Learning Gratitude


Learning Gratitude

I always seem to learn my lessons in the most unexpected places.

This week, I was with a number of young men who are prisoners in my town. They have long sentences, locked up for crimes they committed when they were anywhere from twelve to seventeen years old. Their home lives were chaos, riddled with the violence, drugs, and sexual behavior that is the seed bed for most of our society’s woes, and the root of our country’s high rate of putting people in prison.

Much of what we might think of as “normal” just not existing in their youth, before they came here. And, many become abandoned by their families; no one comes to visit them. So, a few of us come, to listen, to just show up in their lives.

Rather than really dealing with those issues, society locks these boys up, without much regard for who they really are, the prison terms computed by a chart of numbers, devoid of any sense of compassion, or rationality.

At least we can boast that we are “tough on crime”. And, tough on souls.

We are, after all, the leading country in the world as far as locking up our population. Yes, more than Russia, more than China, and other places we think are oppressive, undemocratic countries. The prison industry is growing, and is a significant chunk of our economy, eating up more tax dollars than what we spend on schools.

The subject of gratitude came up, as we talked about the real meaning of Thanksgiving, and how that holiday came to be part of our heritage and one of our biggest holidays, full of food, family time, and, yes, expressing gratitude.

One by one, these young men spoke humbly of the things in life they were grateful for. The list was long, and ran deep. People who cared about them, support for their treatment for their sexually inappropriate behavior, their attitudes about drugs, violence, manipulation of others, degrading their own self worth, their work on getting an education, and improving their lives, and their relationships with their family.

They also spoke of being thankful for getting in contact with their heritage, and finding a place in a culture that supported their sobriety, their healthy thinking, and their hunger for healthy, balanced, and emotionally satisfying lives, lives filled with purpose and decency. They were finding their souls, moving into manhood whole and complete, their wounds healing.

As I sat there, I recalled listening to the radio on my drive over to the prison, the “news” filled with the latest political sex scandal, and the latest celebrity drug and alcohol crazed dysfunctional public spectacle. I’d come from the grocery store, where piles of cases of beer are arranged in recognition of this weekend’s big college football game, just before aisles of cheap Christmas decorations and gifts.

A billboard along the highway invited me to come gamble and drink on New Year’s Eve, and the usual gaggle of misfits stood outside of the local dive bar, smoking cigarettes and dealing a little weed and heroin.

Yet, inside this prison, these young men calmly talked about how grateful they were for their lives, their sobriety, their hard work in dealing with their pasts, and the strengths and wisdom they now had in their lives. They were strong men, preparing themselves for going back “outside”, into our crazy, addiction tempting society.

The midday boozers and smokers outside of the bar weren’t talking much about what they were grateful for, and gratitude wasn’t the focus of the talk show radio show that came on after the “news”.

And, apparently, Thanksgiving doesn’t do much for the retail stores. Gratitude and thanks and personal achievement aren’t something you can wrap up in paper, next to all the glitz and sparkle.

I listened, listened hard to those young men, realizing that I really was in class, that I was the student and they were the teachers that day. I go there to be a giver, an offerer; my role being a mentor, a teacher, a leader, a person of wisdom. Yet, now they were the mentors, the teachers, the wise men imparting their truth, and their knowledge, their experience.

Wisdom and gratitude were spoken, and I was grateful I took the time to open my heart and hear the truth tellers in my life.

–Neal Lemery 11/17/2012

Reaching Into My Heart


I sometimes wander through life oblivious to the impact I have on others, and the impact they have on me. I get caught up in my routines, and work and chores fill up my days. I lose focus on what I am really all about and what I am here to do and to be.

A few weeks ago, I received a gift of love and thanks from a young man I’ve been spending time with.

He’s not had it easy, and often feels his life is on hold, that he is stuck for a while, not able to move ahead. But, the work he is doing, real soul work, is shaping and honing him into a beautiful person, filled with compassion and love. In that, he is successful and brilliant, and wise.

He is a student, and becoming the teacher. I should thank him for being an inspiration to me, to being my friend, to allow me to come share time with him, and watch him grow. He has taught me much, and he has given me much joy and satisfaction. He’s let me sit in the front row, when he walks out on the stage of life and pours out his heart.

He’s written a song, a bit about me and what we are together, but it goes so much deeper, and wider.

