I

Cause I’ve been housing all this doubt and insecurity
and I’ve been locked inside that house
all the while you hold the key
 
Matt Thiessen
“Be My Escape”

In a car you’re always in a compartment, and because you’re used to it you don’t realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You’re a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.
 
Robert M. Pirsig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I kind of need to confess something. Sometimes, I just walk into my garage and admire it. It’s a 2012 BMW G650 GS. It is a beautiful motorcycle. It has white and black trim, heated handlebars, and six hundred and fifty cubic centimeters of raw power. I bought it from a friend. It’s my first motorcycle. It is a thing of beauty.  

I’ve had my motorcycle license for nearly a decade, but I’ve just never used it, always thinking someday I might. My friend Derek convinced me to pull the trigger, even found my first motorcycle while patiently offering me lessons on how to ride it. I couldn’t fathom at the time of its purchase how much I would learn to love it.

It took some practice, learning how to harness the beast. The key to mastering how to ride a motorcycle is not in fourth or fifth gear; it is in first gear. Any crazy person can take a motorcycle up to fifth gear and zoom on down the highway. The real trick to riding a motorcycle is understanding the dance: how to make tight turns slowly and how to downshift properly when you are forced to slow down quickly. Anyone with daring can take a motorcycle up into its highest gear. The key to learning the bike is mastering its lowest gear.

A few weeks after I first got the bike, I was preparing to take it to work for an inaugural run on a Tuesday after the long fourth of July weekend. I imagined myself zooming into the office parking lot, elegantly pulling off my helmet, and nearby females swooning. But I wanted to take a test run to the office to make sure I could make the trip. So, on a Saturday morning, I ventured out of my neighborhood and on to the road to my office, a basic suburban four lane.

At the first stoplight, I waited anxiously for the red light to turn green. When it did, I stalled out, the bike jerked forward and fell silent. I finally got it in motion and was able to manage to get it across the intersection. I pulled the motorcycle up the nearby entrance to a strip mall, dragging it the final few feet after stalling out again. I dropped the kickstand, tore off my helmet, and breathed harshly.

I was feeling failure. I was feeling inadequate and incapable. I knew I had to ride it home. So, I got on the bike and managed to make it back across the intersection. I thought about turning left into my neighborhood. But I had an idea. To the right, across the street from my neighborhood is a school with, what was that day, a large empty parking lot that curves around it.

The next three hours I spent riding around that parking lot. I created obstacles for myself: Stop at the stop sign. Pull up to the front and pretend to pick somebody up. Do tight circles around a median. With my pale skin baking on a scorching Oklahoma summer day, I was learning to master first gear. I can’t count the number of times I stalled the bike out that afternoon. But I was learning.  

By the end of that fourth of July weekend, I felt confident enough to at least navigate city streets. In the next few weeks, I would conquer highways and interstates. In mid-July, I had become sure enough to ride the motorcycle to church.

I serve at a church about 35 minutes north of my home in suburban Oklahoma City. The church is in Guthrie, which was the original capital of Oklahoma before it was wrestled away by the mean people of Oklahoma City over a century ago.

I began to relish that Sunday morning ride. It’s always early. I leave around 7 o’clock on a Sunday morning, when I am not running late. The air feels cool, especially during that summer when the afternoons would grow sweltering. Many Sunday mornings, I would take the motorcycle out of my garage and turn it north on Highway 74.

I learned to enjoy the ride on the highway more than taking Interstate 35, although it costs me several extra minutes. Highway 74 is a straight shot from suburban Oklahoma City north. Straight as an arrow. There are no curves. You just put the bike in gear and go. On a Sunday morning, Highway 74 is empty. You can move fast. The ranch land breezes by. The sun rises to my right, east, as I move north. Its orange glow fills the right side of my vision.

On a particular Sunday, the Sunday I am writing about now, I was wrestling less with learning the intricacies of a motorcycle and more with the intricacies of life. The evening before, I had suffered a failure. I was feeling a bit inadequate, a bit rejected, and a bit broken, which was not wholly unusual in the year of 2022.

The year of 2021 was marked by progress. I shot out of the shelter in place orders marked by the COVID pandemic like a canon. I gave a TEDx talk. I was named an “Achiever Under 40” by a major Oklahoma newspaper. I appeared in not one but two Lifetime Television movies. I stood on movie sets with mega-stars like Dennis Quaid and Zachary Levi.

