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.

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.

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.

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.
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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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.