When he sings me his song, and puts to music and words, and, yes, into love, his feelings and emotions and gratitude, I am moved. I feel loved. I feel appreciated, recognized, validated. But, most of all, I feel loved.

Love. That word is hard for him. It is also hard for me. When I was a kid, I didn’t hear that word much, and I floundered around with what it meant to me, and how important it was in my life, or not. This inner turmoil festered in me for many years. I rejoice that the dragons and monsters my young friend has called out, named, and wrestled with. In his journey, he is farther down that trail than most of us.

When I hear him struggle, I hear my own struggle, my own uncertainty, my own grief for not knowing love, for questioning what life is all about, and what I here to do. We grieve over death, and loss. Yet, for me, the hardest grief is not knowing love.

Being able to express love, and to fully accept the power and the satisfaction there is in life when unconditional love is a practiced value, is much of the story of my life.

My friends’s song says you love yourself and you love me. It brings all that love-not-spoken dark dialogue back up, again and again. The song felt good, soothing some long time aches and pains, and holes. When he sings, some old, musty dark holes in me get filled up, and I feel warm, complete.

I’ve had a lot of hungry young people in my life, and they all struggle with that love word. We all do, and the search for that feeling of completeness and acceptance often takes a lifetime of tears, yearning, and struggle.

There’s a lot of running away, in life, from love, being loved, and loving others. We run to self medication, self deprecation, self loathing. We push others down or away from our own needy hearts, just so we don’t have to accept love from ourselves and love from others.

If we are loved, then we must be worthy of love. And, that is really hard, to feel worthy of love, when those we respect and admire have told us we really aren’t worthy of love.

I get all of that. I understand that, and I’ve lived around that and in that. That dilemma, that agony, that need, all of that also is in my life, and my world.

I’ve learned that love has many meanings and many dimensions. Love is like the sparkle of a diamond, and each sparkle in the light has a different nuance, even a different meaning entirely.

I don’t need to hear the “love” word to know that there is love. I am old and wise enough now to just know that love is there, without calling its name.

His song is all of that. His song is from his heart. And, that is the gold and the diamonds in my life, and in his life, too.

He knows all this, and he knows it in his heart. And, when he sings it to me, I cry, and in seeing my tears, he knows he has told me what he wants me to know.

My friend reminds me I need to go deep inside, and call out the dragons and the monsters in my basement, to rummage around the dark forces in my life, and find my own emotions and strengths. In that tough work, I rediscover the treasures of unconditional love.

I hope he realizes that his words, his music, his expression, and his acceptance and his savoring of what he does in all that, is not only a gift, but it is a treasure that he already knows that he has. In that, he is blessed.

When you can accept love and when you can give love, when you can share your real loving self, in all its facets, you are truly blessed.

— Neal Lemery 11/10/2012

Candlelight: A Story Teller Visits the Youth Prison


Candlelight: A Story Teller Visits the Youth Prison

We gather in a circle, to hear from the story teller who has quietly appeared among us. His quiet presence is greeted with respect; admiration for his time with us six months ago, his quiet message of hope, and healing, and his wisdom.

We share an opening prayer, a sense of being at peace with the universe, and with our souls. And, a sense of coming together.

Each of us is invited to tell our names, where we had come from, and a bit about our own journeys. All of our experiences, all of who we were, and are, and are becoming, are welcomed into this circle. The chaos of our lives, our pain, our joys, are all welcomed and accepted, without limits.

In this prison, there are many stories of tragedy and pain, loss and suffering. Some of those experiences are given voice today, in this circle, and are accepted and acknowledged. There is no blame, no judgement today; only acceptance and compassion. And, in the telling, there is healing, perhaps a sense of understanding and forgiveness.

In my community, there are many prisons. But, when I come here, I can see the physical fences, and the locked doors. At least when I come here, the walls and the barriers to freedom are obvious. For so many away from here, their walls and locks take other forms, and may not even be known to those who are locked away by the prisons in their lives.

Some of the young men offer a hint of the pain in their lives, the violence, the drugs, the abandonment and anger; the absence of community. Others nod in agreement; such pain is so common in this place of acknowledgement and healing. They are here to change. And in that work, they find direction and hope. They do this together, united for a common purpose. In this place, being aware of the possibility for change, for unconditional love, is part of the air they breathe.

The storyteller’s visit is part of that change, that opening of doors to understanding, to acceptance, to personal salvation and love.

Several young men offer their gifts of song, opening their hearts, and touching our lives with the beauty of the moment and their own journeys.

