Spiritual Survival Guide
7: Surviving Spiritually Beyond Prison
the lessons that had been beaten into me by life, prison, and my search for God. I was back to relying on my own broken think ing. After a serious relapse I knew I had to find a way to really stay on track. Lots of us have gotten on the path many times. The real deal is to stay on it when the going gets tough and uncertain. I moved into a halfway house. I began to see that my troubles are about me and not about how the world treated me. I saw that I need to put real effort into getting positive results if I wanted any. For most of my life I’d found ways of manipulating people to build the life that I wanted. I was always more interested in looking good than doing good. I saw that attitude had to stop. What happened to Dan is a great example of the complicated challenges of re-entry, and how tough it can be for many of us to survive spiritu- ally on the outside. It isn’t just Dan’s story; nearly all of us have a similar story dealing with our own case of “short-timer’s disease,” unrealistic ex- pectations, a lack of careful planning and communication, the awkward experience to adapting to life on the outside, and the sobering realiza- tion that life is wonderful, but hard.
Several years ago Fred was at Stateville Prison leading a small group of men, soon to be released, who were taking a “How to Get and Keep a Job” workshop. Men were busy writing resumes, filling out sample job applications, and learning the dos and don’ts of job interviewing. And in the middle of the training, one of the young men started complain- ing, This is stupid. It’s pointless. All these guys are talking so big about getting a job. They’re not gonna get a job. They’re gonna hit the same streets they came from and start doing the same old things. They’ll just be back in here in six months. When he was asked, “Well, what about you? What makes you differ- ent?” he said, “Nothing. I’m no different. I’ll be back in here, right along with them.” “But you have some skills, some experience. Why wouldn’t you get a job?” He pulled up his sleeves to reveal tattoos on the inside of his lower arms—tattoos of gangsters with huge smoking guns. And then he said, “Would you hire me, looking like this? Be honest, would you let your daughter date me?” “I might,” I told him, “But couldn’t you have them removed? Or wear long sleeves?” He just looked at me and shrugged. That young man had what he thought were “realistic” expectations, but he had absolutely no hope that things might be different for him. And without hope, he saw no reason to try to do even the little things that might improve his odds. He had fallen deeply into self-fulfilling pessimism. He had literally made himself a “marked man” and told himself that there was no future for him. Because he had no expectation that God would make a way for
Hope and Realistic Expectations
Every inmate who’s going home needs both profound hope and realistic expectations. One of them isn’t enough. That’s because neither one on its own is going to help us thrive spiritually after prison. Hope without realistic expectations quickly turns into wishful thinking, followed by bitter disappointment. And realistic expectations without deep and profound hope quickly turns into self-fulfilling pessimism and a trip back to prison.
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