True Anguish

I am a feeler.  I am, most often, deeply affected by my experiences and the powerful experiences of others.  When I began this blog, I assumed that I would feel anguished most Wednesdays after my Cross and the State class.  I just knew that I would be experience anguish related to the death penalty, the pain of the victims, and the alone-ness of prisoners.  I soon found out that this was not always going to be the case.  During my time in this class I have met some amazing human beings and felt the Spirit moving in seemingly dire situations.  While I have only been able to visit the prison in Jackson a handful of times, I am thankful for the encounters and conversations I have been blessed to share with the men there.  So, while there have been moments of hopeful joy for me this semester, the past few weeks have, indeed, been chock full of anguish.  Because of this intense anguish I have been feeling, I have not blogged in approximately three weeks.  It is not that I haven't been reflecting on my experiences or devouring reading material on the justice system in the U.S.-I just haven't been able to fully process or even talk about my thoughts and feelings with others. 

The week before Spring Break, we toured the Dekalb County jail.  This was not originally part of our course, but after several students (including myself) requested that Stan set up a tour for us, there it went on our schedule.  The Dekalb County jail is directly off I-285 on Memorial Drive and it is the way many get into the City of Decatur.  You cannot miss this structure if you are driving 285-It is a massive circular structure, built in the style of Jeremy Bentham's design (described in an earlier post).  The minute we entered this building, I felt that I was entering another world.  It felt strangely institutional and disorieting at the same time.  In fact, the purpose of the its design is to disorient those held there.  For some reason our tour not only disoriented me, but it left me feeling sick to my stomach and deeply, deeply disturbed.  And...it wasn't the prisoners or the guards that left me feeling disturbed-it was the atmosphere.  The rest of the day for me was a daze, in fact, I came home and wept.

The things I most remember from our tour at the Dekalb County Jail are this:
-A feeling of being at the zoo...prisoners were presented as animals to be observed
-A sense that the structure and atmosphere is meant to scare...terrify...breakdown
-A feeling being close-in, pressed down on, hopeless

Since my experience at the Dekalb County Jail I have not been able to go and visit our friends at Jackson.  Life has gotten busy, but I am also scared to go.  I am not scared of the people, I am scared of my own feelings and emotions.  It is so much easier to ignore the issues surrounding our penal system.  It is so much easier to ignore crime.  It is so much easier to ignore people who commit crimes.  It is so much easier to ignore the victims of crime. 

I am eager to see how my experience in Cross in the State will continue to evolve, change, and affect me in the coming months in years.  I am hopeful that I will come out of this period of anguish and be able to truly hope and truly work to experience life and the grace of God in every situation, even the Dekalb County Jail.