Others offer a wooden staff to the leader of the drumming circles here. She comes here and leads us in prayer and song, giving the young men, and me, her unconditional love and guidance through troubled seas. The staff, adorned with beads, and feathers, and other symbols of hope and love, is a gift back to her of what she has given here. Their decorations and gifts and blessing of the staff fills the room with that sense of community. We pass the staff around the circle, each of us offering a blessing, a wish, an acknowledgement of the power of others to change our lives. The power of that sharing and healing fills all of our hearts with love.

The story teller told us of his life, and his sister’s recent death. He spoke of the tragedies in her life, and how, through all the pain and loss, she still loved people unconditionally. His loss and his pain are mirrored in the faces of the young men gathered in the circle. A sense of knowing that pain, and compassion for others grows in the room. This place is safe now, a sacred place for being in that pain, and having our own sparks of humanity accepted.

Unconditional love is his message today. In his native stories and tales, in his words about his own life, the message is repeated.

In our lives, and our experiences, and in our pain and sufferings, we are preparing ourselves for the work ahead. There will be times when our presence, and our unconditional love for others, will change lives. What we are going through now is merely preparation for the gift giving we will do in the future.

One young man offers a song in memory of the storyteller’s sister, filling us all with sadness and hope and a bit of that unconditional love.

Others give voice to their struggles, their anger, their work to become healthy men.

The storyteller leads us in a dance around the circle, holding hands, all moving to a drum beat, singing an ancient, timeless song. In movement, we become one; there are no leaders and no followers. We became community, accepting and united.

Stories are told, letting us nod and laugh together, hearing his tales, and joining together in the acknowledgment of his story. His work brings us together, to a feeling of being one, of each of us having value, of being accepted for who we are, right now. And, again, judgement is suspended. Unconditional love lights up the room.

Telling our stories is what we need to do in our lives. In our stories, and in the stories of others, we find acceptance, and we find community. As we drum together, sing together, and listen to our stories, we come together. We are one.

In my heart, I touch my own pain, my own losses, my own doubts and fears. The storyteller’s songs of love and acceptance, and of his own pain and his own journey through life brings me renewal. That spark of humanity, of the power and force of love as a healer, as a single candle that can light the entire room, is fed by his quiet presence in our lives.

In all of our eyes today, I see acceptance, reconciliation, forgiveness, and unity in all of what we experience in our humanity. We become a stronger community, telling our stories, finding acceptance and hope.

–Neal Lemery 11/4/2012

Dealing With Death


Dealing With Death

“How do I deal with this? a friend asked the other day, as we talked about the death of his friend, at a very young age.

And, I don’t know. I’ve lost friends, relatives, people I work with, neighbors, people I’ve admired, so many people in my life. After all that loss, you think I would have figured it out, and knew the answer to his question.

But, I don’t. I explore my relationship with God, I contemplate the Universe, I search for my place in the world, who I am, where I am going, my own death. I sometimes I think I have answers, but I also still have questions, big questions.

The questions nag me in the middle of the night, or when I have a thought reminding me of a loved one who has died. The other day, when my friend asked me this question, his eyes tearing up with his pain and his loss, and his quest for the answer to his question. My usual full bag of advice and counsel didn’t produce a ready answer.

Great poets, great writers, great artists, great theologians, and me and my friend keep coming back to the pain, the questions, the wondering.

Some say there is a plan. Yet, the work of the angel of Death seems chaotic, haphazard, completely random.

I can have a rich, yet fleeting, conversation with someone close to me, and then next thing I know, I’m sobbing because they are suddenly gone from my life. Or, I know they are dying, but I am still not ready for that phone call, telling me their time has come now, and not when we had thought. What I want to be rational and reasonable is never that, not when I’m trying to understand Death.

Death always screws up my plans.

I’m never ready for it, never ready for the news, the loss, the stumbling around that I do when someone close to me departs this world. I’d like to think I can manage death, but I can’t. Oh, I’m practiced in helping to plan funerals, and even saying comforting words, and helping others out. I’ve mastered the legalities, and sometimes, I think I know the spiritual “final answer”, but not really.

I’m really not very good at all this, and the dark void in the pit of my soul still aches, and I still cry out my laments.

Sure, I move on. I go forward. That is, after all, what we have to do in this life. And, I like to think that part of that person’s goodness and spirit lives on as a spark in my own self, and that their love and their goodness is part of the tapestry that is my life and my work in this world. And, yes, all that is comforting.

