Radford Noone Research Service

climbing your family tree

Mighty Drofdar

Like Attracts Like: Divine Intelligence and Human Stupidity

 

 

             “That’s not Dwight’s office,” the director would correct a volunteer who in passing spoke of “Dwight’s office.”  I adopted the director’s office on my day there, and I vacate it when he needs it for something. Well it is his office even though I’ve come to be associated with it. When we share the same shift and he needs it, I actually grumble and vacate it with a passive-aggressive wise crack. Otherwise I have the run of his office which I have christened “the bat cave.” The office is not that big, about the size of a child’s bedroom with filing cabinets, a desk and most important space to store junk when needed. The area behind my desk, where the swivel chair sits, faces Dog Block (D-Block). The Dog Block courtyard separates me from the block itself. So I can turn around and look out of the concrete bars at who’s walking around the court, horsing around, or who is just sitting on a bench jabbering. When I’m meeting with one of the guys housed on the side of Dog Block facing me, they like to show me where they live. They will tell me to look up at the second tier then three windows over from that cell where I can see whatever through the bars. That’s their “home” as some of the men call it. It’s in this bat cave office that have developed the approach of letting the guys come to me for help and discussion rather than me going to them.

             The bat cave is just perfect for me as I can sit back there and write articles for the center’s The Living Journal in peace and when the guys need me they come and find me. The inmates usually find me all the time. The director, Brother Ferguson, now wanders back there several times during a shared shift, and I greet him with “Are we bored?” Sometimes I stay there during lunch when everybody is gone, and write my articles without any interruptions. That is if my stomach is feeling well after dining at the prison.

             It is within the bat cave that I have allowed myself the space where I can practice important principles that I am trying to perfect such as non-control. I think in the beginning of my volunteer service I wanted to fix everybody’s genealogical problem (no control issues there). This is what a family historian does – they identify and then fix research problems. Genealogy is definitely a control based occupation. What I found instead was that I was nabbed and pulled in five directions at once by different inmates. I was grabbed with things that someone else, more qualified than I, could have handled. I would be asked, “I don’t know how to print this out. Can you help me?” Since I don’t know the computer system at the center very well I wasn’t able to handle the simplest requests. This approach was not working for me. When I finally figured out after several months that I was trying to control, I backed off, borrowed the director’s office and let the world come to me. That way those in need come to my open door. What I experienced with this approach was nothing less than a major revelation that I have since taken outside with me. I finally learned how not to control or be the fix-it-upper man.

             What I found was that some of the guys stayed completely away from me and others were drawn to me with their feelings, concerns, and of course their family history. My observation was that there was a certain type of inmate who was unashamed to frequent my lair. What was that all about? I wondered.

             This was during the time that the inmates were into the book and DVD The Secret so I had to wonder if what I was seeing was “law of attraction” playing itself out. The guys were the ones who introduced me to that popular book and DVD.  As the old saying goes, “like attracts like.” For each of the guys who come to my bat cave, there’s something within him and in me that just clicks. It’s comfortable, and it’s in that environment that I learn some of my most important lessons from these guys. Some people would say that this “law of attraction” is nothing more than Psychology 101, as we hang where we are the most comfortable. Personally I have little problem understanding that. Others, like the church I go to, Center for Spiritual Living (a.k.a. United Church of Religious Science), would say that there are cosmic “laws of attraction” and that what I’m experiencing is being in the flow of the Universe. Cool, I really have no problem seeing that particular position either. Other folks would think that is nothing more than nineteenth and early twentieth century metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. I try and not define it any further than I have to. For me what is happening works and that’s all I really care about.

             In the bat cave lair my usual meeting with the guys is during a one-on-one conversation. I realize that when one of the men walks through that door that I’m engaging life itself -- life engaging life. I can literally feel a flow and a rhythm to the conversation. The key for me has been to stay emotionally present with the man I’m talking to. Some of the guys like to sit across the desk from me while others are comfortable enough to pull up a chair in front on my side of the desk. Still others will come to my side of the desk, and then lean up against the white concrete cinder block wall while they prop up their feet on my desk. I figure that as long as there’s room on the desk to put their family history papers then I don’t really care how they position themselves.

             What took me a while to grasp was why it was only a selection of the men who ventured into the exchange of life with me. I couldn’t help but wonder what type of a man wanted to take his time and engage me. I was stumped even more when I realized that the kind of men attracted to my time were not the manipulating kind. They were thoughtful and very respectful. I couldn’t help but wonder where all the manipulators were. It’s a prison and the corridors are filled with someone who wants something from you to better their own existence. Maybe The Secret is right and there is a “law of attraction,” and like really does attract like. Whether simply Psychology 101 or Cosmic Consciousness, I’ll roll with it either way.

