Reimagine. Rediscover. Recreate.

Last week, I was speaking about second-chance hiring practices. 

What we all know is that the stain of incarceration makes employment difficult.  Even though you have done everything asked of you to be released, you are still believed to be a liability and/or a potential problem.  One act – one mistake – will follow you for years until you prove yourself to be someone more than the action (or reaction) of a moment.   

What many hiring managers don’t see is what I see every day:  extra-ordinary talent, resilience and motivation.  I see many people who may not have ever had anyone believe in them, and when they do, they are loyal and grateful.  In fact, I work with people like this every day.  

The reality is that returning citizens have a culture of their own; and when given the opportunity to share it with the wider culture, it contributes richly to the whole.  Much like how we approach the cultural diversity of other nationalities or populations, my challenge is to approach the culture of those formerly incarcerated as capable of enhancing the culture of a workplace.  Think about how much benefit there has been when we celebrate the cultures that make up our whole?  Think about how helpful it has been for those who don’t always feel like they belong to know someone else like them?  And when we lift them up, we are all better off.  We do that for so many groups, but not those who have been incarcerated – they hide rather than celebrate their story of redemption.  How much better could we all be if we incorporated their story into our own?  

Where is there is entitlement, they bring gratitude.  If you have had everything taken away, you are grateful for everything.  

Where there is a loss of purpose, they bring it in spades.  Where there is lack of initiative and resourcefulness, you would be amazed by what someone, who has lived with so little for so long, can do.  

My challenge to companies is to think about second-chance hiring as a cultural enhancement to your organization, because my experience tells me this is the opportunity. 

Sure, they might be a problem, but the chances are no more or less than with any other hire.  And no, you don’t have to take the risk, supposing things are fine as is, but what if they could be better?  

This is not just about second chances, this is about a cultural shift.   

Recently, I was meeting with city leaders to discuss some of the tougher social issues in our community—homelessness, mental health, public safety, addiction, domestic violence, and the like. These are all issues intimately connected to people who have experienced incarceration or are at risk of doing so. They are also issues that many cities have poured significant resources into, only to see modest results at best.

The question is: how do we crack the code? Is there a new solution out there that could yield the results we want?

No. Not a new one—but perhaps an old one that’s simpler than we think.

As educators, we learn that others retain about 10% of what is said, 30% of what is said and seen, 60–70% of what is experienced, and 90% of what is taught to someone else.

At PEP, when participants graduate from the program, they become “servant-leaders,” helping facilitate the program for the group immediately behind them. The goal is not just for them to learn the material, but to have it become integrated within them. In the process of serving as leaders to the next class, these men truly “get it.” They also experience the power of contribution—recognizing that they are not just consumers receiving something offered by others, but contributors to a shared mission. This creates a sense of ownership, accountability, and responsibility to others through a program to which they have an emotional connection.

If you’ve been reading this blog, you know I often emphasize the importance of belonging. But there’s something even more nuanced here: ownership through servant-leadership.

Now, apply this principle to the broader social issues mentioned above. Instead of caseworkers merely helping clients navigate systems, imagine those who have recently stabilized accompanying the people just behind them as part of the program. They would likely be better received—and achieve better outcomes—because they have just walked that same path. This approach reduces costs while improving results.

If the goal of addressing these issues is to help people belong more fully to the community, then we must also help them contribute to it. There is no ownership, accountability, or responsibility in being a consumer—but as a contributor, everything changes. Transformation is not something passively received; it is something earned and understood.

If we want to see real change, we must give people the chance to share what they’ve learned—to make a contribution—to lead, even if it’s just one other person.

About a week ago, I began my studies at Iona School of Ministry as part of my formation to serve the Episcopal Diocese of Texas as a Bivocational Priest.  This means that I would minister as a priest once again, but would also be expected to have a full-time career that would sustain my lifestyle and that of my family.

I am often asked why I feel like I should do this when I have already served as a priest for so many years and now have a very demanding full-time job that I love and a family?  Why priesthood now?  One answer is because I feel called to priesthood – I always have.  The second answer is because it provides a discipline, accountability and environment that I know I need.  As I have written before, the sacramental life helps me to participate in deeper realities that save me from myself.  

However, another question I often receive is why I feel so called to serve through an institution that has seemingly done so much harm?  I always begin this answer by acknowledging that the church has done harm.  

Archbishop William Temple said, “The church is the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members.” 

I have known this to true, and that the church, when lived out well, has the resources to do what others cannot.  I recently read a book titled, BiVocational:  Returning to the Roots of Ministry by Mark Edington in which he wrote about the difference between empire church and incarnational church.  Empire Church, Edington wrote, understands the purpose of the church is found in its own realm, separate and apart from – not to say over and against – the secular world.  The Incarnated Church understands the central purpose is not the creation of a separate realm, but a radically open engagement with the world at its doorstep. 

