Heartbreaking--When Hope For Parole Is Dashed, For The 17th Time

http://vpb.virginia.gov/contact/

The following is by Mr. Gregory Goodman, an honorably discharged veteran and a 25-year Virginia inmate. His 17th parole request was denied last month:

I was at work in the barbershop when my supervising officer told me to report to my counselor's office.

I prayed during the long walk there.

"Mr. Goodman?"

"Yes," I said, while trying to read him for clues regarding my fate on the Parole Board letter he held.

The letter's bold "not grant" wording struck me first; I scanned the rest of the page like a drowning man desperate for a helping hand. I shakily sat down in the cramped office, already dreading having to tell my family the heartbreaking news and hearing the hurt in momma's voice, the hurt and bewilderment in my sister's, and then writing my annual, disappointing letters and facebook messages to my extended family and friends: "I'm sorry, but I didn't make it... Not this year."

As background, two days after my last video-conferenced parole interview, my mother had suffered a heart attack. She was standing on the porch supervising my brother's work on the house. Shawn saw her double over and caught her just before she fell.

At one point my parole interviewer had asked about an earlier meeting my mother had with the Reverend Dr. Lincoln A. James, a Virginia Parole Board member. My family and a friend had reported a very encouraging meeting with him on October 8, 2015. "They said the meeting went great," I said, "My sister thought it went excellent". I smiled remembering my sister's enthusiasm and their happiness about the likelihood of me returning home.

Between their hope-filled account and answering the questions I asked, I was on the phone with my family for an hour. They had submitted my Parole Packet/Reentry Plan and said everything that was on their hearts regarding my crime, remorse, rehabilitation and my preparedness for release after 25 years in prison, as had I myself in my parole interview.

The intervening months had found us increasingly hopeful, and confident that all of our hard work would bear fruit this year. We discussed my homecoming, trips to my parole officer and to Durham's office of Veteran's Affairs (its job programs), my short and long term goals, and momma's list of "Things for me to do".

Being denied parole is like being told of a loved one's death. We, the bereaved, grieve a lifetime of time we've lost and will lose with each other. I am grieving now for the time I'll lose with my ailing mother--and sister, who has been on dialysis for nearly twenty years--both of whom desperately want and need me home. I'm grieving the death of myriad opportunities to serve them and my community, to be the productive citizen I am capable of being. I am grieving the death of my second chance.

Words fall short of expressing how sorry I feel for these losses, how sorry I am for all our losses, the victims of my robberies, and of my family's and good friends' who bury our time together daily, as we have done for over 25 years now.

After being denied parole, my family, friends and I experience a sort of mourning and start offering each other condolences. There is a lot of sorrow and many tears. Sadly, we are all acquainted with this process and the five stages of grief, denial, isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Depression has been particularly difficult this year. Remorse and taking responsibility for ones crimes will do this, especially after acknowledging that I drove my life over this cliff, and that my decisions that day, clouded though they were, caused me to be taken away from my family so long ago. This is all true. But it is also true that undiagnosed PTSD (from my military service) and self-medicating its symptoms provided the fuel.

I have been cycling though all but the last stages of grief, acceptance. I cannot accept acceptance, that I am never going home, or that I am not going home next year. Neither can my family and friends.

We are not yet estranged from hope, though I'm sure that each of us at some point has come close. Like shortly after I'm denied parole and I don't call home as often, or write friends as regularly, because I feel like a failure, and a sore reminder of our collective failure. When all of the rehabilitative programs completed, all of the years of exemplary behavior, coupled with all of our advocacy, Reentry Plans, letters to the Parole Board and meeting with Lincoln A. James are for naught.

Years ago a blessed friend who'd been granted parole showed me his grant letter from the Parole board, his golden ticket home. The letter was short and happily to the point.

It was significantly different from the two-page form letter I've been receiving for 17 years, which ends, consolingly, with "While this may not be the answer you hoped for, please continue your hard work." Preceding this line are several paragraphs of official platitudes that kick me in the gut and crush mine and my loved ones' hearts.

Two days after my mother's heart attack she had quadruple bypass surgery. The operation was a success and momma's recovery is on schedule. Her progress in cardiac therapy occupy many of my thoughts, as does the Governor's Commission on Parole Review, its recommendations, and bills regarding parole reform in the General Assembly. I pray this isn't just hot air that raises spirits to heights that approach fairness and a second chance, only to be shot down again by scorn, unforgiving attitudes and partisanship. Our hopes are already riddled with holes. I am amazed at their resiliency and how they stay aloft.

In the coming months I'll improve my Reentry Plan and my skills as a barber, submit short stories and poetry for publication, and continue helping my fellow veterans incarcerated, "because we were veterans first". I'll help my family navigate whatever challenges 2016 will bring. I'll distance myself even further from the crimes committed 25 years ago on November 19, 1990, and from the negative statistic I was, toward the positive one I am capable of--a successful returned citizen.