Yet, I still don’t really know what to do, how to “handle this”, and to move on.

I can sit with my friend, who mourns and weeps, and let him know there is love and kindness and compassion left in this world. I can offer that and let him take what he needs now, to ease the bleeding of his own heart, and the void of his own emptiness.

Perhaps that is enough, that empathy and compassion. Perhaps that is the humanity I can offer, and how we can all try to deal with Death and loss, and our own sense of righteous abandonment and anger.

I can live my own life well, with few regrets, and with passion and zeal. Then, when it is my time to leave here, those who are left behind will have seen all that in me, and find some strange form of comfort in that, knowing I lived well and full, and that love remained strong in my heart, for all to see.

—Neal Lemery 10/26/2012

Local Beauty Secrets Revealed


Local Beauty Secrets Revealed

I’ve always wondered why the farm women in my small rural town are so beautiful. I’ve speculated that it was the hundred inches of annual rainfall, or the mist from the large cow manure sprayers that perfume our air, even the faintly salty breeze off the ocean.

But, now the holy mysteries have been revealed.

On our way back from the weekly grocery store pilgrimage, we were commenting on my choice of shampoo I bought today.

“I’m just ready for something different,” I said. “Time for a change.”

My wife agreed, saying that a friend of hers, a dairy wife, recently gave her some new shampoo for her birthday.

She purchased it at the local feed store, apparently the local rival to Paul Mitchell, Revlon, and other boutique beauty supplies.

“It’s ‘Mane ‘n Tail Shampoo’,” my wife said. “They use it on horses, and it makes the horses’ manes and tails shiny and voluminous.”

“Yes, I could see why one would want one’s horses to have shiny and voluminous manes and tails,” I said.

“The dairy wives, too,” my wife replied. “They use it themselves. And, you can buy it in bulk at the feed store.

“I’ve used it, too. It does a great job,” she said, adding a loud horse snort and neigh.

Struggling to keep the car on the road, our laughter filling the car, I barely made it home and rushed to my computer. With a quick Google search, I found myself on the Mane ‘n Tail website, looking at all their equine beauty aids and glorious testimonials.

Nothing from Mr. Ed, or this year’s winner of the Kentucky Derby, but lots of rave reviews from satisfied customers, all apparently now displaying voluminous hair.

And, then, I discovered another product, one my wife now also wants to try — Mane ‘n Tail’s Hoofmaker. A happy customer wrote:

“My nails were in very bad shape. I started using Mane ‘n Tail Hoofmaker and saw a difference in one week. I’ve been using it for a month now and love it. My nails are no longer brittle and breaking.

“–M.R., Fresno, California.”

No endorsements yet for any oats or hay, or the Triple Crown Diet on the website. But, I bet they are working on a special nutritional supplement to keep one’s coat shiny, and heal saddle sores. I’d be interested in that.

In the Listening


I should never assume I’m in charge of the agenda.

The other day, I had a visit with one of my young friends at the local prison. I’ve been mentoring him, and he’d been teaching me, for quite a while. Visiting day was turning out to be the best day of the week for me, on a lot of different levels.

I had our time all planned out. I brought food, some of his favorites, and coffee. I brought my guitar, and planned to play a game. I even laid out, in my mind, what we’d talk about, as we ate, and played the game. Silly me, thinking I’d be in charge of our time.

Yet, when I arrived, he didn’t even open the bag from the restaurant. He barely sipped the special chocolate frappe I’d brought in. My guitar stayed in its case, and it was obvious he had a lot on his mind. His first words pushed me into the nearest chair and he took command of our time, his eyes sparkling with determination to speak his mind.

He talked, and told stories about his life, his family, and his fears. I heard about his grandma, and his most challenging wrestling meet, and how his coach believed in him. The coach was the first man who ever thought he could do anything in his life.

The restaurant food grew cold; there was a different hunger in the room today. It wouldn’t be satisfied by the burgers and fries.

I heard about his best friend shooting someone at school, and what it was like to watch that, and hear the gunshots in his high school hallway, what it was like to turn around and see his friend firing the gun and the other guy falling, and bleeding. And how he helped get the gun away, when the magazine was finally empty, and how it fell, clanging, on the hard linoleum floor, by the blood.

I had to remember to breathe, as his words quietly tumbled out, words without emotion, just relating the events, him being a reporter of what went on, as he watched a murder.

