Beyond The Wall

May 10, 2009

 

It’s early morning in the dayroom. This is my refuge from the noise and crowded ness of the dormitory, a perfect time to write.

 

The legislature is considering an early release for non-violent offenders. Many other states are dong this and because of the budget deficits, it might actually become a law. There is a lot of pressure on them to do something. If it should pass, I would be getting out next year and if not, in 2011. Either way, it won’g be too long now. In the meantime, I’ll make the best of each new day.

 

I’ve been thinking of the gains and losses of these ten years in here and have written an essay on this topic called “The Gift of Losses” that I’ll enclose for you.Som any losses…so many gains. The best I can say for it is that it has been a transformative experience and I’ve gained an understanding and a compassion that I didn’t know existed. I’ve reached a point in my life where I feel there’s NOTHING more important than kindness and compassion. I’ve even developed some compassion for myself for not having enough compassion. Yea!

 

As I grow older I notice what an excellent time it is to practice letting go. I can forget about accomplishing all my ambitions – it’s too late for that. I can forget about “making something of myself”, a telling expression. Sometimes, for a moment, I taste the relief of letting this self fold gently int the next self, moment by moment, like eggs into batter. It’s time to forget some things and remember others.

 

You said it beautifully in one of your writings – “In the meantime, we all have to do the best we can to be the light we would hope to see.” Yes! In fact, I think I’ll sing about it…

 

(refrain of music)

 

This little light of mine

I’m gonna let it shine

Let it shine, Let it shine, Let it shine!

 

May we abandon ourselves into the message of this song. May our feet begin to tap and grow lighthearted as they sweep us along to the rhythm of the music. May we touch the harmonics of the soul.

The Last Essay

 
By Charles “Tom” Brown

It was late afternoon in the prison classroom, and we were discussing the topics for the GED essay when a hand went up in the back of the room. It was an elderly inmate who asked me a question that I’m still thinking about today. He asked, “If you knew you didn’t have long to live and could only write one last essay, what would you write?”

As I think about that question, I recall some of the lyrics of a song called “The Last Song”:

If this is my last song,
If this is my final day,
If tomorrow I’ll be gone,
What do I want to say?

Have I given hope to the hopeless?
Have the hungry all been fed?
Has the child stood a little taller
‘cause of something that I said?

Have I left a little kindness?
Have I eased a little pain?
If so, then I’m glad I came.
For that, I’m so glad I came.

One day we will reach a point where we will realize we are on our last leg of this time on Earth. We will see that so much came and went, so many people came and went, and so many things seemed real for a while, and then they were gone. Some we will remember, many we won’t.

Through grace, we’ll know that it is not the end of what is real; it’s only the end of the body, the end of the grand performance. We’ll know that our true Self doesn’t grow old and die. We’ll feel gratitude knowing that we live in eternity, without beginning or end, forever and always now.

In the end when we look back over the meaning of our life, we’ll see that all that really mattered was the way we cared for each other and that its greatest expression was in helping others. We’ll see that when we enter the sacred realm of the heart, the one thing that can never be taken from us, even by death, is the love we give away before we go. We’ll see that the most eloquent answer to death’s “no” is love’s “yes”.

Letter from Tom

Recently I sent a letter to Tom with all the comments that have been left for him on this BLOG. He is unable to access the BLOG himself, so receiving your heartfelt encouragement was very meaningful to him.  He was SO GRATEFUL for messages from readers of the BLOG, as you will see in the following letter. It is very lonely in prison, and if you would like to write to Tom, he would love to hear from you. His mailing address has changed and the new one is shown a couple posts down.

April 13, 2009

It’s 6 AM and I’m writing this in the day room of the dorm. It’s quiet in here at this time and I use it to meditate, do some yoga exercises, and to write. Each morning I spend time in here reconnecting myself to the sacred; to that place where hope grows and our lives are nourished.

Thanks so much for sending the BLOG comments. Those kind, supportive comments touched me deeply. They give me encouragement and inspiration. Please tell the readers how much it means to me.

You wrote “I think the downturn in the economy is going to serve our country well in unexpected ways. We may actually develop character again.” Yes, spaces are opening for new approaches. In a time of chaos like this, those who are clear about what’s important, who listen and create inclusive conversations, and who work across race, class, gender, and age lines, may have far more influence than they imagine. I believe we are taking steps in the right direction for the karma of our country.

As we personally go through the changes and the losses that life brings to us, I think it’s best to hope for an experience of life in all its fullness – a life that can embrace both joy and sorrow and still be at peace, because joy and sorrow are sure to come in this life.

Our triumph over sorrow is not that we can avoid it, but that we can grow from it. And therein lies our hope: that in spirit we might become bigger than the problems we face. Ultimately, the way to feel hope is to give hope to someone else. And then we see that it is all around us.

I think that all of us have at some time in our lives asked this question – “Why didn’t God make a world free of disease, free of accidents, free of problems?” We might answer that with “to learn lessons” or “to bring us closer to God,” but we can conclude that we’re here to continue God’s work.

If our Creator made a perfect world, it would be a magic trick, not creation. Creation is work. We are the ones who will have to create the world we are hoping for. We will still breathe when we have experiences losses, but we’ll also use pain to help ourselves out and to respond to the needs of others. That is how the Creator intended it to be. God wants us to know that life is an experience of beginnings, not endings.

You mentioned that your partner feels he has missed the boat economically – not being financially in a great space. However, he is doing work to help people who need someone to care and assist. That is where real wealth lies and I greatly admire him for the work he is doing.

I had to be stripped of absolutely everything in order to realize where real wealth lies. I found that what was left after I’d lost it all was what was real and lasting. I found that the inner riches are what really matter. And so…from one wealthy being to another, I salute you!

I’m glad your writing a children’s book. If we can influence them in their early formative years, it will make a difference in the rest of their lives. In the students that I’m teaching, I see many who have not had positive reinforcement in their early years and as a result, they have a very low opinion of themselves and don’t think they can learn. To deal with this, I want them to know that I care and I believe in them. It takes a lot of patience and persistence, but the reason I like teaching so much is that I can see them gaining a belief in themselves and a new perspective on life. And I can see these changes happening right before my eyes.

When they finally do make it and are handed their GED diploma, the look on their faces is unforgettable. Their look of pride mixed with the tears is absolutely priceless. It’s in moments like these we find real wealth.

The Blessing Extractor

This miraculous device operates something like a vegetable juicer. When using a juicer, you place a carrot in a funnel at the top of the machine, and the juicer deftly grinds the carrot up. Then it spits the pulp out of a little door and sends a golden stream of tasty juice out another chute.

The blessing extractor utilizes the same principle: you take any experience (painful ones actually work the best), and insert the whole thing into the blessing extractor. Press the right button (a willingness to grow from the experience), the extractor whirs a few seconds, and then shoots the tasteless unusable pulp (made up of  “heavy drama”, feelings of loss, and sorrow) out into a refuse basket. Simultaneously, out another door pours the blessings the experience has given you. Typcial blessings include deeper strength, greater aliveness, fresh insights, a more open heart, new direction, the dissolution of long standing self-destructive patterns, richer appreciation for your gifts, and on and on.

The most amazing feature of the blessing extractor is that long after the pulp is thrown away, the blessings keep flowing. It seems that each blessing the machine produces leads to many others.

May you all be richly blessed……………………….Tom

Tom's latest letter and NEW ADDRESS

2-26-09

I hope all is well in your world; my world is vastly different since my last letter to you. As you can see from the envelope, I’ve been moved. These movements are disruptive and inefficient, yet they keep continuously moving us from yard to yard.

Anyway, I’m back on the Lewis complex at Buckeye. No longer do I hear the birds singing or see the beauty of the trees, the bushes, the flowers. No longer do I have the privacy and peace and quiet of a private room. For a little while at least, it seemed like I was on a college campus; it didn’t seem like a prison. Now, however, it feels like I’m back in prison as I again find myself in a noisy, overcrowded dormitory on a barren yard.

A teaching position is not available now, so I’m volunteering to teach without pay until something opens up. This makes things pretty tight, but some of my former students are here, and I have a number of new ones, so I’m busy doing what I love to do – teaching and making a difference in the lives of others. On the “blessing side” of things (and that is where I like to focus), I have new friends to meet and new opportunities to help others.

One way to look at life’s disappointments is to view these events as a spiritual challenge. The best can be brought out of us during hard times. Every disappointment and every heartbreak is an opportunity to grow more loving and compassionate.

I’m reminded of a definition of compassion that I’ve always liked –
“Compassion is the recognition that we are each doing the best that we can within the limits of our current beliefs and capacities.”

It’s hard for me to judge others when I remember that.

I believ it’s time for me to pull out my handy dandy “Blessing Extractor” and see what I can extract from this move. As I use this marvelous device and continually look for the pony, I think of the way you ended one of your letters…
“merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.”
 
Tom’s new address:
Charles “Tom” Brown #140237
ASPC – Lewis – Bachman – 3 FIOL
P.O. Box 3500
Buckeye, AZ 85326
 

January 18, 2009

What a momentous time this is, both for our country and for each of us individually. Some dramatic changes are underway that seem scary and exciting.

It’s not only financial markets that have collapsed; it’s also the philosophy that gave money the precedence over all else. With the politics of division crumbling, spaces are opening for new approaches. Divisive me – first politics and trash-the-planet-to-make-money economics are on the way out.

So what ideas and guiding principles will take their place?

In times of chaos, those who are clear about what’s important, who listen and create inclusive conversations, and who work across race, class, gender, and age lines, may have far more influence than they imagine.

This is a time when new ideas and structures can take root and quickly flourish in the spaces left vacant by dying hidebound institutions. When we make choices that rely less on fossil fuels, global finance, and long supply chains and more on conservation, savings, and local production, we become less vulnerable to crises and more resilient in recovery from them. What once looked to the larger society like “hippie” behavior from the far-out fringe, now simply looks smart.

May we base this new world, this new era that we’re entering into, not on fear and exclusion, but on our sense of connection, joy, and gratitude. And in order for this new era to happen, everything had to break right. And for that we will someday owe sincere thanks to John McCain and Sarah Palin and George W. Bush. They not only screwed it up, they screwed it up just right.

When a new year begins, I tend to become more philosophical. I think of what I’ve learned and what lies ahead. My life’s lessons are much more subtle than they used to be. I used to have to be hit over the head with a “two-by-four” (losses, prison, etc), but now it’s like a gentle nudge.

