Tony T. is a member of our White Collar Support Group that meets online on Zoom on Monday evenings. We will celebrate our 300th meeting on March 14, 2022, 7 pm ET, 4 pm PT.
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I am currently sitting at FCI Morgantown, a prison camp in West Virginia, finishing a 41 month sentence for wire fraud.
When I first found out I was being investigated, I was literally frightened beyond words. What was going to happen, what would happen to my family, my kids, my life. After finding Jeff and the White Collar Support Group, I first watched and listened, and then fully joined in. ALL the things I learned about my next few years of my life, what will happen next, what to do, what to ask and what to expect, I learned through the group. Not only did this group become my community, it’s members became my family.
I am now 97 days from finishing my journey and was told today that because of the First Step Act, I will go straight to probation. I never thought I could get through this process and, without the group, I don’t know if I could have. I am so grateful.
Attorney and minister, Jeff Grant, is this week’s guest on the Energy Stoners(TM) Cafe Podcast. He discusses his journey from successful lawyer, to opioid addiction, to convicted felon to minister. Jeff is now the founder of prisonist.org, the world’s first ministry serving the white collar crime community. After years of recovery and self-discovery and ministry, Jeff Grant is finally reinstated as a lawyer and continues his ministry. His story is truly enlightening and inspiring.
Jessica L. is a member of our White Collar Support Group that meets online on Zoom on Monday evenings. We will celebrate our 300th meeting on March 14, 2022, 7 pm ET, 4 pm PT.
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When I received a target letter from the United States Government stating that I was under investigation and would soon be indicted on federal felony charges of blah blah blah (read terrifying)- I crumbled. Thankfully I had my own office at work, because I was in the fetal position under my desk, sobbing.
I remained in the fetal position in one form or another – until I found Jeff’s group: White Collar Support Group. When I first found it after fervently googling desperate pleas like “help me not go to federal prison,” I was leery. I had already contacted prison consultants who appeared first in the searches. These people wanted thousands of dollars that I didn’t have. They told me I would surely receive a conviction of years and needed their help to receive the best sentence possible.
Progressive Prison Ministries was different. At my first meeting Jeff kindly welcomed me, introduced men and women who had been in my shoes, or were strongly standing in them with me. I wasn’t alone anymore. My daily crying sessions ceased. I started to think clearly again. The group was pivotal in helping me put things into perspective. I listened, and began to trust members who said “no matter what happens, it will not be as bad as you imagine it will be”.
I remain in the midst of my case, but I am not suicidal now. I have my head held high and I will walk through the next months and years with grace. I know this group will support me, and non-judgmentally be there for me. The fear is lessening, and for the first time in 3 years since this nightmare began, I feel a glimmer of hope. – Jessica L., Massachusetts
The group has been instrumental in my journey, and I’m grateful to be a part of it.
We have people on the call at pretty much every point in their justice journey.
From just indicted to being out of the system for over 20 years.
This is just one aspect of the group that makes it so powerful.
Multiple perspectives.
When one of our members is set to report to prison, we’ll dedicate the call to them and share our collective wisdom so we can prepare them as much as possible.
There is one piece of advice that stands out amongst the rest:
For the first couple of weeks in prison, be an observer.
Nothing more.
If a group of inmates is sitting next to you trying to come up with the name of the movie starring Russell Crowe set in ancient Rome, do not, as badly as you want to, interject with the answer.
Sit and observe.
Observe the inmates, decipher who’s a trouble maker and who’s not.
Observe the CO’s, decipher who seems to treat the inmates with a modicum of respect, and who to steer clear of.
Observe the unwritten rules of prison life so you can navigate your time as smoothly as possible.
Observe.
It took going to prison and being a part of the support group to understand that this piece of advice is not just for prison.
It’s for each and every one of us and the lives we’re living.
It’s too easy for our lives to be set on autopilot, to get so wrapped up with egotistical things, careers, money, cars.
The millions of little acts we do every day/week/month/year to keep our lives moving forward.
We don’t get into the habit of standing back and observing our lives and inquiring,
“Am I fulfilled?”
“Is something missing?”
“Is what I’m doing serving me?”
In order to create the lives we want to create, we need to understand the lives we’re living.
We do this by stepping out of the rushing river and observing the river.
Try to be an observer in your own life; you might surprise yourself.
