eye. But all of you have enriched my life in different ways. And I think we've all evolved a bit as a result of our paths crossing. Thank you!
The second half of the year began with travel. Historic sites in northern Virginia... the famous Skyline Drive across the Blue Ridge Mountains... Yorktown Battlefield, where General Washington essentially won our independence... the best fireworks I've ever witnessed (on the 4th of July in Colonial Williamsburg)... the 400th anniversary of the English settlement at Jamestown... touring deliciously enchanting Savannah, Georgia... staying with family I barely knew in sunny Florida... fulfilling my dream of visiting the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg... being pleasantly surprised by marvelous Chattanooga, Tennessee... and the list goes on. After my wife and I returned home, the vacation ended in more than just a literal sense. Two promising jobs went down the toilet. First, an opportunity to teach full-time in a prison - the administration there wanted very much to hire me, but the State of Ohio would not grant me a teaching certificate because of my conviction, and the prison was not permitted to hire me unless I had that certificate. The second job promising job, handling Medicare inquiries, paid well, offered tuition reimbursement (fantastic for a lifelong student like me) and was close to home. Plus, I was hired, despite stating quite clearly on my initial application and in more than one interview that I had been convicted of a sex offense. But then, one day when I showed up for training at the local community college, I was told I wasn't on their list. I had to sit there for several hours while they figured out why. Then a supervisor of a supervisor came to me with the answer. Because of my "history" (it was my history whether or not I was guilty), their firm could not use me. And he was shocked that anyone would have hired me despite knowing all about it. So I continued to work part time in the mold remediation business (cleaning up houses contaminated with black mold), while half-heartedly pursuing my Master of Sacred Theology degree via correspondence and becoming modestly successful as a MySpace blogger. The end of the year has seemed to bring an endless series of stresses - my mother-in-law has been on the verge of dying from liver failure, my favorite uncle is having surgery to remove a significant portion of his colon, and someone else dear to me is facing imprisonment for being ill and unable to pay his child support.
I could list many more negatives - just as I could list many more positives. But this blog is getting to be too long already. It seems strange, though, that despite the preponderance of perceived negatives (2007 seemed to start out wonderfully and end far less pleasantly), I feel extremely hopeful about this new year. Just like with the cliché about the glass being half-empty or half-full... attitude plays a huge role in how life turns out. A positive attitude certainly doesn't make all the bull-shit in life go away. But there is something to be said for the sentiments of the so-called Serenity Prayer: accepting the things one cannot change, having the courage to change the things one can and should change, and having the wisdom to distinguish between the two.
In The Last Temptation of Christ, Nikos Kazantzakis wrote that "The doors of heaven and hell are adjacent and identical." In some ways, I think they're the very same door. But our attitudes, choices, hopes and actions go a long way in determining whether we find heaven or hell on the other side of the doors we pass through in life.
So I raise a glass and propose a toast this New Year's Day. May you and I and all our loved ones seek, find, and (as necessary) create a whole lot more heaven than hell in the year 2008 - and beyond....
Currently reading:
We're in the midst of a winter storm here on the shores of Lake Erie in northern Ohio. But far from viewing it as a mess, I find it invigorating. Out with the old and in with the new! I am hopeful - excited even. And although all things must end (my almost non-stop presence on MySpace one of them), I believe every end is an opportunity for a new and improved beginning.
2007 had its high points and low points. I worked for City Buddha for the first six months of the year. I loved that job and the people I got to interact with as a result. Of course their store on W. 25th Street is closed now (lease ran out), and their new, cool store in Cleveland Heights is just too far to drive with gas prices as high as they are - not to mention the hour and a half trip each way (more in winter weather). I also had a volunteer gig at Marion Correctional Institution in support of their Horizon Interfaith program until June - very rewarding, in many ways, but also a two-hour-drive each way. I also began blogging in earnest in the spring of 2007 - partly as a result of maintaining a MySpace page for City Buddha - but also for my own edification. In prison through 2004, I had very much learned to appreciate the value of dialogue. Living in the Interfaith dormitory with a very diverse assortment of men, facilitating conflict resolution and other courses, serving as a literacy tutor, and playing a large role in the prison's well-known Ministry of Theatre program had helped me, to a large degree, to burst out of the shell of shyness that had enveloped me in my youth. My prison experiences taught me tolerance, understanding, and respect. And as a free man I missed the enriching dialogues and discussions (on everything from religion to sports to the justice system to poetry to the meaning of life) that were so much a part of my life and learning in prison. MySpace filled that void for me. Thanks to early friends like Spooner and Sir Lancello, I began to see "blogging" as more than just a way of keeping an online diary. It was a way to engage in (and encourage) dialogue - sometimes serious, sometimes frivolous, and often an odd assortment of provocative, inspiring, enlightening, and just plain fun. Plus it was a way to meet people with similar interests, disappointments, hopes and dreams. It broke down walls, enhanced my understanding (of issues and people), and made me feel that I belonged in this strange world (that had changed so much in my 11 years away) after all. It also resuscitated my faith in reason, in using my mind, in engaging in productive dialogue with people from all walks of life, and in my own ability to make a positive difference in the world by working with it and putting myself into it. Many very cool, interesting, and inspiring friends have followed, including some with whom I didn't always see eye to eye. But all of you have enriched my life in different ways. And I think we've all evolved a bit as a result of our paths crossing. Thank you!
