Lockup: West Philly

I am a huge fan of prison documentaries. I tell everyone, “I can’t explain it, I’m just fascinated.” I also tell them that in the event I become wrongfully imprisoned, I’ll be prepared. I now know how to fashion a shank out of my toothbrush then safely stuff it up my bum so I can get it into the yard where all the riots occur.

I’m only half-kidding.

There was a period a few years back when I was starting to question where my life was going. Growing up I assumed I would have a certain life, one like my mom’s. Get married, have kids, buy a house, raise a family, the basic American dream. But that wasn’t happening for me. People at my church said things they figured were affirming and harmless. Things like, “You are trying your best to serve God. Because of that, He is going to bless you,” and “God wouldn’t put desires in your heart if He wasn’t going to fulfill them.” Hmmm. Those sure do sound nice, wouldn’t it be nice if they were true? The thing is, the more I studied the Bible, the less true those nice statements sounded. I got really stuck on Paul. Here is a guy that went all out for God. He sought to hear God and do His will. And Paul wound up in prison. In fact, through out the Bible a lot of God’s servants wind up in prison wrongfully. I couldn’t help thinking, “If God’s best for me is prison, I can do better than that on my own.” It also didn’t help that all my non-Christian friends seemed to be living charmed lives, realizing all the dreams I had held.

So I started doing things my way, by my rules. It wasn’t long before I was engaged to be married, my career was taking off, and I had fabulous friends to go out with. Except that it wasn’t perfect. I discovered that my fiancé was controlling and angry and the farther my career went, the more my coworkers resented me, and the going out gets old.

This was not going right. I had to fix this. I deserved better than this. I broke off my engagement, but that didn’t set things right the way I thought it would. Then my company got bought and they were rumors we were all going to be laid off.

“This is it,” I thought, “my way out.” I’d always wanted to go to grad school. Here was my chance to get out of town, start over in a new city, get things going in the right direction.

Again, it all looked so good, but it wasn’t. I had lots of new friends to go out with, and the parties were fun, but after the party I was left with endless hours of emptiness. I had managed to force my way into the lab I wanted, but if my previous coworkers had been an outer level of hell, my new labmates were four stories down. On top of that, nothing I tried in lab worked and I felt like the village idiot. My former success as a chemist felt like a distant fantasy.

After two years of this I was at the end of my rope. None of my happiness plans had panned out. I had lost all confidence, personally and professionally.

And I started watching Lockup.

I could relate. I felt trapped. I was stuck in a city that now felt dirty, cheap, and unsafe. My former job was gone due to the sale of the company, so there was no turning back. As for the future, well, my multitude of failures in lab were not pointing toward graduation.

On the show, an inmate spoke about learning not to look forward to his release date. At first it feels good to imagine life on the outside. But then you can see all the things you don’t have now. So you start to count the days, but then you realize you have a long way to go. A really long way to go. And the weight of your sentence crushes you. It’s better not to think about the future, just keep your head down and try to make it through another day. Except, in grad school, you don’t get a release date. Your sentence is indefinite.

Shortly after this realization, that my life was striking similar to that of an inmate, my pastor gave a sermon on the life of Joseph. Joseph had some older brothers who were quite jealous of him, so they sold him into slavery. Then, due to more bad luck, Joseph wound up wrongfully imprisoned for a long time. Toward the end of the sermon, my pastor said, “Some of you may feel like you are in prison.” Does this guy read my mail, or what?

Finally, it dawned on me, I was in prison, thought not wrongfully so. I put myself here. Forging my own path and running away, had led me exactly where I was trying to avoid, prison. You can run the opposite direction from God. He’ll let you keep running as long as you like. Until it gets hot enough for you. Or you wind up in the belly of a fish. I realized, I’m not Joseph, I’m Jonah. And I’ve finally gotten the point. It’s time to stop doing things my way and start doing them God’s way.

I’m trying to do the things my pastor advised during a prison stay. Stay active by taking your opportunities, using your gifts, and being focused on others and point people to God. I think it’s working.

I now feel more like an inmate given special privileges for good behavior. Looking forward to my release date is still depressing. However, spending my days trying to be useful to others makes them more bearable. I feel I have a purpose now, that God put me in this situation for a reason. And some day, when I’ve learned what He planned for me, He’ll let me out.