I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the BEING FREE by J.H.
Lyons Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!
About The Book:
Title: BEING FREE
Author: J.H. Lyons
Pub. Date: November 1, 2023
Publisher: J.H. Lyons
Formats: Hardcover, Paperback,
eBook, Audiobook
Pages: 273
Find it: Goodreads, https://beingfreebooks.com/
Based in part on the author’s own
spiritual journey, Being Free: On the Inside is a magical
realism novel of hope and redemption.
Corey Astin is a lawyer who will
spend the next six years in prison. He knows he did wrong, and wants to
make amends, but needs guidance and protection. The nature of his crime
makes him an instant target for other inmates. As you might expect,
county jail offered only a tiny preview of the harsh environment in the
maximum-security state prison. Corey arrives in shackles in the middle of
the cold Maine winter, to a poorly-heated cell block, knowing only one person,
Carl, from his time in jail. Corey soon meets Dalton, a man who will
become his mentor and teacher of a special way of seeing and using energy
called The Choice. Being chosen is a great honor, but Corey
doesn’t know it yet. He is just beginning to understand what kind of
magical world exists within for those who can manifest it. Told from a
first-person perspective, Corey explains his experience in the prison, and his
growing friendship with Dalton. He tells the story as if you are with
him, listening to his concerns, and baring his soul. Get ready to
experience the first part of a private and perilous journey into a world that
few have ever known.
Chapter 1
There was a time in my life,
not too long ago, when the one thing I wanted more than anything else in the
world, was to die. I was standing in a
courtroom in my best tan suit, taking off my watch, my ring, removing my
lacquered pens from my coat pocket, and putting them into a little pile for my
lawyer to present to my mother. The
judge gave me fifteen years in prison, of which I would serve six, with good
time. Life as I knew it ceased to
exist. I consider the experience a
blessing now, because losing everything and practically everyone, cleared the
detritus of my greed-inspired life. Only
after I found my slate wiped mercilessly clean, was there room to see truth;
and what I saw scared the hell out of me.
One man who helped me see it changed my life forever. His name is Dalton.
Dalton McCormack does not
approve of this book. I have told him my
plans to share the story with anyone who will listen. He just laughed. “No matter how many times most people look in
a mirror, they still don’t really see themselves.” I found it mildly amusing given the mirrored
sunglasses he always wears and what I eventually saw in those mirrors. But appearances are deceiving. I take what he says seriously, because I know
he is one of the very few who does see.
I’m going to tell you about him but first I need to go back and fill in
some details because there was a time when I didn’t believe anything he
said. I didn’t even believe my own
eyes.
The first night I spent in
the maximum-security state prison scared me half to death. Noises of grinding, rusted metal permeated my
tiny cell. By tiny I mean that you could
stand in the middle and touch both side walls with your fingertips. The walls shook constantly, reverberating
every time a barred door slammed violently shut. Small flecks of paint and dirt fell from the
ceiling. They filtered like fine silt
onto everything I owned: my hair, my clothes, and my books. I had already spent six months in the county
jail, but be advised, there is virtually no comparison between the two. If jail is boot camp, prison is war.
The day I arrived at the
prison the property officer dispensed a pile of four molting woolen blankets to
me that smelled of urine. He topped them
with two stained sheets. The sheets were
too small to fit the mattress and were not fitted so they came up around the
corners and ended up in a ball in the middle by daybreak. Some guys had a way of knotting them so it
wouldn’t happen, but it took me years to figure out the trick. As I stood six-feet tall, the mattress was
barely long enough. The smoke, during
most waking hours, was so thick I had to fashion a makeshift ventilator from
the dirty sheets to avoid inhaling it directly.
I looked into the mirror over the sink, saw my sunken brown eyes, my
copper-colored, unkempt hair, and wondered how I would survive. It took me several days to get a decent
night’s sleep.
Especially during those
first few weeks, the place was downright scary.
