Epiphany and a Whirlpool of Hurt

Epiphany and a Whirlpool of Hurt

Poverty, prison, and racism form a whirlpool of hurt.  At Manna House, we see that whirlpool in action.   If you haven’t read Michelle Alexander’s book, “The New Jim Crow” take the time to do so.  It gives the clear story of how the rise of the prison industrial complex in the United States (where we imprison a higher percentage of our population than any other nation in the world) is tied in with the economic exclusion and the denigration of African Americans in our society.  It is all too easy to see these larger social forces pulling down our guests at Manna House, most of whom are African American.

One such guest called me aside on Monday morning.  I’ll call him “Timothy.” He’s been on and off the streets depending upon the vagaries of work.  He’s also been in and out of jail, usually for “public nuisance” kind of charges like panhandling, or “criminal trespass” for sleeping in an abandoned building, but also sometimes related to use of alcohol, other times for use of drugs.  He grew up in poverty and has never been able to escape from poverty.

“I need to ask you a favor,” Timothy said to me.  “It’s something you might not be able to do, but I’d really appreciate it.”

“What do you need?”

“I’m turning myself in on Wednesday, and I need some white long underwear, top and bottom.  I’m going to be in for a long time, at least a couple of years.”

“I’ll see what I can do.  I’ll bring them to you on Tuesday.”

If you’re not familiar with how things work in prison these days, you might be wondering why someone going into prison needs long underwear.  The clothes that are issued to the inmates hang loosely, almost like hospital scrubs, and it is usually cold in prison.  Drafty clothes in a drafty place make for feeling a constant chill if you don’t have those undergarments.  And those undergarments either go in with you or you have to buy them through the commissary at inflated prices (and that’s assuming you have money “on your book” that family or friends provided).                  
So today, I brought the long underwear to Timothy.  At the end of the morning he made sure to say his goodbyes.  And we made plans for writing letters, for us to visit him, and also, importantly to put money on his “book” so he will be able to make purchases from the commissary. 

Then the mail came.  There was a letter from another Manna House guest.  He’s also African American.  I’ll call him “Marvin.”  We hadn’t seen him for a while, and we had wondered how he was doing.  His letter included his return address with his prison number.  A probation violation had landed him behind bars.  

Marvin asked how things were going at Manna House.  “I miss coming to the Manna House” he wrote.  He asked about a person I’ve visited on death row, someone with whom he had grown up and gone to school.  He also wrote that he had just found out about the death of Sara, one of our beloved guests.  She had died a year ago December.   “She was a good woman to me,” he wrote, “when I heard about her death, my heart was broken down.”  He reflected on his birthday coming up and said, “For myself, I’m trying to get my life with God and be a better person.”  And near the end of the letter he wrote, “If there is anyway you can put some money on my book, I don’t have nobody to do anything for me.”

While Marvin wrote from within the whirlpool of hurt, Timothy was being pulled in deeper.

Meanwhile, today was also the Feast of Epiphany (from the Greek “Epiphaneia” meaning “manifestation”) that commemorates the Three Kings coming to pay homage to the newborn Jesus, and also celebrates the revelation of God in the incarnation, God entering into our humanity in Jesus. 

God enters human life that is in a whirlpool of hurt.  God enters human life as a person in poverty, a person of a despised and denigrated people, and one under a brutally violent legal system.  Jesus identifies with Timothy and Marvin.  And in this setting, Jesus comes to announce, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free” (Luke 4:18-19).  In other words, Jesus calls those who will follow him to stand in resistance to and seek to end the whirlpool of hurt.  I think we have our work cut out for us.