My Story: No. 4

Voices: Working In Unison to MakeGoodHappen.

In the Buena Vista Penitentiary, 1985.

There was a new voice in my life. Like most of us, I was at home with the two voices. Voices so memorably illustrated in childhood cartoons with the little haloed angel on one shoulder and the little pitch-forked devil on the other. They were a part of my “mental furniture.” But when I accepted the offer of the Spectre in the shadows I opened the door to another voice. He entered the living room of my mind and joined in conversation with my other voices. Learning how to host all of these voices has been the challenge of a lifetime.

As I think about it, I hear more than two voices. I’m not crazy, but my daily decision-making is a noisy, drawn-out affair inside my head; a little bit like an Italian opera. The tenor is my voice of passion urging me to satiate my desires. The countertenor is my aesthete, often crying out two favorite lyrics: “Deny yourself!” And “Live above your animal desires!” Like all of the voices in my head, these two are certain about what they want me to do. But I resist them, having learned the hard way that their advice is only sometimes right and more often wrong. 

But this doesn’t silence them. Instead, they join together with another duet in my mind to strengthen their case. The voice of guilt joins in with its reputation of both keeping me from stepping on landmines and barring me from enjoying the good things in life. He’s countered by the boy soprano, sounding a lot like me in elementary school. He affirms that I deserve whatever it is that I want. When I’ve followed his voice and missed real opportunities to make a difference in someone else’s life. 

If that isn’t enough to sway me, this quartet can be joined by another duet in an ensemble that is impossible to ignore. The voice of license can amplify passion and the boy soprano into a harsh and unyielding call to assert my rights over the rights of others. They are countered by the voice of respect, harmonizing with the countertenor and guilt, in a rousing call to duty. 

These six voices form a raucous choir. One minute they dress up as angels and the next as devils. Together they take any form that might convince me to do their bidding.  Honestly, I haven’t been particularly good at seeing through their facade. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if friends and family counseled me against letting yet another voice in.

 But this voice is so very different from the others. I could tell as soon as he walked in. The other voices, taking a break from their opera, were half-lying, half-sitting on my “mental furniture.” They were eating Cheetos, wiping their orange fingers on my couches, and throwing the empty bags on the floor. The TV was on but most of them were scrolling through YouTube and TikTok on their phones. I was used to this. But when the Spectre joined them I was reminded of how rude and unkempt they really were. While they began arguing over who would control the television remote he dusted off the seat next to me and sat down. Then he placed his hand on my shoulder and gently suggested that I put down my phone and turn off the TV. But I made it clear that I wanted to see the end of the show. So he took his hand off of my shoulder, stood up, and let the show go on. This surprised me.

The other voices, when denied, get up in my face and push harder, repeating what they want me to do as long as there is even the tiniest chance that I might change my mind. But he just quietly moved away. The show no longer held any interest for me. In that moment that his hand was on my shoulder all of my loneliness, confusion, and fear had melted away. I could see now that the TV was just a substitute babysitter, pacifying the other voices in my mind. I wanted to feel his peace again. But where had he gone?

I looked around the room with growing fear. Had my newest guest left at my rebuff? Then I spotted him in the corner of the room. I motioned for him to join me again. But he politely declined and receded into the shadows. The moment had been missed.

I became afraid of what might happen if I missed the next opportunity. I’d never followed everything the other voices had said to me and they never went away, even when I wanted them to leave me alone. But this voice was different. I didn’t want him to leave. I could still see him in the corner of my eye. But how long would he stay there? Out of fear, I became hyper-sensitive to his touch. I was always waiting for it. Sometimes I even felt it when it wasn’t there. But my fears told me that it was better to err on the side of my imagination than to miss the real thing one more time and mess up the entire relationship.

My insecurity and fear continued until my first stint in prison. I say “first” stint. I haven’t been behind bars for any length of time since those months I spent in the Buena Vista Penitentiary. I did go to the Sing Sing Correctional Facility for a day. I had to walk right down the center of hundreds of prisoners watching Charles Bronson blasting all of his enemies on a huge movie screen. I survived that experience and joined two prisoners named “Tank” and “Justice” in a Bible study. But it was before all of that, when I spent a few months with 871 prisoners in Colorado, that I learned something very important about this new voice in my life.