              A couple of the guys I meet with on a regular basis have terrible reputations for being manipulators. In spite of the stories and rumors about them, I simply don’t see that side of them. It’s not that I believe or doubt the rumors -- that’s just not my experience with them. From everything that I can observe, these rumored manipulators were nothing but upfront in their dealing with me.  Oddly enough perfect gentlemen. Maybe, a non-manipulative relationship demonstrated to them is what these men need so that they can “move on” past their dysfunctions. So there’s something in our exchanges that fills that empty space they have, and they are satisfied with no need to manipulate it out of me.

             Other guys could be too scared to come and darken my open door. In my eyes I’m simply Dwight. I’m just some regular Joe off the streets and there’s no need to ever be intimidated or scared of me. That’s my view of myself, and I have to understand that it may not be their view. Maybe I am intimidating and scary. I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that none of us see ourselves the way other people see us. For this sub-group of men, I smile, say hello, and every once in a while help them at their microfilm readers or computers where they can be safe in the pack. I don’t force them into my bat cave. If they come, then I try and be awake to the fact that it took a tremendous amount of courage to stand at my door and simply ask for my help. These men will always be welcomed to my time, but they are going to have to ask for it. I see this as part of becoming whole again for these men, and I’m not going to make them whole on my time table. Maybe the most important lesson here really has nothing to do with them. I’m learning to be whole by not trying to take control of the situation.

             Brad is a polite young man in his twenties. I see him in many ways as a contradiction. On one hand he’s polite, and on the other hand he’s definitely an in-your-face personality. Some people think he’s aggressive. For me he has a fascinating and compelling personality. I would assume that just as many people like him for this mixture as dislike him. He’s Mr. Straight Shooter all the way. Sometimes he can be confrontational, but from my experience of him, that’s not how he always intends to come across. I’ve learned to let that confrontational part of his personality go in one ear and out the other so that I can enjoy his company. He can be quite deep, and when he’s in those moods, I don’t want to miss one word he has to say. In his usual in-your-face manner, he pulls up a swivel chair by my side and then reclines against the cinder block wall. I then turn around, plop my feet on the radiator by him so that I can face him.

             One interesting, to the point, and odd conversation came one day when he expressed his curiosity about what people I know think about me coming to the prison. “Well it varies. Just today I got ‘I’m sorry’ when I told someone what I was doing today,” I honestly replied. He wondered how I responded to that. I said, “I just said that there’s nothing to be sorry for, that this is the highlight of my week.” Sometimes for me I find it humorous that the prison is the highlight of my week. Then he asked, “Do you ever get the comment about ‘Aren’t you afraid?’” This is a theme that I get asked a lot from the guys as they are really asking, “Are you afraid?” It’s insightful on so many levels, because how could they themselves not be afraid? So was he talking about me or himself? I decided to take the positive approach as I recounted, “I get that a lot. What I tell people is that I’m treated with more respect in prison from the guys than I ever am on the streets of Salt Lake City.” He looked pensive. “I bet that blows their minds.” Then we started getting to the heart of the discussion. I said, “But what blows their minds more is when I tell them that I honestly believe that if there was trouble in the prison that many of the guys would take a bullet for me.” This apparently caught Brad’s attention because he responded back almost immediately, “You need to know that if any of the volunteers were in trouble, there would literally be a large pile of inmate bodies on the ground before we’d let someone get to any of you.” I believe that.

             As far as my volunteer work at the family history center I feel safe. Brad along with the rest of the guys obviously feel safe there too otherwise they would stay on the block. The guys tell me that they don’t always feel safe on the block. If he was really asking if I felt safe with him, then I needed to let him know that I do without question. I shared that with him.

             Now of course I’m not naïve enough to think that all of the inmates would take a bullet for me or any of the volunteers. I’m sure that some of them would want to stand in line to pull the trigger. However, for those I see at the family history center, I feel rather confident that I’m safe. Brad remained curious and he continued to prod me with more questions. “What else do people say about you being here?” OK I couldn’t avoid this one, and I suspected that the conversation may have been going in this direction anyway so I just beat him to the draw. I confessed, “There’s always the comment surrounding sex. It’s common for people to make a snide comment about me being Big Bubba’s boy-toy.” He got this grin on his face as he said, “Isn’t it funny what people think about what really doesn’t go on around here?” He’s right because I’m still astonished I’m treated with nothing but respect. When I reiterated that with Brad, all he could do was nod his head.

There seems to always be an underlying sexual component around the prison. I understand that it’s a men’s prison.  I’ve gotten to the point that when they insinuate or make an innuendo that is sexual, I blurt it out for them. This usually shuts them up. By now they know that I’m not their run-of-the-mill normal religious volunteer. These men know what we on the outside think about prison sexuality. However, where we think it, they have to live it with no escape as various individuals, personalities, and situations are in their face 24/7. For many their sanctuary is the programs at the chapel such as family history, music, or religious studies. Yet, it’s still there waiting for them on the block. How could these men not be curious about what we think.

                                                                                           Continued……..