When I’m scared I can’t even think straight. Sometimes I pretended to read a book so I
didn’t have to listen to the slurs that some of my fellow inmates delighted in
delivering on the way by. One of my
first major purchases was a large pair of ear-hugging headphones that I
employed frequently to squelch the insults and other feral grunts of terminally
angry men. Although it had limited
utility as a muffler, being ostensibly engrossed in music convinced most people
to lose interest in taunting me after a few minutes.
My first friend on the
inside was not Dalton. Carl was a
well-educated man with anger management issues who I had met in county
jail. He’d arrived at the prison about a
month beforehand. I found it ironic that
we became such fast friends since he pathologically hated lawyers, and I was
one of them. He visited me briefly on my
second day at the prison, looking surprisingly well-acclimated. He stuck a small, brown, wrinkled paper bag
through the bars of my cell. “Can’t
talk. Take it. I’ll try to come by later.” Then he was gone. I looked inside the bag and found a package
of instant soup. I am now convinced that
the ramen soup people must have some kind of kickback in place as they are so
popular in prison. I added some hot
water to the noodles and made the soup in a small white bowl he had also
thoughtfully provided. My first week
passed slowly. I read the Bible, wrote
some panicked letters to my remaining friends, and generally became emotionally
numb.
My first job assignment at
the prison was in the kitchen. I was
issued a nice blue baseball cap and a bright white uniform, at least two sizes
too large, even though I carried a little extra weight. I felt shamed having to wear them at
first. People stared because they knew
the lawyer was now the pots and pans washer.
I slowly devolved into a shadow of my former arrogant self. I knew in some way it was good for me, but I
resisted nonetheless.
Permanently discarding my
infallible self-image is a first step toward living life in the real
world. I think it’s important to put
some of what Dalton says into words here.
He sums it up this way: “Some
people live their entire lives in the cloud.”
Perhaps I should explain what the cloud is, since it is a metaphor I use
a lot. The cloud is an imaginary place
that Dalton keeps talking about with rancor in his voice. It is a rosy world where there are no felons,
no crimes; nothing at all to disturb the calming fantasy that much of America
prefers to live in every day. “You
shouldn’t stop with America,” says Dalton when I start talking politics with
him, “it infects the entire planet.”
Every afternoon I have
rec. I can choose to go to a number of
different places. Most of the time I go
to the library. I have also been up to
the prison Chaplain’s office quite a bit.
But sometimes, like when I have to buy something at the prison store, I
have to go to the yard. The yard is the
place where people congregate, talk, show off, yell, lift weights, play pool,
and make general assholes of themselves.
I do not use that word lightly; there are plenty of them in prison.
The yard is also the place
where I first noticed Dalton. He was
carrying a large grocery bag of stuff back to his cell from the prison
store. As he walked past me up the hill,
he said “hello” for no reason at all. If
you haven’t had the experience, saying “hello” to someone you don’t know is a
big deal in prison. It can lead to a
fight, ostracism, being strong-armed, being told to mind your own business, or
just being harassed. Personal space is
at a premium on the inside and hello can be expensive. I took it as a gift, returned the favor, and
kept walking. But I didn’t even really
notice him before he said hello to me.
This too is part of the gift.
He was wearing a red
bandanna, blue jeans, and a black jeans jacket.
His trademark mirror glasses hid his eyes, and, as I later found out,
made it difficult to tell whether he was kidding. He walked confidently and smiled. When I began to see him around the compound
more and more, I noticed that he smiled almost all the time. It wasn’t a stupid smile saying, “I’m in
prison and I like being here,” but a gentle smile that said, “happiness is a
choice.” I decided to ask Carl about
him.
“Don’t know him. What’s he look like?” Carl wasn’t much help.
I first heard about the
meditation group over the intercom. The
prison had acquired a large number of scratchy and garbled-sounding army
surplus bullhorns, but seasoned cons could decipher the metallic, unsquelched announcements
with all the alacrity of an NSA code breaker.
“Mdtashn ad dis dime,
mdtashn.”