He took me there, his words painting a picture of his fear, and his empathy for his friend, and why his friend’s anger boiled over into gunfire. He didn’t cry, he just spoke, his voice firm, the sentences turning into page long paragraphs. I wondered if anyone had ever heard this story, even after the cops arrived a few minutes later, and took his friend to jail, leaving him in that long, cold hallway, next to the bullet riddled body, the empty magazine, and the blood.

His eyes told me it was not my time to ask, only to listen.

I could only nod, later occasionally offering a full sentence of empathy and understanding. His words tumbled out, keeping a steady pace, as the hand on the clock on the wall spun around, once, twice, and half again.

Finally, he took a deep breath.

“I guess our time’s up now. Can you come next week?” he said quietly, unfazed by his two and a half hour monologue, his story of murder, and loneliness, and losing a friend.

“Sure,” I said, nodding and giving him a hug. He hugged back, bear like, taking the sack of cold burgers with him.

“I’ll heat these up in the microwave. Thanks.”

When I got home, I took a walk, in the autumn afternoon sunshine, and looked at the colors of the leaves falling from the trees, and the last of the summer flowers, ones that had survived the first few nights of frost. The air was still, the rays of the setting sun still warm on my skin.

There were no birds, no insects, not even a breeze in the dying yellow leaves on the maple tree, as if the world knew I’d had enough listening for a while, and needed to let all that settle in, to find a place for what I’d heard that afternoon.

I heard his stories, again, in that silence, and let his tales sink deep into my soul. And, in all that, I realized I’d been given the gift of knowing him better, and in letting him finally be free to tell his stories and find his own way.

10/8/12

Family


“How’s your family?” someone asked the other day.

“Oh, fine,” I replied. The standard response.

“No, really. How are they?” they asked, again, wanting me to be honest, to engage with them.

I shared some successes, a few challenges, feeling myself break into a smile as I talked about the people I loved, people I shared my life with, people who really mattered to me.

The conversation got into how I was really doing, at this point in my life. I’m really close to retirement, and busy with my music, my mentoring, and the usual busy schedule of late summer.

It felt good to connect with that person, and have someone really care about me, and where I was in life, and how things were really going. It was one of those times I was glad I lived in a small town, where you could run into people who really cared about you, who were good friends. I felt that warm, deep feeling inside of me, that feeling that people really cared about me, that I mattered, that what I do in my life really mattered.

As I walked down the street, I wondered, “Well, what do I mean when I mention my family?”

My lawyer brain first thinks of the dictionary definition of family. I look back at those in my life I’m related to biologically. Except for a few, they aren’t family now. We don’t have anything in common, except some DNA and some quirky personalities and mannerisms. Some of them share a last name with me. But, all that doesn’t add up to family for me. Not anymore.

I ran down the list of names, the names of my family, their faces popping into my head, more warm feelings filling my chest, my gut, being part of the smile across my face.

It struck me, hard, that who I feel are family to me aren’t related to me by blood. We don’t share the DNA, or any of the quirky family traits of personality, or habit, or behavior. We don’t share last names, or common ancestors.

No, my family doesn’t fit the Webster’s definition. But, they are my family.

They’ve come into my life through my marriage, my work, my life in this community. Some of them have lived in my house, and sat with me at the dinner table, as I’ve watched them grow up and move on, making something out of themselves.

And, some of them are people I just see a lot, sharing some laughs, telling stories, having fun spending some good times. They are the people you don’t need to worry about when you see them, worrying about what you will talk about, or what you will do. Like your favorite pair of worn jeans, they fit right and they’re comfortable, without any effort, without any work about being formal, or proper, or even polite.

They know who they are with me — family. And, when I try to explain to someone else how they are related to me, how they are family, the usual words of relationship and kinship just don’t work.

“Step son” or “former foster son” or “mentee” or “former co worker” or “wife’s former step daughter” or whatever I might use to “define” our relationship all are just words. And, they don’t work very well. They don’t describe who we are or how we are related. And, all those words aren’t what we are to each other, anyway.

And, some of the phrases just become nonsense to me, anyway. How can one be a “former” son? Once one, always one. English needs to develop some new words for who’s who in my family.

We’ve had a lot of shared experiences, a lot of fun, a lot of struggle sometimes, a lot of water under the bridge. More wrinkles, maybe less hair, bigger stomachs, all marks of aging. We all have a bit more gray in our hair (some, including me, a lot more than others!)

