Hope and Healing in the Land of Oz
By Dwight A. Moody, Dean of the Chapel
Georgetown University, KY
Note: As Father`s Day approaches, this unique story of reconciliation and restoration by one father may inspire us all to be ministers of "hope and healing" in our own families.
For six years HBO broadcast a dark and gritty series about inmate life in a prison named Oswald-Oz, for short. I took notice, but not quite the liking I took to some films on the same theme.
"Shawshank Redemption" (with its subtitle, "Hope Can Set You Free") is a favorite everywhere. It seems to be playing every day on some cable channel.
"O Brother Where Art Thou?" took the country by storm. A few weeks ago, Time magazine reported the death of James Carter, who in 1959 at age 33 was recorded leading a Mississippi chain gang chant, "Po` Lazarus." It opens the sound track which won the Grammy Award in 2001.
Then came "Chicago." It is a lively, humorous movie about prosecutors, reporters and a jail house mama.
I liked it especially because its principle players-Chicago show girls during the roaring `20s-remind me of the encounter my son had while on the run from the FBI. He had robbed a bank in Lexington. While sitting on a park bench in Covington seven days later considering which of two local banks to rob, he befriended an elderly woman. He offered her a cigarette and brought her a cup of coffee. They sat on the bench, a 23-year-old male with mental, emotional, and moral issues and a 100-year-old woman who was also a stage performer in Chicago during that same rowdy decade. Like Maud Muller in Whittier`s famous poem, she wondered aloud what might have been and urged the young man to flee the city before something bad happened.
Alas for the man. He didn`t flee and bad stuff did happen. After he was caught, convicted, and sentenced to seven plus years in prison, Isaac put marker to poster board and drew his recollection of this encounter. It was one of the first in his growing portfolio and he called it simply, "The Oracle."
It will be on display, along with 14 other pieces, during the month of February in the small gallery in the Learning Resource Center on the campus of Georgetown College. We have borrowed these pieces from those who have purchased them, gathering them from places like Nashville, Raleigh, Chicago, Louisville, Owensboro, Frankfort and Lexington. Another 20 pieces will be available for purchase.
On Tuesday morning, February 3rd, I will speak in the College chapel about my son`s journey toward hope and healing.
His story is a sad and surprising tale of self discovery. It narrates the transformation of a prison cell into an art studio, but also of a lost and lonely soul into a purpose-driven man whose future is as bright as the sunrise he never sees.
Along the way Isaac has tamed the demons which had dominated his life and trimmed his six-foot-two-inch frame into a splendid mixture of muscle and imagination. I am reminded of what philosopher Camus once wrote: "In the midst of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer."
Isaac has produced scores of pieces using whatever media he can get his hands on: pen, pencil, paint, chalk, even crayon; on paper, canvas, and even brown wrapping paper.
One piece we treasure is a prison-issued envelope, complete with official return stamp in the top, left-hand corner. Instead of an address, Isaac filled the white space with a whimsical caravan of characters riding unicycles along the bars of a musical composition. It will be part of the Georgetown exhibition.
With his art, Isaac has introduced us to a string of cell-mates: Joe, Charlie, "Swamp Thang" (whose story I will tell in the public address), and his fast friend, Woodstock, whom we have never met, save in these two dozen portraits of various shapes and colors.
He talks now of his release in 2007 when he will join seven hundred thousand others leaving behind the bars and looking to relocate on the outside.
We encourage his talk of attending an art school on the east coast. From the sale of his art work we pay his bills and buy his supplies. The rest we place in a tuition account-in a bank!
I am his father and my role is to keep hope alive.
One source of my strength is expressed in the words of an old gospel song, "Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter, feelings lie buried that grace can restore. Touched by a loving hand, wakened by kindness, cords that are broken will vibrate once more. Rescue the perishing, care for the dying: Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save."
© 2004 Dwight A. Moody