This is the Church I want to be a part of:  one where the historically rigid division between ordained responsibilities and lay roles is instead understood as different expressions of the same ministry – one in which all are now understood to be ministers of the congregation.  This is a church where we discern what have we been gifted to do?  Each congregation, as I have known many, will find its own way to remind people that they are fundamentally good; that there is always hope; that the most important questions we can ask are the ones which we will never answer.  Church reminds us that we cannot save ourselves, but we can help each other remember that we are worth saving.

I learned something very important when I first began teaching high school:  I was not there to teach a curriculum; rather, I was there to teach students – the curriculum was often the excuse.  To those particular students, many of whom had been delt a crappy hand in life, I was to teach them that they had choices.  Maybe these were not the choices they wanted, but they always had choices.  

But then I went to prison.  

And then I saw people leave prison and try to navigate the world we all live in every day.  A world with many, many choices.  

I never really considered how many choices we really have until I saw the contrast, and then I also understood why returning citizens struggle to reintegrate back into society.  In prison, you have very few choices; so when a person is released, the ability to make choices is often painful and often slow.  The longer the time spent, the more exacerbated the problem becomes.  

To be clear, I am not talking about the choice of a career or friends or where to live.  I am taking about problem-solving while on the job; priority-setting, time management and the like.  The sudden need to make so many decisions leaves a person exhausted.  

This is why transitional employment, housing and environments is so important – people need time to adjust to all the decisions which are now required.  People need time to process the impact of decisions, but this also hard when everything is urgent in order to successfully establish themselves in society once again. 

In the end, a community of empathetic and sympathetic people are required to give the permission for grace, permission to be tired, permission to feel overwhelmed.  It gets easier with time – a lesson for all of us.  

Along with a few other executives, I sat in a circle inside prison in a discussion about belonging.  It is a challenging subject since, on one hand, the desire to belong led to series of choices that resulted in a prison sentence; and on the other hand, the desire to belong when they are released will be challenged by the stereotypes associated with their incarceration.

As we discussed about the differences between “fitting in” and belonging, we spoke about being your authentic self; dealing with rejection; and learning how to tell your story (in a manner that did not overshare too soon).  As the conversation continued, I could not help but feel a certain sadness.  I was profoundly aware that very few of these ideas could be easily practiced or learned in prison, and I said as much.  I have too much respect for these men who are trying to become something more than what this place requires to survive.  Trust and respect, more often than not, require violence.  Belonging is not simply earned, it is fought out.  But these men want more than that.  

I found myself telling them that they will have to unlearn how to belong.  I didn’t know how to help them learn it, but I know they will need to learn that trust is not transactional.  If we are really going to belong, then we learn to trust the human-being not simply the human-doing.  

Can we trust the soul of a person more than their actions?  I am aware how difficult this is – for any of us.  But I think this is what is means for us to live in relationship with a God who calls us into deeper relationship with each other.  I think this is what it means to be-longingly.  

Whenever I speak to people who have no relationship to prisons or even non-profits, people want to know what the people I work with are in for?  With only a few exceptions, I tell them I don’t know, and I don’t need to know.  The reaction on the other end usually conveys a “but. . .” as if there are some offenses that would warrant greater concern.  

Perhaps there should be, but nor do I believe a person’s past should determine their future.  I am not working with people for who they were; I am working with them for who they are trying to be.  

Isn’t this what we should all be doing?  

Recently, I read Awaken Your Genius by Ozan Varol.  I am not usually a fan of books I find in the business section of a bookshop, but this one is quite good.  Genius, Ozan writes, is the discovery of the person within, largely through the pursuit of one’s own curiosity.  

As I have reflected on Varol’s book, I have thought about the connection between curiosity and attention.  I don’t think you can have one without the other.  Curiosity requires a careful ear – to those around you as well as the inner longings of one’s self.  

The trick is to train you attention on what is possible as opposed to what is in the past.  Easy to say, hard to practice, and rarely done consistently.  

As I have written before, I find working in prisons to be a helpful focus for noticing trends and ideas in life outside prison.  The limitations of one’s point of view help you see what is otherwise lost by the many distractions which fill our day.  In this case, it is listening to inmates speak of themselves for who they have been and then noticing a shift (many times like light switch) when they start to talk about themselves for who they are trying to be. 