“What did they say?” I asked
the guy in the box next to me. I really
had no idea.
“Meditation. They shou’ finish chewing before dey use dat
microphone.” Ed was a very cool guy who
occupied the cell next to mine. He loved
to talk. When he wasn’t playing handball
down in the yard he was working on college courses. He grew up in New Jersey and everyone knew it
from the moment he opened his mouth. He
also had a very open mind. I thought
about his translation for a minute.
“Maybe I should go.” I was thinking aloud, but in prison no one
notices.
“Go. I went, dit’n do much for me. You migh’ like it dough.” Ed sounded genuinely encouraging. That was another reason I liked him.
“OK.” It took twenty minutes to coax a guard to
descend one flight of stairs from his office and unlock my door. I didn’t know all the rules yet, but I sensed
that patience would edge me closer to the room where the people were meditating
faster than any other strategy. I
thanked the guard. He looked at me as if
I was being rude. Ok, so, I still had
some things to learn.
I took the small white slip
of paper that was my pass and hurried to the building where the group met. I opened the metal door and stepped into a
large, brown-paneled room that also served as a sanctuary for church services. Metal chairs were arranged in a circle. Ten to fifteen men were already seated
there. A few chairs remained empty. I took one.
As I calmed down and let the tiny modicum of freedom permeate my being,
I looked around to see whether I recognized anyone. Carl had come, and so had Dalton. They both nodded to me. I nodded back.
The only woman in the circle
was a volunteer. She was a gentle person
with brown, curly hair, who brought her own tire-sized dark-purple pillow to
sit on. The other men looked like they
had all been coming to this group for a very long time. The volunteer explained that I was to clear
my mind of all thoughts, noises, and distractions. Anything that caught my attention should
float away like a cloud.
“Start by focusing on your
breath.” I closed my eyes, trying to
relax and listen.
“Breathe in, I know I’m
breathing in, breathe out, I know I’m breathing out.” She repeated this phrase over and over and
lulled me into a very peaceful state. At
first, everything around me seemed orchestrated to disrupt the class: people
yelling outside, a phone ringing in the next room, a guard taking very little
care to muffle squeaky door noises as he completed his rounds. I kept returning to my breath. The volunteer had become silent and I decided
to open my eyes. When I did, I got a
shock that to this day gives me chills.
Dalton wasn’t there. He had been
there when I closed my eyes, but now his seat was empty. Had I gone to sleep? It made no sense to me. I looked all-round the room and saw nothing
out of the ordinary. I decided to close
my eyes again and tried to return to my peaceful state. After a few minutes of trying I heard him
whisper. It came from directly behind
me. He very clearly said, “Look
again.” I opened my eyes and there he
was, sitting right where he was supposed to be, a very peaceful smile on his
lips that was also part smirk. I opened
my mouth to speak, but then, without opening his eyes, he shook his head ever
so slightly to stop me. A wide range of
emotions ran through my mind: fear, excitement, panic, curiosity. I remained silent. To signal the end of the first sit, the
volunteer took a small mallet and tapped a long metal chime three times. It resonated gently through the room. The others began to open their eyes slowly
and stretch a little. I looked around to
see if Carl had noticed anything peculiar.
If he had, he wasn’t giving it away.
Then Dalton winked at me and smiled.
I almost leapt right straight out of my chair. I couldn’t concentrate very well on what the
volunteer was saying. But I was dying to
ask Dalton what had happened. As it
turns out, I didn’t get a chance to right then.
“McCormack?” A guard in a blue uniform was at the
door. Dalton got up.
“Yeah?”
“Visit.” Dalton picked up his jacket and followed the
guard out of the room.
“This time, try to really
focus on the breath.” The volunteer was
leading us all back into another twenty-minute sit, but it was nearly
impossible for me to sit still.
The next day I looked
everywhere for Dalton but failed to find him.
Carl and I decided to go walking in the afternoon, even though it was
cold. It was probably twenty degrees out
and the clothing I had on really wasn’t warm enough. Still, we kept up a good pace and tried to
act nonchalantly despite the fact that there was an armed guard walking the
wall above us with a high-caliber rifle.
