How To Love a Sex Offender

"I cannot treat other [humans] as [humans] unless I have compassion for them. I must have at least enough compassion to realize that when they suffer they feel somewhat as I do when I suffer. And if for some reason I do not spontaneously feel this kind of sympathy for others, then it is God's will that I do what I can to learn how." - Thomas Merton

I love an Incarcerated, Gay, Buddhist, Sex-Offender.

This is us.  

"Let them hear the fearless determination in your voice as you stick up for those who have no voice and are on the fringes of society..."

He is the reason I am passionate about prison reform, missionary care, and Richard Rohr's writing.  He is the reason I get on a plane once a year to dine on greasy chicken and biscuits, then wait in line for hours meeting others who have traveled even further.  He has taught me that my presence is enough.  Technically, he is a homosexual man who sometimes practices Buddhism and is serving a lengthy incarceration for sexual abuse towards minors.  He does not deny his guilt, nor does he try to justify it, but if you will read this with an open mind, you just may understand why this happened.  If you stop reading here I will understand, but you will miss out.   If you already accept him, you have done your work, realizing your own need for great grace.  If not, I am praying that your world will open.  And that you will see people - all people - with new eyes.  The ones that are in your heart already.

"What is our greatest joy?  It is the happiness found in extending our truest talents upon those who stand in the deepest of darkness."

We've known each other since before we were born (if that is possible?).  Our parents were best friends.  We were both middle children.  Him of boys.  Me of girls.  We each grew up in white middle-upper class neighborhoods without the diversity we both longed for.  We spent nights in our playpens at each other's homes before we could talk - our parents did enough of that to make up for our lack of words.  Then we moved and saw each other maybe once a year.  I remember then, playing pool in his basement and going to my first concert; Bryan Adams, The Reckless Tour, the one who was taped all over my light blue flower wallpaper at home.

He was bullied in elementary school for not playing sports as well as he would have liked to.  His father died suddenly while he was in middle school.  He wrestled with his sexuality and kept it suppressed until he was an adult.  During High School, he would spend time, without his mom's knowledge, in the far side of the city where we were told to avoid, or at least lock our car doors if we dared go.  While most kids were busy playing sports, messing around with friends, or smoking weed, it was here that he loved the homeless and began to discover what made his heart beat.   Then he went to pursue this passion and we lost touch.

"I say move from the road less traveled to the road that does not even exist.  Push previously thought of impossible questions into real solutions."

During his first year of college, he learned that not all priests were pure lovers of God.  Some loved pleasure more.  After completing his college degree, he went on several missions trips pouring into others.  He took several extended visits to monasteries and spent time in solitary retreats around the world.  Later, he moved to a majority-world country (we, in the U.S., are NOT in the majority) and cared for kids living in the streets.  After ten years working alongside a team, he was left alone to do the work of ten amidst some the world's most needy.  The same priest would come and go and continue to bring darkness.  It is readily known that working with others in traumatic situations, such as extreme poverty, can easily lead to compassion fatigue, which sometimes results in destructive behaviors.  So does internalized homophobia coupled with abuse.  Self-Care in helping professions is vastly underrated.

"Our education is never over, it just changes form.  Books and theories become living people with yearning souls and beating hearts."  

He is one of the many that have been living proof of the truth of the above words to me.  We often discuss the writings of Keating, Merton, Fr. Greg Boyle, St. Teresa of Avila, and Fr. Richard Rohr.  He knows half of these people.  We talk about centering prayer and Jesus.  We like the Christian mystics - the depth of their spirituality and their deep love for all of God's creatures.  We also hold on tight, with all of our might, to the truth that God does not love us because we are good.  God loves us because God is good. (Richard Rohr)

When you spend some time getting to know someone's story and understand their humanness, our compassion grows, and the decisions that are made in certain situations, though not necessarily "right", make sense.  The quotes in green are his.  They are from the commencement speech he presented to his college alma-mater several years before his incarceration.  They believed he was making a difference in this world.  I believe he still can.

To the victims and their families, you are loved.  You are beautiful and wonderfully made and I pray for your complete restoration and a graceful reconciliation one day.