How to Find the Healing We ALL Need
[Music]
as a kid
i dreamt of becoming a sports
broadcaster
growing up outside of boston i used to
fall asleep at night listening to the
bruins the red sox or the celtics
honestly i just liked knowing that i
wasn’t the only one still awake
but i never heard the voice of a woman
and
as somebody raised to always root for
the underdog which
of course is related to being a boston
sports fan growing up in the 80s and 90s
it bothered me that it seemed that women
didn’t have a role
in calling major sports so i decided i
was going to break that glass ceiling
and i was going to be a woman sports
broadcaster
with that driving me years later i went
to boston college to study
communications
i joined the sports radio station i
called a couple hockey games and a
homecoming football game
go eagles it was fun but what i realized
was
it wasn’t my deepest passion something
else caught my attention in college that
drew me in
and has had me hooked ever since
in my senior year at bc i took a course
called the challenge of justice
and in it i read two books that have
shaped my perspective of the world
and my role in it the first book
is a book called violence by dr james
gilligan
in that book he describes the cycle of
violence that takes place when we fail
to intervene
for children who experience trauma
and how as a result years later they are
more likely
to harm others the second book was dead
man walking by sister helen prejean
perhaps you’ve seen the movie starring
susan sarandon
in that book sister helen prejean
describes her experience ministering to
people on death row
and through that experience she makes
two things clear
first that we are all better
than our worst acts by ministering to
these individuals she came to know them
and see their whole beings and she saw
that there was no way to define their
whole beings
by their crimes the second thing she
made clear
was that dr gilligan was right when we
fail to repair harm
we perpetuate a cycle of violence
and the criminal legal system with the
death penalty in particular
perpetuates that harm even more
i was fascinated by this and deeply
disturbed
i was left wondering so then what does
repair harm because the truth is we have
all experienced harm
we’ve all caused harm and we are all
in need of healing from it
so after i graduated college i abandoned
that dream of being a sports broadcaster
and moved to la
to join the jesuit volunteer corps i’ll
never forget my dad’s reaction
la but the gangs
so naturally at the first opportunity i
got to volunteer with gang members in
the local juvenile hall
i jumped on it through that opportunity
i was able to become proximate to people
who are facing serious time as children
i worked one-on-one with them for weeks
and weeks and got to know them quite
well and i’ll never forget a 15 year old
child who i worked with
looking me in the eyes one day and
saying
jody i have no hope for my life
i was crushed how could a
fifteen-year-old child growing up in the
uni
in the united states of america have no
hope
i reflected on his circumstances he grew
up in an impoverished community in south
la
his dad and his brother were in prison
violence was rampant in his community
and the schools were abysmal his debt
his mom worked several jobs to try to
make ends meet
so she wasn’t around a lot his teachers
had given up on him he told me once
he like all children yearned for love
and community and unfortunately that led
him to the streets
he joined a gang he committed a crime
and was facing serious prison time as a
result
it was obvious to me that we had
failed this child and so many children
like him
i thought about something that one of my
mentors father greg boyle had said once
he said let no one escape the notice of
god
and by that he meant make sure that
everyone everywhere no matter what feels
loved and valued
i knew then i would devote my career to
advocating for those in the criminal
legal system
people we failed to protect from harm
long before they committed harm
themselves and to try to figure out
what it is that could bring all of us
healing including myself
what i’ve discovered is that there are
two things we all need
in order to find healing the first
is we need to see each other as human
civil rights lawyer brian stevenson has
said that
it is through proximity to the
marginalized that we
gain the power to change the world
if you haven’t read brian’s book just
mercy i highly recommend it but what
brian’s saying is that when we have the
opportunity
to become close to people we might not
otherwise encounter
we’re able to see and appreciate our
collective humanity
and we’re able to witness that
we have more in common than what divides
us
today i work for an organization that
seeks to
ensure that children are held
accountable for harm they cause
in age-appropriate and trauma-informed
ways
with a focus on banning life without
parole and other extreme sentences for
children
through my work i’ve had the opportunity
to bring together survivors of violence
with those who’ve been convicted of very
serious crimes as children
and last year i met a man i’ll call sam
sam was shot and nearly killed by a