He, on the other hand, looked very warm.
“Did you see anything
strange yesterday at meditation?” I asked Carl after a while.
“Just you. You looked like you’d seen a ghost.”
“I might have.” I remembered closing my eyes and focusing on
my breath. Everything seemed normal,
until it wasn’t. “Did you get a chance
to see the guy I was talking about the other day, you know, the guy they took
to visits?” My brown state-issue shoes
were not insulated and my feet were getting cold.
“Oh yeah. That’s the guy who said hello to you,
right?” Everybody was painfully aware of
the hello thing.
“Right. Did you notice anything weird about
him?” I liked Carl well enough, but I
was still unclear about how open-minded he would be if I told him that one of
the guys at meditation had spontaneously vanished, even if it were just for a
few minutes.
“No, not really. He struck me as pretty quiet. Looks like he’s been in a while and has
figured out how to do time.” I wasn’t
sure if he knew it, but Carl had given me another piece of the puzzle. How to do time. I had heard inmates talk about doing time as
though it were a job: the fine art of turning something that should normally
take five minutes into an hour. The
institution provided their own version of doing time by needlessly complicating
things, in typical military fashion, and so most inmates found alternative ways
to get the things they needed.
“Wonder what he did?”
“Probably murder,” said
Carl. “Anybody who’s been in that long
must have killed somebody.” He was right
about one thing: Dalton looked as though he’d been in prison for twenty
years. There was no sense of shame about
the man. At first his serenity irritated
me because it ran against the grain of what I had always been taught about
criminals: that they should be ashamed for the rest of their lives. I didn’t really believe that everyone was
guilty, but I knew most were.
“What did you think was so
weird about him?” Carl asked the
question before I had made up my mind.
I still debated whether to reveal what I saw.
“He winked at me.”
“Oh. Yeah, well, there are a lot of guys like
that in here.”
“No, not sexually, he just
gave me a wink like he knew something I didn’t.” Carl looked confused and decided to change
the subject.
“You heard anything more
from your girlfriend?”
“Nope. I think she’s given up on me. I don’t blame her though. Who can wait six years for someone to get out
of prison?” Carl knew how unhappy I had
been when I got my Dear John letter. It
was my own damn fault for lying to her.
I had told her I was innocent.
Technically true as a presumption, but in fact I was guilty. There are some things that sorry just won’t
cover, but I still keep saying it as if she can hear me. I knew better than to ask Carl anything about
his ex-wife. Their divorce was epic in
its devastation and had left him virtually penniless. Small wonder he had such a deep hatred for
lawyers. We left the walking track and
went back inside to warm up.
When I heard the call for
meditation the following week, I was ready.
I had already secured my pass and reminded the guard that I wished to
go. He pressed the button for my door
and it sprang open a hand-width. I
locked it behind me and walked quickly to the chapel, trying not to look at
anyone along the way. Even looking at
someone could be as risky as hello.
This time I was the first
one there, except for the volunteer. She
introduced herself as Pam and apparently didn’t remember I had been there the
previous week. It made very little
difference to me at the time since I was more concerned with talking to
Dalton. It amazed me how little contact
I could have with some people in a prison that held just under five hundred
men. I didn’t know my way around well
enough yet to visit someone intentionally.
That was a skill I would develop over time however, and I was doing the
best I could. Most people immediately
recognized my status as a fish out of water (though perhaps a shark), and for
some it was an opportunity to con me.
Others, like old Ronnie who lived on my cellblock, called me a
“civilian” and gave me latitude when I failed to discern all the subtle nuances
of the infamous inmate code.
Dalton came through the door
and approached me as if we were old friends.
“Glad you decided to come back.”
He patted me on the back and went to take a seat in one of the metal folding
chairs. I was, once again,
speechless. I chose a chair next to his
and he seemed pleased. Carl didn’t show
up, but I knew he might not since the group met during his shift in the
laundry. Attending programs was always
encouraged by the institution, so he could go if he wanted to, but he still had
a certain amount of work to complete; unless he found someone else with whom he
could trade.
