Restringing Guitars and Young Men

                                    Restringing Guitars and Young Men

            Fridays are my day at the local youth correctional facility.  In the morning, I work in their garden, helping young gardeners tend to their chickens, vegetable plots and herb gardens. 

            We plant, weed, water, and harvest, and then preserve and dry the results.  Most every week, we cook, enjoying the bounty of our work, and treating the young men to fresh, nutritious produce and the concept of healthy nutrition and living.

            The real gardening comes in our conversations, the camaraderie of young and older gardeners, working and learning together, truly being in community.   

            They are learning where food really comes from, and how to be invested in that process, being self sufficient and healthy.  The metaphor of the garden is not lost on them, as they work to become strong, healthy, productive farmers of their lives. 

            I also work with some of the young men individually, being the “surrogate parent” and being the visitor they need and wouldn’t have otherwise.  I’m the “family” who shows up with some baked goods or candy, and just visits for an hour.  Sometimes, we play games, but mainly, I just listen, offering the compassionate ear of the uncle or dad who is missing in their lives.

            I’m tender and kind to them, being the encouraging voice, the cheerleader, the supportive dad they wouldn’t otherwise have. 

            Today, one of my young men and I restrung one of the guitars there.  It is a “state” guitar, which means it’s the guitar that gets played by those who don’t have their own instrument.  The guitar is played a lot, and replacing the strings has become a regular task for me. 

The guitar gets loved to death, played hard by lonely, frustrated fingers pouring out the emotions of the neglected and abandoned, the incarcerated, the young men who have no other way of expressing themselves.  I’m like that guitar, a place where the emotions of these young men can have their voice, a willing ear, an appreciative audience for what they need to say. 

            My guy has had a rough year.  He’s one of the lucky ones, not serving a mandatory sentence, a guy who can walk out the door if he’s done all his treatment, completed high school and shown he can be a responsible young man.   

            He literally has the keys to the front gate, but the old voices keep telling him he’s worthless, and should be abandoned and left out for the trash man. 

            Like so many of the young men here, being responsible and healthy is a new experience, and the fear of going back into the world, and being around the family and friends who were a big part of the bad times that brought him here, is one huge scary nightmare of parole. 

            The thought of being successful in life is a new idea.  For most of their life, they’ve been told they are worthless, failures.  My job is to be a spark of encouragement, the mirror of their successes and self worth, to be the dad who believes in them and is proud of who they are becoming. 

            My job and the job of the guitar are a lot alike.

            My buddy has derailed himself a number of times here, despite all his good work. The old ways, the old voices still show up, beating him down with the whips of shame  and guilt, the indifference to the beauty of their young souls. 

            Today, though, he moved ahead.  He took the initiative and restrung the guitar, without much help from me.  With confidence, he completed the task, grinning as the new strings sang out their song in his confident fingers.  His eyes twinkled with pride as he showed others the work he had done. 

            We did more than restring an old, well-used guitar.  We restrung a young man and gave voice to the new, self-confident man now playing his songs, happy with what he’s done and who he’s becoming. 

--Neal Lemery, 12/9/2016

Sharpening Our Tools

                                                

            There’s always a lesson for me in the garden, especially when I’m the teacher.      

     

            The young men gathered around the table, looking at me, leery about the day’s agenda. The pile of our trusty and well-used pruning shears, weeding forks, and trowels, and my odd assortment of files, oil cans, rags and steel wool was raising some puzzled looks.

            “We’re going to sharpen our tools,” I said. “And that will make us better gardeners.”

            I talked about dirt and grit, and how dull, rusty tools slow us down, and make our work harder.  I talked about rain and damp, and getting rid of rust with a bit of oil wiped on a newly cleaned surface. 

            “If you take care of your tools, they will last a lifetime,” I said.  “It’s a great gift to yourself.”

            I talked about how pruners work, whether anvil or bypass, and why the blades are different.  I picked up a file, showing them how to hone a blade, bringing out the edge.  Doing a good job was all in how you finished it, by gently taking off the burrs on the edge, bringing out the best of the blade, and ourselves.

