Rory at Chiron with a great quote. 
“Literati seem to want to believe that beautiful writing can only come from a beautiful soul. It's not true.”
I always enjoyed the shock on the faces at the police department where I worked in IT after I told them that my dad was “in prison.” I usually waited for the uncomfortable silence that followed before revealing that it was because he was prison chaplain at a state penitentiary. Whew!
What we usually discussed afterward was how he had shared how most of the prison conversions were for:
- improving chances of parole
- getting special dietary allowances (better food!)
- days of prayer (time to relax without labor)
- something to complain about, relating to being able to file more grievances
These are the people that many of us train and/or arm ourselves to protect against. There is a common thread that seems to run through criminal conduct. It is that those who end up on the wrong side of the law can’t deal with reality. As Chiron relates in his post, they justify or rationalize every bad thing they do. Blaming others, bad luck, bad parents, racism, growing up too poor, growing up too rich, not enough breastfeeding, and so on. The moment when someone takes responsibility for his life, he has to take the blame for what’s gone wrong in it, too. And that’s scary, right?
Thoughts?
Photo credit: Chris Hazlett
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