“Let’s begin.” I tried to relax. The volunteer struck the chime and closed her
eyes. I had been breathing rhythmically
with my eyes closed for about ten minutes when I heard Dalton whisper. “Can you hear me?” I nodded.
“If you want to talk, then meet me at the gym tomorrow afternoon, right
after lunch.” I peeked around. No one else seemed to have heard him. I don’t think he had moved at all. It was a little eerie, but I made the
decision then and there that I wanted to know more, that I would go. I whispered back to him, “Ok” and the whole
group seemed to hear me. Several men
gave me sharp, disapproving glances before they resumed their meditating. Dalton just grinned.
The next day passed very
slowly for me. I managed to get pretty
much soaking wet while washing the pots and pans in the morning. I also took much longer than any of the other
inmates thought I should. I never liked
doing dishes for myself, much less for an entire prison. But I had some help and although it became
fairly cumbersome to organize the ever-growing pile of dirty pots, plastic
tubs, and vats of doughy gunk, I did make it through. When I came back to my cell, Ed nearly ran me
over, hoping to ask me a legal question.
“Hey, Corey! Can you still file an appeal after you take a
plea bargain?” I told him I couldn’t
give him legal advice because I was suspended from practice, but I could tell
him about my personal experience in dealing with the issue in Maine. He seemed interested but disappointed I
couldn’t give him a solid answer. I also
told him to write to his former lawyer.
“Well she’s da one who I
t’ink screwed up!” This was actually a
fairly typical conversation for prison, and even more typical for me in county
jail, but I did my best to ease people’s frustrations. He saw I was getting frustrated and eased off
a bit. “So how’s dat meditation class
goin’?”
“Good. One of the guys in it wants to talk to me
about it this afternoon actually. It
seems to be helping.” I wasn’t lying
either. I had started using the time
when I couldn’t sleep to meditate. It
was really doing wonders for my peace of mind and was a stark contrast to the
Bible debates that seemed to preoccupy most of the otherwise gentle religious
types in prison. I had ongoing arguments
with various fundamentalists who not only thought my newfound meditation
un-Christian, but in some cases, satanic.
My fondness for Gregorian chant also led the resident Pentecostals to
cast aspersions on my faith. It was
difficult for me to accept the lack of logic among people who were so
completely rooted to literal interpretations of Bible passages. Being an “intellectual” was a sin for them
because it somehow separated you from God.
The theory is this: if you think for yourself, then how can you let God
think for you? Somewhat mind-boggling!
Ed excused himself and
resumed his studies. I changed out of my
kitchen whites and got back into more comfortable clothes. The typical uniform for that prison was blue
jeans and either a t-shirt or a flannel shirt.
Most people wore sneakers and had their own clothes. I hadn’t gotten enough clothes to be entirely
comfortable yet, and so I wore state clothes on days when I ran out of clean
clothes. Carl managed to help me out
with laundry though. It was generosity
on his part that I respected and admired.
There are actually a substantial number of people in prison who can
manage to do something for nothing, even though it countermands the inmate
code.
I got to rec and found
Dalton standing outside at the end of the beige-colored, cinderblock building
that served as a gym. He was looking at
the clouds.
“Beautiful, aren’t
they?” He seemed transfixed. I looked at him and then at the clouds for a
moment and wondered whether I had made a big mistake. “Do you know that there are some prisons
where you can’t even look at the sky?” I
knew what he was talking about. During
my six-month stint in county jail prior to the transfer to the Maine State
Prison I had been in a cell where the sky was a tiny patch between two
buildings that I could only see if I craned my neck all the way into a corner
of my skinny cell window.
“I do. It makes you appreciate it all the more. Even grass.”
“Yes! Grass is a luxury in here. People take it for granted every day. They curse it, cut it, make it grow faster,
shorter, taller, wider, thicker, straighter.