The second half of the year began with travel. Historic sites in northern Virginia... the famous Skyline Drive across the Blue Ridge Mountains... Yorktown Battlefield, where General Washington essentially won our independence... the best fireworks I've ever witnessed (on the 4th of July in Colonial Williamsburg)... the 400th anniversary of the English settlement at Jamestown... touring deliciously enchanting Savannah, Georgia... staying with family I barely knew in sunny Florida... fulfilling my dream of visiting the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg... being pleasantly surprised by marvelous Chattanooga, Tennessee... and the list goes on. After my wife and I returned home, the vacation ended in more than just a literal sense. Two promising jobs went down the toilet. First, an opportunity to teach full-time in a prison - the administration there wanted very much to hire me, but the State of Ohio would not grant me a teaching certificate because of my conviction, and the prison was not permitted to hire me unless I had that certificate. The second job promising job, handling Medicare inquiries, paid well, offered tuition reimbursement (fantastic for a lifelong student like me) and was close to home. Plus, I was hired, despite stating quite clearly on my initial application and in more than one interview that I had been convicted of a sex offense. But then, one day when I showed up for training at the local community college, I was told I wasn't on their list. I had to sit there for several hours while they figured out why. Then a supervisor of a supervisor came to me with the answer. Because of my "history" (it was my history whether or not I was guilty), their firm could not use me. And he was shocked that anyone would have hired me despite knowing all about it. So I continued to work part time in the mold remediation business (cleaning up houses contaminated with black mold), while half-heartedly pursuing my Master of Sacred Theology degree via correspondence and becoming modestly successful as a MySpace blogger. The end of the year has seemed to bring an endless series of stresses - my mother-in-law has been on the verge of dying from liver failure, my favorite uncle is having surgery to remove a significant portion of his colon, and someone else dear to me is facing imprisonment for being ill and unable to pay his child support.
I could list many more negatives - just as I could list many more positives. But this blog is getting to be too long already. It seems strange, though, that despite the preponderance of perceived negatives (2007 seemed to start out wonderfully and end far less pleasantly), I feel extremely hopeful about this new year. Just like with the cliché about the glass being half-empty or half-full... attitude plays a huge role in how life turns out. A positive attitude certainly doesn't make all the bull-shit in life go away. But there is something to be said for the sentiments of the so-called Serenity Prayer: accepting the things one cannot change, having the courage to change the things one can and should change, and having the wisdom to distinguish between the two.
In The Last Temptation of Christ, Nikos Kazantzakis wrote that "The doors of heaven and hell are adjacent and identical." In some ways, I think they're the very same door. But our attitudes, choices, hopes and actions go a long way in determining whether we find heaven or hell on the other side of the doors we pass through in life.
So I raise a glass and propose a toast this New Year's Day. May you and I and all our loved ones seek, find, and (as necessary) create a whole lot more heaven than hell in the year 2008 - and beyond....
Currently reading:
"Just like with the cliché about the glass being half-empty or half-full... attitude plays a huge role in how life turns out. A positive attitude certainly doesn't make all the bull-shit in life go away. But there is something to be said for the sentiments of the so-called Serenity Prayer: accepting the things one cannot change, having the courage to change the things one can and should change, and having the wisdom to distinguish between the two."
Words of wisdom, my friend. I agree wholeheartedly and hope that 2008 brings you lots of positivity.
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Thank you very much, Trina! And I wish the same for you. (-;
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I truly love the person you are. You have substance which is far and few between. God says we will be tested and face trials and tribulations but in the end we will be refined more than gold.