Then in 2022, I felt like something changed. There was a shift. To this day, I can’t put my finger on it. But the year of 2022 seemed different. Tailwinds appeared to become headwinds. There was a heaviness. Was this heaviness caused by the burden of responsibility, or the quickening motion of time, or a perception of failure and inadequacy? I don’t know. Maybe it was all of it. But life seemed to carry with it added weight which left me wondering if I was capable to shoulder it.

A part of me felt like, stuck in the middle of the year of 2022, the only thing I was doing right was mastering how to bridal the German-engineered 650cc stallion stabled in my garage when it is not galloping the red dirt highways of Oklahoma. I know this isn’t true. In my heart, I know it isn’t true. But in the moment I am writing about now, it is how I felt.

So, on an August morning in the year of our lord 2022, with a heaviness surrounding me, I rode a motorcycle from northern suburban Oklahoma City to Guthrie. The orange sun rose to my right, in the east. The ranch land buzzed past me. The cool air brushed across my face. The Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” echoed around my cranium through the Bluetooth speaker in my helmet. I pushed the throttle down. My right wrist tightened. Its muscle engaged. The motorcycle accelerated. The speed gauge arrow quivered.

My name has been mentioned at least three times in The Oklahoman, the state of Oklahoma’s largest newspaper: In 2019, describing how algorithmic bias impacts ordinary folk, in 2020, describing how the COVID lockdowns were impacting religious worshipers, and in 2021 describing how the QAnon conspiracy had infected Christians. I reasoned with myself that in the summer of 2022 a motorcycle crash with my name attached was not how I wanted The Oklahoman to memorialize me. I pushed the throttle down, slowed at the turn to Highway 33, and headed east toward church.

As I slowed the throttle and my speed gauge dropped, I might have lifted toward the Oklahoma sky a Maverick Top Gun fist shake. The truth will remain between me and the road.

II

I’m giving up on doing this alone now
‘Cause I’ve failed and I’m ready to be shown how
He’s told me the way and I’m trying to get there
 
Matt Thiessen
“Be My Escape”

‘Here comes that dreamer!’ they said to each other. ‘Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.’”
 
Genesis 37: 19-20 NIV

My church in Guthrie is a plant. Okay, it is not a leafy plant. It is a church plant. It was planted over five years ago by my pastor, his wife, a dedicated army of volunteers, and, well, myself. The time of its foundation was my introduction to Guthrie. I could never imagine the impact the small town in central Oklahoma would have on my life.

We started the church in the town’s junior high, meeting in its gymnasium. It is in that gymnasium where I was baptized, which is a not unsignificant event for a Christian. Following the pandemic, we pivoted, repurposing a vacant rehabilitation center into a church. It is in this church I serve several Sundays a month, and where I was headed on a Sunday, pointing my motorcycle east on Highway 33.

The church recently had been in a study around the story of Joseph. The messages had been revolving around his robust story. Feeling covered in inadequacy, I attempted to listen to a sermon on the subject.

The story of Joseph is one of the most consequential in the first book of the Bible. In fact, it is one of the consequential in the entire book of the Bible. His story is told beginning in Genesis 37.

I will attempt to break the story down, with all apologies to scholars and theologians. Joseph is born to Jacob. He is his father’s favorite, and he is given an ornamented robe. Joseph fancies himself a visionary after having a dream, telling his brothers that one day they will bow down to him. His brothers don’t love this idea. As a man with three brothers myself, I can see their resentment. Although, I can’t condone their ensuing actions. The brothers plot to sell Joseph into slavery. Joseph is taken by the Egyptians.

He becomes a slave to the Egyptian Potiphar, a leader of the Pharaoh’s royal guard. Potiphar begins to trust Joseph. Potiphar gives him responsibility.

Potiphar’s wife, meanwhile, finds Joseph appealing. She makes advances. Joseph rebukes these advances. Potiphar’s wife becomes angry and accuses Joseph of mistreatment. Joseph is thrown in prison.

In prison, Joseph begins interpreting the dreams of fellow prisoners. The Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, then needs a dream interpreter. The Pharaoh calls on Joseph. Joseph interprets that the Pharaoh’s dream means there will be years of bounty followed by years of famine. This interpretation allows Egypt to prepare for leaner years, while others could not. Joseph is then placed in charge of Egypt.