There is no end to lawn care (especially for golfers), but how many
people really appreciate grass?” He
certainly had a point. Before I
experienced life in prison, I had limited patience for appreciating the little
things in life, and grass seemed quite insignificant. Sure, I liked walking barefoot in the grass,
but I always assumed I could do it if and when I chose. The freedom to enjoy it was never an issue.
“I want to talk to you about
meditation.” I was trying to be as
patient as possible, but the questions were nearly bursting. “How do you do that? I mean, what, exactly, did you do?” I wasn’t being very clear, but I was nervous
as hell. Dalton motioned with his head
for me to follow him and we walked a little way down behind the gym. It was the area where they played handball in
good weather, although now there were little patches of ice on the ground. The sun kept the temperature bearable.
“What did you see?” He was a man who answered a question with a
question. I stopped myself from saying
something snide about being a lawyer and tried to calm myself down and listen. There was a gracious plenty of the Socratic
method in law school so it wasn’t actually unfamiliar territory. But I was on his turf now, and I needed to
learn and listen.
“You vanished. Gone, poof, no more you. Then when I looked again you were right where
I thought you should be.” I kept eye
contact with his mirror glasses for a while until he looked away.
“I thought you might
have. You have the gift.” He was smiling broadly, a proud, comfortable
smile that belongs to someone who has traveled a long way and found what he
wanted there.
“What gift? What are you talking about? I’m not the one who disappeared; I’m not the
one who whispered in my ear without letting a whole room full of people know. You couldn’t hear a pin drop in that place
when you spoke to me. I don’t think
anyone else heard it. What’s going on?” I was getting riled up and trying to mask it,
but my adrenaline was winning.
Dalton cleared his
throat. “Some people, when they have
gone through a major loss, like you have, experience a change in
perception. It is a gift, and it brings
with it a way of seeing the world in its raw form, untainted by the lies we are
told and the assumptions we make about what we see.” Deep inside, I had a fleeting feeling I knew
what he was talking about. When I was on
the evening news for example, as opposed to watching it, when I heard my name,
reality shifted for a moment. The ride
stopped. I found myself at the top of
the Ferris wheel, looking down, wondering if all the people below really knew
how small they looked from there. I
certainly didn’t think of it as a gift though.
It kind of made me sick to my stomach.
Dalton was making me relive some of that feeling and it was
uncomfortable. I decided to sit
down. I walked over to a little
retaining wall that was part of the building’s foundation and sat down on
it. I felt light-headed and flushed. Dalton began to look concerned.
“When you begin to wake up
from the dream we all live in, it is very scary. You will begin to see things you won’t
believe. But these things are real. They have been there all along. When you see them for the first time, you may
panic. Your mind tries to take you back
to the easy lies of the world you are comfortable in.
“Your body reacts: you
sweat, you hyperventilate, you fear death.
What you saw was real.” Dalton
took his large hands and placed them on my head for a moment with his thumbs on
my forehead. I let him, as though he
were my father, checking my brow for a temperature. I experienced such an immediate calming
sensation that I started to fall asleep, right there, in broad daylight, in the
middle of the prison rec yard. A black
veil covered my eyes and I fell asleep.
Everyday life in a prison is
far more time-consuming than you might think.
Remember, I have to live by two sets of rules: the guards’ and the
inmates’. Notice that I didn’t say the
institution’s rules, because every officer decides which rules he or she will
enforce. The same is true for civilian
police, but in prison the problem is in your face, every day, for every small
decision you make. Some things are
Catch-22’s and there is no right answer.
You have to violate somebody’s rules.
In those circumstances, if you want to survive, you choose to live by
the inmate code.
The next time I saw Dalton,
he was walking into the dining room. He
had his tool bag with him. Dalton’s job
at the prison is maintenance. He says
it’s spiritual maintenance. I believe
him. He has the air of someone who can
fix anything.
“Are you allowed to be in
here right now?” I was very naïve for
the first few years I was incarcerated.