If we all got together for a big family portrait, you wouldn’t be able to tell that we’re related by looking at our faces, or how we dress, or how we smile, or sing. But, you would know us by our stories, by our affection for each other, for our shared experiences, and love for what we really are to each other. You would know us by that love that is deep in our hearts, that love we have for each other, that no one can define.

And, in all that, we are family.

9/18/2012

A Letter to My Young Friend in Prison


A Letter to My Young Friend in Prison

Dear ____________:

It was good to go deep with you today.

As always, I found you working on several difficult issues, and moving forward with all of them. You have healthy goals, and you have worthy dreams. You always do.

Young men worry about who they are, and what they want to accomplish, and what is their destiny. And, actually, we all worry about that. At least, I do.

I don’t always count my blessings, and I can worry about things that I have no control over, or things that turn out to be pretty insignificant. I struggle with feelings and emotions, and I get myself tied up in knots about things. Another young man I know calls that “catastrophizing”. A good term for that “tie my stomach in knots” feeling.

So, when you struggle, and doubt, and worry, you are not alone. And, when you see some people and situations in your life that need some fixing, and things aren’t getting fixed, that is normal.

Each of us can only fix ourselves. We aren’t the mechanics for other people. We don’t lead their lives. And, we aren’t the boss. Well, we are the boss of ourselves. We do have the ability to direct our own lives, and to manage our own affairs. And, what other people do and what other people might think of us — well, not much we can do about that.

You are a normal guy. You have normal worries, and normal doubts and normal insecurities. You get frustrated when relationships and other things don’t get “fixed”. That’s normal.

I see you accomplishing a whole lot. Certainly more than most 21 year old men I have known. OK, you are in prison and you don’t have a lot of “freedom”. Yet, you have done a great deal of hard work in getting your own house in order, and healing yourself. You have educated yourself a great deal about who you are, where you come from, and who you want to be.

Most young men haven’t done that. Most young men haven’t laid out the high moral standards and ethics you have set for yourself. The work you have done has been very valuable, and very important. I think you see that, sometimes. In a few years, you will see this time as a very rich, and a very valuable experience.

As you do your heart work, know that I support you, and I believe in you. I am grateful you have this opportunity, to know yourself better, and to gain information which will lead to even more self discovery, and to more healing of whatever wounds you discover.

Part of that healing work involves forgiveness.

I hope that you are doing some forgiveness of yourself in all this. Forgiveness is a very good gift to give to yourself. It is part of that struggle you have with accepting a gift.

You want to “pay off your restitution”. “Restitution” means “to restore, to put back”. Part of restitution is forgiving yourself. That will be harder to do than sending money off to the State. But, more rewarding, and more freeing.

You are doing all of this work for the right reasons: self understanding.

Most every time I leave prison after a visit with you, I say to myself “Wow. I don’t know if I could deal with that.”

A lot of the stuff you talk about that you have experienced, well, I think I might just want to find a dark corner and pull a blanket over my head, and slip away into a bit of self imposed craziness.

But, you don’t take that cheap route. You dig in and work through the crap that you have to deal with sometimes, and you get it on. You sort through it, and you do what is needed to be healthy, and sane, and whole.

You may think you don’t get much support from other folks on what you are going through and what you are doing. But, you do. Your Team is out there, cheering you on.

I try to be a good cheerleader, a good support person for you. I don’t always do a great job, and I often don’t have the tools and the pompoms and the special cheerleader cheers that work for you. But, I still show up and I still cheer you on.

I believe in you and I believe in your journey.

And, you teach me more about courage and decency and character than anything else in my life.

I thank you for that, from deep in my heart.

Sincerely,

Neal C. Lemery

His First Guitar


His First Guitar

He’s said something about a guitar, a couple of visits earlier. We’d talked about his singing, his passion for music, his ability to hear a song, and then sing it back, note for note, and word for word.

It was easy for him, he said. He was born with it, something he just did. It wasn’t a big deal. His mom sang, and it was just part of his life.

I had first heard him sing at the prison talent show, his voice filling the half court gym that was also the room where every other public event happened. The room grew still when he sang, everyone following his voice as he hit every note of the song. And when everyone applauded at the end, I first saw his big smile, happy with himself and happy with the joy that he brought everyone else. His joy came alive then, with what he did with his talents.