Joseph’s brothers ultimately come seeking assistance from Egypt during the famine, not understanding their brother is the one they are seeking aid from. Joseph, having forgiven his brothers, delivers the assistance they need.

This is a simplified version of an ornate story. There are so many lessons from the story of Joseph that are relevant today. But the one that I took from the story that Sunday, with my motorcycle resting outside and my mind filled with failure, the one a pastor attempted to impart to an audience that included me was this: When you are broken and hurting, when your dreams seem unattainable and distant, when you can’t figure out what to do next, do as Joseph did in prison. Find somebody who is hurting more than you and serve the hell out of them.  

III

And all I’m asking is for you to do
what you can with me
But I can’t ask you to give
what you already gave

Matt Thiessen
“Be My Escape”

On the road of life, we go the straight and narrow. No fears, no tears, just switching gears.
 
Perry Lott

If there is one person on this planet who can empathize with the story of Joseph, it may be my friend Perry Lott. I will give you the headline, the one I use to try and explain Perry’s story quickly, my “elevator pitch.” “Perry spent 31 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.”

That’s the headline, the words I use to grab people’s attention. Perry’s story, and similarly the man, is so much richer than this 13-word elevator pitch. Perry’s story, much like the story of Joseph above, you can try and break it down into a sentence or a few short paragraphs, but you will never do it justice.

I first met Perry at a friend’s birthday party. I was immediately struck by his story and his outsized personality, one that dominates a room when he enters it.  

Perry is tall and thin. He most always wears a smile on his face, a smile that is accentuated by the mustache he wears that begins at his nostrils and waterfalls down the corners of his mouth.

I met Perry and we became friends. I would travel to his home in Oklahoma City, and we would get food or just hang out and chat. Perry has great wisdom that came from an extraordinary life, one of deep injustice. I attempted to soak that wisdom up. Plus, Perry’s infectious optimism, considering the circumstances of his life, is mind-blowing to me, a chronic pessimist whose greatest injustice in life probably involved not earning a romantic date he desired.

Perry has a saying; one I have heard escape his lips often. I think it encapsulates my feelings of awe for him. When asked, which he is asked often, how he is not filled with bitterness, Perry responds, “I’m too grateful to be hateful.”  

Over time I learned Perry’s story, a story he has recorded in a book he recently published.

You should go buy the book. But, for the sake of this essay, let me give you the Cliff’s Notes.

Perry was born in Racine, Wisconsin, the baby of hardworking, strong, and loving parents who had reared over a dozen children before he came along. Perry had a bit of a misspent youth, one in which chasing girls and having a good time played outsized importance. In the late 1980s, he moved to Ada, Oklahoma in order to be closer to a woman he was seeing at the time. In 1987, he was accused by the Ada Police Department of a brutal crime. He was charged with rape, robbery, and making a bomb threat. He was found guilty of the crime for which he was accused, despite no physical evidence to speak of. He was sentenced to 300 years in prison. He spent 31 years in prison before the Innocence Project was able to secure his release.

Perry has said he spent much of his decades in prison doing what he hopes to continue to do with the rest of his life, counsel young men in difficult situations and help them find a better path. Meaning Perry spent much of his time in prison doing as Joseph had done, serving others.

I learned all of this about him and so much more, because Perry and I started spending a lot of time together. In the summer of 2022, Perry was approached to speak at TEDx Oklahoma City at an event that would take place later that fall. I was asked, as a former TEDx Oklahoma City speaker, to help guide Perry through the process.

My contribution to this process was minimal. In fact, much of it might have been counter-productive. I wanted Perry to succeed because I knew what an impact his speech could have for him and for the world.  

I had given a talk at TEDx Oklahoma City the year prior. My talk was on algorithmic bias in artificial intelligence systems. While I believe that this is an important subject everyone should understand, I knew Perry’s story carried a different kind of weight.

My talk wasn’t personal. While I am truly passionate about how AI algorithms impact ordinary people, as a cisgender, heterosexual, affluent white man, algorithmic bias doesn’t impact me the way it does others in more marginalized communities.

Perry’s talk would be different, and I knew it. Perry’s talk would be the definition of personal. Very few people in the world know what it is like to be a charged with a crime you didn’t commit, watch a jury of your peers find you guilty of that crime, listen as a judge orders you to, essentially, a life sentence, and then to spend over three decades unjustly behind bars. There are others, sadly, far too many, but this is not a specter most people have ever had to face.