Dalton sat down at the same stainless-steel table where I was sitting. The table seated eight people and had the
appearance of a giant metal mushroom bolted securely to the porcelain-tiled,
blue-and-white floor.
“This bag is my pass to any
place in the prison I want to go. Guards
don’t ask me much anymore. They know
me.” I was eating lunch early, as was my
privilege for working in the kitchen.
There were several inmates eating at other tables, but for the most part
the large room was empty.
“Want something to eat?”
“Nope. Just thought I’d come by, see how things were
going. Got my lunch right here.” He showed me an apple.
“That’s all you eat for
lunch?” I was beginning to wonder
whether Dalton was really from this planet.
“Today it is. Got a lot to do. I’ll be starved by supper, but that’s the way
I like it. I treat hunger like a
friend.” Hunger like a friend. I liked that.
“So what do they have you doing now, more pots and pans?”
“Yeah. Never ends.
Listen, Dalton, about yesterday in the yard. I don’t remember what happened much after I
fell asleep. What happened?”
“I knew you needed some
rest, so I helped you get some. You had
some real sleep, dreamless sleep, sleep that doesn’t drain you.”
“But how…?” I couldn’t even formulate the question, but
he knew what I was asking.
“All in time. I told you; you have the gift. But even if I told you how I gave you sleep,
even if you understood what it meant to unplug your consciousness and really
relax to the point where you feel free, you wouldn’t understand. The bigger question is this: are you willing
to learn?” I was about to answer him,
but he stopped me. “I mean really learn
how to change your perception in a way that will also change your life? You’ve already had the first, the biggest,
step taken for you. You’ve lost practically
everything.” He paused and took off his glasses. “You’re Christian, right?”
“Sure. Are you?”
“I believe in God and
Christ. But I believe there are many
paths to heaven.” He stopped for a
moment and closed his eyes, breathing deeply as he did so. He appeared to be consciously centering
himself in the moment. It looked
refreshing. “Do you remember what Christ
said to us about having to lose everything?”
“Of course. He said you have to lose everything to enter
the Kingdom of God, or something like that.”
“He said that if you give up
everything for him, then you will surely go to heaven. That’s what the apostles did. Things are not important. People are important. The easiest way to understand that is to lose
everything. How many people have you
seen who live only to buy more things?
They accumulate massive hordes of stuff, and then have most of it thrown
or given away when they die. Nothing
goes with you. Consider that space in
your head where you go when you meditate and find serenity. Nothing goes in there with you, and yet it’s
the most peaceful, calming, place you can go on earth.”
“I really do want to learn,”
I said. “What do I have to do?”
“You are in training, as of
now. You can walk away any time you
like, but there may be consequences.” I
raised my eyebrows. Was the meditation
mafia going to come get me in the middle of the night or something? Was Guido going to put me on his hit
list? Focus on the breath or I break
both your legs.
Dalton continued. “Consider it like an operation for your
soul. If we end the operation before
I’ve sewn you back up, you won’t heal and you’ll be in more pain than you can
imagine. It is very important that you
go into this with the understanding that there are risks, great personal risks
that you will need to take. I’m not
talking about anything illegal, but it will certainly be very scary at times,
and very painful. You have a lot of good
in you Corey, and I wouldn’t have chosen you if I had any doubts whatsoever
that you could do this.” I had been
feeling very serene all morning. The
sleep he had somehow induced on me the day before had given me energy I hadn’t
felt in at least six months. Now I was
feeling scared again. I didn’t know if I
could do it. Was I willing to give
myself over to something as magical and amazing as what Dalton taught? I have to admit the faith he professed had
also reassured me. I trusted God and
opened myself in prayer to him for an answer.
I felt that accepting Dalton’s offer was what God had in mind for me.
“Ok. I’m willing to do this training you’re
talking about. But how much can you tell
me? I don’t mind telling you that I’m
scared.”
“I know you are. I hope you are. Fear is the one thing that you need to be
aware of in every aspect of your life.
