A Christmas card from Death Row

[I received a Christmas card from my friend who's on Texas' Death Row in Livingston, Texas.  On the opposite side of this card, he wrote the words below.  He is a remarkable person.  He is teaching me some amazing things.]

Dear Larry,
I thank you for your card.  I wasn't feeling this holiday, so to speak, some weeks ago--and it is hard to describe this present feeling as I often feel this way that can be closely described as feeling, or experiencing gratitude.  Even all the things that seem "so wrong" as you called the present situation/my case.  They seem to have some purpose to me and I try to think that this is all just the experience of life and we are living it and that is all there is to it.  There is some sense in me that gives the impression that, in some deeper place, it is neither right or wrong--anything that is taking place in my life.  It just is and I am here to experience it and make some stands at certain stages where I say that his matters and that matters and then work toward making something out of this madness.  And out of the love that is there.  And out of the confusion and the contradictions that exist in me as much as outside me.  We live and we breathe something worthy into this world and we move on.  I am okay w/this; tho that doesn't mean I am read to go! :)  So, yes, let's see what we can do.  Let me know if you made contact w/Wolf.

I thank you for everything and I hope you all had a good time this season.

Sincerely,

Obie

The author

Read the following excerpt lifted from a letter I received not long ago. 

After you've read it, I'll reveal who wrote it.

The day is all about reading and writing for me here.  That's the things that change in my day:  what I'm doing with my time. Otherwise, the system offers nothing but a routine subsistence of nothingness that grinds one's soul down also to nothingness.  It is beneficial thus to find some reliance also to nothingness.  It is beneficial thus to find some reliance on your mind, your spirit--the Lord--and discover some meaning and purpose for your life.  And there invest your energies, and in so doing you don't spend energy--you cultivate it and it will sustain you when even all that is left is death.  I don't fear death (so much!) but the "death" I do GREATLY fear is a life devoid of purpose, meaning and intention:  I fear waking up and having nowhere to go, to strive toward--no dreams.  I think this is something I have discovered here to generate on my own:  my meaning, my dreams. . .because here these things aren't given.  Peace. . . .

This thoughtful letter came from the hand of a 33-year-old young man who makes his home on death row in a Texas prison.  He has done so for the last 14 years. 

He has become my friend.

"broken things that we. . . just need to scrap!"

Prisons aren't working in this nation. 

I observe the results of the work of the penitentiary system every day here in inner city Dallas.  Young men by the thousands (and disproportionately black) find themselves caught up in the criminal justice system to no good end in most cases. 

Prisons don't seem to reform.  They certainly don't educate or equip or transfer saleable skills, at least not the legal variety. 

In general, prisons need to be completely re-thought, redesigned and re-imagined.

I'm thinking of prisons today because I received in the mail just now another letter from a new friend I've been writing. 

He is in prison in Texas. 

Incarcerated at age 19, he's been locked up for 13 years.

He spends his days in a one-man cell. . .

. . .on death row.

The circumstances of his crime don't seem to indicate the death penalty, but that is not the point here.

In his letter my friend spoke of another inmate and then he went on to talk about his life inside.  I'll let you read a part of it here:

"I've a good friend--brother, actually--here who I'll speak with you more of him later.  He's one of the few people since being here whom I've bonded to in a genuine way.  He's a rare character and I'm lucky to have him part of my life--as I sometimes think that it's been our friendship that's saved me at times from going insane.  It's so amazing that we are placed in these cages w/the notion that we have nothing to offer the world and we are virtually these broken things that we as a society just need to scrap!"

The death penalty has always seemed abhorrent.  My new friendship personalizes it for me.  We should abolish the imposition of capital punishment in this state and nation as soon as possible.  My friend deserves better. 

I love what The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church has to say on the death penalty:

We believe the death penalty denies the power of Christ to redeem, restore and transform all human beings. . . .  When governments implement the death penalty (capital punishment), then the life of the convicted person is devalued and all possibility of change in that person's life ends. . . . we oppose the death penalty (capital punishment) and urge its elimination from all criminal codes (Section 164 G, page 137).

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