As I forensically evaluate my work as a guide for Perry toward the TEDx stage, I am a bit repentant. I watched as Perry was forced to revisit memories that are so painful, I can’t imagine the misery of returning to them. I asked him to describe what it was like in that courtroom when his entire life was taken from him, what it was like to watch your life disappear in front you. I wanted the audience to feel that. What Perry understood, and I only do now, is that no words can truly do justice to such a thing. Such a thing can only be experienced.

If you have not been marched into a police lineup, charged with a crime, found guilty by a jury, and sentenced by a judge, all for an act you didn’t commit, if you have not seen yourself ripped away from your family and friends, if you have not seen decades of your life taken away for no reason but for you being at the wrong place at the wrong time, then you will never understand what it is like. You can’t. You can sympathize or empathize. But you will always be missing a critical piece.  

Such a thing is not expressible in words alone. Such a thing can be chronicled, which is critical to help lower the chances of it happening in the future. But it cannot be felt but by those who have experienced it. This is likely one reason why Perry finds great comfort in the community of those who have been wrongfully incarcerated.

Perry, to his immense credit, offered my “coaching” an undue amount of deference. But, at the end of the day, he knew he would be the one standing on that stage. It was his speech, and he was going to give it his way.

A few days before the TEDx Oklahoma City event, a few close friends of Perry’s held a run through, so Perry could practice the speech and we could give him some final feedback. In the run-through, Perry gave a dynamite performance, but he got emotional. This is understandable, considering he was recalling the most devastating and exultant moments of an extraordinary journey. But I became concerned. Would the emotion of everything overcome Perry on that stage? I knew Perry was capable, but would this moment become overwhelming for him?

The day of the TEDx Oklahoma City event, I watched as friends, a mentor, and others gave incredible life-changing talks. Perry’s talk was to close out the event. As they introduced Perry, I moved to front row. I took a seat center stage. I began chewing on the pointer finger of my right hand as Perry walked to the podium he would be speaking behind. I clasped my hands, and I shifted in my seat as Perry began his presentation. The tears welled up in my eyes as I watched my friend deliver a powerful speech. There were times he choked up, the emotion visible. But that was overshadowed by the strength of a man who fought for over three decades for his life and never lost his faith in his God and in His righteousness.

When the presentation was over, the organizers of the event came to the stage. After asking Perry a few questions, they did something irregular. They asked to take a photo. Perry turned toward the back of the stage where a cameraperson waited. The cameraperson snapped the photo.

The photo shows the audience in the back looking toward the camera. Perry is on stage with the organizers of TEDx Oklahoma City, in front of the audience, looking toward the camera. Perry has his arms outstretched. He looks like I hope he felt in that moment. He looks like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. He looks triumphant.

Oh, and you should watch Perry’s TEDx talk here….

IV

And this life sentence that I’m serving
I admit that I am every bit deserving
But the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair

Matt Thiessen
“Be My Escape”

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.
 
Matthew 25: 35-36 NIV

I don’t when I first became interested in matters of criminal justice reform. Maybe it was when I met Perry and built a relationship with him. Maybe it was when I began to realize that wrongful incarceration isn’t just something you see in movies like Shawshank Redemption. Maybe it was after I learned, in a very stark way, that actual people have had their lives torn apart by unfathomable injustice.

Or possibly my interest in criminal justice reform came earlier, when I was introduced to the Oklahoma Messages Project.

The Oklahoma Messages Project is a non-profit dedicated to serving children with an incarcerated parent. Program volunteers travel into Oklahoma prisons, both men’s and women’s, and film the incarcerated parents reading to their children. Then the project sends these video messages to the children alongside a book. Often this is the only face to face contact children have with their incarcerated parent.

When a person gets put in prison, you don’t just put that person in prison. In some ways you incarcerate that person’s entire family. Incarceration is generational. Children with an incarcerated parent are six times more likely to end up in prison then their peers.

The state of Oklahoma has a particularly strong compulsion to incarcerate. It ranks among the highest in the nation in that category. This is especially stark when it comes to women. The state of Oklahoma incarcerates women at a higher rate per capita than many third world nations. Per capita, it ranks among the highest in the world in female incarceration. The state is working to correct this, but the ark of justice bends slowly, too slowly when you understand the impact this compulsion toward punishment has on real people and their very real children.