If we don’t yet trust that every situation is a lesson, then we don’t bother to ask ourselves what the lesson is. And unless we do, our chances of learning from it are nil. Then the lesson will reappear – with ever higher stakes – until we learn it. The more times a lesson has to come around, the more pain it will generate. If we know in our heart that something is wrong, then ignoring it won’t make it any less so. It will simply make fixing it even harder, when it is brought about by a louder noise than the original sound of the whisper in our ear. My hope is that we can all hear that whisper and act upon that gentle nudge.

And thinking of another kind of nudge, Ralphie (Tom’s pretend dog) is nudging me with his nose and saying that he wants to speak to us. I should know better than this, but it’s a new year, so I’ll ask him what he wants.

“What is it, Ralphie?”

“Did you hear about the dog that was in an accident and his whole left side was cut off?”

“That’s awful, Ralphie!”

“Not really. He’s all right now.”

I think I must have received a “bad pun gene” from Ralphie because now I’m beginning to think like he does. HELP!

There’s much we can learn from dogs, though. They seem to know that life is good. Because they don’t have egos, they appear more loving. When humans love, most of us are timid about opening our hearts all the way. The ego wonders: “Will I be hurt? Will I be loved back? Will my needs be met or will I be abandoned?” Dogs don’t have these questions. They just love.

It seems as if the more we let go, the more we experience love. Love is beyond everything else – anxiety, desire, hope. Love is open hearted, demands nothing, and needs nothing. It is more likely to visit when our desires are quiet, when we don’t need or want much, and when we accept that everything we love is not permanent but is with us at this very moment.

Letter from Tom

11-28-08

I’ve been thinking of the “comings and goings” of life and decided to discuss this with Time. “Time, you illusionist, you show us there’s nothing up your sleeve, then, as if from thin air, you produce summer, fall, winter, spring. Delighted, we applaud. Then, one by one, the places we’ve lived, the people we’ve loved, appear from behind one curtain and disappear behind another. Amazing! Then in the blink of an eye, we, too, disappear. How about that!

“Time, what am I going to do with you? I wanted to milk today for all it was worth, as if you were a cow and all I needed was a bucket. But no sooner did I get started than you swished your tail and this bright new day is gone. ‘How can this be?’ I gasped. You raised your head and looked at me with eyes so big you’d think there would be room in them for some compassion. ‘Don’t forget your bucket,’ you said.”

In all of this “coming and going”, I need to remember that the world will go on being the world without me and without my endless attempts to turn what I know into language that will stand the test of time. And what kind of test is that, exactly? Time looks at me over the top of his reading glasses. “I guess you’ll just have to wait and see,” Time says.

I believe the true blessing of aging is that it can bring an awareness that there is a purpose to growing older, a coming home to the self, and a discovery of significance in a life that is so often stuffed full of busyness.

There’s nothing more gorgeous than a person’s unseen beauty, the kind that may take nearly a lifetime to cultivate. The young at heart are at home in every generation.

You said that you would like to send a book, and I would like to make a suggestion that instead of a book, the gift that would be most practical and helpful would be a money order payable to me with 140237 after my name. I know this seems impersonal, but it’s what would help the most. We have received a 25% cut in our meager pay and the cost of clothes and necessities that have to buy have been dramatically increased. Thank you for asking. That’s so thoughtful of you.

In these uncertain times, some people seem to have the opinion that the prison environment is one that is safer and more stable than that of the “outside world”. I’d like to respond to that opinion –

Safer? Of course there is more security, but there is also a higher concentration of those who commit violent crimes. Overall, I would not say it’s safer.

More stable? When freedoms are taken away, some of the results of poor decisions are removed. Ruts are stable and comfortable, but they rob us of creativity and innovation, and they rob us of our dreams.

I’ll take freedom any day hands down!!

I’ve made up a list of the gains and losses of the prison experience. It’s far from being complete, but it’s a few points that I thought of.

As much as possible, I like to focus on what is beyond uncertainty. No matter what decisions will be made by a new administration, there are some things that are changeless. Daffodils will bloom in the spring. Men and women will fall in love and, sadly, out of love. A broken heart will nonetheless keep beating one hundred thousand times a day.

No matter what governmental decisions are made, writers will write. Painters will paint. Three in the morning will still be three in the morning. The door in our psyche we don’t want to walk through will still be just down the hall. No matter what decisions are made, life will hand us the invisible threat that connects us all, love will hand us the needle.

Gains and Losses From The Prison Experience

Gains:
1. The gift of extra time that provides the opportunity to transform the inmate’s thoughts, and thus, his life, if he so chooses.
2. Basic survival needs are met. Though of poor quality, food, shelter, medical, and dental needs are met.
3. The same daily routine provides a bit of stability.
4. Life is simpler. There is less drama
5. There are opportunities to advance in education and work skills.

Losses:

1.The loss of sharing a daily life with a mate.
2.The loss of sharing special occasions with family and friends (holidays, anniversaries, birthdays, weddings, graduations, and funerals)
3.The loss of freedom to move about freely
4.The loss of freedom to make hundreds of decisions each day (what you can eat and who you can visit, where you can work and what kind of joy you can get, etc.)
5.The loss of reputations and personal dignity
6.The loss of privacy
7.The loss of material possessions
8.The loss of dreams

Send Tom a holiday card!

Editor's note:

The holidays are upon us, and prison is a lonely place. We asked Tom what books he would like as gifts from us, and he said that what he would really appreciate are money orders so that he can purchase paper, stamps, and pens. He said the cost of items in prison has gone up, and their stipend has gone down. So, if some of you have been long time readers of this blog for Tom and would like to send a note of appreciation, he'd love to hear from you - and if you can send a money order in any amount, he'd deeply appreciate that, too.

Money order should be made out to Charles "Tom" Brown, #140237

His current address:

Charles "Tom" Brown, #140237

ASPC - Florence - East Unit

P.O. Box 5000

Florence, AZ 85232

10-12-08

As I write this, the world markets are in a financial meltdown, and I’ve been thinking of how to go through this cycle. Albert Schweitzer give us good advice with these words –

“To the question whether I’m a pessimist or an optimist, I answer that my knowledge is pessimistic, but my willing and hope are optimistic.”

This reminds us that we need a little pessimism (healthy skepticism) to give us caution and to deal realistically with “what is”, and, at the same time, we also need optimism to hope and dream and build a better future (idealism). Learning to enjoy the rhythms of this dance is to grow and transform.

In coming to prison, I lost all material goods, my reputation, my freedom, and my dreams, so I’m certainly aware of the cycles of life. What I’ve learned from this is that ultimately, after we’ve experienced enough of the highs and lows, the laughter and the tears, we develop a capacity to embrace the whole with its beauty and outrageousness, in the graciousness of the heart.

May we remember that loss comes to all of us. It does not discriminate by age, culture, socioeconomic status, religious affiliation, spiritual maturity, or global location. We have a choice in how loss affects us and how we grieve. We can opt to turn away or we can choose to expect and accept loss as a way of life, to see it as a source of heart opening grace and growth. By so choosing, we can embrace loss in a lifelong healing journey toward wholeness.

The only adequate response when confronting uncertainty is to love as fully as we can in the little time we have. Life and loved ones, after all, are all the more precious because we can’t hold on to them forever.

On this early Sunday morning as I sit here writing this, I ask myself, “What right do I have to be here this morning?” None. No right at all. Yet here I am. All the more reason to not take for granted my mysterious life on this mysterious planet.

The birds are starting to sing outside my window: always on time; always on key; always jubilant. At least that’s how they sound to me. And what about the thousand shades of orange and yellow in this morning’s sunrise? This world would be hard to believe if you’d never seen it.
----------------------

Tom Brown Speaks From Prison

I’ve been thinking of how I can contribute to others when I am released in a couple of years, I’ll be old, broke, and homeless myself, (and that’s a little scary). But I know that somehow, it will work out. And because of this, I will be able to help others who are facing the same things. This experience gives me a depth of understanding and compassion that I could not have otherwise. From a God’s eye view, there’s not a bit of difference between the most highly accomplished human being and the most broken.

Working with people who are hungry and need to be fed, who are thirsty and need something to drink, who are in prison and need visitors; Or who are naked and need to be clothed – Opens up all kinds of things in our lives.

Until our hearts are broken, we’re less than complete human beings. If we are not able to recognize others’ pain, we are cut off from ourselves.

We all have the capacity to love and care, but it has to develop, and that involves pain. The payoff is our connectedness. There is the painful gouging out of the stone of our hearts, which can then be filled with kindness.

-------------------------

Editor's note:

The holidays are upon us, and prison is a lonely place. We asked Tom what books he would like as gifts from us, and he said that what he would really appreciate are money orders so that he can purchase paper, stamps, and pens. He said the cost of items in prison has gone up, and their stipend has gone down. So, if some of you have been long time readers of this blog for Tom and would like to send a note of appreciation, he'd love to hear from you - and if you can send a money order in any amount, he'd deeply appreciate that, too.

Money order should be made out to Charles "Tom" Brown, #140237

His address is: Charles "Tom" Brown, #140237, ASPC - Florence - East Unit, P.O. Box 5000, Florence, AZ 85232

Reflections of the Election - Letter from Tom

 

 

11-8-2008

 

What a momentous week this has been! Seeing voters standing in line for hours and in all kinds of weather gave me renewed hope for our country. The barrier of race in electing a president has finally been removed, a crowning moment in American political history. There are many serious challenges ahead, but perhaps, just perhaps, this fragile and wayward democracy is set right again.

 

How easy it is to keep up with the political news and the world events these days, and how tempting with so many sources of information. There’s always one more dot to connect, one more theory to ponder, one more witness with something different to say. But all the screaming headlines will still be screaming there little heads off the day I die – and no matter how many newspapers and magazines I read, I won’t understand this mysterious world any better by then. Maybe I need to focus more on what’s enduring and true – the one story that illuminates all our seemingly separate stories.

 

That one story has become more real to me since I have been moved from a noisy, overcrowded dormitory, to the blissful silence of a private room. As I write these words from this room, the silence is rich and dense, as if I had just dived into a refreshingly clear lake on a hot summer day.

 

It is here, in this silence, that the knowing comes, that the insight is seen and the healing witnessed.

 

Even in these chaotic times, I believe our everyday lives deserve celebration. As our world grows more complex, it takes more thought to do less. I want to remember that the world will go on being the world without me and my endless attempts to turn what I know into language that will stand the test of time. And what kind of test is that, exactly? Time looks at me over the top of his reading glasses. “I guess you’ll just have to wait and see,” Time says.