Award winning journalist Chandra Bozelko is a member of our White Collar Support Group that meets on Zoom on Monday evenings. I am updating my resume in case her idea develops any traction. – Jeff
If the White House had remained in Democratic hands in 2016, even more former incarcerees might have found their way into federal employment — but Obama’s successor erased much of that progress. The Trump campaign hired people with criminal backgrounds but not the Trump administration. Trump’s team actually wanted to expand the disqualifying criteria for federal employment to include having charges that were disposed through a pretrial diversion program. They wanted to exclude people who didn’t have a felony conviction record with an even harsher criterion: Merely a brush with the criminal legal system would have served as cause for rescinding a job offer.
Biden said he hopes he’s the polar opposite of Trump; one way to prove that would be to embrace the Beltway adage that “personnel is policy” — coined in a 2016 op-ed by Ronald Reagan’s Director of Personnel, Scott Faulkner — and rewind the reputation he’s earning for himself that he doesn’t care about doing better by the 157,596 men and women penned in the country’s 122 federal correctional facilities as of January 13.
While Trump touts the First Step Act as the pinnacle of reform, Biden’s Department of Justice has slow-walked its implementation. People restricted to home confinement could have completed their sentences years ago if the Department of Justice had applied the law’s signature “Earned Time Credits” to their sentences when they earned them. Instead, Attorney General Merrick Garland finally ordered it done the week of January 10, 2022, taking over a year to do what could have been accomplished very quickly.
The director of the Bureau of Prisons isn’t a Cabinet member per se. The office is filled by the attorney general and doesn’t require Senate approval – an aspect of the job that may change if a House bill introduced January 13 requiring confirmation hearings and a Senate vote to install a new director is made law.
Naming a director who has a rap sheet would leave very few critics of Biden’s commitment to reform. Of course, this proposal will inevitably invite accusations that the Biden administration is allowing the inmates to run the asylum — as if that’s necessarily worse than who’s running it now.
But, surprisingly, it seems that even the most fervent reform advocates fall just short of saying that the new director should be a formerly incarcerated person.
The same National Council of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls that sought to free at least 100 women a year ago, released a statement on January 12 and an open letter to President Biden asking for a director who has “a deep understanding of the causes of mass incarceration and a track record of combating institutional racism in keeping with this Administration’s oft-stated — but rarely seen — commitment to racial justice… [and is] committed to decarceration of people who should not be in prison: the elderly, ill, survivors of domestic violence, and long-timers.”
I’m not suggesting that someone slinging meth on a corner because his criminal record locks him out of legitimate employment should slide into Carvajal’s seat. More than enough former prisoners are qualified to do his former job. Among the millions of people who’ve re-entered society, there are two MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant award winners (1, 2), one of whom made Time Magazine’s 2019 Top 100 list, as well as law professors, elected officials, business pioneers, non-profit founders, authors, journalists, and artists who have accomplished more than other people who’ve never walked the line.
It won’t be some rough-riding abolitionist either who would deliver a surprise — or even illegal — exodus from federal pens; I don’t think an abolitionist would take the position. And that highlights the real risk of carving out Carvajal’s job for someone who’s been through the criminal legal system. It’s not a dearth of talent or responsibility; it just may be that none of them really wants the job of managing people confined to the same spaces they once were.
But if called, one of us should serve, even if only for a short period. To be the first person to leave one door of a prison and walk in another would too much of a revolution to ignore. And this president and his Department of Justice should kick it off by picking someone with lived experience to lead the federal government’s prison system.
Chandra Bozelko did time in a maximum-security facility in Connecticut. While inside she became the first incarcerated person with a regular byline in a publication outside of the facility. Her “Prison Diaries” column ran in The New Haven Independent, and she later established a blog under the same name that earned several professional awards. Her columns will now appear regularly in The National Memo.
Big thanks to Professor Petter Gottschalk for inviting me to speak at the BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway on Weds., Feb 23rd, 9 am ET, 6 pm CET. This is all virtual, of course – details to come.