This of course will require exhuming our aggrieved hopes and resuscitating them with renewed commitment, as I continue to distinguish myself and qualify for a substantive parole review.

What motivates me?

Like all rehabilitated men and women, I have reached the tipping point, the point where years of evidenced preparations have equipped me with more to offer my family, friends and community than I once took from them.

- Gregory Goodman #1101523 

Augusta correctional Center

1821 Estaline Valley Road

Craigsville, VA 24430

Express your parole concerns to your State Senator, State Delegate, and to the following:

Ms. Karen Brown, chair

Virginia Parole Board

6900 Atmore Drive

Richmond, VA 23225

(804) 674-3081

cc:

Mr. Algie T. Howell, Jr., vice-chair 

Ms. Andrea Bennett

The Reverend Doctor A. Lincoln James 

Mr. Sherman R. Lea 

Mr. Minor F. Stone

The Honorable Brian Moran

Secretary of Public Safety

Patrick Henry Building, Third Floor

1111 East Broad Street

Richmond, VA 23219

(804) 786-5351

Attorney General Mark R. Herring

900 East Main Street

Richmond, VA 23219

(804) 786-2071

http://www.oag.state.va.us/index.php/contact-us

The Honorable Terrence McAuliffe, Governor

Office of the Governor

Patrick Henry Building, Third Floor

1111 East Broad Street

Richmond, VA 23219

https://governor.virginia.gov/constituent-services/Communicating-with-the-governors-office 

(you can ask for a response)

Here's a link to more posts on parole in Virginia

http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/search?q=parole+board

"The Parole Board's mission is to grant parole to those offenders whose release is compatible with public safety."

For Parents: Which Is More Important, Control Or Influence?

Children's self-control needs to increase as their parents' control decreases. 

Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night."                                                                                      - Deuteronomy 6:6-8 (the Message)

"As long as you're under our roof you'll do as we say!" is the undisputed rule in some households.

With that perspective, parents assume the right to fully control their children's choices until they are of age or leave home. Then they are presumably free to do whatever they want, regardless of how they have been taught.

Or is it wiser to gradually give our offspring more and more responsibility for themselves--within some clear and reasonable boundaries--while we are still there to guide and help them with their choices? And in the meantime, to consistently model and teach the kinds of good behaviors and values we want our children to live by?

Of course not everything is up to the child to decide, but a major part of the job description of parents is to "raise" our young, to "bring them up" in a way that helps them become responsible decision makers, and not simply to make all their decisions for them and to "keep them in their place". In other words, the goal of wise parents is to help prepare children to be responsible fellow adults who can function on their own. After all, they will normally outlive us.

Parenting expert Michael Popkin cautions against becoming either "dictator" parents or "doormat parents", but to be assertive moms and dads who recognize that control of our children, which is nearly absolute when they are infants, needs to be replaced by parental guidance and influence as they become older and prepare to launch.

When we are too set on maintaining total control, we tend to lose the influence we hope to have for the rest of our lives. But if we turn over the reins gradually, we will have fewer power struggles and we will likely be more effective in helping prepare our daughters and sons for the real world, which hopefully will not be one ruled by dictators but by citizens working together to create and maintain healthy congregations and communities.

Children are born with a drive to become autonomous and self-controlled. We often interpret that as a form of rebellion, and sometimes it does come out that way, but it is also a necessary part of their growing up and preparing to take their place as fully functioning fellow adults.

Gratitude-Based Giving--Loving God With All Our Possessions

source

One of our lectionary texts yesterday (on Valentine's Day, no less) was the Deuteronomy passage on the giving of firstfruit offerings and of tithes. In our study at house church we found in it a sharp contrast between the celebrative way God's people were to financially support their new nation (a kingdom governed by priests rather than by monarchs), and the begrudging way we tend to fulfill our financial obligations to our congregations, community and governments today.

The annual offering of fresh produce from their newly gifted land involved a liturgy in which each Israelite household prepared a basket of the best and first of their harvest. Upon bringing this cornucopia of plenty to the priest, they were to announce something like the following (paraphrased):

"I hereby acknowledge that I (formerly landless) have inherited the gracious and undeserved gift of a land that God promised our ancestors."

The priest then received the basket of fresh produce and placed it on the altar, after which grateful and blessed Israelites were to recite something like:

Our ancestor Jacob was a wandering and landless Aramean
who went down to Egypt and lived there,
he and his small family,
but there they multiplied and we became many.
The Egyptians abused us and subjected us to cruel slavery.
We cried out to the God of our ancestors
who listened to our desperate prayers,
who took pity on us in our terrible plight,
and brought us out of Egypt
by great and miraculous means,
and brought us to this grace-filled place,
a land of abundant milk and honey.
So here we are with the best of the firstfruits 
of what the land God has given us has produced.