 

When we take the time to quiet our minds and go within, we can begin to open our eyes to the beauty and meaning in our lives. We can awaken to the natural world and the richness of our relationships with others. When we take time to see the sun rise and set, to really see the exploding colors of the universe, we awaken ourselves from cynicism and despair and open our hearts to the mysteries of nature, our bodies, our lives.

 

In silence, we see more clearly our thoughts and feelings, our hopes and losses, and if we continue with the silence, we feel the tug of the Spirit calling us to a larger life. There is nothing to do in that silence but “be”. There are no landmarks, no GPS systems to guide us, save for the rhythym of our own hearbeat, and the rise and fall of our own breath.

 

Ultimately, we find that real freedom is born out of a capacity to work with any energy or difficulty that arises. Real freedom comes when we are quite present and have come to rest in the moment. This is when we find that  which we were running around seeking is at our door.

 

November 9, 2008

 

It is the next day. I was interrupted yesterday by one of the fellows with a need. I have become a “counselor” here. They seem to think I have the answers to their problems. Of course, I don’t always have those answers, but I listen to them and I care, and that is often what is needed.

 

November 6th was my 10 year anniversary in here, and I’ve been thinking of that, of what a transformative experience it has been, and what I would like to do when I get out. I wrote some of those thoughts in a letter to another friend and he typed it up, phrased it in a poetic format, and sent it back to me. He sent extra copies, so I’ll enclose one for you.

 

 

Poets and Dreamers and Clowns

 
By Charles “Tom” Brown
Copyright 2008

In this age of chaos and uncertainty, we can find comfort in the visionaries, the ones who look beyond the limited view of our world and see a world of hope and infinite possibilities. They brighten our days with their hopes and light-hearted way of seeing things. They’re our poets and dreamers and clowns.

Poets jolt our souls out of the dormitory of the ordinary. In beautifully executed lines they do more than just present old, trite truths in a new light; they give us new eyes. They collect experiences and shape them into forms that cause us to think. Their words encourage us to mine our lives for the jewels they contain. They’re like candles flickering in the darkness. They help us to notice every beautiful and tragic thing, and the power of their words can move us to action and laughter and tears.

Dreamers remind us that the impossible dream can be realized. They see beyond the limitations of things as they are; they see what could be. They are the ones who find solutions where none seem to be available, who see the rainbow where others see only the rain. They believe that life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.

Clowns see the world newly-washed. They’re the pegs on which the circus can be hung, the hooks on which the magic is begun. Clowns tell us – if we listen – that something wonderful really can happen. With their rubber nose, feet like ducks, outlandish clothes, they mirror ourselves, stripped of pretension, stripped of protection. Clowns take the risk first and show us we can be real and let others know our pain, our need, our joy, our strength. There they are with naked feelings hanging out. That sigh, that tear, that laugh – don’t hide it, says the clown. Let it come. Let it happen. Let it be.

These visionaries remind us that the future is open and that we have a candle burning within us that’s ready to light the world. They tell us that magic really can happen.

The Sacredness of It All

copyright 2008

People often ask, “What political party do you belong to?” “What religion are you?” In using labels we get into this duality: am I a this or a that, as opposed to a human being? We all like to know who people are. We like to say, “He’s a this, she’s a that”. Then we think we know who they are.

All labels are restricting, though. They’re hard to wear. They’re hard to wear because we’re always growing. We don’t have a fixed definition, and this process of living is evolving us all the time.

It’s much easier to lose sight of our oneness and to feel separated from each other if we depersonalize and dehumanize each other. Once a person is labeled as “not like us,” the rules of civilized behavior no longer apply. Then we can justify feelings of unforgiveness and separation. It’s easy to erase “insurgents, enemy combatants, terrorists, and protesters.” In Iraq and Afghanistan our soldiers call the enemy “rats”. Psychologically, humans can kill rats much more easily than they can kill hungry, tired, frightened young people much like themselves. Once we have a label that doesn’t fit us, we can ignore the humanity of the labeled.

Labels encourage us to have a disposable mind-set: disposable products, disposable species, disposable people. We don’t see our brothers and sisters, much less all the animal species, as sacred. When we are in the presence of something we consider sacred, the natural response is to be humble and respectful and careful.

When we do see the sacredness of each other, we can begin to feel the failings and foolishness, the wonders and joy of being alive and being connected to one another. We see those “other beings” aren’t really others after all; they are us and we are them.

8-10-2008

Today, when communication in general is diminished, “real letters” are the equivalent of archaeological discoveries. With the increasing use of 3-mail and instant messaging, communications have lost a quality of depth and intimacy. Letters like you and I write are the stories of our souls. They can be read again and again and deeply pondered. I like to celebrate “the reading” of your letters slowly. It’s irreverent to read them fast.

I like to write these words slowly, too. There’s a time for quick communication, but a letter from the heart takes time. Time for the thought to go from my head to my heart and then through my arm and onto this pen and finally onto this page.

A letter bears its own copyright. It bears the dreams and yearnings, the gratitude and delight, that come from the heart of a newly published author. What a feast our letters are!

When we write with a caring heart, the words reach in and touch the deepest part of ourselves. They’re no longer cold and indifferent; they’re now infused with a life energy. They put us in touch with our feelings and that may bring forth a chuckle or a tear. They seem to dance on the page.

I sound like an “old timer” reminiscing about the “good ole days”, but I do miss the old days when there was more connection and less competition, more community and less isolation, more conversation and less TV and e-mail.

In listening to the news this morning, I kept hearing the word “crisis” used over and over again. But being an eternal optimist, I’m always looking for the pony. Well, I found it in an article in Time Magazine. (7-14-08) titled, “Ten Things You Can Like About $4 Gas.” It went on to say, “Beyond the agony at the pump, life is getting a little better in ways we may not be aware of.” The ten points are –
1. Globalized jobs return home
2. Sprawl stalls
3. Four-day workweeks
4. Less pollution
5. More frugality
6. Fewer traffic deaths
7. Cheaper insurance
8. Less Traffic
9. More cops on the beat
10. Less obesity

Sometimes it’s hard to find positive results of what is happening, but they’re always there, and those ten points are some I hadn’t though about. Perhaps the various crises that we see happening in our society today will help to speed up the radical changes that are so badly needed.

June 1, 2008

I laughed at something I read by Roy Blount, Jr., and I’d like to share it with you…
“If you were a member of Jesse James’ band and people asked you what you were, you wouldn’t say, ‘Well, I’m a desperado’. You’d say something like, ‘I work in banks’ or ‘I’ve done some railroad work’. It took me a long time to just say, ‘I’m a writer.’ It’s really embarrassing.”

Ah, the fame/shame of being a writer! (smiley face)

I’m sitting outside at a table writing this and the birds are providing a morning chorus for me. It’s especially loud at this time of year when birds are mating or establishing and defending a territory. Different birds have different thresholds of sensitivity to light that triggers the morning song session.

And then, there is the bird who sings all night. It’s an unmated male mockingbird, and it is working overtime in hopes of attracting a female, who, if she has any sense at all, is home in her nest asleep.

You wrote of “The Circle of Life” in Seasons of the soul. It’s a beautiful, heart-felt essay. It inspired some thoughts of the last stage as you wrote “…this process of releasing life takes the time it needs for us to gather ourselves in preparation for the next great journey.”

If I were facing that, I would want those who care about me to know that if aging should rob my strength, mental alertness, and physical stamina, I would offer them the strength of my conviction, the depth of my love, and the spiritual stamina of a soul that has been carefully shaped by the hard edges of life.

And so, when I can no longer dance, I will sing joyfully; when I haven’t the strength to sing, I will whistle with contentment; when my breath is shallow and weak, I will listen intently and should love from my heart; and when the bright light approaches, I will pray until I cannot pray.

Then it will be time for me to go home, time for the next grand adventure.

As always, it has been a joy to connect with you. We bridge the gap between time and distance and meet at the level of the soul.

May 31, 2008

Thank you for “Gifts of the Soul”. It’s an excellent book of healing, and I especially like the exercises. They make it practical and useful for us, regardless of our circumstances. They challenge us to not despair, but to dive deeply into our hearts to find the wisdom that can heal and liberate us.

Thank you, too for your kind words. Sometimes when this prison experience seems like it will never end and the light at the end of the tunnel begins to flicker, along comes a message from you reminding me of who I am and not to give up. Your words and your loving support have made a huge difference in my life, and I just want you to know how much it means to me. You and the work you’re doing are truly Spirit made visible.

It’s magical to see Spirit because many times when we only see the masks and the holograms that the culture presents as real. We’re not our bank accounts or our ambition. We’re not our collection of personality disorders. We are Spirit, we are love, and even though it’s hard to believe sometimes (especially here is prison), we are free. If we find out next week that we’re terminally ill – and we’re all terminally ill on this bus – what will matter are memories of beauty, that people loved us, and that we loved them.

When I tend to forget this, when I have the “itch” to be refueled and renewed, I return to the doorways of the heart that have opened me before. For me, the “itch” gets “scratched” by beginning the day with softness and silence before the bumps and nicks and noise rush in, before the confusions and conflicts tighten my sense of things.

The quiet times can cast a spell on our hearts. They remind us who we are capable of being. They provide points of connection with what is authentically true. They illuminate the meaning with which we imbue an experience, raising it to the realm of divine understanding.

In the ritual of quieting my mind and going within, I remember that I am a creature of fertile soil and endless sky, and that the acts of praise and thanks and music and tears transform me. It helps me to see the while I keep looking for the wings of a sparrow, the wings of an eagle have already been given me. It reminds me that we’re all like birds who have forgotten we have these wings and we were meant to spread them and fly, fly, fly!

May 4, 2008

It’s a quiet Sunday morning and I’m sitting outside at a table writing this. And how about the magic and the mystery of this moment! Here I am, making these marks on a sheet of paper that you will read sometime in the future and give meaning to. I feel your presence as I write this, and you’ll feel my presence as you read it. I remind myself daily that everything is in order and that this very moment is a miracle, as is everything around me.

The warm sun is shining. The birds are singing. All is well. An old saying comes to mind…
“Sitting quietly, doing nothing
Spring comes and the grass grows.”

There have been many times when I’ve tried to “push the river” and force things to happen before they were ready to germinate. I’m still learning to “go with the flow.”

I’m reminded that you can’t pry the petals of a flower open, but you can provide the flower with healthy soil and plenty of sunlight and water. Then, when the petals do blossom, they will unfold in just the right way and time, and the flower will be an expression of beauty and grace.

