Faith - How’s Yours?
Given in a men's prison about four years ago.

Allen Iverson was a basketball superstar, ex-con, rapper, probably one of the best scorers in NBA history. He went to the top - then began to fall because of his lifestyle, the disrespect vs respect. We cheered him or we booed him but we couldn’t take our eyes off him. He even came to play for the Memphis Grizzlies for a bit toward the end of his career on the court, but quit because he wasn’t a starter as he felt he should be. Iverson created the corn row hairstyle, tattoos all over the body, oversized fat jeans and fat t-shirts, du-rags on his head, and a lifetime number of basketball shoes. If you saw him play, you never forgot him. He believed he was the best player in the world in his prime - and he was, when he was at the Philadelphia Sixers most of his career. They understood him. They understood that his best tool was passion for the game - to play basketball and help the guys he played with as he wore No 3. Allen was a kid who grew up with absolutely nothing, like his friend, and probably the best football player ever, Mike Vick, to have absolutely everything. Iverson threw himself all over the basketball floor without injury. He beat Michael Jordan. He practiced, practiced, practiced full-time so he could always be the best. He had faith that he would be. He never thought he’d fail, not for a moment.

That was a stubborn faith.

Faith is a religion. It is hope. It is confidence, fearlessness, belief. It is doing something although you may never reach the destination or the end. Or the middle, even, but you work toward it.

Every priest, pastor, bishop, rabbi, Imam, soccer player, president, angel, columnist, TV commentator, prisoner, policeman has a different look on faith. They show it many ways. A policeman walks up behind a car he has stopped and puts his hand on the back window,  and looks in counting in faith that he won’t be murdered.

Before an NBA basketball game - the players, coaches, even tv media sitting in a row on the edge of the court - everyone has a routine to stave off bad luck, to augment the good luck possibilities, clinging to faith. It might be a complicated handshake, tossing powder in the air (Lebron James does that) or stretching legs on the announcers table (Tony Allen does that).  One coach has a different handshake for every player on the team - a combination of high fives, twists and claps or elbow hits or shoulders - I don’t know how he remembers them all. Soccer players kneel and cross themselves or point to the heavens before they step on the field. As do American football players who dance around the goal post when points are won and gratitude becomes a holy step.

We have faith in our home teams, but we will wear the same T-shirt to a subsequent ball game when we won the last one wearing that shirt. Just in case. I always sit in the same seat - G-8 just in case it brings luck and in years gone by I needlepointed bears and didn’t look up at the score until the end. We usually won.

Today, too many men are in the walls of our giant prisons. And I’m sure their minds  concentrate on how to get out, correctly or incorrectly. Being locked up in metal rooms stuffed with people you don’t know is not a happy situation. I’ve volunteered in prisons on two continents, plus once an extraordinary visit to a London prison. Cell phones are contraband, yet in poor prisons, they are in every room. In Uruguay when you get out, you leave the cell behind - and all your clothes - for the next guy.

Every man or woman has to stand up or stand in line and call collect to have a conversation with the outside. And the same conflicts encountered on the streets of the hood carry on in the cell blocks of , say, 201Poplar, where the accused wait for their sentencing, their judgement, their bonds, their futures. Gang signals are outlawed, but sneak through as prisoners in one cell signal to fellow gang members in cells across the way.

Today, so many - too many - locked up are teenagers. There are 15 year-olds bound over and stored in Jail East’s youth pod with adult restrictions, because they committed violent felonies. No such thing as Big Macs, pizzas and Taco Bell splurges, chocolate chunk cookies for them. Once a youth reaches 18, he transfers to 201 Poplar’s spacious Youth pod, is considered an adult criminal and will be treated that way. In Shelby County, as more and more of our youth commit violent crimes, the concerns are what will happen if they are tossed like bait into the adult population. Therefore, there is new consideration that their minds aren’t ready, or would be  ripped into shreds if they are forced to tackle too much that they cannot handle spiritually and mentally. Thanks to Dr. Altha Stewart, Juvenile Court is now trying to invest in this cautious approach.

When I have a chance to interview the teen inmates, I ask, what will you return to? Have you learned anything here? Have you found God? Have you picked up a trade that will give you a good chance of getting a job? Not likely. Maybe in some new program you realize someone does care about you and is fighting in your corner. I want to know why they are where they are. I don’t want to know the crime. I ask them what in your life started you on this pathway? Where did you get a gun? Why did you start on cocaine or did you try heroin, and what made it so special you couldn’t stop? Why did you seek out a gang, or did the gang seek you out? I want to get to the base, the core, the soul of these wasted young men because they should be our future leaders.

After we have our prayer circle, one of my special trainers who does a boot camp exercise class on Thursdays, Dante tells the inmates look at the person next to you - tell him, “You matter.” Then look again and say, “I matter, I am somebody,” and we do this over and over until everyone is applauding. And it makes my heart break because they do matter and look where they are. Are they learning a little bit about faith?

Faith is not getting away with something - like making 100 on a test if we never studied for it. We cannot expect that. And who wins a tennis match, or a basketball championship, is not designated by God, because most of the time both teams are praying for victory - so do you think God makes a choice? I think it’s the team who plays the best that is bound to win. The same with race horses. Don’t eat peanuts at the races. Don’t wear green, I was told. This year a jockey wearing green won the Preakness.

We have faith that we will wake up every day, the sun will rise, somewhere at least, and that  the world will keep turning, flowers will bloom, sheep will baa, bees will make honey. And no matter what happens to you, life goes on and we might only be able to dip a toe into it. So we all need to know God. There is nothing like God. Having a visit with God. Talking to him in your own language, saying your feelings, your hopes, desires. Counting on that daily bread and the forgiveness of our trespasses. It is what faith is about. Conversing with God, asking him what you should or should not do, confessing to him what you want to do, and how you are going to do it. Tap me on the head if it is wrong, Lord. Sometimes He does that.

We often get in a rush. We want proof now. We need it now. But, take a deep breath. Faith means waiting for the time for things to happen. And trusting they will - and if they don’t happen just as we want them, we must trust they happened the way God thought it was best. I do believe He is in control. All we need is a tiny mustard seed of faith, we are told. That’s enough to have our sins, our errors, our faulty stuff forgiven. All we have to say is I’m sorry God. Forgive me. I chose sin, when I really needed help. And then we must believe that we are forgiven because it had been taken care of by Jesus Christ before we were even born.

We should realize God only wants good for us, and from us. He only wants our attention, our obedience - and He will defeat evil, smash Satan. We know Abraham didn’t have to sacrifice his son Isaiah, even though he followed God’s instruction to prepare for the act. His faith was a lesson for each of us. Trust God will save us. Hey, Mike Conley signed with the Grizzlies and LeBron James won the trophy for Cleveland. Mike Vick returned to superstar status after prison. We can believe.

Yet when our prayers seem useless, we get angry at God and shout it’s not fair, we don’t deserve this. We think we all should live forever, and we will in a different way - we must go through death to get to heaven where we will live forever in a good place surrounded by love, if we believe. If we have faith. And that’s the best promise of all. To be enveloped in God’s love forever. Throw a kiss to the sky, to thank God. Alleluia. 

 ~ Rev
---------------------------------
audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com