“This book uses global case studies of white-collar crime to examine offenders in top business positions and their motives. Drawing on the theory of convenience, this book opens up new perspectives of white-collar offenders in terms of their financial motives, their professional opportunities, and their personal willingness for deviant behaviour. It focusses on three groups of privileged individuals who have abused their positions for economic gain: people who occupied the position of chair of the board, people who were chief executive officers, and female offenders in top positions, and the related white-collar crimes. Convenience themes are identified in each case using the structural model for convenience theory. The case studies are from Denmark, Germany, Japan, Moldova, Norway, Sweden, and the United States. This book speaks to those interested in white-collar crime, criminal justice, policing, organizational behaviour and business administration.”
About Petter Gottschalk:
Petter Gottschalk is a Professor Emeritus – Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour at the BI Norwegian Business School at its Institute for Leadership and Organizational Management.[1]
Gottschalk has previously been CEO of Norwegian Computing Center, ABB Datakabel, Statens kantiner and Norsk Informasjonsteknologi (NIT).
In recent years, Gottschalk has done research on the police and their use of IT. He has also done much research on knowledge management, and he has published a number of books on that subject, as well as books about the police. He has also worked as an advisor to the police. His research on the police and their use of information technology has resulted in his appearance in the news media when this topic has been in the news. Gottschalk also researches crime as seen from the police perspective, in particular organized crime and financial crime. In recent years, he has published many articles as well as a number of books in English about organized crime, financial crime and criminal entrepreneurship. Gottschalk was an active participant in the Norwegian public discourse about EU’s Dataa Retention Directive in 2010 expressing his opinion that the police ought to make better use of the sources they already have.
About Jeff Grant:
After an addiction to prescription opioids and serving almost fourteen months in a Federal prison (2006 – 07) for a white-collar crime he committed in 2001 when he was lawyer, Jeff started his own reentry – earning a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, majoring in Social Ethics. After graduating from divinity school, Jeff was called to serve at an inner city church in Bridgeport, CT as Associate Minister and Director of Prison Ministries. He then co-founded Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. (Greenwich, CT), the world’s first ministry serving the white collar justice community.
On May 5, 2021, Jeff’s law license was reinstated by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.
Jeff is once again in private practice and is committed to using his legal expertise and life experience to benefit others. He provides a broad range of legal services in a highly attentive, personalized manner. They include private general counsel, white collar crisis management to individuals and families, services to family-owned and closely-held businesses, plus support to special situation and pro bono clients. He practices in New York and in authorized Federal matters, and works with local co-counsel to represent clients throughout country.
Save the Date: White Collar Support Group — 300th Meeting Online on Zoom. Monday, March 14, 2022, 7 pm ET, 6 pm CT, 5 pm MT, 4 pm PT. Open to directly justice impacted only. Referrals welcome.
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Dear Fellow Travelers,
Progressive Prison Ministries and St. Joseph’s Mission Church invite you to join our Confidential Online White Collar Support Group. We hold our group meetings on Monday evenings, 7 pm ET. 6 pm CT, 5 pm MT, 4 pm PT.
We are doing something truly groundbreaking! This is the world’s first Confidential Online White Collar Support Group. As this support group is run by ordained clergy as part of a program of pastoral care and confession, we expect and believe it falls under clergy privilege laws.
We are a community of individuals, families and groups with white collar justice issues who have a desire to take responsibility for our actions and the wreckage we caused, make amends, and move forward in new way of life centered on hope, care, compassion, tolerance and empathy. Our experience shows us that many of us are suffering in silence with shame, remorse, and deep regret. Many of us have been stigmatized by our own families, friends and communities, and the business community. Our goal is to learn and evolve into a new spiritual way of life and to reach out in service to others. This is an important thing we are doing!
Over 400 Fellow Travelers have participated in our support group meetings from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin — and Canada, South America, Europe and the Caribbean. All have agreed this has been a valuable, important experience in which everyone feels less alone, and gratified in the opportunity to talk about things in a safe space only we could understand.
We have formed agreements as to confidentiality, anonymity and civility, and have a basic agenda for each meeting:
1. Welcome 2. Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” 3. Short Member Introductions, if we have new member(s) 4. Announcements & Resource Sharing 5. Guest Speaker and/or Lead on Topic 6. Member Sharing 7. Closing
Login Instructions and Link are sent out weekly. We have set up an account with Zoom for our group, and you can log in via video on a computer, tablet or smart phone that is equipped with a camera, or audio only via phone. Please use headphones if you can so that we can minimize feedback and background noise. Each meeting will have a different meeting number to best provide confidentiality.