teenager
about 20 years ago and sam agreed to
join a gathering we were hosting
with a number of individuals who were
all convicted of murder
as teenagers they spent days together
and during that time
sam was able to hear about their stories
he learned about their childhoods their
time in prison and what they’ve been
doing since they got out of prison to
give back to society
they shared meals together they shed
tears together
they laughed together and through that
experience sam
was able to see their humanity
he left that experience telling me he
felt an incredible sense of healing
and even purpose weeks later
he reached out to me he said you know
jody at the time i was shot
people said i must have survived for
some reason
and i’ve struggled all these years to
figure out what that reason
was until i had the opportunity to meet
the people with whom you work
people we gave up on as children
he said he thought coming to know them
and
advocate for them might be the reason
he survived
sam is one of many survivors of crime
that has expressed me a similar
sentiment
about how healing it has been to be
proximate to people who were convicted
of serious crimes similar to those they
had experienced themselves
because it is in that experience they’re
able to bear witness
to what sister helen prejean described
in her book
and that we are all better than our
worst acts
it is through that experience that
they’re able to see these individuals
who would be so easy for them
to hate and demonize as humans
to see that they are brothers and
sisters daughters and sons
and in that experience they’re able to
find healing and peace
the second thing we all need in order to
find healing is to confront
hard truths
early in my current job i remember a
colleague saying to me you know jody we
can’t
effectively end life without parole for
children
just by pointing to the adolescent
development research that
shows that kids are fundamentally
different from adults because that
doesn’t address the fact that there are
some children in this country who
frankly are just not seen as children i
remember i sort of shrugged the comment
off
at that time and then years later i had
the opportunity to visit the legacy
museum in montgomery alabama
and i remember standing in that museum
looking at a wall in front of me that
had a timeline on it
that showed policies that have been used
to oppress blacks in this country going
back to slavery at one end
and the united states practice of
sentencing children to life without
parole at the other
and it showed the dehumanizing
narratives that we have used over the
years
to justify these policies from lewd
savages at slavery
to super predators in the 1990s which
led to a spike in extreme sentences for
children and i stood there looking at
this wall
absolutely horrified
i saw that there were pictures of people
who looked like me and all of those
pictures were of the oppressors
the people who had perpetuated harm
i thought about how my ancestors and i
benefited from those dehumanizing
narratives
and oppressive policies i felt
overwhelming
sadness and shame
and responsibility i thought back to
that comment
that my colleague had made that i had
shrugged off years earlier
and i knew she was right there are
categories of people in this country
that we have never seen or treated
as fully human and in order to repair
the harm that
that has caused we must confront that
difficult truth
and our roles in it because it is only
then we can find healing
individually and collectively
in my life i’ve had the opportunity to
be proximate to people we declared super
predators
and yet they are some of the most
extraordinary people i know
they all endured trauma as children
they were convicted of very serious
crimes for which they are
deeply remorseful and they live with
that guilt every day
as children they were sent to adult
prisons where they were particularly
vulnerable
to victimization and abuse they were
barred from countless programs because
of the nature of their sentences so they
created their own
they educated themselves they mentored
younger prisoners coming in behind them
they were determined to live life as
fully as they could despite being told
as
children that they were worth nothing
more
than dying in prison
coming to know these individuals has
deeply
enriched my life
it has taught me about courage
resilience forgiveness and the
extraordinary
depth and strength of the human spirit
confronting the truths that made it
possible for them to be condemned
to die in prison has been difficult
and immensely liberating
people think i’m crazy because i say i
go to prison to feel free but it’s true
because it’s there that i know i can
and i must do my part use my privilege
to repair harm
to chart a path to healing
for those i serve and for myself
mother teresa once said if we have no
peace it is because we have forgotten
that we belong to each other
it is my hope that we will all seek
healing
by becoming proximate to society’s
outcasts
so that we can see our collective
humanity
and by confronting difficult truths
because
when we do it will no longer be possible
to forget
that we belong to each other thank you