Help the Knights of Columbus Restore Civility to American Politics
. . . The timing of this movement couldn't be better. According to the website, the Knights of Columbus and the Marists co-sponsored a poll that clearly demonstrates that the majority of Americans - 78% - are frustrated with the tone of the political campaigns now in full swing leading up to the presidential election. 74% believe this negative campaigning is only going to get worse. 64% of Americans say that negative "attack ads” hurt the political process. Major candidates, their parties, and political action committees (PACS) are going to spend a record-setting $6.5 billion on television and cable TV ads in this election year, and that doesn't even include newspapers, magazines, and all those unsightly billboards. A rapidly growing percentage of those ads are negative. Political attack ads draw politics away from the notion of civil service and into the arena of winners and losers in which the former triumph while the latter feel disenfranchised. These attack ads stifle bi-partisan cooperation for the good of all for years to come. They reduce politics to the service of a party or a platform instead of to the service of America and its people. We need to send a strong message before this downward spiral of toxic rhetoric in the name of politics gets any worse. . . .
Unchained Melody: Tunes from an 8-Track in an iPod World
. . . Joseph likes to stop by to help with my TSW titles. He brags that every recent title that "was a hit" had his hand in it. So when he asked about this post, I told him I wanted to call it "Unchained Melody" after the great love song. "Never heard of it," said Joseph. "Can't you find something that isn't pre-Roman Empire?" I tried humming a few bars. Surely this kid has heard this great song. "Nope!" said Joseph. "Way before my time! That's why you need my help," he insisted. "You're kind of like an 8-track in an iPod world!" . . .
Spring Cleaning Behind These Stone Walls, And News from the Front
. . . Right now, however, I have a far greater challenge to face than the temper tantrums of SNAP members long accustomed to having their distortions rule the day. It's a greater challenge even than waiting for the legal system to catch up with justice. The most immediate and daunting challenge I face at this moment is one many of you have to take on as well. It's called spring cleaning. As you know well, my world of the last nearly 18 years consists of an 8 by 12-foot cell which must be shared by two prisoners, one of whom wrote "The Duty of a Knight" two weeks ago. Well, it turns out that it isn't the duty of a knight to do all the spring cleaning while I just sit here on my bucket (umm . . . I mean this big plastic one) and type. We need to do something prisoners are required to do periodically. We have to empty out this cell completely, and clean everything . . .
Down the Nights and Down the Days: Advent for a Prisoner Priest
. . . Offering Mass in a prison cell is a little like offering Mass in a battlefield. We don't have the luxury of an altar, and must make do with what we've got - which isn't much. In the middle of the floor in this eight-by-twelve-foot cell are two concrete stumps that protrude about two feet out of the concrete floor. Just inches to one side of my stump is an iron bunk, and inches to the other side is a concrete counter protruding sixteen inches from the stone cell wall. At first, I offered Mass sitting on the concrete stump with my Mass kit spread at the edge of my bunk. One of my treasures is a Hammond World Atlas. Whenever TSW readers post comments that mention where they are, Pornchai and I like to find their town or city in the Atlas. So far, we have had readers from 31 countries. . . .
SNAP Judgements Part II: Ground Zero of the Catholic Scandal
. . . So I was not at all surprised when prisoners came one after another to my cell door during "Court TV's" coverage of the Father Geoghan trial. After some incredible testimony from the accuser, they showed up during commercials to ask, “Are you watching this?" I was watching it, and I heard what they heard. The twenty-something-year-old accuser testified that a dozen years earlier, when he was eleven, he was in a public swimming pool. He said that he recognized Father John Geoghan as someone who had visited his housing project. While trying to climb out of the pool, the young man testified, Father Geoghan came up behind him and, under the guise of helping him to climb out, squeezed his buttocks. Based upon this testimony, the 68-year old priest was convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to nine years in prison. It was a death sentence. . . . Am I defending Father John Geoghan? Not at all. Do I doubt that this accuser told the truth? Not at all. The behavior ascribed to Father Geoghan was consistent with what scores of others said of him, and an egregious example of how much his own reasoning and judgement skills had deteriorated. The Church had a responsibility to protect young people from John Geoghan and a responsibility to protect Father Geoghan from himself. Church officials failed on both counts. I don't question the truth of any of it. . . .
The Tale of a Prisoner Retold; Skooter at the Beginning of Wisdom
. . . Skooter walked out the door that day carrying two plastic trash bags containing the sum total of his possessions. The mountain he must climb still has some peaks yet to be conquered. Prison rules allow for no further contact, by mail or otherwise, with anyone Skooter knew here. He is on his own. When Skooter got to the door, he put his bags down, turned and waved. We'll remember Skooter's smile for a long, long time. And his resolve to claw his way back from the abyss life brought him to, is simply unforgettable. Skooter is gone now, gone from our sight, but not from our souls. Let's hope and pray the Lord has made for him a straighter, smoother path. . . .
Pre-Apocalyptic Prison Paranoia
. . . But not everyone was spared. Like many prisoners, a man in the next cell block already had some issues with paranoia. On New Year's Eve, 1999, he became convinced somehow that Y2K would destroy all computer records - including prison records - and chaos would ensue. Someone fed his paranoia with a tale that if all society and laws break down, and anarchy takes their place, the government has a plan to execute all the prisoners with poison gas. Many prisoners are convinced that every governor has just such a plan hidden in his desk drawer. So the prisoner spent the night with a needle and thread sewing his lips and eyelids shut to keep the expected poison gas from penetrating. No one could figure out how he managed to stitch that second eyelid closed, but he did. . . .