For Newcomers, I (or the night’s host) will be online fifteen minutes before the scheduled start of the meeting. Zoom works wonderfully, however, it might take a little time to get comfortable with on your end if you’ve never been on this platform.
Thank you for referring other justice-impacted people and families: [email protected]. Fellow Traveler volunteers handle information requests and intakes with empathy and compassion.
Press & media inquiries: [email protected]. A Fellow Traveler volunteer who is a public relations professional handles these inquiries.
If you have suggestions for other Fellow Travelers to join this group, please contact us to discuss. Our goal is to be inclusive.
IMPORTANT!: If you are currently on supervised release, probation or parole, it is important that you first discuss this with your P.O. To assist in this regard, information about our ministry is available on prisonist.org.
Please feel free to contact us if you would like to join in our next meeting, or with any questions you might have regarding this group, its meetings, or anything else whatsoever.
Each year I send out a holiday message to our members. This year, it has been very difficult to find the right words.
For the past couple of months, I have been overwhelmed with gratitude and wonder, mixed with ample doses of fear and anxiety. So I entered a period of contemplation, reflection, and discernment. And as I emerge to start the new year, the spirit has compelled me to send you a very personal message.
My gratitude runs so deep for all the blessings that have been given to us. It seems impossible that we, whose lives have been brought to the brink, would have much to be grateful for. And yet, I’m sure that’s the way it works. I know I couldn’t be truly grateful until I had lost everything, and then had the opportunity to start my life anew.
My new life has been a gift, no longer shackled by the chains of trauma from my dysfunctional childhood family and from other people’s expectations; I bought into it all, even though deep down inside I knew it wasn’t right for me. That it was killing me. The crushing weight of materialism, pieces of me being cleaved off bit by bit, year by year, allowing things to get more and more complicated. Eventually, I was on autopilot, doing whatever I had to do to maintain that unsustainable trajectory and to survive. Ignoring the consequences. Or, more likely, encouraging the consequences. Until I couldn’t do it any longer and I just wanted the madness to stop.
So I threw a hand grenade into my life and dove on it. It mortally wounded me, and the wreckage to my family and all I held dear was unimaginable. Like the tornadoes we see on television all too often these days, the vestiges of my life were here one minute and gone the next.
And yet, what I didn’t know is that God and nature perform miracles every day. Today’s wildfire is tomorrow’s meadow, teeming with life and possibilities. Little microbes feeding new ecosystems that grow into new and different forests. It’s been like that since the beginning of time. But, in our fear and arrogance, we think we can control things, that it is our fault, that we will never recover.
One day, when I was feeling most afraid and most alone, I reached out to another person who was going through a journey similar to mine. Or, at least I thought he might be. At the time there was no information available anywhere. Nothing online, nothing anywhere. Vapor. But I risked it and made that phone call. And we shared our pain, our suffering, our loss.
They say that pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth, and for me that has certainly turned out to be true. But what I’ve learned is that there is a difference between struggling and suffering. Struggling is a good thing, an important thing, a necessary thing. It has helped me learn, and grow, and evolve into the person God intended me to be.
But suffering is optional.
And yet, I choose to suffer almost every day. Sometimes for a few moments, sometimes it goes on for hours. But when I remember that suffering is a choice, when I turn to God and to others to share my pain, my suffering subsides.
We founded our support group in May 2016, and this Monday night will celebrate our 289th meeting, in the midst of a period in which the world celebrates the holidays. We, a rag-tag group of misfits, the discarded, the broken. A gang of people who by all rights should not be able to celebrate anything. And yet, we thrive.
289 meetings. We thrive.
So, at least for me, at a time in the world and in my life when it would be so easy to focus on my wounds, instead I am choosing to focus on my blessings. What other choice to I really have if I want to thrive? And at the top of my list of my blessings is you. The miracle of us, and what we have found in one another. Brothers, sisters, a community, a family.
In the glow of this light, I wish and pray for you and your loved ones to have a happy and healthy Christmastime, no matter what your faith or religion. Please reach out to me or to one another if you are in need, or if you sense that someone else is in need. We will answer the call.
As for me, I’m always in need. At least a little.
Prayers and blessings to all for happy and healthy holidays, לשלום
I don’t know how I can best communicate this experience.
Although my efforts will fall short, I have to try. So, here it goes.