It happened during my sophomore year in college, after driving all the way from Abilene, Texas to Salida, Colorado. The first leg of my drive took me more than 300 miles from Abilene up the panhandle in what’s known as “big sky country.” That meant that there were no mountains, no hills, and no significant turning of the steering wheel for more than four hours. Even my internal voices got bored on that trip and became strangely quiet. I listened to every single cassette tape I had in my collection. I drank enough “Big Gulps” to take a year off of my life. Though the massively blue sky had its own beauty, I was absolutely overjoyed when I turned across the corner of New Mexico into Colorado. The terrain there began to vary with mountains and valleys and a reason to use the steering wheel. After more than ten hours and six hundred and fifty miles, I finally arrived at the home of my summer hosts, the Rev. Tom Durrant, prison chaplain, and his wife Sue.

For four days a week, during my summer in Salida, I heard the cold steel of the prison gates lock in the morning; shutting out the beauty of Colorado. Then, after the day’s work was done, I’d hear that sound of cold steel slamming behind me, this time shutting out the ugliness of prison life in the Buena Vista Penitentiary.

The gate made no difference to the Spectre. He was already in the prison when we entered in the morning, speaking to any of the prisoners who wanted him there. He remained there at the end of the day bringing comfort and peace to anyone who would listen.

But his most important work in my life that summer was when I was outside of the prison and inside of the home and hospitality of the Durrant’s. It was there that I learned the simple but profound lesson that the new voice in my life likes regular appointments. Put another way, if I made it a habit to show up in the same place, at the same time, in a regular pattern, he would show up there too. 

Tom and Sue Durrant

The lesson arrived in the form of a black three-ring binder that Tom gave me. Inside of it were 30 templated pages to facilitate my regular meetings with the Spectre. On the top left, in Times New Roman, was the word “Date” followed by a colon. On the top right was the word “Passage.” Tom suggested that I begin each morning by reading one chapter of a book of the Bible. He recommended that I start with the book Proverbs. He did this for two reasons. First, there are 31 chapters in Proverbs so I could complete the book in just over a month. That was the perfect amount of time to develop these morning meetings into a solid habit in my life. Second, the book of Proverbs is filled with distilled wisdom, tested by thousands of life experiences over hundreds of centuries. Each proverb has taken this wisdom and poetically concentrated it into as few words as possible.

My task was to work with the Spectre, and my other voices, to find the proverb that would unfold its wisdom in my life on that particular day. Just under the date and passage was the phrase “1st reading” followed by a number of lines. About a third of the way down was another phrase “2nd reading” and then two-thirds of the way down “3rd reading.” Tom told me that I should first read through the chapter of Proverbs once and note two or three proverbs that stood out to me. Then, during the second reading, I should figure out why those Proverbs caught my attention and write this down. Then I would need to make a decision. During the third reading, I should pick one proverb for the day. Then, in the third section of the template, I should write the proverb out along with a prayer that the Spectre would use it in my life on that particular day.

At first, my old voices weren’t having any of it. They were against anything that didn’t follow lockstep with their own desires. So, even with my handy three-ring binder and ready-made template, there were mornings where we struggled. But I was determined to get them out of bed, into the shower, and dressed in something respectable. Then I brought them all to the same place, at the same time, with the same binder and Bible in hand, and began reading. It didn’t take them very long to get interested in what I was doing. They would settle down, begin to work together and we would seek out the voice of the Spectre in the text and fill out the page for the day.     

After practicing this new habit for a few days, I was amazed. There were so many times that the proverb I had chosen in the morning directly related to the events I would experience during that particular day. The distilled wisdom of the proverb I chose would unfold its guidance in the situations I would experience, help me to see through the distractions, and make good happen; even in prison. Again and again, at the end of the day, I would fill out the final section of the template noting how the proverb had guided me. Then I would offer a prayer of thanks. 

Long after my stint at the Penitentiary, I continued this new habit. After completing Proverbs I started the Psalms. There were 150 chapters in that book so it took me 5 months to complete. Over that time the new voice became a kind of choir director for the other voices. When the Spectre tapped his baton they gave him their attention and we all began working together.

I relished the days when his presence was strong and I could almost touch him. I wish I could say that every morning was like that. But there were days when I went through the process and nothing happened. It left me feeling hurt and alone.

On one of those frustrating mornings I had a sudden flashback to high school. I could see my Spanish teacher, Mrs. Sprackling, telling me about irregular verbs. That vision had popped into my head for a reason. I was about to learn another important lesson about the new voice in my life.

But that’s a lesson for the next “My Story” post.