The guitar would be new to him, and he thought he might want to learn. I knew he loved to learn. He’d graduated from high school a year ago, and was now taking a full load of on line classes at a community college. He’d struggled a bit with writing, and my wife gladly tutored him a bit on writing papers. Their discussion at one of our first visits quickly intensified, as he focused on how he could improve his work, and be a serious student.

I’d given another one of the young men I’ve been mentoring a guitar for Christmas. He was happy at the gift, but he’d struggled with the guitar, finally realizing it wasn’t his passion, and wasn’t something he enjoyed. He’d talked with me about his frustration and we left the discussion with him giving it back to me. He’s a guy who looks out after others, and sensed the guitar needed a new owner.

Now, there was the young man who needed a guitar and I had a guitar to give.

The next visit, I brought him the guitar, and a gig bag, a tuner, a capo, and some picks; all the mechanics you need to start. I put it in his hands, watching a grin brighten his face. He didn’t need me to show him how to hold it, he just picked it up and held it close to him, almost clutching it tightly to his body.

The right hand strummed, hesitating, playing with the strings. I showed him the G chord, his fingers quickly figuring out where the finger tips went, between the frets. The chord rang out from the guitar, close to being correct.

He frowned, not happy with the sound, and he tried again, and again. I reached over and moved a finger closer to the fret, changing his left hand a bit. Again, and it was better. And, again, and it was spot on. The frown was now a smile.

In a few minutes, I showed him another chord, and again, I moved a finger here and there, and then, his second chord was strummed, producing yet another smile. He was figuring it out, and moving back and forth between the two chords, and then a third.

“You can play Amazing Grace now,” I said.

He looked at me, his jaw dropping a bit, and shook his head.

“Yeah, its easy,” I said, taking the guitar from him.

I played the three chords he knew, and sang the words of the first verse, moving from chord to chord and then back home, strumming a rhythm, putting guitar notes into chords and rhythms, and adding the poem.

“Here. You try it,” I said, handing his guitar back to him.

He sang then, strumming and moving from chord to chord, making a passable version of the old familiar song.

“Really,” he announced, looking up at me, a much bigger grin now lighting up his face.

“Yeah, really,” I replied. “You can sing and play the guitar now.”

Before I left, he’d learned two more chords from me, and was talking about a song he’d been singing, and wanted to play it on the guitar.

“Homework”, I laughed. “Something to play for me the next time I show up.”

His laughter filled my heart, his eyes focused on his hands as he moved from one chord to another and back.

“There’s an E minor in it. Can you show me that one?” he asked, his hands trembling a bit on the frets.

“Sure,” I said, moving two fingers on his left hand into the E minor fingering. “It’s easy.”

And, it was for him, amazingly easy.

The next visit, he played several songs for me, including the one he had wanted to learn. He had good rhythm, good strumming, and was sliding his chord hand around to play the four chords in his song.

He stumbled a bit, but we all do when we are first learning a song. I told him everyone does that, at first. But, he still moaned a bit with frustration, expecting himself to be perfect.

The next couple of visits, I taught him some more, things I’d been working pretty hard on the last four years to learn and push myself up to higher levels of playing. My learning curve was a lot longer than his, and he quickly soaked up everything I offered to him.

My wife played a bit, too, with the guitar and her mandolin. He soaked up what she was showing him, too, at lightning speed.

Several times in the next few weeks, a staff person would come by, and show him a song. He’d watch, intently, and then played a duet with them, mimicking every movement, every note. Goosebumps showed up on my arms when I played with him, my jaw agape as I watched him learn so quickly, mastering small things here and there, bringing his own joy to a song he loved.

One day, I brought new strings, and showed him how to restring the guitar. He chuckled at the new, bright sound, as I wound up the old strings, strings he’d worn out, playing a couple of hours a day.

We’ve brought our guitar and mandolin teacher in now, to see if he can keep up with him. And, its a struggle, we hear, our teacher feeling challenged at what the young man can soak up in just a little bit of time.

And, every time I visit, we play together, sharing what we know and what we love, our voices filling the room and bringing more smiles to his face.

He’ll outgrow this guitar soon, if he already hasn’t done that. He’ll finish his associates degree in December and be paroled in February. Then, he’s off to a real college campus, and start his junior year, being a normal college student living a normal life. There’s a new guitar in all that, too. And, I can’t wait to take him guitar shopping and see him light up the store with his big grin.

9/12