Hope - For What?

As I write I'm sitting in a comfortable hotel in Ontario, California after a week in the high desert at the Federal Penitentiary in Victorville. I have gifts of appreciation from the Bureau staff in my carry-on luggage packed for my flight back to Seattle tomorrow morning. To paraphrase an actress living nearby where I sit tonight, "They appreciate me! They really, really appreciate me!" It will be good to get back to Seattle, sleep in my own bed and not have to crawl out of from under the covers at 5:00 am.

The problem is, I'm having difficulty getting my thoughts - and spirit - out of USP Victorville. I spent three days with forty men who are living in a high security prison and two more days training the treatment staff working not only with these men but with many more.

Most of the men in the workshop this week would probably say they deserve to be where they are. Some said just that during our time together. No one mentioned what they did to deserve their present address but it wasn't hard to imagine the possible crimes as they spoke of the sentences they were serving. One man had been in prison for twenty-five years, having started serving his sentence at the age of twenty-five, and had twenty-five years left. Not everyone in the room was staring at that kind of time but a majority were years from release.

One man, I would guess he was in his late twenties – serving eighty-two years – talked about being on the phone last Friday with his young daughter who was celebrating her birthday. He asked her what she wanted for her birthday and she said, “I want my daddy to drop me off at school like my friends’ daddies do!” He said they were both crying during that phone call. It caused me to ache for the daughter who did nothing to cause the loss she knew in her young life.

I’m reading a book this month entitled, “Change or Die.” In it the author says that hope must be present for a person to make the effort to change any significant part of their life. I must say I can’t imagine having any kind of hope if I were looking at 40, 50, or 82 years in prison.

But it seemed to me that I could see hope in the eyes of every one of the men in the room this week. Hope for release? No, not for many. The hope was, rather, focused on creating something of value from the ashes of their lives. And, for some, they are finding a path to freedom while knowing they will never be released from prison.

Big Boys Don't Cry

See, now, this is what I mean when I talk about "Lies We Believe." I would like to see a show of hands of how many have never heard that saying. Of course big boys cry...and medium-sized boys, to say absolutely nothing about small boys!

There are beliefs we sometimes hold as Americans that inform our behavior (or way of being connected to our cultural environment). They can be as patently false and destructive to our development as, "Big boys don't cry." Or they can be ones, repeated so often without denial, that they become an accepted way of viewing life in community. For example, such a value statement from American sport is, "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing."

In the case of the former, when we really examine the "truth" about boys and crying we might say, "Well, I don't really mean - or believe - that." Those are the easiest to place as cultural value lies which often are allowed to exist in our society as if they were true. The latter type, like the one about winning and sport, seem to have face validity, coming as they do from authority figures and thoughtlessly repeated by others. Plus these often contain a seed of truth i.e., "Winning isn't everything."

So my antennae is out for those insidious lies. Any help would be appreciated! And rightful annotation provided!

I have a few more but let me just mention a couple. "There is safety in strength." OK, test time: is that "true" or "false?" Or, how about, "There can only be one #1!" Hmmm, maybe I'll save my Reflections on those to another time. But I think you get the direction of my thinking.

You may be asking yourself, "Why bother, Bill?" Well, I think there is a power in words. And I think that when a lie is exposed it loses some of its ability to cloak itself in truth. Finally, I think some of these lies are wrecking havoc on American society, and to some extended extent, other parts of the world. I also have this Don Quixote kind of complex too! Don and I go waaaay back. He's also for another day when I write about working in prisons. I'm done for now.

What's In A Name? What's In A Title?

Having firmly established P, Q, R as the guiding lights for my blog. I think I will start in the middle with this installment. No, really, I will start in the middle with Q -- a question. Why in the world, with all I had to chose from, would I call my blog, "My Name is Bill?" I mean I could have chosen anything. Something adventurous-sounding like, "The Sand Dog;" or maybe something romantic like...well, I can't think of a romantic moniker at the moment.