I was introduced to the Oklahoma Messages Project through a young leader development program I was a part of about a half decade ago. My class project was to help the Messages Project hold a “Daddy-Daughter Dance” at a minimum-security prison in the state.

Unfortunately, the date of the dance fell on a weekend when I was out of town attending a wedding of a friend. However, I did my best to help where I could. When I returned from the wedding, I collected videos and photos to highlight the success of the dance by developing a video of the dance.

I spent several hours putting the video together. While I did so, I wept watching the videos of incarcerated fathers spending some time doting on their daughters. I cried seeing the photos of them laughing and hugging and dancing. Putting together the video helped me understand the possibilities when we treat those incarcerated and their families with grace and offer them a slight opportunity for healing.

I would later produce a few other videos for the Messages Project, and eventually I would be invited to join its board.

When I look at men and women who are incarcerated, what I see is not the literal and figurative walls that separate our situations; what I see, what I feel, is “but by the grace of God go I.”

Could I not be in there with them, donning an orange or blue prison uniform, if circumstances were different? What if I had not been born to loving and affluent parents in a placid suburb of Denver, Colorado and my skin tone wasn’t the color of milky cream? What if I had not had parents who did their best to correct my sometimes-substandard habits? What if my loving parents and two suburban Denver police officers didn’t offer me grace when I took my parents’ automobile for an illegal joyride at the age of fifteen? What if one of my enthusiastic college evenings turned not into a morning nursing of a hangover in my bed but instead nursing a morning hangover in the care of authorities?

But by the grace of God go I.

In the book of Matthew, Jesus speaks of the final judgement, when the Son of Man, seated on His throne, will look at the righteous and proclaim the following, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

The righteous will look at Him and wonder how these things could have happened.

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Matthew 25: 37-40 NIV

The beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair.

The beauty of sacrifice is that it makes love not fair.

V

And even though, there’s no way of knowing
Where to go, promise I’m going
 
Matt Thiessen
“Be My Escape”

 
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a ride!’
 
Hunter S. Thompson

I was in Guthrie, serving at church, listening to the story of Joseph while chewing on failure and rejection, when my phone buzzed. The text message asked me if I could serve that afternoon at the church’s prison ministry at the Lexington Assessment and Reception Center. LARC as it is more commonly known, is one of the largest men’s correctional facilities, or colloquially, prison, in the state of Oklahoma.

I had served several times at LARC and was on the roster to serve if needed. However, the text message made me groan a bit. My first thought was, “there goes my afternoon.” But with my Sunday afternoon free in front of me, I agreed.

Lexington is an hour and a half from Guthrie and an hour from my home. This meant rushing home, grabbing a quick sandwich, and racing down to Lexington for the late-afternoon service. So, after wrapping up in Guthrie, I rode my motorcycle south down Highway 74 home to snarf down a couple of tuna fish sandwiches, and then I headed toward Lexington.

There are many things I have learned as I have accumulated miles on my first motorcycle. But there are two things I want to highlight.

The first thing concerns a curious thing motorcyclists do. I noticed it early after I began riding. Often a motorcyclist when passing by me in the opposite direction will aim their left arm down toward the asphalt and point two fingers toward it.

At first, I found this an oddity. But I learned from my buddy Derek, who helped guide me through the motorcycle learning curve, that it meant one motorcyclist was telling another to keep two wheels down, to be safe.

Upon learning this, I felt all of it was hokum. I refused to reciprocate the gesture. But I was worn down. The gesture at first became a quaint nuisance to be politely replied to. Yet then, it became somehow a necessity requiring me to respond with enthusiastic vigor. In the end, riding the motorcycle, I would regularly come to find my left arm extend with two fingers outstretched pointing toward the pavement.  

It does feel good to establish community and recognition. One can easily find comfort in being a part of something, even if that something means traveling down the road at high rates of speed on two wheels instead of four.      

The second thing I have learned while riding a motorcycle is that a motorcycle is the vehicle equivalent of wearing a Biden or Trump t-shirt. Rarely have I been a part of something that is so polarizing. People are either in awe of my motorcycle or believe I am going to meet my end in a fiery death. There is rarely middle ground.  

There are those who look at my motorcycle with wonder. Children wave at me from passing cars or stand rapt as I start the vehicle up, push in the kickstand, and drive away. Teenagers flash me rock and roll signs as I sit idle in front of streetlights. Random sports cars, unsolicited, attempt to start drag races with me. Men, typically men, look longingly at the bike and share with me stories of their motorcycle adventures before marriages and children forced them to retire such adventures.

