In jail, somebody told me the paper Bibles were restricted because inmates had been smoking the pages.
I had questions. I had already put considerable time into the existence of God. Now I wanted to know how civilization had arrived at a point where the Word of God was classified as a fire hazard.
Apparently the thin pages of a Bible serve a purpose never contemplated by King James. Rolling papers. I have heard of people getting high on Jesus, but this was taking the concept a little too literally.
I imagined the meeting that produced the rule. Captain, we have a problem. The inmates are smoking Scripture. Smoking what? The Bible, sir. Good Lord. Exactly, sir.
I wondered whether some books were more popular than others. Genesis seemed like the obvious place to start. Exodus might help you escape. Leviticus was probably a harsh smoke. And Revelation already involved plenty of fire, so nobody would notice.
Jefferson County’s solution was electronic tablets. No paper, no smoke, no problem. I could not help imagining some enterprising fellow trying to roll up a tablet. If anyone could, it would have been somebody on my floor.
That brings me to the difference between rights and privileges. On the outside we confuse the two. Inside, the distinction gets very clear, very fast. We had a right to eat three times a day. We did not have a right to the television. Floor managers, men who had earned privileges from the staff, controlled the remote and the tablets. When somebody else holds the remote, whatever is on, is on.
Here is the joke God was enjoying at my expense. I have spent years building a network around the idea of choosing what you watch. Good News. Good Music. Good Works. Then I landed somewhere I had no say at all.
The men’s jail was on the sixth floor. The women’s jail was directly beneath us on the fifth. Every evening, the men shouted down to them: “OH, NOW FIF’ FLO’! OH, NOW FIF’ FLO’!” like roosters with court dates.
When people are deprived of ordinary communication, they invent extraordinary alternatives. Somebody had invented the toiletphone. I will spare you the plumbing details. Alexander Graham Bell never imagined his invention would be improved upon in quite this way.
In our cell, the name I kept hearing was KK. I never saw her. To this day I could not tell you what she looked like or what brought her to the fifth floor. She was a voice through concrete, and the guys were interested. I have seen less enthusiasm at a Crimson Tide game.
Meanwhile, I was lying on the floor, face to the wall. I did not have a bunk. Some nights I had a thin plastic mat and a blanket, the jail’s version of a luxury upgrade. I was terrified. I was not looking for romance. I was looking for morning.
I prayed. Not eloquent prayers. I have given eloquent prayers, usually in public, usually with an eye on the audience. These were short. Help me. Get me through tonight. Let me see morning. God heard every one of them, even though nobody on the fifth floor ever knew my name.
I try not to judge the smokers or the shouters too harshly. Jail strips you of comfort, control, privacy, and dignity right along with your belt. Men reach for whatever relief they can find. Some reach for God. Some reach for a lighter. Some reach for a voice one floor down. I understand the impulse better than I would like to admit. My methods were different, but the hunger was the same.
The irony is that the pages they were smoking held exactly what everybody was shouting for. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The answer was printed right there, and they were rolling it up and setting it on fire. Every one of us has burned something precious trying to get warm.
I hope KK went home to people who loved her. Whatever brought any of us there, we were still made in the image of God.
Grace is not a privilege. The floor managers do not hand it out, and nobody can take it away. You can confiscate the paper and regulate the remote. You cannot regulate what happens inside a human heart. Paper burns. The words have outlasted every man who ever tried to silence them.
So the next time you complain about a dropped call, remember those men hollering through the floor. They would have given almost anything for one bar of signal.
“The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.”
Isaiah 40:8 (KJV)
— JC
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