            The metaphors were not lost on these young men, struggling to remake their lives, and move on to managing their lives in a decent, productive way.

            I showed them how to do the work, and then urged them to pick a tool, and do their magic.  

            “The right tool for the right job,” I said, echoing my grandfather’s wisdom I’d heard when I was a young man. 

            Curious, eager minds asked dozens of questions, and, again, I showed them how to hone the blades, taking their eager hands into mine, helping them grip the file and set to work.

            They found their way, getting a sense of that feel, of file meeting blade, steel against steel, until the newly bright edges met their standards of completion and excellence.  Rust and dirt were buffed away, and a new coat of oil made hinges and springs smooth and silent. Grime and dirt were banished, the young hands feeling how they brought back the life and beauty of the tools they’d used this past year.

            One young man kept doing it differently, missing what I was trying to teach.  I was gentle with him, explaining everything again and again.  I felt my patient grandfather in me, as I took his hand and the file, and began the lesson again. 

            Uncertain frowns gave way to smiles and shared accomplishments, the pleasure of making something as good as new. I saw young men restoring something to its original good purpose, gaining pride in who they were, and knowing what they could do.

            We sharpened all of our tools today, and we sharpened some lives, too.  I sensed my grandfather’s arm around me, holding me tight, whispering how proud he was of how I sharpened my tools.

--Neal Lemery 1/23/2016

Bringing In The Light

                                                Bringing In the Light

            I take so many things for granted.  And, I often think there aren’t many miracles in life, in the ordinariness of the day. That is, until we pay attention, until we make room for them to happen. 

            In the rush of daily life, I almost let this one slip past me, unnoticed.

He asked me to help build the campfire so he could get it just right.  Everyone was depending on him. It had to be perfect. This was his task, and he wanted to do it perfectly.  He’d never been asked to do this before.  It was the most anyone had every asked him to do.

Only men built fires, and wasn’t he just a boy?

We gathered his chosen sticks of wood, dry and perfect for his fire.  He picked up the kindling, methodically splintering it over his knee. Even the paper was torn just so, all arranged, ready for the match.

            We had to wait, a friend had to get the matches. We had some time, and I asked him about his campfires past, who had built them, what happened around them.

            It was small talk for me, until he spoke.  His voice got quiet, his eyes wet, his hands shaking. No, this was big talk, big stuff, big wounds.

Only a few campfires, only a few of the only good times in his past, what he could remember of them.  Most of childhood was just a fog; he couldn’t remember.

            He thought this fire would fail, it would not burn, and everyone here would think he was a failure.  It was the old familiar story, it was the ending that he expected. Wasn’t that the story of his life?

This was his fire, his first fire he had built. He wanted to say his dad would be proud of him, but halfway through the words, he choked, looked away, not able to say that, that dad would be proud.

            The matches arrived, and I handed them to him.

            “Light your fire, son,” I said. “You can do this.”

            There was a spark, a small flame that grew, catching the paper and kindling he had laid so carefully, his most important task ever in his young life.

            I asked him to blow on the small flame, to make it grow. And he did, a smile breaking across his face. 

            The fire, his fire, was ablaze, catching the big sticks, sending flames up high.

            “Good job,” I said.  “You did well.  I’m proud of you.”

            Those words, ones he had never heard before, filled the air, filled his heart.  The words he had never heard, until now.

            He nodded, not saying a word.  The fire crackled, as we let those simple words sink in, letting him really hear them.

He built the good fire, the fire everyone liked. Soon everyone crowded around to feel its heat on this chilly morning, to cook our lunch, warm our hands and our hearts. 

The others, the builder of the fire, and I sat around the fire, sharing our lunch, a few stories, our friendship. 

“Great fire,” they said.  “Thanks.”

He looked down at his shoes, and then at the fire, taking it all in, feeling the warmth of their praise, their thanks, warming his heart on this cold winter’s day.

His big smile lit up his face, and added more light to our day together.

            A miracle, in the coldest, most ordinary of places.  But that’s where miracles happen, when its cold and lonely, and you think your life isn’t all that special.

            We just need to be ready to let the light in. 

                        Neal Lemery, 12/6/2015