Then there is the alternate. There are those who see me holding a motorcycle helmet and look at me with a scornful “you’ll shoot your eye out kid” gaze.

However, each side, those that stare wondrously at the bike and those that would prefer I take it to a scrapyard both offer the same advice: “Be safe out there.”

There is a respect you must have when you drive down the road at 60, 70, 80 miles an hour with nothing to protect you. The slightest road deviation or mistake by a passing motorist could end in serious or fatal injury. That’s truth.

Driving a motorcycle requires confidence without cockiness. It requires control with the understanding that this thing you are doing could kill you. It is easy, as you learn to master the bike, to forget that there is little between you and death. When you are traveling down the road at high rates of speed, sometimes such specter is lost. You zone in. 30 miles an hour and 70 miles an hour seems indifferent.

It is hard to avoid cockiness as the power of the motorcycle surges between your legs, as the slightest twist of your wrist commands the motorcycle forward with such swiftness. Cockiness becomes easy. Removing cockiness, remembering the road in front of you could lead to consequences that you are not prepared to handle is necessary. You must balance control and limit the cockiness such power inevitably brings.

But there is freedom I have found in the motorcycle. There are times when I just need to go. There are times when it calls to me, and I must take it out of my garage. There are evenings when I have needed its movement. There are evenings when I find myself flying down Route 66, my motorcycle helmet blaring a song into my ears. The world drifts away and for the briefest moment the heaviness of life is eased.

I’ll just say this…it is hard not to speed.  

After inhaling a couple of tuna fish sandwiches at my home, I prepared for the ride to Lexington. At the time, this would be the longest ride I’d ever had. It would require me to spend about an hour driving down Interstate 35.

There is a stark difference between driving on the interstate and driving on city roads or on a highway. The traffic is more intense. The speed is more challenging. There are more variables that you must be aware of. Your senses are alive. You become aware of everything around you. You must be sharp because the speed coupled with the traffic around you could lead to harm at any moment.

The air pulses against you. It wants to pull you from the motorcycle. So, you crouch low to avoid, as much as possible, the wind whipping in front of you. You become so focused on the road that you must force yourself, briefly, to look away at the scenery flying past you to not lose concentration on the challenge in front of you.

Ultimately, that afternoon, I breathed a deep sigh of relief when I saw the turn off interstate 35 and on to Highway 39. I took the left turn off the interstate, drove my way through Purcell, the self-proclaimed heart of Oklahoma, and headed east toward Lexington.          

VI

Because I know to live you must give your life away
 
Matt Thiessen
“Be My Escape”

For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
 
Luke 18:14 NIV

I drove east down Highway 39. I passed a yellow sign that read: “Hitchhikers may be escaping inmates.” In the distance the razor wire walls of the Lexington Assessment and Reception Center rose above the Oklahoma plains. I turned left into its parking lot.

I found my afternoon ministry partner Tom waiting for me outside of his truck. Tom was more experienced than me at LARC, so I made sure to follow his lead. I removed my helmet, jacket, smartphone, wallet, sunglasses, and motorcycle key. I placed most of the items in my helmet and stored them underneath the seat of Tom’s truck. These items, for the most part, are forbidden, understandably, inside Oklahoma prisons. Therefore, all I carried were the volunteer badges that granted me entrance into the prison.

Tom and I chatted as the big steel doors outside LARC opened and then closed behind us. We entered the prison and walked toward security. We went through security and a heavy metal door opened and then another did as well as the first closed behind us. We found ourselves in the yard of LARC. Waiting for us were the three pastors of the church.

These three men are incarcerated but have been given the responsibility to shepherd the church and the men who attend it. From what I have seen, none of the three take this responsibility lightly. The three men greeted us warmly with handshakes and gratitude. They ushered us toward the prison chapel where service would be held.

I have been asked on more than one occasion if I ever get nervous being around the men of Lexington. My response to this question is that if every church was as welcoming as the one I attend inside LARC there would be a lot more Christians in the world.

That’s not to say each of the men I encounter don’t have a past and reason they are incarcerated. But for ninety minutes on a Sunday afternoon none of that matters. They are children of God no matter their past mistakes.

