48 Hours as a Movement Chaplain
Love and Loss: Abolition and Impermanence
Thursday morning: I meet outdoors with a person, well-known for their leadership in the criminal justice reform movement. They’re having a crisis of faith, questioning their path as an advocate and activist, experiencing severe burnout from trying to reform an enormous and corrupt criminal legal system. Their recent campaign to hold elected officials accountable and ensure fair sentencing, especially as it relates to drug-related “crimes” has worn them down. They’re experiencing some promising success, but the efforts have taken a toll on their body and spirit. Their primary goal is abolition. Their career, which they considers a spiritual practice of service, as well as their meditation practice have lost focus and their bright spark for the work is dimming. I listen to them tell their story from their heart and we explore their desire to re-kindle their flame. The ‘opposition’ targets them in angry ways and wants to see them fail. Our conversation centers on the moral and ethical roots of justice reform and their personal role in the movement. They describes how they’re personally impacted by their work; their father has been incarcerated for most of their life. Holding space for their tears, anger, exhaustion. Exploring joy, rest, renewal practices. We meditate on the concept of spiritual sustainability. Offering a prayer: strength and protection for the long journey ahead.
Thursday night: I spend several hours on the phone providing pastoral and spiritual care for the close friends and family of a young son/brother/friend who had just died tragically in a car accident. The driver was under the influence of drugs (he struggles with a substance abuse disorder), and their son, in the passenger seat, was partially ejected from the truck killing him immediately. The driver survived and is being held in jail without bail. The family is in shock and struggling spiritually to understand why their son/brother/friend has died so young. I hold space for their grief and trauma. Covid-19 added a layer of complexity. Hugs, a shoulder to cry on, and the company of others are unsafe in this global pandemic. The driver no doubt will be in jail and then prison for years to come. Young men. Addiction. Split second. Who shall live, and who shall die? May his memory be for a blessing.
Friday morning: I meet with 23 years old Jessica in the women’s jail. She was recently sentenced for vehicular manslaughter (16 years) and is elated not to have received the maximum sentence since the victim’s family requested life without parole. In Jessica’s drug-induced state, she accidently ran her car up onto a sidewalk into a family walking to their car after dinner, killing one person and injuring two others. This innocent family now carries on living with heartbreak, trauma, and loss. As I listen to Jessica process her prison sentence and recall that fateful, tragic night, I also hold space for additional emerging feelings as she tells me about the death of her biological father just one week ago. She hadn’t known how to react to this news because of their difficult history, but over the last few years they had developed a close connection. She said she always thought he would die of AIDS (he was sick for many years), but in fact he slipped and fell in the shower and died of a traumatic brain injury almost immediately.
In shock and grieving over her father’s death, she talks about the Buddhist concepts of impermanence and non-attachment, which I had talked with her about a few weeks ago as she mentally prepared for trial. I sit with her as she cries, mourning her father (despite their complex relationship), and listen to her tell me about her childhood in the foster system, physical abuse, sexual violence, addiction. She fights her tears, not wanting other inmates to see her crying. I calmly reposition my chair to give her a little more privacy and offer her a nod of compassion. We sit locked in eye contact for a few minutes and breathe together.
“I’m so young, I know, but my life has been so hard already.” We keep breathing together. I bear witness to her immense history of suffering, not knowing how Jessica’s path will unfold. Not knowing how the family will move forward. “Life is always changing,” she tells me. Yes. Life is always changing. Impermanent.
I think of the grieving family that I spoke with on Thursday evening, freshly mourning the loss of their young son. I think of the driver who struggled with substance addiction disorder, who will be incarcerated for decades, but possibly not rehabilitated. I think of the criminal justice and drug reform advocate.
Witnessing both/all parts of these stories, I am struck by the dance of cause and effect, and the unfolding of the millions of moments of joy and pain each family experiences before these fatal situations. Life-altering moments. Impermanence.
Shabbos (Friday night): I light candles with my family and meditate for a while. Time standing still, holding thoughts of Jessica and her father, the grieving family and friends trying to learn to live without their loved one, the young man’s memory and his grieving family, the driver struggling as he detoxes in jail realizing the tragedy he’s caused, and offer a prayer for the justice leader that they find the strength to continue in the movement that will reform policies and heal communities. I cover my eyes and pray: Education. Prevention. Intervention. Rehabilitation. Restoration. Abolition. Justice. Safety. Care. Love! May it be so.
I open my eyes to my family; my heart is full of love for them. I pray for their protection, acknowledging impermanence. With fierce love, I am wowed by the Great Mystery of the Source of Life. My practice of Shabbos begins. 25 hours of rest and renewal.