As a kid, like others, every Christmas season felt like it was supposed to be a magical time where every dream would come true. I would watch all the holiday shows, count down the days until a break from school, lay under the tree watching the lights, and look forward to playing non-stop, all day. I felt as if our house was an isolated world where only I mattered and was to serve me the perfect Christmas. There is no perfection on earth, but kids certainly wish for it on this holiday.
As I got older, the realization sunk in that, although it is a very special day in religious terms, it was just December 25th on the calendar. I tried to fulfill the magical hopes and dreams of my own kids, but the day passed with less wonder as each year rolled by. After all, we are human, so each year human-like events occur that reduce any remaining hope for an out-of-body transformation. Once my own kids were past the age of believing in the magic themselves, it became even more difficult to avoid letting this time pass with minimal fanfare.
It wasn’t until I was fifty-two that events shifted in order to give me a holiday wake-up call. On August 21st of 2020, due to my criminal conviction, a judge sentenced me to spend a week at Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas in the county jail. At the time I thought, this reinforces that the magic I always hoped for came from a delusional kid that overestimated any power of a specific day.
I have never been so wrong about anything.
By the time I reported for my third “retreat”, as my family had grown to call it,(not because it was in any way easy, but because we had agreed to use it to help others as I did in church retreats), I was used to the dehumanizing procedures. Waiting to be booked, handcuffed, strip-searched, checked by the nurse, requesting needed meds, changing into “inmate” clothes, and sitting in a small room that was dirtier and smelled worse than any gas station restroom you will ever visit. All in preparation to be transferred to two more pods/cells, before my final twenty-one-man unit for the week.
It was Dec. 21st and I would get out the morning of Dec. 27th. So, I would be detained for the whole week of Christmas. Because we watch TV shows and movies about prison life, people tend to think that everyone is a heartless thug, a degenerate that needs to be removed from society, often violent, and can’t be trusted. Since this was my third stint in county jail, I already knew this wasn’t true. But, I certainly didn’t spend any time fantasizing about anything above a week of misery.
But, after the usual entrance procedures and making it to the final pod/cell, I was surprised at what I first saw. The powers that be at the jail had decided to plan a decorating contest to see which pod could put forth the best effort to transform forty years of peeling walls, cement floors and picnic tables into a construction paper and tape, winter wonderland. The motivation for each cell to engage would be for the top three cells to get pizza or fast food of their choice for dinner. Certainly a delicacy for anyone that has ever tasted the food in a county jail.
By the time I arrived though, the contest was over and my cell had not won one of the top three prizes. Non the less, I was blown away by their efforts. There were the same paper snowflakes we have all cut in elementary school hanging from every part of the ceiling. A makeshift green paper Christmas tree with a brown trunk standing on one of the cement tables while leaning against the wall. But what was most impressive to me was the Santas sleigh and reindeer that sat on the metal TV cabinet. The details of each reindeer, Santa’s body and face, as well as the sleigh and scenery, had to take at least six to eight hours of effort. It was not rudimentary in any form. It had to be completed by a few inmates with extensive art skills that gained joy from putting their talents to work
Activities that create escapes are invaluable amongst the slowest time one ever faces in county jail. The inmates who spent the time doing the decorating know that, in jail, the rules change by the minute. Who knew who would judge the decorating contest and the reward can be taken away in minutes because of one “cellies” negative behavior. Everyone knows any kind of reward in jail is a long shot at best.
In my opinion, the inmates didn’t work hard on the holiday decorations for pizza. They did it because they are the same kid that I once was, hoping to have the pain of life removed and replaced with magic during this one week of the year. It takes a lot more than being incarcerated to remove that from the human spirit. So, creating decorations across a dank, old jail cell held only intrinsic rewards. For me, their efforts were the first of many blessings to come. Much of my time that week was spent looking at the decorations in detail. Appreciating the efforts of those who we often think don’t have anything positive to offer, another reminder of how wrong we are.
My pod/cell was made up of a diverse group of men. By geographic location racial, socioeconomic and religious backgrounds. The range in age was eighteen to sixty-five with crimes that were largely due to drug possession or trafficking, breaking and entering, kidnapping, aggravated assault and others that are meant to economically feed their addictions. Therefore, the talk during downtime (which there is a lot of) is about each persons criminal case, their chance of getting out soon, the length of their eventual sentence, and of course, the loved ones and family they miss the most.