I entered the chapel and seemingly every member of the congregation shook my hand and thanked me for being there. I was handed a cup of hot coffee in a Styrofoam cup and a bottle of water. I sat down on a wooden church pew next to Tom. Later, I would attend Lexington services on my own and interaction with the men would become easier. But on this Sunday, I was still feeling everything out, and I was using Tom as a guide.

The stage at LARC is small, but the services make do with a band filled by incarcerated men. There is a drummer and guitars and vocals. The worship songs sung by the men are familiar to any middle American churchgoer. However, there is something really striking watching men in prison belt out the words to “Chain Breaker.” I have seen it, and it will take your breath away.

After a few worship songs, the congregation was seated. A man rose to the pulpit, a pastor at the church, to deliver the sermon. Rules prohibit me, because of his incarceration, from publishing the man’s name, so I am going to call him PA, for “Pastor I Heard in August.” PA generally speaks in a quiet voice. He speaks slowly and with a slight drawl. But the man who rose up to speak that day wasn’t the same person who had greeted me at the edge of the yard before the service. He was possessed by something. It was power.

Normally in these situations I will reach for my smartphone. In these situations, when I realize I am witnessing something extraordinary, I hit the record button on my audio recording application so I can chronicle the words later. But my smartphone was sitting outside of prison walls locked safely inside Tom’s truck.

I searched anxiously for a pen and a piece of paper. I had come ill prepared. Tom ripped out a piece of paper from his notebook and handed it to me with a pen. I proceeded to scribble PA’s words as best I could.

PA looked at the men. He pointed at them. He said, “You are not the hero of your story, and those people out there,” he pointed outside the walls of LARC, “they are not the enemy. The judge that sentenced you, the jury that convicted you, they are not the villains of your story.”

“You are not entitled to anything,” he told the men. “There is only one thing, and you have to take it. That is the grace of God.”

I listened to PA, looked at the men around the room, and I thought about the story of Joseph which I had listened to a sermon on that morning.

What if the dreamer feels entitled? What if the dreamer dreams of a thing that doesn’t seem to be coming to pass? What if the dreamer is tired and broken? What if the dreamer is hurting and crying out for a seemingly impossible delivery?

What is the dreamer to do when faced with an immovable concrete wall impeding navigation? The dreamer might examine the wall for cracks and openings. The dreamer might attempt to use a sledgehammer to force an opening. But when those efforts become recognizably futile, the dreamer must stop staring at the wall and look elsewhere. The dreamer must begin to use a different kind of tactic. The dreamer must trade force for faith.

But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his faithful love.
 
Genesis 39:21 NLT

When a dreamer finds themselves in a prison, whether one made of concrete and razor wire or one made of pain and brokenness, the dreamer may remember the lesson of the imprisoned dreamer Joseph. When you are broken and hurting, when your dreams seem far away and distant, find someone who is hurting worse than you and serve the hell out of them.

PA finished his sermon and the band rose to play a few worship songs. Tom stood up as well and moved to the front of the room. I followed him. He and I and a few others would comprise the “prayer team.” Men who needed prayer would come up to us and ask for us to pray with them.

With worship songs playing softly in the background, men came to me and asked for prayer. One man asked me to pray for his marriage. Another asked that his family members would find Christ. I prayed with them as best I could.

Following the service, I walked up to PA to tell him how much I appreciated his message. Next to us stood one of the worship band members. I pointed at the band member’s instrument and said to him, “I wish I had that skill.” The band member looked at me and said, “Every time I play that instrument, I feel like they should arrest me for attempting to escape. When I play it, I leave these walls.”

In the end, we all need to occasionally escape the prisons we have built, for better or worse, around us. These prisons could be our responsibilities, our families, our jobs, our pets, our routines, or the consequences of our actions and decisions. Some people escape through music or motorcycles, some through substances or sex, some through learning or literature, some through entertainment, exercise, or eating, some through fellowship and some through faith. In the end, each of us share this desire. Occasionally, we must unburden ourselves from the weight of life, we must break the shackles that we have chained ourselves to and seek our own personal sense of freedom.

The three pastors walked Tom and I to the edge of the yard. We said our goodbyes and Tom and I walked out of LARC. I grabbed my gear from Tom’s truck and waved goodbye to him as I buckled on my helmet.

I rode the bike west through Lexington toward Purcell. I reached the turn for Highway 77. I paused. The sun was setting on the horizon and the summer air was cooling. I was in no rush, so I decided to take Highway 77 home instead of Interstate 35. Highway 77 would take me north through Norman and the University of Oklahoma campus. It would be a more enjoyable ride, although it would take longer.