Are you leaving Myspace? Please let me know. I will follow you where ever you end up.
Know that I have learned from you and that I sincerely appreciate you.
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Thank you very much, Connie! I treasure your friendship.
You may find it interesting that I'm listening to Handel's Messiah - and the part that says "He is like a refining fire" (taken from Isaiah, I believe) was playing when I read your comment....
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i'm smiling.
without hope, ya ain't got nothing.
you, sir, are loved *hugs*
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"We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope."
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.
mlk jr
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What surprises most folks who have not been "inside" is that many prisoners find new hope and energy in some vocation, avocation, or ministry to others in prison. Hope is not always looking outside the walls...
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I agree. It seems strange to me that when I left prison I had absolutely no desire to ever step foot in that place again, civilian or otherwise. Yet a couple of years later, I found great fulfillment in going back and giving something positive and constructive to the guys still in blue. Some of it was out of a genuine care and yearning to contribute. Yet part of it was selfish. Back in prison as a free man, I was important again, trusted again, believed in again - and my contributions were valued again, by inmates and administration alike, far more than they were by potential friends and employers out here who didn't know me. Strange that a year after that, as I began to finally feel I was making a positive, valued contribution out here, I didn't desire (or need) so much to drive two hours each way to serve a purpose at M.C.I. I'd finally begun to feel (partly in "blogging," but in other arenas as well) that I was serving a constructive (and even needed) purpose in the so-called free world.
Thanks for your insightful comments, Mr. Minister. And thanks especially for your friendship over the years.
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In so many ways, Jesus Crisis, you have "lifted me up with eagle's wings." Your blog continues that experience for me. Unlike you, I could not really face going back inside the walls, however noble and Christian that mission might have been. Recently, however, I was challenged to visit a neighborhood woman accused of murdering her husband. She has been in the county jail for 8 months awaiting trial. Somehow, after the heartache and discomfort of being back in those surroundings, I discovered the joy of ministering to a woman in desperate need of God's love. Despite my reluctance, perhaps this is one of the reasons I too, like you, was "resurrected." May the peace of Jesus/God/Buddha/Krishna/Spirit continue to be upon you.
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And also upon you.... (-; Know that in many ways you have been the "wind beneath my wings" as well. (Cue Bette Midler... lol)
Thank you for sharing this ministry experience. I haven't been back to the prison since the Interfaith program graduation in June, but have recently been invited back for an Outside Brothers reunion on Tuesday 8 January. I'm looking forward to once again seeing the young man I mentored as part of that program... and perhaps some old "friends," though most of the closest are no longer there. Lots of new faces... many of whom are shocked to learn that I was once "one of them".... Maybe I will blog about it Wednesday.
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It's been a very rough year indeed. I share your hopes for a brighter future and I believe things ARE going to get better. You're on the right track.I hope this site turns out to be all that you dream it can be. I love and admire you. (kisses)
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it is amazing how things can change throughout the course of a year, isn't it? what is all peaches one day, is nothing but pits the next.
I would assume, though I have no frame of reference, that pits in the real world are better than peaches behind bars.
Happy New year my new friend.
Ed
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"... pits in the real world are better than peaches behind bars."
That's why I love you, bro (in a purely fraternal way of course... lol)! A very keen insight and valuable reminder... well said! You are an inspiration to me and many others. Thank you for being my friend. And Happy New Year to you as well.
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One "would assume" so. But that is not often the assumption of so many ex-felons who have shared J.C.'s plight and echoed his lament. For so many of us prison was that macabre laboratory where men and women are not merely confined, but branded with the "scarlet A or P or T" and then psychologically neutered. I ran across a man on New Year's Eve at the Drop-In Center in Cincy who served time with me at Marion. With three prior convictions, three corresponding "bits" and advancing age (45 oh my!) he was merely treading water until the next caper that would take him back inside where he found friends, comfort, and some meaning to his life. Alas, the large greasy wheel of recidivism. Some ways of life are far worse than prison...
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Great to see you still blogging JC. I am sorry to hear about your frustrations finding a decent job. At least we have been able to benefit from your talents, knowledge and wisdom. As the Latin(ish) phrase goes 'illegitimati non carborundum' or don't let the bastards grind you down. I hope the new year and the new website both bring you joy.
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Thank you for visiting the site, for your kind words, and for your friendship, Simon!
One of my favorite songs of all time is U2's "Acrobat":
"Dont believe what you hear
Dont believe what you see
If you just close your eyes
You can feel the enemy...