The question we ask in the program is “If you weren’t in prison, what would you be doing?”  In the beginning, they will answer with all the things that got them there – drugs, fights, hanging with their people, etc. . .  After a while, they start answer with the things they are looking forward to – the things that motivate them – spending time with their kids, earning a paycheck, enjoying good food, the outdoors, etc.  

The other day, I asked a gentlemen who recently got out how his day was?  “Great”, he said, “this morning I spent about 10 minutes just watching these bugs get dew off the grass.”  I simply smiled and envied his sense of wonder.  

Attention.  Varol writes that our attention is our most valuable resource; more than time or energy.  Perhaps that is why we use the phrase, “paying attention”.  We seem to intuitively understand it has worth.  

What we pay attention to will be how we measure our worth, because it is what our curiosity will chase.  This is important.  

What we pay attention to will be how we measure our worth, because it is what our curiosity will chase – and what questions we will ask. 

Perhaps if we can pay attention to what really matters, we can ask the questions that arrive at the answers that are worth something meaningful.  Not the kind about the past, but those that concern who we are trying to be.  

You expect a lot of unexpected things to happen when you work with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people.  The stories are incredible – all the time.  I frequently tell people that miracles happen so often that we forget that they are miracles, but they really are.  Transformation.  Reunification.  Forgiveness.   Belonging.  Mercy.  Purpose.  Each of these words represents years or decades of work.  Each of them represent a miracle. 

What I did not expect is how many messages I would receive from people who have a family member or friend in prison, who are also looking for a way to better support them.  I think I get at least one message a day, sometimes more.  Incarceration is not simply something that happens to “those people” – it happens to a lot of us. 

Officially the stat is 1 in 3.  One in three Americans have been incarcerated at least once in their lives. Sometimes it is simply overnight in a country jail;  but nevertheless, that is a lot of people.   No wonder why I receive so many messages . . . 

In Texas, there are roughly 140,000 inmates in state prisons, with the average sentence being 23 years.  The majority of them are men; and a lot of those men are also fathers.  They have families, and incarceration effects everyone.  

The real struggle is that even when someone is released, they are still incarcerated by public opinion – even when 33% of them have had a similar experience.  People make a mistake – sometimes a very serious one – they do their time; they do the work; but forgiveness is not easily offered.  

What does it take for us to offer, not just forgiveness, but mercy?  Mercy – not a forgetting of what has happened as if that is possible – but a transcending what has happened.  Perhaps if more of us know how many of us there are; and how easily any of us could be them; we would be more willing to offer a second chance when the time comes.  

A few weeks ago, I finished reading Gregory Boyle’s latest book, Cherished Belonging, and I have been recommending it to everyone I know.  If case you do not know him, Gregory Boyle is a Jesuit Priest and the founder of Homeboy Industries, both of which are the reason and foundation of his writings.  Homeboy Industries is the largest and most successful gang rehabilitation program in the country and so his work and writing is deeply personal to me.  He has written several other books, all of which I have read, but this one was a little different:  mostly a reflection on what Greg has learned after decades of leading this work.  There are two overarching principles:  

Everyone is unshakably good (no exceptions)

We belong to each other (no exceptions)

But there was a story Greg relayed in his book as told from one of the “homies” (the name they give to their participants) that really gave me pause.   In summary, it was a discussion about what this homie found challenging about the Homeboy program.  The homie said that it was this one question on the intake form that really gave him (and everyone he knew) the most trouble:  “The name of your emergency contact”.  

They simply didn’t have one.  No one to call if they got in trouble.  No one who they were confident would be there for them. 

This gives me pause.  In the beginning, just about all of us had someone who helped us survive.  Many of us had someones (I mean this intentionally) who helped us thrive.  Now, many us feel isolated and alone.  We struggle to belong to anyone.

Why?

Boyle writes about curiosity as a remedy for judgement.  The judgement of others and ourselves leads to our isolation.  We make statements instead of asking questions.  We label quickly.  We treat people as “others” and individuals rather than a part of us.  We were no more created in isolation than we are to live in isolation.  We belong.  We just forgot how to do so.  We let our judgement of someone define a person more than our curiosity might.  

Judgement is almost always a factor when I speak with people about my work at PEP.  Incarceration is a label that comes with quick and near universal judgement.  Even if a person has done the time and the work, the labels overwhelm the curiosity – not about what, but about who.  Who is this person before me?  

Everyone is unshakably good (no exceptions)

We belong to each other (no exceptions)

I went to prison for the first time in 2004.  I was early in my studies at a Catholic Priest and selected prison ministry as one of my ministries of choice.  We lived in Texas at the time and the prison was not air-conditioned.  I would go inside with several other men and we would mentor prisoners inside the chapel, which was air-conditioned.  Many were skeptical about the prisoners’ intentions, but as I heard the stories of the people I encountered, I often wondered if I would have done any better?  Prison made an impression on me.  