I turned the motorcycle north on Highway 77. Lauren Daigle’s “Still Rolling Stones” hummed in my eardrums over the sound of the motorcycle’s engine. I put pushed down the clutch into first gear and then the toe of my boot raised it into second gear. I accelerated the throttle to a comfortable speed. The air felt cool on my face. A sweltering summer day in Oklahoma was disappearing but it left me a gift, an open road and a motorcycle. I accepted the gift and for a few brief moments the cares of this world faded behind my acceleration. I felt free.           

POSTSCRIPT

And all I was trying to do was save my own skin
But so were you
 
So are you
 
Matt Thiessen
“Be My Escape”

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
 
John 10:10 NIV

On the Sunday following Thanksgiving of 2022, I once again traveled LARC to attend the church’s service there.

I went through a routine that had become familiar by now: Walk through the gates of Lexington, check in at the front desk, go through security, be buzzed into the prison, and then into the yard to be greeted by the pastors of the church.

I walked into the church’s chapel and was, as always, greeted exceptionally warmly by the men in the church’s congregation. There were a lot of handshakes, smiles, as well as greetings of thanks and gratitude. It was a room where I would be the only one in attendance who would be granted the ability to leave prison walls following the service.

After the worship band performed a few songs, one of the church’s pastors rose to the pulpit. I will refer to this pastor as PT, for “Pastor I heard near Thanksgiving”; because of his incarceration, rules prohibit me from publishing his name. On this Sunday, PT was on fire. I had heard him preach several times but never with such oratory passion.

He preached that day from John 10. John 10 is the chapter where Jesus explains the sheep and the shepherd. Jesus declares that the shepherd lays down his life for his sheep while hired hands will flee at the first sign of trouble. In the chapter, Jesus also declared that the good shepherd knows his sheep and they know him.

PT, in his sermon, referenced an analogy of a dog and an owner. The dog will heed the voice of his owner while ignoring the voice of others.

PT then brought up a point rather familiar to some of the men in the room that day. He said that when most people think about jailhouse conversions, they think of them much like the famous George Strait song “I Found Jesus on the Jailhouse Floor.” A person ends up in prison by doing something bad, finds God, gets saved, and repents. It’s a nice clean story of redemption.

PT made the point that often such stories are not so cut and dry. In many cases, people in prison were believers before they ended up in prison. They began falling away from their faith. They begin making little decisions that pushed them farther and farther away. They began listening to voices other than the one they knew they should be listening to. Wrong decisions become bigger and bigger until something finally breaks, and they end up behind bars. This process usually takes years. It doesn’t happen overnight. But the genesis occurs when people stop leaning into God, into faith, into the Word, and begin looking toward the things of this world.

I listened intently because in PT’s words I felt something. I felt like the man in street clothes sitting on a church pew surrounded by men in prison orange was somewhat distant from the man saved in a water trough in a middle school gymnasium in Guthrie, Oklahoma several years ago. The man in that room felt a bit lost and at any moment his life could break in a less than advantageous way.

PT concluded his sermon and began to pray. Then he looked me directly in the eye and he called out to me. “Brother Corey”, he said. “I felt something inside calling me to bring you up here, to the front. Something tells me that we need to pray for you.”

I walked up in front of the pulpit. Men, dressed in orange, stretched out their arms toward me. They closed their eyes and began praying for me. These are men who would leave the chapel and return to small cells to continue serving their respective sentences inside a middle America penitentiary. Meanwhile, I would leave LARC, travel to my home, cook up a nice meal, decide what television show I want to watch, and fall asleep on a rather comfortable mattress. These men had the audacity to pray for me, when I was there to pray for them. My eyes filled with tears as I felt the earnest prayers of the men flowing through me.

After the service, PT walked me to the edge of the yard where we would have to say goodbye. I told him how much I appreciated his sermon. He told me that he would be praying for me. His words spoke of truth and meaning, because prayers are even answered inside the iron and razor wire walls of a correctional center in Lexington, Oklahoma.

I told PT that that night, because of his sermon, I would do something I had so often failed to do recently. I told him I would go home that night and read the Bible. We embraced and said our goodbyes. Then I walked out of Lexington, drove home, sat down at my kitchen table, opened the Bible, and began reading.