And you can swallow, or you can spit
You can throw it up, or choke on it
And you can dream, so dream out loud
You know that you time is coming round
So don't let the bastards grind you down."
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You are fabulous! I am so thankful for your friendship. 2007 and Myspace were very, very good to me. Thank you for being part of it.
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I must say that MySpace has been very good to me as well. Thank you for being part of it, Terese!
And I think 2008 is going to rock our socks off! (-;
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Looking very forward to that!!!
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That's a great picture of you two.
For all you lost, you have given so much.
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Thanks, Connie!
Apparently, everyone who subscribes to the comments gets notified everytime anyone posts a comment on this blog. I apologize to anyone who is deluged with undesired e-mail notifications as a result, and I'm looking into ways to adjust the settings. (-;
Subscribing to the blog alone and not the comments should remedy that - but then you'll have to keep checking back to catch my replies to your comments. (-;
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i'm with you - a winter storm is a wonder to experience. but i'm much happier down here in the south of mexico with my 77 to 88 degrees of sunny weather.
glad i met you on myspace and in real life last year.
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I think I might be even happier with "77 to 88 degrees of sunny weather"... lol.
I've very glad to have met you and Lady as well.
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Heya JC,
What a nice summation. I wish for your fluidity and eloquence in my own writing.
Peace,
K
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Thank you. You're very kind, Kathy.
But I think your fluidity and eloquence excel mine. (-;
As a writer, I tend to believe that everything I do can always be done better. And I wouldn't be surprised to learn that most writers or artists feel the same way most of the time about at least most of their creations. The French poet Paul Valéry wrote that, "A poem is never finished, it is only abandoned." That's pretty much how I view every blog I post.
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I'm aiming for a better 2008, it's already better than last year I was moving in to look after my mum after she broke her elbow this time last year, my ceiling was to fall down and various other things....smiles
I managed to work out how to overcome fear to breathe and stop an asthma attack mid way....so it wasn't all bad....happy new beginnings
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Thanks, Elaine! I'm glad your 2008 is already better than last year. In a way, I suppose, mine is too - this time last year I had one heck of a cold. (-;
Wishing you all the best this year and beyond...
John
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Well ...I'm back... and just wanted to try to leave this comment on the RIGHT blog this time...LOL...
Gezzeee....
This was interesting to hear all this.... a lot I didn't know ... I can see why Geri said your lives have been Hell... they really have been... as a result.
It must be exceedingly frustrating to have talents your not able to put to good use because of what's happened.
That's why I say NEVER GIVE UP... and of course I realize you aren't... but it's just meant as encouragement...
I'm glad we'll still have your blogs to read.
Smiles-
Chris
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Thank you so much, Chris!
"The only thing I knew how to do was to keep on keeping on..."
-Bob Dylan (-;
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Lord knows you've paid some dues gettin' through...
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Tangled up in blue...
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when i got the email that you had replied, i was going to say you can put those prison blues behind you. the picture didn't come through with the email.
maybe a better way of saying that is the prison blues you're wearing can go away. i think the prison blues themselves however, are part of what drives you and keeps you focused.
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Your 2007 sounded a lot like mine. Lots of changes and a healthy dose of uncertainty. I hope that dreams and plans, yours and mine, are brought to fruition in 2008.
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Amen, sister!
"Dreams come true. Without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them. "
-John Updike
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Life can be quite hellish and scary...Im glad to see youre holding positive thoughts for the new year. All we really have sometimes is hope. I know I sound like a god damned greeting card but its absolutely true! Keep writing too. The world needs more intelligent, down to earth writers who arent afraid to cut through the bullshit established by this so called free country of ours! Fight the god damned power!
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As someone said in one of Shakespeare's plays (I believe it was King Lear), "I will fight til the flesh from my bones be hacked."
Thank you so much for stopping by, Marilyn, and for your kind words and encouragement. You are such a writer, and I'm privileged to know you.
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Thanks John! You are extrordinary-bless you & yours in the new year. Peace
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Thank you very much, Anne! I wish you and yours all the best this new year as well.
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Wow.. lots has changed since this was written last year...
You've opened a whole new direction for yourself that wasn't there at the first of the year.
But I appreciated reading your comments about how the internet contacts enriched and widen your views of people.. etc.. its been something I've been thinking a lot about lately. I've met people I would have never met in this life time because of it.. and made some unusual and special friendships as a result..
It will be interesting what the new year will bring for you and for us all..
Peace...
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Thanks, Chris! Happy new year!
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