May 3rd, 2010

More than twenty people filed into the federal prison Sunday morning. All of them were wearing the same pained, sad expression I was. After turning over our licenses and being screened for weapons or contraband, we were herded into a concrete waiting room. This was our church for the day. We shouted our names out to the stern, unsympathetic guard on duty, in the same militarized cadence he announced our handle to the prison employees who would be patting us down. That was our hymn. Our pews were plastic, blue-green benches, our offering was kept in clear sandwich bags. Quarters we would used to purchase food from the vending machines in the next room we would be held up for an undisclosed amount of time. The bread we broke together came in the form of a Pop-Tart and the juice was a 7-Up. As time slowly passed more members congregated in the cold holding cell. Among them were elderly men and women pushing walkers and mothers wearing doleful expressions and holding the hands of their energetic children struggling to break free. After awhile we were all marched into a long chamber and stood standing single-file waiting for our hands to be stamped. A pass through an additional security point led the way into a large, open concrete yard. From there we were herded into another long holding cell, razor wire was all around us. The guards referred to this area as “the trap.” No one dared speak. We couldn’t find our voices anyway. We lowered our heads and fought back the tears. This was our prayer time. When “the trap” was opened we filtered into another room where we met our loved ones handcuffed to steel benches. My brother’s bloated face and swollen eyes made him barely recognizable. Apart from a few people, this pale man fighting to control violent tremors, is forgotten. He’s a man who has been wrongly accused; a man who will not live to see the outside again. It pains me to know just how much I long for retribution after witnessing such hurt. I am reminded that the Knower knows the truth, but it means little when I look at the destruction done. Church is dismissed with just as much pomp and circumstance as it began. I left the prison with little belief that my cries of mercy reached the Maker. I’m just as broken as I was when I went into the sanctuary. Somehow I have to sweep the images out of my mind; brush them away like cobwebs and get back to work on the book about Elizabeth Custer.