It’s hard to believe how quickly time is passing – even here in prison.  I’ve heard that it takes about ten years to get used to how old you are. Well, I think it takes longer than that. I’m still not used to my age. There’s a little boy in me who keeps asking, “What happened?” He’s the part of me that still looks at life with awe and wonder, the part that creates a dog named Ralphie who tells bad puns, the part that loves to sing and dance and play.

In fact, that part of me is acting up right now as I feel a tug on my pant leg. It’s Ralphie and his insisting on telling us something. I know I shouldn’t do this, but I’m going to humor the little fellow.

“Ralphie, what is it?”

“Do you remember the story I told you about the WING and the WONG families? Although there are many people in China, there are few telephones. The reason for this is because there are so many people with the names WING and WONG and the authorities are afraid they’ll WING the WONG number.”

“How could we forget that, Ralphie? It’s awful.”

“Well, I have some news about the WONG family. Something very unusual has happened to them. Mr. and Mrs. WONG have had a Caucasian baby and we all know that two WONGS don’t make a white.”

“What’s the baby’s name, Ralphie?”

“They have named him “SUM TING WONG.”

When Ralphie tells those Chinese puns, I get disoriented. As you can see, he has no shame.

It’s hard to follow him with anything sensible, so I’m not going to try.

Sending you love and blessings!

The Deepest Things

 

 

 

by Charles “Tom” Brown

Copyright 2008

 

It has always amazed me to see how the deepest things in life are intangible. It seems that the things that are worth saying are unsay able.

 

We spend a lifetime gaining grain after grain of wisdom, working to understand it and struggling to express it, only to become more and more a part of it. We age into a stillness and become unspeakable ourselves.

 

We take years of living to squeeze a few precious words from all that will not speak, and steadily, being shaped by our suffering and polished by our joy, we become the earth, knowing more and saying less. Ironically, after a lifetime, we may finally have important things to say, just as we lose our ability to say them. Yet this doesn’t diminish all we try to say. For the fact that sound always ends in silence doesn’t make music any less precious.

 

This is necessary, though. It’s how spirit recycles. We are each born one step closer to our Source than those we are born to, for which we are loved by some and never forgiven by others. We each will die with one more thing to say. We each will wake with something familiar on our lip, which we must find and love.

Little Buddies

 
By Charles “Tom” Brown
Copyright 2008

A fellow inmate, Mike, found a ground squirrel that had been injured and left to die in the hot sun. Mike rescued him and began to nurse him back to health. He named his new friend “Little Buddy” and created a bed for him next to his. He fed him and gave him milk from an eye dropper. With Mike’s gentle care, Little Buddy began to grow stronger and was soon being his playful self. The bond between the two grew and grew and what a strange and wonderful sight it was to see this large, tough-looking man nurturing and caring for his tiny friend.

But then, the inevitable happened. Mike woke up one morning and found that Little Buddy had died during the night. I don’t think I have ever seen anyone so broken up. Mike cried uncontrollably.

These two were together for only a few weeks and yet, Mike will never be the same again. Perhaps, after all, Little Buddy’s purpose was to help Mike get in touch with his feelings. If we open up to these unexpected messengers, animals can be some of our greatest teachers.

A study showed that when patients in several nursing homes were allowed to keep small lap pets, their medication need was reduced by 70 percent and their mortality rate slowed by 50 percent. It is not medication that keeps us alive; it is the giving and receiving of love that sustains us.

I applaud the furry, four-legged, two legged, flopping and flying animal friends who grace us with so many gifts. They soothe and uplift our soul.

Who's To Say

By Charles "Tom" Brown

copyright 2008

Who’s to say that the budding of wings from the ribs of small birds doesn’t begin with the impulse within them to live?

Who’s to say that the butterfly breaking through its cocoon isn’t the result of its being tired of living in a tight weave of its own making?

And who’s to say the color of passion doesn’t line our faces the instant we grow tired of living in a tight cocoon of our own making?
Who’s to say the journey to love doesn’t begin the instant we give voice to that loneliness that no one wants to hear?

Who’s to say the journey to peace doesn’t sprout like a small wing the instant we let our feelings find their place in the world?

In truth, every effort that is allowed its full beat within will ripple as a birth of some kind in the world.
--------------
Tom is full of wisdom and insights, and loves to send and receive mail, so  if you would like to write to Tom, he loves hearing from his readers. His address has changed in the past few months. Please send your letters to him at the following UPDATED address:

Charles “Tom” Brown               
#140237                               
ASPC—Florence—East Unit   
P.O. Box 5000                         
Florence, AZ 85232

April 1, 2008

Sometimes it just feels good to get up on a soapbox and do a little venting. This is one of those times. It is being triggered by an article that appeared in The Boston Globe. Here is an excerpt from it…

“America, the Land of the Unfree”

“What is the world’s leading prison state? You might think it is repressive China or Puten’s Russia. But as a recent Pen Center study revealed, it’s the U.S. where 2.3 million people – one out of every 100 adult Americans, no languish behind bars. Per capita our rate of imprisonment easily exceeds that of Russia, is six times that of China and seven times that of Germany and France.

“…yet in an amazing act of hypocrisy, the State Department last week issued an annual human rights report that condemned Russia, Burma, and China for arbitrarily imprisoning too many of their citizens. Nations that live in glass prisons shouldn’t throw stones!”

I don’t think it should be any surprise that the country that has the most prisons also has the world’s biggest pollution problem. We have a disposable mind-set: disposable products, disposable species, disposable people. We don’t see our brothers and sisters, much less all the animal species, as sacred. The failure to honor the sacred is at the root of the prison problem and the ecological problem.

It’s easy to forget that what any of us does affects all of us, every time, all the time. We forget that we (people, bugs, dolphins, eagles, poodles, etal) are all interdependent. Those “other” beings aren’t really others after all; they are us and we are them.

When we allow ourselves to see the Divine everywhere, and believe that there is nowhere God is not – including inside us – we can release any sense of unworthiness and embrace our magnificence. Let’s imagine a world of beings who are doing that, who are conscious of their wholeness and who identify with and make choices from their Divine nature. Imagine the good, the joy, the love, and the caring that will be poured out across the planet when all humans openly embrace and fully express their sacred selves. Just imagine it!

(I’ll now step down from my soap box and face the reality of this moment). It’s fun to dream and imagine, though, and I do believe that someday, in a more enlightened age, these imaginations will become a reality. Also, at that time, prisons will be known as houses of rehabilitation and compassion rather than basically houses of punishment.

Beyond Appearances

By Charles “Tom” Brown
Copyright 2008

It was time to apply for a hearing to get some relief from a long prison sentence. The date had been set by the Clemency Board. A defense fund had been set up to hire an attorney, the letters of support poured in, and friends appeared on my behalf. There was so much loving energy. There were so many prayers expressed. And yet, my application was denied.

My first reaction was, “How could this happen? I don’t understand this. It’s unfair!” As time went by, though, I began to realize that crying “unfair” was keeping me stuck in what hurts. As long as I see what has come to pass as being unfair, I’ll be a prisoner of what might have been.

When I go behind the appearance of unfairness and look at the larger picture, I can begin to change my view of the uncertainties of life. This change brings about an attitude that allows me to discover what is hidden in all experiences. Then I can begin to see wholeness rather than good and bad fortune. In a world of unity, there is no good or bad luck; it’s indivisible. What is called “bad” fortune has “good” just waiting to emerge because it’s the other half.

We have all known a time when it seemed as though the light in our lives might never return. It can feel like that’s all there is. If that is where we are and we’re unable to see a situation as part of a larger picture, let’s remind ourselves that good fortune is leaning on the bad one, just as morning follows night. It’s invisibly there in all moments of despair.

No matter what occurs in our lives, we can become better people because of it. If we had not gone through our difficult time, we could not have learned what it had to teach us. When we have learned to embrace all the cycles of life, our backbones will be a little straighter and our heads will be a little higher. When we have suffered and transcended our suffering, we will emerge with a sacred knowledge embedded in our cells. There is nothing more beautiful than the mantle of a survivor, and there is nothing more illumined than the new personality that comes forth when the old one has been laid to rest.

3-12-08

The denial by the Clemency Board was a shock to all of us. I fully believed that I would be approved for Phase II where I could meet with the Board in person, and with an attorney there and a lot of support. I just couldn’t imagine them turning me down…but they did. It was obvious that their minds were already made up and nothing we could have said or done would have made a difference. It’s always safer politically to say “no” at a hearing like this.

I don’t understand why this has happened and there really aren’t any answers. Something happened this morning, though, that reminded me to have faith. It was dark outside, no daylight yet, but the birds were singing and the doves were cooing. They knew instinctively that the light was coming. Deep with me, I know that, too…the light is coming. There’s nothing in this world, not a thin in the universe that is not in perfect order. Everything proceeds according to this perfect design.

May we all find comfort in this truth, and may God bless our journey of awakening.

Tom's request for commutation of sentencing denied

I received this e-mail from Tom's friend, Averelle, who helped hire an attorney to represent Tom at his latest request for commutation. This e-mail says it all, and I am disgusted with Arizona's legal system. It must be very lucrative to keep people in prison when even the only victim of Tom's crime to be present on the phone stated he has spent enough time in prison. What a sham the review board is. Read for yourself. I am grateful NOT to live in Arizona!!

Editor

"Bad news--Tom's hearing request for commutation of sentencing was denied. There were 10 supporters present (including Dave - the attorney - who presented a good case)--there was one victim via phone. Tom was not allowed to be present, nor was he on the phone like before. We were all shocked and very disappointed. The board (consists of 7--only 4 were present) had not read the letters (apparent in their remarks--although the lead board member briefly looked at them in the hearing.) He did read parts of one letter from a judge --acknowledging it was from that person's personal view.

The one victim, on the phone even stated Tom had done enough time and he was not in opposition to him being released--even that didn't hold any weight. In all honesty, the board hearing leader gave his vote, and the others followed without any discussion. Very dissappointing. Tom can reapply in 2 years--there is no appeal to this board's decision."

Peeling the Onion

by Charles "Tom" Brown

copyright 2008

Circumstances of life often have a way of stripping us of pride and ego, and when layer after layer are peeled away, it’s like peeling an onion. Dropping all the layers that we carry – all our preconceptions, our lists of the ways we’ve failed and the ways we’ve been wronged, dropping all regret and expectation, allows us to be born again into the simplicity of spirit that arises from unencumbered living.

No matter how we protest, life keeps coming, and we cannot stop the river of time and its cleansings that scour us into who we are. Underneath our particular cuts and disappointments at how the dream has unfolded, we are all formed by the same force of life passing through. We finally realize that the only way to know the truth is to live through its many casings.