It can cripple you if you let it.
Just breathe with it for now. Do
not ignore it, feed it, minimize it, or try to turn it into anything else. I will tell you nothing more today. But tomorrow I want you to tell me what you
are afraid of.” He got up, patted me on
the shoulder, and left.
What am I afraid of? I wondered to myself. The real question should be: what am I not
afraid of? I took my tray up and stacked
it with the others waiting to be washed.
I knew there was something very strange going on, but I doubted that it
was just my “perception” as Dalton called it.
He seemed so clear, so calm to me.
Sure, he looked a little rough around the edges as my mother says, but
then, so do most of these guys. What
intrigued me most about him was that he was challenging me. He aroused my competitive instinct and dared
me to go further, to learn more about the secrets of life, the secrets of
faith, and the contents of my soul. An
operation on my soul? Was it really
ailing so badly that it needed an operation?
I went to see the guard at the desk and got a pass to go back to my
cellblock, still lost in confusion and fear.
I almost missed meditation
the next week because my television arrived from the repair shop. I had gotten it lobotomized at a local
electronics store. Prison regulations do
not allow speakers in televisions or radios in order to cut down on noise
pollution. Fifteen minutes before the
group was scheduled to begin, my door opened mysteriously. I knew that usually
this meant I needed to come out and report for something. The guard at the end of the corridor told me
I had to go to the property room and pick up a package. They didn’t know what it was, and looked
irritated if not irate that I should even get a package. When I got there the
officer made me sign a receipt and I carried my television back to my cell. I was delighted. News is very difficult to get in prison and
current affairs are not popular topics.
The most important issues were always who ratted on whom and who
committed a sex crime. One’s reputation
depended entirely on recognizing these people and ostracizing them. It virtually guaranteed the survival of the
inmate code.
After I had thrown my
television on my bed and locked my cell again, I went up to the Sergeant’s
office for a pass to meditation. The
trip to the property room had complicated my plans.
“Didn’t you just go
somewhere?”
“Property room.”
“Now you want to go
somewhere else.”
“Yes sir.”
“Medi-fucking-tation
huh. Well, if you think it’ll do you any
good, go ahead.”
“Thank you.” I left.
Not all guards were like this, just most of them. As I later found out, the only topics that
were universally entertaining to the officers were guns and pay increases.
Carl had gotten there before
me and I decided to sit with him this week.
“Where’s your friend the
guru?” I had tried to tell Carl a little
bit about what had happened to me and the conversations I had with him. Carl
was skeptical at best.
“Don’t get me wrong, I think
meditation is soothing, calming, and helps me live in this God-forsaken
hell-hole. But do I think you can
levitate, have little outer-body travels, or enter an altered state of
consciousness, like that movie where the guy turned into a monkey—no!” He wasn’t angry, just very energetic when he
argued about things. He still had a big
smile on his face and it always seemed to grow wider after he uttered the
critical words “No, I think you’re wrong.”
Dalton walked in at that
point and put his tools under one of the literature tables that the chaplain’s
office kept stocked at the back of the room.
Then he took the same seat he had the previous week and nodded to both
Carl and me. I said “hello.” The volunteer corralled the group’s attention
and began the sit, once again ringing the chime three times at the beginning,
but this time she added a little prayer by Thich Nhat Hanh about inviting and
listening to the sound of the bell.
I let the words wash over
me, bathe me in the sweet serenity that was so difficult to find in prison, but
I considered God’s greatest gift when I could find it. I recognized that this woman’s prayer was
healing to me, welcoming me back into the fold from which I had been
banished. It gave me both comfort and
purpose. I began to clear my mind of all
thoughts and just remain with the feelings of acceptance the words had left in
me.
About J.H. Lyons:
Born in New
Orleans, Louisiana, but raised in New England, J. H. Lyons now lives in rural
Maine with his husband, their Mini Aussie dogs, and a cat in a "big house,
little house, barn" farmhouse. He holds degrees in law, political science,
computer science and French.
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