The majority of men had children at some age that would spend this holiday without them. Board and card games, as well as bartering for food trades, takes up as much time as possible. A slight bonus, there is a small TV playing, with limited channel options. The guards control the TV during their head-count routine, as the batteries in the remote could be used to smoke by the most “talented” inmates.
Coming in on this holiday week, I thought the TV shows of choice would be the usual sports or crime scene dramas that played eternally throughout the days. At any given time, five to seven of the twenty-one men in the pod/cell would watch a show. So, there was always a lot of room in front of the TV. But this week would prove to be different
As was always the case, the mainstream channels never fail to play old classics like Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph, or A Year Without a Santa Clause and so forth during this holiday week. 2020 would be no different. A few days before Christmas, around 8 PM, a commercial informed us that two episodes would be broadcast soon. As the shows started and word spread across the cell, at least 15-17 men crowded in front of the TV. More than I had seen for any other viewing event.
It is amazing, no matter where we watch the shows that are so tightly knit to our childhood, we can’t help but regress in our hearts and minds. As I saw the same 1960’s, rudimentarily manufactured characters that always made me happy and hopeful, watching them in county jail didn’t change that.
Closely seated together next to others on the cement picnic table, I looked at the smile on the face of the inmate next to me. This remote stranger and criminal enjoying the same show as I. It occurred to me, I would never have usually “mixed” with this group before. It brought a stirring awareness of equality to mind that would continue through the rest of the week.
Remove the skin color, the place of birth, the socioeconomic status of our parents, and other dividing factors, we are the same kid. None of us planned to be in a county jail at this time of our lives. Missing our families, county the minutes to be free. Yet, here we were, glad to have each other and heart full that together, we might be able to escape in our minds for a few minutes of magic once again. I learned that the human spirit seeks that at any level possible, regardless of the situation.
Due to the grind and routine of a county jail, days undoubtedly go by slowly. I had made it through the majority of the week and could begin to taste how good my release day would feel. As Christmas Eve approached, I had hoped that I could just ignore the family events I would be missing in order to pass time even faster. That is easier said than done.
It was Christmas Eve and I was able to get a few minutes on the pay-phone to talk to my wife and daughters. Which was the moment I had been most dreading since I learned the timing of my sentence. My wife had worked all day and as I had noticed looking out the windows, it was beginning to snow. She would have to drive and pick my daughter up from work, something I would have usually done when the weather was bad. As I got off the phone with them for what would be the last time on this Christmas Eve, I felt like a failure in every area of my life.
Walking across the cell and approaching the mostly frozen over windows, I gazed out at the falling snow and thought about the weight of this moment. Away from my wife and kids on Christmas Eve. That was bad enough, but I also had an additional challenge. One of the largest fears, stemming from my past life events and traumas, was the fear of not feeling safe/secure in my environment. It was something that I had discovered had permeated the majority of my life. It is also something that created an external focus and need for validation that led to the events that brought me here on this night. The lack of security didn’t stem from a threat on my life or violence. But it came from where it always had, fear that I wasn’t capable of relying on the internal strength that I had within myself.
Despite my best efforts to ignore the surroundings and the the voices replaying in my head of my wife and daughters, I had slipped into the lowest emotional level that I had hoped to avoid this week. I felt overwhelmed by sadness so I retreated to my bunk. I fought back the stomach pains and tried to pass time.
Whether it’s Christmas Eve or not, time in jail is one of the slowest humanity has witnessed. This night, time was extra slow and my anxiety was unusually high. My wife and daughters would soon be celebrating the holiday without me. I had always viewed the protection I provided them as contribution to make up for all the other foundational, healthy traits I lacked.
Deep down I knew that a time would come when my shortcomings would catch up to me, everyone would know that I was a fake, an empty vessel outwardly projecting confidence and intelligence with little substance to back it up. On this night it had not only caught up with me, but the family I loved would suffer as well. As I laid back in the rusted metal bunk attempting to ignore the back pain and lack of sleep, I looked around the cell at the activity of the other inmates.
There is no place that creates equality like jail. No matter what race, socioeconomic standing, religion, nationality or family support system… everyone is the same, societies most judged and deserving of whatever we get. After all, we all did something WRONG. So the one good thing was that, on this unexpected night I wasn’t alone. The events to come would not only change my belief in myself, but a belief in the kindness of humanity that I could never imagine.