The current of life requires us to stand up again and again, and we are not defeated when we are pulled and worn down; we’re just exposed anew at a deeper level. In this way life keeps getting more and more precious. It is a natural law like gravity and osmosis: stand up and be worn bare. It is how everything in the way is thinned, so we can feel just how thoroughly alive we are.

In this process we find everything is lost and then rediscovered, hardship is followed by peace, suffering is followed by bliss. Everything is followed by love. Love follows even as we search for it. It’s the truth that we remember at the end of our lives, or perhaps at the end of the life of a loved one. It’s the truth we see when the superficial preoccupations that compete for our attention and rob us of our life force begin to melt away. When the core is finally reached, everything becomes more real, everything is felt in a new and deeper way.

No matter what occurs in our lives, we can become better people because of it. If we had not stumbled, we could not have gotten back up. And now that we have gotten up, our backbones are a little straighter and our step has more of a bounce. When we have suffered and transcended our suffering, we emerge with a sacred knowledge embedded in our cells. There is nothing more illumined than the new personality that emerges when the old one has been laid to rest.

1—25-08

Wow! The attorney has finally filed the papers with the Clemency Board and expects a hearing in a month or two.

He is asking for letters of support, so if you will send one, I would appreciate it so very much. As you well know, I’ve been turned down with my previous attempts at this, but with an attorney this time, I think I stand a pretty good chance.

The thought of getting out of here is both overwhelming and exciting…and a little scary. I know, though, that it will all work out, and there will be new opportunities to make a positive difference in the lives of others.

Enclosed is my latest essay – “Peeling the Onion”. Having been stripped of so much, I feel sensitivity and a connectedness that I’ve never felt before. Life has a way of peeling us like an onion, and as each layer is peeled away, life gets more and more precious.

Letter from Tom

11-24-2007

As you can see on the envelope, I have a new address. Will you please indicate this in Seasons of the Soul and on the Beyond the Wall Blog? 

Charles “Tom” Brown #140237
ASPC – Florence – East Unit
P.O. Box 5000
Florence, AZ 85232

This is a minimum-security yard, and it’s much friendlier and more relaxed. For the first time in many years, I now wake up to the sound of birds singing outside my window. What a sweet sound that is!

To see trees again is such a joy, and there’s a magnificent pine tree outside my door. I like to feel its trunk, its life force, and communicate with it. Earlier this morning, I picked up a few of its needles and bent them in order to release the fragrance. Ah, that pine smell was pure ecstasy.

In the past, I took these gifts of nature for granted and didn’t fully appreciate them. Now, I’m in awe of it all and my spirit is happily soaking it up.

There are also bushes, flowers, birds, and ground squirrels here. It’s quite a contrast from the barrenness of the Barchey yard.

I’ll be teaching again and helping students to get their GED. This move presents many new opportunities to make a difference in some lives, and I’m looking forward to a new adventure.

This East Unit is really spread out so I’m still trying to figure out where things are located. I hope no one asks me to show them the ropes; I have no idea where they are. Maybe I could pull some strings and find out.(Help! I’ve been around Ralphie too long(Tom’s cartoon dog). Now I’m beginning to think like him!)

In spite of it all, I brought Ralphie with me, and he joins me now in sending you lots and lots of blessings!

An Agent for Peace

By Charles “Tom” Brown

In this time of fear and war, the question we must all ask is, “How can I be an agent for peace?” First of all, this means being peace. This is why it is so important for us to go within, quiet our minds, and expand our capacity to look, to see, to understand.

If we destroy our “enemies” we destroy a part of ourselves. It may be a part we do not want to acknowledge or deal with, but it is still a part of us. We cannot hurt others without hurting ourselves. The only reason for destroying our “enemies” is to support our self-deception that “we are not like them”. An eye for an eye response brings only mass blindness.

The unawakened mind is at war with itself and the way things are. Compassion and a greatness of heart arise when we stop the war. The deepest desire we have to our human heart is to discover how to do this. We all share a longing to go beyond the confines of our fear and anger and to connect with something greater than “I”, “Me” and “mine”, greater than our small story and our small self. Our challenge is to discover peace and connectedness in ourselves and to stop the war in and around us.

Sharon Salzberg, a Buddhist teacher, eloquently describes peace as “a deep harmony, a connection to the deepest places within us, deeper than the changing circumstances of our lives.”

Every time we set ourselves aside, even in small ways, every time we reach out and connect with the pain and struggles of others, every time we love something or someone unconditionally, we are agents for peace. We are peace.

copyright 2007

11-1-07

The holidays will soon be here, and I’m thinking that maybe – just maybe – this will be my last holiday season in here. That thought is exciting, overwhelming, and scary – all of that. These years in here have been like being isolated on another planet. It leaves me somewhat “out of touch” with the outside world, but more deeply “in touch” with the inner world.

The date of my release has seemed so far in the future I haven’t given much thought to it. However, as the possibility becomes more real, I’ll do a little planning, a little dreaming. The dreaming includes being able to call dear friends. What a dream that is!

I continue looking for the perfect sentence, the one that will come alive on the page and penetrate the thickest armor around the heart. My quest reminds me of something Oscar Wilde once wrote – “I was working on a proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a camera. In the afternoon, I put it back again.” (I can relate to that)

These perfect sentences aren’t always in me, though. They often hover a few feet above my head, so I stand on my toes trying to reach them. Often I grab fistfuls of air.

I find though, that if I sit here waiting for the perfect sentence to show up, I have a long wait ahead of me. Maybe it doesn’t want me to wait. Maybe the perfect sentence is tired of one-night stands with writers who can’t be trusted to stick around when the perfect sentence turns out to be not so perfect after all. Yeah! Let’s hear it for the “off the wall,” “out of the box” sentence that is free of the need to be perfect.

Recently I was reading some of the newspaper headlines that came out in the 50’s and 60’s and the ones about the Middle East were the same as they are today. And that reminds me of a story…

In Israel to cover the fighting, a young reporter decided to look for a human-interest story. In Jerusalem, she heard about an old man who’s been going to the Wailing Wall to pray, twice a day, for everyday, for a long, long time. So she went to the Wailing Wall and there he was.

“Sir”, she asked, “how long have you been coming to the Wailing Wall and praying?”

“For 50 years.”

“What do you pray for?”

“I pray for peace between the Jews and the Arabs. I pray for our children to grow up in safety and friendship.”

“How do you feel after 50 years?”

“Like I’m talking to a wall.”

The unending search for peace in the Middle East or in other parts of the world reminds us that if we really want to bring peace to the world, we need to love ourselves: to know that we are loved, to discover that our nature is love and to feel the joy and beauty of that. Then the separate, alienated sense of self starts to soften, and we can no longer have any motivation or impulse to go to war. Thus, real lasting peace can only come about through prayer and meditation, simple acts of kindness, and through each of us being a loving presence.

It all comes down to bring a loving presence, doesn’t it? The negative happenings have only one purpose: to foster compassion in the human heart. Anything can fuel the fires of compassion if our hearts are open wide enough. All of us,in our own way, just by being more tender and loving, can open our hearts and make a difference in someone’s life.

If we don’t know how to deal with a difficult person or situation, let’s just love. Everything else is just a finger in the dike, holding back an ocean that, ironically, we could happily drown in. Sometimes, I think trying to get it through my own thick seawall of a skull, that compassion means onl this:

When in Doubt, Just Love!

A Letter of Hope From Tom!

11-17-07

Enclosed is a message for the BLOG readers. One of the many things I’m looking forward to when I’m released from here is to be able to interact with the readers and most especially, with you who have put this BLOG together. I feel somewhat disconnected from the energy of “Beyond the Wall”, but I try to make up for it by expressing an extra amount of joy and compassion.

All I can offer are words and if we love words, as you and I do, we get to approach the Divine through words. Whatever we love is our path. You and I happen to love words, so that is where we see the beautiful, and this is, of course, the beauty parlor that we’re sitting in! We love lively language wherever it occurs, and we like to feel it flowing through us. As writers, we can adore the inspired moments.

As I sit here on my bed writing these words, I’m reminded that I never really know what words are going to come out of this pen or what the next moment will bring. So living fully in this moment is the only constantly reappearing option for happiness. Just being alive is a mysterious and precarious thing. That life is happening at all – that words are coming out of this pen – is truly a miracle.

Sending you a bountiful overflowing amount of joyful thoughts and loving energy!
Tom

Dear Friends,
Thanks to your prayers and support, an attorney is now working on my case and is optimistic of the outcome. There is a possibility that this willb e my last holiday season in prison, and I find the thought of finally getting out of here exciting, overwhelming, scary – all of that. It leaves me with mixed thoughts and feelings. A part of me wonders “where will I live?” “What will I do?” “How will I survive?” But then another part of me assures me that it will all be perfect, and all I need to do is trust at a deeper level.

These years in here have certainly been transformative ones. In many ways, it leaves me “out of touch” with the fast pace of the outside world. However, I’m more “in touch” with my inside world and that will see me through whatever challenges lie ahead.

One of the things that will mean the most to me in being free of prison will be interacting with you. What a joy that will be!

As many of you know, I have an imaginary dog named Ralphie who makes “smart remarks” and tells bad puns. I’ve often wondered what I ever did in the past that would result in my having Ralphie in my life. I must have done something really weird.

I asked Ralphie what kind of holiday greeting he would like to give you, and he said he would like to cover all bases. He gives us this greeting –

“Merry Christmas”
“Happy Hanukah”
“Joyous Kwanzaa”
“Peace filled Ramadan”
“Festive New Year”
“Glorious Festivus”
“Nice Weekend”
“Happy Everything”

Yes, he certainly does try to cover all bases.

My message to you is a gift from the heart. In spite of what advertisers want us to believe, our most precious gifts to each other don’t come in fancy wrappings. Unlike material gifts that can wear out, go out of style, or are simply set aside and forgotten, gifts from the heart, from the Spirit, have transforming power. They soften calloused hearts, restore broken dreams, renew abandoned hopes, and infuse life with a new vitality.

May you rejoice in the spirit of this season, in its peace, its hope, its love. And more than ever before, may you feel the love that you are.

With boundless blessings,
Tom

...Ah!

By Charles “Tom” Brown

The young girl sat alone at a table next to mine in the prison visitation room. Her inmate boyfriend had been notified that he had a visitor. However, it finally became evident that he was not coming out. After several hours of waiting, she sadly walked out.

Later, I found out who had refused to see her. I asked him why, and he replied, “Because of what she did, I have fallen out of love with her.”