Nearly 20 years later, I returned to prison again, this time as a volunteer with the Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP).  I was there as one of many judges in a final business pitch competition and graduation.  By this point, I had been in many jails as I worked with low income men and women thorugh SERJobs trying to get them trained and eventually employed upon release.  Being behind bars no longer felt strange – it was were I felt called to meet people who needed someone to give them a chance.  It is one of my sadnesses actually: that people do everything they are told, put in the time, and do the work – only to find it often doesn’t count for as much as the stigma of incarceration does.  

But this visit with PEP was different than when I would go to the jails.  There was laughter.  There was music.  There was even dancing.  In the competition, the pitches were as good as any sales pitch I had ever seen.  At the graduation, families gathered in the prison gym to witness their relatives walk the stage in a cap and gown.

In the months that followed, I would come to understand that this was made possible because PEP had created a community where everyone earned and got a second chance – the prisoners as well as many of the volunteers.  People on both sides of the bars seem to recognize just how easily they could be the other.  

In my many years working with formerly incarcerated people, we aimed for 60% employment rates, but we usually got something closer to 30%.  PEP professes 100% employment within 90 days of release year after year.  How???  The answer is multi-pronged but also comes down to one fundamental element:  belonging.  

PEP began teaching about business, but then realized that you really had to start with character.  It did this by sending business leaders inside prison, and then those leaders eventually met the same people when they got out of prison.  As it turns out there are not too many programs where the same volunteers who go inside are also there on the outside.  People formed relationships, and those relationships formed a community. Community holds people accountable which lead to people feeling confident about getting a job.  

Most re-entry programs are focused on jobs – rightly so.  But a job is not the target; it is means to the end.  If you think about, our jobs are the vehicle by which many of us learn to belong.  But if we just stop at the job, then something happens and there is community to hold them accountable, and the cycle repeats itself.  Belonging is the target.  

Throughout much of scripture, God has often spoken to people who are unwilling to receive the message.  As history shows, the failure to hear the message creates difficulty.  Rather than accept their own responsibility, one group of people points the finger at a smaller group of people, labels them the reason for the hardship and casts them out.  That remnant population, broken down, is now about to hear the message they previous ignored.  Then God sends them back to the whole to help them learn what they wouldn’t in the first place.  

What I have found at PEP is a remnant population capable to helping us remember how to belong.  A population who has learned without access to technology and free from distractions who can help the rest of us remember what is it is like to truly be present to one another.  

I have decided I have a reason to write again, but I am also aware that it has been a year and a half since I have done so, thus some explanation maybe helpful.  This is not to say that I have been writing; but rather, that I have not published anything.  We don’t think about it much, but publishing is a thing. . . you have to have something to say and a reason to say it publicly.  Writing has always been a prayer for me – in fact it is probably my most powerful prayer – not because of what others get out of it, but because of what I do.  

For the past year and a half, I have been in the midst of an unfolding journey.  Perhaps it is better to say that this has been the case for all of my life, but this past year and a half has been especially profound.  

I became very intentional about bringing my ministerial experience and professional experience together.  I hired a coach.  I met with a great number of people.  I studied.  I read.  I applied.  I waited.  I was rejected.  I was accepted.  

The result is exactly what I hoped for in a package I least expected.  I am now a Postulant with the Episcopal Diocese of Texas studying to be a bivocational Episcopal priest, which means I have a career.  I serve as the Verger at Holy Family Episcopal Church in Houston.  I have found a home in the Episcopal tradition as it provides me with access to the sacramental life I missed so dearly.  This life reminds me to see past the surface to the deeper realities that surface contains.  

This brings me to the next evolution as I now serve at Prison Entrepreneurship Program.  Essentially, we teach entrepreneurship as a vehicle for transformation.  Though many see it as a business course, participants would tell you it is much more about character.  The program is driven by volunteers who work in and outside of prison.  Unintentionally, they created a community.  It is this community which has given me a reason to write again.  There is a story to be told, and while I am not sure this is the best medium to use for me to tell this story, it gives me a reason to intentionally reflect on what is happening and to pay attention to the stories that need amplification – not so much for the reader but so that I may more deeply impacted by them.  I tell my coworkers that miracles happen around us so often that we begin to think that they are common, when in fact, they are miracles.  People find belonging.  The reconnect with families.  They earn a fresh new start.  They reconcile.  Their reconciliation is accepted.  They experience mercy and they live with hope when both should have been beaten out of them long ago.  

This is a reason to write – and a reason to share.