We'll Be Right Back After This Long Commercial Break!
. . . The break we are taking is due to several circumstances. Charlene is planning a journey to Rome in May, and I have no one else available to scan and forward my posts. Also, Suzanne is planning a blog design upgrade. This might mean that the site will look off kilter while she adjusts the graphics and HTML/CSS/PHP/MySQL customizations to fit in with the new WordPress theme. Suzanne is on Australia time so midnight on the U.S. East Coast where I am a prisoner is 2:00 PM the next day in Australia. TSW's hiatus reminds me of something I wrote about last year. Once during a Sunday Mass in my last parish, I had some sort of allergic reaction that constricted my larynx. As I finished reading the Gospel, I lost my voice completely. Only a squeak would come out. So I skipped my homily while the lector led parishioners in the Nicene Creed and Prayers of the Faithful. . . .
Protect Us from All Anxiety: Nightmares and Dreamscapes in the Desert
. . . A few days ago, Pornchai and our friend, Donald, were in our cell talking about anxiety in prison. I told them of the awful dream I had. Donald suggested that I must feel really let down by being left to face the mob alone on the steps of the Church. Then Pornchai said, "I disagree. He wasn't alone at all." I was really thunderstruck by Pornchai's insight, and I believe he was right. The dream wasn't about the obvious source of my anxiety, the mobs pointing fingers of accusation, but rather about the fact that I am not alone in my anxiety, that Christ is there with me. How could I not see it? I see the same dark dream now in a completely different light. The next day, Pornchai brought up the "Libera Nos" prayer again, and asked me about the "protect us from all anxiety" part. It is rare that Pornchai speaks about his past, but he told me about his ongoing problem with anxiety. Living in the same cell, I have been aware of some of the times he awakens in the night in the steel bunk four feet above me, and I can feel the anxiety and pain in those times. Pornchai sleeps with his Saint Maximilian Kolbe medal hanging on the stone wall just inches from his face. I have seen him clutching it in the night. . . .
The Spring of Hope: Winter in New England Shows Signs of Thaw
. . . There's a "Southie" accent, a North End accent, a Charlestown accent, and of course the famous Boston Brahmin accent of Beacon Hill. A linguist once told me that the Boston accents evolved from the period of the 1630s when Boston became the geographic and social center of New England Puritanism after the success of Plymouth Colony that I described in "The True Story of Thanksgiving." Some think the Puritans came here just to one day make famous the phrase, "Pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd." There's another subtle accent distinction on the North Shore (the "Nawth Shoah") where I grew up, and still another if you head west out to the Berkshires. Venturing north to New Hampshire, where I am in prison, or west to Vermont or nor'east to Maine, you'll hear other distinct variations on the basic New England accent. . . .
Pornchai Moontri: From Prison Blues to Poetic Muse!
. . . In the post, I made a brief mention of a letter from Father Neuhaus to Pornchai Moontri, and of how that letter was among the forces that caused Pornchai to become a Catholic. What surprised me was the number of comments mentioning my brief paragraph about Pornchai. He was certainly not central to that post, but lots of people mention him in their comments on several of my posts. In fact, I've noticed a pattern. It might be just my imagination, but when I mention Pornchai, readers seem to comment more. I showed the comments on that post to Pornchai and told him about my theory. He readily concurred. "If you don't mention me," he said, "no one reads it!" Well, I doubt that's true. At least, I HOPE it isn't true! . . .
Don We Now Our Gray Apparel: The Grinch Who Stole Christmas 17 Times
. . . The readers of These Stone Walls have cast a light into the darkness and spiritual isolation of prison this year. It's a light that's magnified ever so brightly, in my life and in yours, by the birth of Christ. The Grinch doesn't really stand a chance! He never did! . . .
Holidays in the Hoosegow: Thanksgiving with Some Not-So-Just Desserts!
. . . One day late last month, I turned a corner outside on the long, concrete ramp winding its way up to the prison mess halls. I looked up to discover a spot I never noticed before.It was a place amid the concrete and steel that afforded a momentary glimpse of a tree-covered hill in the distance beyond the walls, and the setting sun had fallen upon that very spot. For a moment, the hill was clothed in a blaze of glory with an explosion of fall color. It was magnificent! I felt a bit like Dorothy Gale, stepping for the first time out of the gray gloom of her Kansas home into the startling glory of the Land of Oz. . . .
A Prisoner, A Professor, A Prelate, Two Priests, and a Poet!
. . . In the corner of my cell where I type sitting on an empty bucket, my head is just six inches from the barred cell window. The window doesn't open - a fact that I deeply resent - but there is a little security grate with a knob that opens a small section of the grate for a little - very little - air. As I sat here early yesterday morning thinking of a title, I heard something unusual through the open grate. It was a song, and it came from a red-breasted robin perched atop the spirals of razor wire on the twenty-foot wall that has been my view of the outside world for sixteen years. I watched the robin for a long time, and listened as he sang. It instantly made me think of . . .