I thought to myself, “How could that be?” There is no “out of Love”. It’s what we are, deeper and richer than all the spiritual promises and far more ordinary and real. We don’t “fall in or out of love” because we are permanently in the flow of love itself.

Love is the way we are meant to live; love is the measure of the meaning of life. Without it life is a bare existence; with it, life comes alive. It’s the difference that gives life meaning. When we touch life with love, it grows warm and shines down the corridors of the mind with a light that does not fade but grows brighter and more beautiful with the years.

When love is present nothing is the same. Even the drab gray walls of this prison begin to glow. It’s as if we are transported into a different world, love’s world. Then things are seen through love’s eyes. Then the pain may turn into a poem, and the sorrow may blossom as a ministry.

Love is what shines from our eyes, beats from our heart, speaks with our voice, and meets itself everywhere.

Sooner or later, love will reclaim us all. But to let that happen now, to die into love now, before the body dies…

…“Ah!”

10-14-2007

A dear friend brought a book of puns to me, and I realize now that I should have hidden it. Ralphie (Tom’s cartoon dog) got hold of it and is threatening to lay more of those puns on us. I’m telling you this so you’ll be ready to duck and protect yourself.

He’s insisting on asking us a question and I’ll humor him, so be prepared…

“Ralphie, what is your question?”

“It’s this. There are a lot of people in China, but do you know why there are so few telephones for all those people?”

“No, Ralphie, why is that?”

“Because there are so many people with the names WING and WONG, and the Chinese are afraid they’ll wing the wong number.”

Ouch! That’s awful. I often wonder what I ever did in the past to merit a karmic experience of having an imaginary dog who tells bad puns. I must have done something really WEIRD.

It’s not easy to be serious after being around Ralphie, but I’m now going to try…

I wrote an essay about an incident that happened in the visitation room here. It helped me to explore love a little deeper. People understand what it means to need another, to want something from another, but they often don’t understand what it means to really love.

To be totally loving means to be willing to give every being total freedom to be, do, and have what they wish. Love lets go. Need holds on. This is the way we can tell the difference between love and need. This means among other things, letting go of expectation, requirements and rules that we would impose on loved ones.

To be totally loving, I believe, means to be fully present, fully aware. To be fully open, honest, transparent. It means to be fully willing to express the love that is in our heart. To be loving means to be naked without a hidden agenda or hidden motive, without hidden anything. This is the nature of who we are.

This brings me to what I call the “Magic Question”. Whenever we’re wondering what to do next, let’s ask, “WHAT WOULD LOVE DO NOW?”
We always know the answer. It’s like magic. It’s cleansing like a soap. It washes away all doubt, all fear. It bathes the mind with the wisdom of the soul. When we go into the heart of love and come from that place in all our choices and decisions, we will find peace.

When we connect in the space of love, there is no longer two…only one. Though I appear to be writing this in a prison dormitory and you appear to be reading it in another time and place, we can connect in that space beyond time and distance. And what a magnificent space it is! I’ll meet you there.

Letter from Tom

September 16, 2007

As Ralphie and I were watching the news on CNN this morning (Tom’s cartoon dog that he draws), I thought of how the situation in the Middle East seems to be never-ending. I’m glad Ralphie doesn’t start his day reading about Shiite dogs killing Sunni dogs, or Palestinian suicide hounds being mowed down by heavily armed Israeli soldier dogs. I’m glad he doesn’t listen to some dog on CNN telling him that everything that could have gone wrong yesterday did go wrong – while completely ignoring all examples of dog cooperation; dog compassion, dogs making love, not war.

To love the unlovable and forgive the unforgivable has to be among the greatest challenges of this lifetime, and yet, if we are to move beyond the “eye for an eye” mentality that pervades our society, we must do this. If we are to have peace, both within and without, we must do this.

It’s much easier to lose sight of our oneness and to feel separated from each other if we depersonalize and dehumanize each other. Once a person is labeled as “not like us”, the rules of civilized behavior can be bent and stretched.

In our attempts to label each other, we create an “other” and language itself becomes a weapon. I am not interested in weapons, whether words or guns. I want to be part of the rescue team for this warring planet. The rescuers will be those people who help other people to think clearly and to be honest and open-minded. They will be an antidote to those people who disconnect us. They will move beyond the labels and make others more understandable and sympathetic.

Labels help us to hang on to what we feel are our justified feelings of unforgiveness and separation. It’s easy to erase “insurgents”, “enemy combatants”, “terrorists”, even “protesters”. Once we have a label that doesn’t fit, we can ignore the humanity of the labeled. Once the concept of otherness takes root, the unimaginable becomes possible. Then we can ignore and judge those who have committed heinous crimes, those who appear to be so different from us.

In Iraq, our soldiers call the insurgents “rats”. Psychologically, humans can kill rats much more easily than they can kill hungry, tired, frightened young people much like themselves.

The task that you and I have with our writings is to tell stories and eternal truths that connect readers to all the people of the earth, to show these people as the complicated human beings they really are, with histories, families, emotions, and legitimate needs. Then we can replace one-dimensional stereotypes with multi-dimensional individuals with whom our readers can identify.

I’m becoming more aware that all differences, whether physical, mental, or emotional, are superficial. They are like the waves on the surface of the ocean. Deep within we share the same inner depths. Beneath the ever-changing waves, we are the same, we remain the same unchanging One. As we become more aware, so our concepts of both ourselves and the journey change, and we come to realize the deeper truth: that the traveler, the journey, and the goal are all one.

Looking for the Rainbow

by Charles “Tom” Brown
Copyright 2007

In coming to prison, I have found that there is always a gift waiting once the ache and fear and grief have settled. As the cries are absorbed into silence, as the sun always rises just when the night seems like it will never end, there is something indestructible at the center of each of us; though it can be quite painful being transformed and rearranged.

My own struggle to open my heart has ben a long one. Silence and solitude are now like a lamp to illumine corners I’ve never seen. When I stop replaying events in my life, the buried seeds crack open in the dark the instant they surrender to a process they can’t see. Stripped of material goods and plans, I have discovered that we cannot eliminate hunger, but we can feed each other. We cannot eliminate loneliness, but we can hold each other. We cannot eliminate pain, but we can live a life of compassion.

In the middle of the deepest, darkest night, when we feel most humbled by life, the first shadow of our wings begins to appear. The depth of the darkness reveals to us the magic of who we are. The love that we are is just waiting to be unleashed.

The most important thing to remember during times of great change is to fix our eyes anew on the things that don’t change. The life that we want will emerge from a stillness that takes root in our soul. We find it when we settle deeply into the hidden loving dimensions of every moment, allowing life to be what it wants to be and allowing ourselves to be who we were created to be.

Sometimes our suffering shapes us as it makes us more humble, more contrite, and more open to guidance we had rejected before. Sometimes the fire we go through becomes our purifying agent. Sometimes difficult experiences have the effect of a storm. Afterwards, we see a beauty in the sky and a clearness in the air that were not there before. What was chaotic at the time, ultimately had a healing effect. And sometimes, when we’re really fortunate, we look up in the sky and see a rainbow. It could not have happened without the rain.

On Being Real

by Charles “Tom” Brown
Copyright 2007

The most precious gift we can give to each other is more of our authentic self. It’s so simple and yet so brave to say that we are hurt when we are hurt, that we are sad when we are sad, that we are scared when we are scared.

We waste so much energy trying to cover up who we are when beneath every anger is a wound to be healed and beneath every attitude is the want to be loved. When we hesitate in being direct, we unknowingly slip something on, some added layer of protection that keeps us from feeling the world, and often that covering is the beginning of a loneliness which, if not put down, diminishes our chance for joy.

This covering is like living our lives wearing gloves every time we touch something, and then, forgetting we chose to put them on, we complain that nothing feels quite real. In this way, our challenge each day is not to get dressed to face the world, but to “unglove” ourselves.

The awakened moment is an unprotected meeting with what is – a full contact sport. Our true calling is to find out what it is to be an authentic human being. We are invited to be intimate with the world and experience the bones and breath of each moment.

We can remain who we think we are and sink further into the troubled world we have already made, or we can allow our hearts to crack open like cosmic eggs, out of which will emerge transformed creatures – our true selves. Look at it closely, in yourself and others, and tell me that creature does not have wings.

7-29-07

Thanks so much for your help with the defense fund. The letter expressing my need was a hard one for me to write, but there are times when we simply need each other.

This adventure of setting up a defense fund, hiring an attorney, and applying for a clemency hearing, is helping me to more fully live what I’ve written about over the years. I’m finding out that what was hard to do (writing that letter) can truly be a blessing. It has strengthened my faith and helped me to trust the divine process behind it all.

I told my little buddy, Ralphie (Tom’s cartoon dog), how all of this is beginning to unfold, and I expected some smart remark from him. He usually has one. This time, though, he was speechless. In fact, he became a little teary.

The value of being real has been deeply impressed upon me. This means saying we’re hurting when we’re hurting and we’re in need when we’re in need. It means accepting and embracing it all. An essay on this subject explores it a little further. “On Being Real” is enclosed.

Our journey of awakening is located right in the middle of all of this, right in the middle of life. Our true calling is to find out what it is to be a human being. The quest is about transformation rather than perfection. No moment is unwanted, and thus, awakening is possible right where we are. “We are invited to be intimate with the world and experience the bones and breath of each moment.”

We keep looking for the wings of a sparrow when the wings of an eagle have already been given us. We’re all like birds who have forgotten we have these wings and we were meant to spread them and fly. All we have to do is flap.

Shall we do a little flapping? Wheeee! What a magnificent view from up here.
From the “lofty regions”, I’m sending boundless love!

Defense Fund Is In Place!

Thank you to all supporters of Tom Brown....his defense fund has been put in place, and the attorney is researching his case so that he may present appropriate defense at the next Clemency Hearing scheduled in the Fall. Let's say our prayers for Tom. His prison ministry has been valuable, but it would be very nice for him to be able to continue his ministry of the soul from outside!

An Extraordinary Day

By Charles “Tom” Brown
Copyright 2007

For an ordinary day, we can choose to allow our minds to be programmed by the worldy viewpoint that dominates the earth. We can make sure we’re keeping tabs on everything by reading the morning newspapers and watching the television news. This will bring us current on the wars, the terrorist attacks, the latest murders, the economy, the gossip, the natural disasters…all of it. We will have an ordinary day.

However, we need not let fear steal our day; we can set our day upon another course. Each of us has an inner room where we can visit to be cleansed of fear-based thoughts and feelings. When we begin our morning within it, the mind receives a radiance that illumines our thinking as we go through the day. There are many prayer and meditation techniques, and they are paths to this inner room.