However, I eschewed all else for My Name Is Bill. Why? Well, after I discovered that "Sand Dog" was already taken (!) I began to put some real thought into my decision. For those of you reading my blog who have not set up your own blog (or maybe I was the very last person in the U.S. to get around to it) I want to give you some warning. You have to make a lot of decisions to get things started. A... L...O...T. I mean Google asked all kinds on questions: Google User Name, Blogger Display Name, Blog URL, Blog Title, Password. What started as a fun activity turned quickly into work. So I got a little serious and drew on my exposure to Community Building ala Scott Peck and decided to apply one of the group process guidelines we use in that setting: "say your name before you speak." One reason given for the application of that guideline in the group setting is this is a way of taking ownership for what is about to follow.

In this context it means I'm taking ownership of what proceeds out of the mouth of my keyboard. It's mine. It reflects where I am, maybe even who I am but certainly is not meant to obligate others, unless I'm quoting them. Plus, it is actually my name. I don't know how you feel but, for me, pseudonyms on the Internet seem to embolden disrespect if not downright viciousness. This way you can track me down!

I also hope to consistently use "I" statements as another way of taking ownership without obligating others to my passion or reflection. Now, having said all that, it feels a little like the fine print on the side of my blog box. So, stop I will. And turn my attention to "What's in a Title?"

One reason I wanted to start this blog was so I would have an outlet to begin to flesh out my next book. I think it would be helpful if I were able to have some interaction from others. But if nothing else it will give me a "place" where I can reflect on what I have to say on the subject. The working title is, "Seven Lies We Believe and Seven Truths We Don't: Cultural Touchstones in American Society." I know, it sounds like a mouthful. I first started with just the "Seven Lies...Seven Truths" part but it seemed like I needed to narrow the topic down a bit. Plus it has the possibility of morphing in any number of directions like the "Chicken Soup" or " XX For Dummies" brands (I wish!).

My book will be one of the topics I will keep coming back to with my passions, my questions, and my reflections in my blog. I already have many more than "Seven" on either side of the title's divide. Plus I've begun to see some corresponding words. That is, there are truths and lies that travel in pairs. Words like Scarcity & Abundance, Following & Leading, Safety & Danger, or Success & Failure. One of my hopes would be that my blog will give me an opportunity to narrow them down.

It will also give me an opportunity to define what I mean by some of the words in the title: Lies, Truths, We, Believe, Don't Believe.

For now, I find the topic almost approaching - though not quite there - a passion of mine. Maybe I will find that passion here. Now that could be interesting, at least for me! It would be the literary equivalent of answering the question, "If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a noise?" Or something like, "Which came first..." OK, this is getting out of hand. Time for me to go fix my martini.

Starting In The Middle

I think the title may be a little misleading. I mean, one would think that "starting in the middle" might indicate that one is at a half-way point. One would be incorrect in this case! I mean it, rather, as "Oh, it's already started and much has happened." The topic to which my title refers? Life. My life, to be precise. I mean I could start my blog back at the beginning of my life but I'm pretty sure that all the people interested in such an extensive biography - and I can only come up with my Mother for that list - are dead.

So, I am choosing to save us all from "Starting at The Beginning." Besides, I think I can pretty much weave all that's gone on in my life before this point into a current narrative since I'm carrying so much "baggage" from the past anyway! I hope I'm kidding about that.

What I'm most interested in exploring in this space are my Passions, my Questions, and my Reflections. That's it. It seems a little bare, I know, but I can only really imagine working with those three concurrent letters of the alphabet: P, Q, R. Should I try to expand my reach to "O" I only end up adding "my Opinions" and who in the world cares about MY opinions. Again, it would be a small audience, indeed. The other end of the alphabetical line is equally vapid. Plus I personally think the letter "S" has had a bad reputation since the Garden of Eden (see sly, slippery, serpent)!

I guess that is as good a place to stop for now as any other.