Doing my best to pull myself from grave hopelessness, it was 8:30 pm and I remembered that an inmate had said that the movie “A Christmas Story” was going to be on TV. I heard a slight ruckus as many of the men were making themselves a viewing space in front of the small TV. When I had entered the pod/cell days earlier, a twenty-something-year-old man, who had told me he had been in and out of prison since he was thirteen for drug addiction, insisted I have the bottom bunk. He had witnessed my difficulties in climbing to the top one and said that he’d never make his dad climb up for the week, so he certainly wasn’t going to let me do it. That was only his first act of kindness to me that week.
Noticing my sadness after my earlier phone call home, the same young man had made me a makeshift chair in front of the TV from a plastic tote. He made me get out of bed and come over in front of the TV. Since the only thing to sit on in the cell is cement picnic tables bolted to the floor, inmates are adept at creating any semblance of comfort that they can. He and a few others had moved their ½ inch thick bed mats onto the cement floor in front of the TV as well, in preparation for the holiday film.
After making sure I was seated comfortably, he approached me and said he had saved a treat for me, a chocolate milk and candy bar. He said he knew it would be a tough night for me. The chocolate milk was given to us at breakfast as the only “treat” that represented any recognition of the Christmas Holiday. So, sacrificing his chocolate milk and nutty bar purchased at commissary was a gift of significant kindness. As with many other times where God speaks/acts through another human to one of us, I experienced an immediate feeling of love with an accompanying mood change.
The extreme sadness of being away from my family lifted due to the recognition of the power of the generous human spirit. There would be no return gift from me to the twenties-something drug addict that had spent most of his life incarcerated. I had nothing to give besides a sincere thanks and recognition of his act. On this holy night, God had spoken through him in the most glorious and unexpected way.
The rest of my Christmas Eve of 2020 was one I will never forget and will always be thankful for. I had never seen the movie The Christmas Story before, yet many of the men around me had. Regardless, near all of the men brought their bed mats in front of the TV. Some had saved treats as well in hope of finding something to celebrate on this day. Throughout the movie, I looked around me in order to look into the eyes of those who I was once afraid of and considered so different than me. Each face represented a different story that started with childhood dreams of Christmas magic, yet culminated with incarceration.
As the snow continued to fall and accumulate outside, the movie brought joy and nostalgia equally around the room. Together we laughed, talked about scenes that reminded us of our own childhood, and for at least a portion of the movie, felt like normal human beings.
One of my favorite parts of Christmas has always been going to bed feeling the satisfaction of giving and receiving the love that accompanies the holiday. What makes it even better, is to do so amongst family and loved ones. On this night, I felt the same. It wasn’t my immediate family I was with, nor anyone I would probably ever see again, but it was one of the greatest lessons and gifts I have ever learned. Humans take care of each other.
I also learned that, not only am I capable of building my own internal security and safety, but that God ALWAYS provides us with what we need in the gravest of situations. More importantly, he uses every person as an instrument to love and serve. From that point forward, I made a pact with myself that I would forever see value in every person, regardless of their background and circumstances. Also, I would open up myself to be the same instrument of love for others regardless of the time, place, or circumstance.
I do not intend for my Christmas story to pale in comparison to those who spend years incarcerated or in much worse circumstances. Instead, I hope that in reading it, others take away the same lesson that I did. The magic of this holiday will always be there, just as we wished as kids. The reason being the magic is God’s love. It never leaves because his people are always there.
Please think of those incarcerated and/or the less fortunate this holiday season. But don’t worry, they will take care of each other as will you and I.
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As Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, “Fight for the things that you care about but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” Michael Neubig is a passionate professional who enjoys collaboratively fighting for a cause. That cause has always been equality in educational opportunity for everyone. Including those incarcerated and the justice-involved.
Michael is a former fifteen-year public education teacher, counselor, and administrator. Nationally recognized education consultant, author, influencer, and Education Technology Entrepreneur. Currently, he acts as a Sales and Marketing manager for a grant writing company. He has been married to his wife Caroline for 32 years and is the proud father of four successful daughters. He also provides public speaking and influence engagements for agencies engaged in Fair Chance, White-Collar Employment, or other areas of Justice Reform. Mike can be reached at michaelneubig.com.