As we move through this extraordinary day, let’s remember to do the following:
· Focus on the goodness. See the innate goodness in every being, no matter what they are “bringing to the table.”
· Say this simple prayer – “Bless the. Change me”. When our hearts are closed and clogged with judgment and resentment, this simple prayer puts everything in perspective.
· Be grateful. Give thanks for everything. It’s a form of the heart opening, of attention shifting from “my wants and needs” to just gratitude.
· Remember to smile. A smile is like a comforting hand, a warm blanket, a long-lost friend, a blessing
· Find someone to help. In helping others, we help ourselves in ways that are truly enriching.

And finally, keep the door to the heart open. This door is always near. Truth opens it. Love opens it. Humility opens it. Sadness can open it if felt to its center. Silence and time open it if we enter them and don’t just watch them. This is the doorway that lets us experience the miraculous in the mundane, the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Request from Tom to His Supporters

The following is the most recent letter I have received from Tom. His case will be up for review by the Clemency Board, and he has been able to find an attorney who will represent him for a reduced fee. Please read his letter, and if you feel moved to contribute to his defense fund, you will find all contact information contained herein.

When we look at the light slap on the wrists major corporate criminals receive, the sentence that was given to Tom is horribly excessive. If we all put our strong intentions together for his release, prayers can work wonders. So, of course, can financial contributions.

Editor

July 4, 2007

Since I last wrote to you some things have happened that I’d like to share with you. It’s about the clemency hearing. Each morning I have declared my intention and given thanks in advance for a positive outcome.

From this, something amazing has happened, but before I tell you about it, I’ll review a little background. As you know, I’m 75 years old and have been in here for nine years. If I don’t try to have a hearing or if I am denied, I’ll have four more years to serve. I am guilty as charged of violating a trust with some funds, but that was long ago, and it certainly is not who I am today.

My record in here is excellent – the best that can be attained – and my sentence of 17 ¼ years (of which 13 must be served) for a first time, non-violent offense is certainly excessive.

In previous hearings, I prepared a very thorough information packet and sent a copy to each board member. It answered their questions and included support letters (yours was a part of it), diplomas, awards, etc. This didn’t help, though, so I realized I need to do something different this time.

Well, the “something different” has materialized. I have learned that my chance of getting a favorable response will be greatly increased if I have legal representation at the hearing. I haven’t had this before and didn’t know how to find a defense attorney who would represent me pro bono or at least at a reduced rate. A friend has now recommended one who has agreed to represent me for a reduced fee of $4,000. My case is rather involved so it will include considerable research and the necessary appearances before the board. It’s a three-part process. The first hearing is by phone, the second one is in person, and then it has to be signed by the governor.

I’ve always been independent, so it isn’t easy for me to ask for help, but that is where I am right now. I do need help in raising this legal fee. It will be done with a defense fund - a trust account - that will be set up as follows:

Checks should be payable to Dave Appelton, and in the memo write “Tom Brown Defense Fund”.

Checks should be sent to a mutual friend who will monitor it for him:
Averelle Levings
3421 N. 14th Pl.
Phoenix, AZ 85014

For any questions, the attorney can be reached at:
Dave Appleton, Attorney at Law
8711 E. Pinnacle Peak Rd., Suite 109
Scottsdale, AZ 85255

Phone: 480-473-2009
E-Mail: dappletonlaw@cox.net
Website: www.dappleton.com

If you and Steve can help out with this, I’ll be eternally grateful, and if not, I’ll understand. Do you think any of the bloggers would want to help?

I believe that the way that this is unfolding is truly an answer to prayers, and it will give me a good chance of getting a positive response.

I’ve always believed that if you’re going to dream, DREAM BIG! And that is what I’m doing! It takes me to that day when I’ll walk out of here and into a world of new possibilities, a world where I’ll be able to teach and write and help others in many new ways. It takes me to where I’ll be able to do the simple things I used to take for granted; things like sleeping on a comfortable bed, eating nutritional food, planting a garden, getting a dog, playing my guitar, wearing clothes that are not colored orange, etc. Ah…it is fun to dream, isn’t it?

And among the dreams that would mean the most to me would be the ability to call the   people who I have come to hold dear, and to have long chats, and meet and greet one another beyond the barriers of prison walls.

As long as dreams are present, we’ll always feel a candle burning within us that’s ready to light the world. May we keep that candle burning ever so brightly!

Celebrating Our Humanness

by Charles “Tom” Brown
Copyright 2007

We are both wonderful and difficult at the same time. We are flawed and stuck in old patterns, but it is by and through our humanness that we grow and change and transform. For without the places cracked and softened by experience and time, we remain too hard and fixed to be affected by life.

The first step in freeing ourselves from this burden is to acknowledge the hardening of the heart. Then, without judgment or rejection, we will uncover the great tenderness that resides at the very core of our humanness. Our beauty and our flawed self both arise from the same tenderness. If we can shine warmth and openness into the dark places where we don’t know we’re lovable, this starts to forge a marriage between our beauty and our wounded self.

This is, after all, the love we most long for – this embracing of our humanness, which lets us appreciate ourselves as the luminous beings we are, housed in a vulnerable, flickering form whose endless calling is to move from chrysalis to butterfly, from seed to new birth.

Being wholly and genuinely human means celebrating that we are both vulnerable and indestructible at the same time. I have been broken and failed so many times that my identity has sprouted and peeled like an onion. But because of this, I have lived more than my share of lives and feel both young and old at once. Though I still wonder if I will break, I somehow know it’s all a part of the rhythm of being alive.

Now I understand that as we listen beyond our small sense of things, we begin to see that perhaps it is our humanness that helps us find each other. Perhaps it is precisely because we are not perfect that we complete each other. We see that a magnificent light surrounds us, and no matter how we turn or are turned, the magnificence follows.

6-3-07

I’m enclosing “Celebrating Our Humanness” for you if you choose to post it. It explores some thoughts on accepting and loving ourselves – warts and all.

As you well know, love is a favorite subject of mine, and on this topic, an incident happened in the classroom that I’d like to share with you…

I was teaching a group of students at my table on the subject of language and among them was a young fellow named Amir from Bosnia. Amir has been through some horrific experiences in the war in Bosnia and is now struggling to learn English. Suddenly, he put his book down, looked at all of us, and said, “I love you guys.” It was so unexpected, there was silence for a moment. Then we all answered together, “We love you, too, Amir.”

It’s moments like this that remind me how great these fellows are and how fortunate I am to be able to help them. I’ve learned that if our heart and mind are fully present in whatever we are doing, our lives have meaning. There’s a sense of fulfillment. If we have compassion and love for everyone – all beings – beyond the notion of friend and enemy, the basis for true hapiness is ours.

Never in a thousand years of muy wildest imagination did I think I would be in prison. Here I am, though, and all I can do is choose to make the best of each day. The truth is that every stage of our lives is perfect, if we allow ourselves to really live in it. If we concentrate on the present - (and this includes my writing this from a prison dormitory and you reading it with a broken arm) – we can contribute and show up for this moment as fully as we can, then any moment can have its blessings.

Flying Lessons

by Charles “tom” Brown
Copyright 2007

     When a mother eagle is about to let go of her eaglets, she does a couple of things to get them out of the nest. She starts bringing them less food every day. She also begins to remove their nest, branch by branch. She dismantles the resting place.

     From one point of view that can seem cruel. What a terrible thing to do! But when we look at it from a larger perspective, from a bigger viewpoint, we see that she’s giving her young the freedom to exercise their wings and fly.

     When we graduate from a certain level of being here, life does the same thing to us. It withdraws old sources of nourishment and reminds us it’s time to go to another level of awareness. By removing our old source of nourishment, we discover greater reserves of strength and power within us.

     No bird can fly without opening its wings, and none of us can love without exposing our hearts. Anytime we hesitate revealing who we are, we can picture ourselves as a bird perched on a roof, wings tucked at our sides. To enter a relationship without opening our heart is to jump off that roof without spreading our wings. That we must move through the fear of flying before being upheld is what trusting is all about.

     When we bring up what we keep inside, it is sacred and scary, and we’re often not sure if we want to touch it or not. By going inside, though, and bringing out whatever we find there, we discover that it makes all the difference. Our revelations become our wings. Then we can say, “This is who I am when no one is looking.” For each of us is a fledgling that eventually, if fed, will fly.

4-29-2007
You’ve been in my thoughts and prayers a lot lately. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to not have the use of an arm.

In a way, we each are confronted with the same dilemma: how to feel the pain of living without denying it and without letting that pain define us. Ultimately, no matter what burden we are given – a broken arm, an imprisonment, the loss of worldly goods, feelings of depression – once whittled to the bone, we are faced with a never ending choice: to become the wound or to heal.

Just as a vine or a shrub – no matter how often it is cut back – will keep growing to the light, the human heart, no matter how often it is cut – can reassert its impulse to love.

And so…let’s reassert our impulse to feel and express the loving energy that surrounds us, the energy that we are.

Enclosed is an essay called “Flying Lessons.” On the surface, it may seem inappropriate to write of flying when our wing is broken, but perhaps that is the best time to approach it. We’re all like birds who have forgotten that we have wings.

Sometimes when I’m out on the recreation field, I watch the hawks fly. It seems as though they just stretch their wings out and allow the wind to carry them for miles. I watch in awe of the majest and freedom they show as they go higher and higher without moving a feather. Wings outstretched as they are effortless lifed. It is beautiful. It reminds us to give ourselves permission to allow the universe to lift us higher.

May we feel a little more of the magic of being alive today and may we spread our wings and allow the wind to take us to heights we’ve never known before.

Domino Lessons

by Charles “Tom” Brown

The signs in the prison visitation room stated the many restrictions. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Dress a certain way. Act a certain way. However, in the middle of all of this, a free spirit was on the loose. A young boy, perhaps three or four years old, decided to have fun with the dominoes his dad was trying to put into a container. He picked up handfuls of them and gleefully began throwing them in the air. The more the adults tried to gather up the dominoes and get him to stop it, the more fun he had.

As I watched this scene, I thought of some things I’d like to say to this little fellow –

“Remain excited at the discovery of dominoes; it tells us there is significance in small things, when our eyes have gotten too focused on the big things.

“Keep laughing and giggling when you are surprised and delighted; it offers our ears the music of grace.

“Play with other children on playgrounds; it shows us that all people of all backgrounds can meet each other with open hearts.

“Keep talking to the dogs and cats and pigeons and the ducks; it reminds us that the spirit is present in all living things.

“You have the gift of innocence. You have the gift of dreams. When we see you laughing and playing, throwing those dominoes in the air, our spirits take wing. When we lift you and hold you, we are consecrating a World of hope.

“You are hope when our hope has dimmed. You are joy when our hearts are heavy. In you we see the world as we dream that it could be.

For you remind us what it means to be alive.”

Letters from Prison

2-18-07

I just came back from the visitation room and saw something there that I just had to write about. In the serious, restricted environment of that room, a free spirit in the form of a little boy decided to have some fun. What a delight it was to see this and to write, “Domino Lessons!”

Seasons of the Soul arrived a few days ago and I have shared it with some of the fellows here and mailed it out to a friend. Each issue seems to get better and better and I am humbled and grateful to be a part of it. (for more information about Seasons of the Soul, go to www.kathleenjacoby.blogs.com)

Later this year I’ll be eligible to try for a hearing by phone with the clemency board. It’s a long shot, but I’m going to give it my best. When I see all the changes taking place in the “outside world”, I realize how isolated I’ve been. It’s like I’ve been on another planet where time is frozen. Someday when I walk out of here, I’ll be stepping into a different world, one that has a much faster pace, one that, in some ways, has left me behind. There is one area, though, where I feel ahead. That’s my inner world. Ant that, more than anything else, will help me to find my way in the world outside these walls.

I feel as though layers of armor have been peeled away. What is left is a tenderness that feels and responds in a way I’ve never known before. My journey has become deeper and richer as I learn to embrace it all.

George Sheehan eloquently expressed this maturing process when he wrote, “As you grow older, you evolve from body to mind to spirit, and as you let go of once supreme pleasures, you discover even finer new pleasures.”

Cries of the Heart

by Charles “Tom” Brown
Copyright 2007

As a teacher’s aide in the Arizona prison system, I often help students to prepare for their GED essay requirement. To prepare for this, they are given the format and the topic for their essay. A recent topic was, “If you could have one wish, what would it be?” and I assumed that most would be wishes to get out of prison or something of that nature. Instead, many were cries of the heart…cries to love and be loved.

One essay stated, “If I could have one wish, I would wish for a letter from my mother. She hasn’t written to me in years and it would mean so much to me to get a letter from her.”

Another inmate has a two-year old daughter who is with foster parents and he declared that his wish would be to hear his daughter on the phone. I told him that she wouldn’t be able to say much at the age of two, and he replied, “I just want to hear the sound of her voice.”

As I read these essays, I am reminded that we never lose our deep basic need to connect with soulfulness of each other’s heart. Each of us has a story to tell and we are traveling our personal road of transformation. Taking part in another’s dream or conflict or unresolved past is a deeper way of listening, a deeper way of being present. The reward for such deep listening is the incredible honor of witnessing a living model of human courage and then finding comfort and healing in the surprise that our stories are really the same.

Listening to another’s story somehow gives us the strength of example to carry on, as well as showing us aspects of ourselves we can’t easily see. Listening to the stories of others and the cries of their hearts is a kind of water that breaks the fever of our isolation. If we listen closely enough, we are soothed into remembering our common name.

I believe that when we express our truth, it releases light and warmth. I believe it is the way our spirit shines. These essay writers are my medicine. And I am theirs. We are members of a broken whole. And we will heal…a stitch, a song, a cry at a time.

Letters from prison

1-21-07

Thank you so much for the money order. It really helps me, and I’m deeply grateful.

Enclosed is an essay that I felt very deeply. It was inspired by some essays that I’ve been reading. When I asked my students to write an essay on what their wish would be for 2007, I expected to get responses like, “getting out of prison” or “winning a lot of money” …something like that.

Instead, most of them were what I would call “cries of the heart.” They described the need to connect with others, the need to not feel alone.

I’ve written a lot of words about facing our fears and surrendering into the darkest of nights, of letting go of all that we cling to. And sometimes they seem like trite meaningless symbols of what is going on deep inside us.

Times like these when we cry out with our heart are times in life when we are the most human, and we’re the most divine when we’re the most human.

Letter from Tom

1-05-07

It’s early morning (4AM), and I just wanted to connect with a kindred spirit. Sometimes in these early morning quiet hours, I wonder about things. I wonder if I’ll live long enough to get out of prison. And then I wonder how I’ll survive when I do get out. These thoughts are not empowering, so I won’t stay here for long. It’s where I am as I write this, though, and I want to be completely open about it.

In your last letter you wrote, “I’ve been in a low point – little inspiration and a need to review how to proceed.” We have been through a lot, haven’t we? So many laughs. So many tears. It has taken all of it, though, to bring us to where we are today, to this moment, and I like the space we’re in.

I believe the best gift we humans can give each other is our authenticity, our real thoughts and feelings, and I appreciate the honesty and heartfelt feelings you expressed in your last letter. When we share our truth, as you did, it releases light and warmth. It makes our spirit shine.

May we remember that we’re not alone, and that we are loved.

Falling Down and Getting Up

by Charles “Tom” Brown

Copyright 2007

By falling down and getting up, we have the whole story of being human. Try as we will to escape or transcend the imperfection of being a spirit on earth, it is through this wonderful friction that we come to know ourselves.

Falling down is how we learn and many of us have earned a master’s degree in this exercise. The strange truth is that, while we are falling down and being battered by existence outwardly, we are, in spite of ourselves, growing inwardly the way weather causes vegetables to grow. Actually, we have little control over our time on earth, other than the degree to which we choose to root ourselves and stand tall before the wind and rain and sun.

Getting up is not about conquering an opponent or circumstance, but about not getting stuck in life’s innumerable valleys. The process of getting up translates to being present and staying open. These are the efforts that cause us to ripen. These are the silences, which, if entered, will sing. We are touched the deepest when we can turn ourselves over to life like a song to be sung or something planted waiting to grow.

Things will always break apart and come together. Yet, in our pain, we often lose sight of their power to transform our lives. Each cocoon must break so the next butterfly can be. So many sheddings. So many wings.

It is our curse and our blessing to fall and get up so many times. But in this is the chief work of love: to comfort each other each time we fall and to be the missing piece of what we need to learn again and again.

The Next Step

by Charles “Tom” Brown
copyright 2007

As long as we live, we will feel the fear of taking the next step and trying again. It’s an intrinsic part of our makeup, and if we are waiting only for our fear to end, we will not discover the pure and loving presence that unfolds as we surrender into the darkest of nights. Only by letting go into the stream of life do we come into freedom. Facing fear and taking the next step is a lifelong training in letting fo of all that we cling to.

In the realm of action, not every gesture needs to be a grand one. Small steps are equally important as can be seen in the story of an old man who was walking along a beach in Mexico after an unusually strong spring storm. The beach was covered with dying starfish tossed up by the waves, and the man was tossing them back in the water one by one. A visitor saw this and came up to him. “What are you doing/” he asked. “I’m trying to help these starfish,” the old man replied. “But there are tens of thousands of them washed up along these beaches. Throwing a handful back doesn’t matter,” protested the visitor. “Matters to this one, “ the old man replied as he tossed another starfish into the ocean.

When the next step feels like it’s too much and life feels far off, let’s remember that a flute is something hard with holes until it’s played. So, too, the heart. As matches are just sticks until lit, as ice is not quenching until thawed, questions and problems remain obstacles until lived. In this way, the life of every soul waits like sheet music to be played.

Yet, this is as it should be, must be, the way everything natural extends and grows. We all lose and we all gain. Dark crowds the light. Light fills the pain. Living is a conversation with no end, a song with no words, a reason too big for any mind.

We are often called further into experience than we’d like to go, but it is the extra leap that lands us in the vibrant center of what it means to be alive. This is why ninety-year-old widows remain committed to tending small flowers in spring; why painters going blind paint more; why composers going deaf write great symphonies. This is why when we think we can’t possibly try again, we let out a sigh that goes back through the centuries, and then, despite all our experience, we inhale and take the next step.

1-1-2007

It’s the first day of 2007. Can you believe that? It reminds me of a saying – “TIME FLIES WHEN YOU’RE HAVING FUN.” And that reminds me of what one frog said to another – “TIME’S FUN WHEN YOU’RE HAVING FLIES.”

I guess this can be true either way, depending on your perspective.

Enclosed are a couple of essays – “The Next Step” and “Falling Down and Getting Up.” The “Falling Down” one is a winner in a prison essay writing contest and I was awarded a deluxe dictionary for it. Since I now have access to all of these words, I think I should warn you. I may try to lay some of these fancy words on you. However, I certainly don’t want to overload you with platitudinous ponderosity, pompous prolixity, or polysyllabic profundity. No siree! I would never do that.

I asked Ralphie (Tom’s cartoon dog) if he would say something that would brighten our pathway in 2007, and he made up this sign:

IF YOU HAVEN’T LEARNED TO LAUGH AT YOURSELF, YOU’VE MSSED THE BIGGEST JOKE OF ALL

He tells me that teachers are everywhere and here are some things that a dog can teach us:

1.     Never pass up an opportunity to go for a joyride.

2.     Take naps.

3.     Stretch before arising

4.     If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.

5.     Eat with gusto and enthusiasm. Stop when you have had enough.

6.     When you’re happy, dance around and wag your entire body.

7.     When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by, and nuzzle.

We can learn from these furry kids, can’t we? In your last letter, you wrote, “The writing isn’t a mused lately.” I can certainly relate to that. Let’s take the last of Ralphie’s points and sit closely and quietly and nuzzle with our thoughts and feelings.

It seems that the driving force of the sacred wisdom you and I write about is this: The only things worth saying are those things that are unsayable.

It’s quite humbling to realize that we spend a lifetime gaining grain after grain of this wisdom, working to understand it and struggling to express it and share it, only to become more and more a part of it, unspeakable ourselves. Over time, we age into stillness.

Perhaps this is the most poignant of paradoxes, nature’s safeguard against letting too much of the mystery exit. We take years of living to squeeze a few precious words from all that will not speak, and steadily, being shaped by our suffering and polished by our joy, knowing more and saying less. Ironically, after a lifetime, we may finally have important things to say, just as we feel our muse isn’t a mused and the words don’t seem to want to come out. Yet this doesn’t diminish all we try to say. For the fact that sound always ends in silence doesn’t make music any less precious to our souls.

Everything living is recreated in the mysterious moment of rest that blankets us all. In a moment of realness, the clouds in our mind clear and our passion is restored, our walls crumble, our muse is again amused. It all continues and refreshes, if we let it. It all renews so subtly.

Wishing you a joyous, magical New Year!