(paraphrase of Deuteronomy 26:5-10)

All who brought their gifts from far and wide were to then bow before the altar of God in heartfelt celebration of all of the blessings received. And according to other texts, the priests (Levites) then hosted a huge buffet in which all who were assembled enjoyed a thanksgiving feast, including any landless aliens or sojourners among them.

We found this a good reminder yesterday that our financial and other giving is less like a "tax" we owe our Creator, or simply a form of rent we pay for the privilege of inhabiting such a beautiful earth, but our offerings should be a lavish expression of the lover's covenant we have with God, a God of grace and mercy for all. As in all Valentine-like relationships of the heart, our lavish gifts are expressions of "endearments" and not just of "demandments".

As We Witness A Holocaust of Historic Proportions, Where Are The Pro-Life Voices?

Just one of multitudes of child casualties of air raids in Syria

Sad to say, the unbelievable tragedy of the widening war in Syria has yet to result in widespread outrage. It's all too easy for people of faith and goodwill around the world to look the other way while untold numbers of innocent people are being permanently maimed, horribly burned and buried alive by drone strikes and bombing every day.

Less than a century ago the world largely turned away when millions of Jews and other minorities were similarly exterminated and forced to flee as refugees. Through seeking the military solution of World War II, over 50 million lives were sacrificed worldwide.

Today's increased military response to the Syrian crisis has added immeasurably to the suffering. Resorting to bombs still remains the primary problem, not the solution, and the least we can do is to promote humanitarian efforts toward peacemaking and toward a radical increase in material aid to the millions of refugees affected.

So what if each of us at least matched the amount of our tax money currently going for military purposes with contributions for emergency relief aid? What if we temporarily diverted our giving through our local congregations until they agreed to invest at least 10% of their budgets toward this emergency?

Here are just a few of the reputable agencies working in the region that are in desperate need of increased funding, according to Myriam Azis, former UNHCR Senior Resettlement Assistant for Syrian Refugees and currently a student at EMU's Center For Justice and Peacebuilding:

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Oxfam America

Mercy Corps

Mennonite Central Committee

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

Guest Post: "Classic Injustice Collectors"

Mary Ann Yutzy, with husband Daniel and some grandchildren

With our niece Mary Ann Yutzy's kind permission, here is one of her recent great posts on her blog "Stepping Out":

It was an ordinary Friday morning, Jan. 22, 2016, to be exact. I was straightening up my kitchen, doing meds and trying to make some resemblance of order on the counter where everything gets stashed, when a story came on NPR’s Morning Edition. I was half listening, half off in another world when something caught my ear. For real!

The announcer was talking about acts of violence that were blamed on ISIS, when there is no verifiable connection between the perpetrator(s) and the ISIS organization. The phrase that caught my attention was this: “The attacks dubbed as ISIS-inspired in this country have tended to be the work of what law enforcement officials call ‘classic injustice collectors.’ ” The commentator went on to say that these are people who have been nursing various resentments for years, and when someone or something happens to push them too far, they “re-invent themselves, using whatever cause will give them a greater sense of purpose as well as . . . publicity.”

“Classic injustice collectors.” That phrase stuck in my mind as I reviewed some events that I’ve been spectator and party to over the past months, and with a pang I realized that it is that business of “injustice collecting” that often plays havoc in my life and in the lives of people I love. As people of principle, it’s easy for us to accumulate the injustices of our world and the circles in which we move, and to have a sense of being called to bring justice. Especially if it is people we love.

Let me hasten to add that there are injustices of the world that we ought to address. The poor, the prisoner, the alien, the defenseless and enslaved. We should never hold back from doing what God has moved on our hearts to do. But there are many other things that I’m reminded of with vivid (and regrettable) clarity. There have been so many situations where I have chosen to let my feelings run away with me (“I’d rather be mad!”) or wanted my own way enough to withdraw (“If you don’t play my way, I’ll just take my ball and go home!”). Over and over again, it’s easy to think that people are being insensitive or intentionally hurtful when in fact they are just unaware of how a particular thing might be looking to us and might be unaware of what it is that we desperately want or need.

And yes, that can be hurtful, too. To think that people don’t care enough to find out what it is that we need, or how we feel or where we are vulnerable can really add to our sense of inadequacy, unimportance or injury. And so, we collect the injustices like it’s our job, tallying them up, holding them seethingly in our hearts and then, one day when no one, (maybe/probably not even ourselves) is expecting it, it all comes pouring out in the name of a cause that it somehow felt right for us to align ourselves with. And people are surprised at our venom, confused by our alleged motives, frightened by our rampage and bewildered in the aftermath. (Where did that come from, and why?)

I find this especially hurtful in the family of God, but I’m suggesting it is nearly as prevalent here as in general society. We are “classic injustice collectors” with a spiritual twist. And sometimes it’s so easy for me to justify what I am feeling with a Biblical injunction or instruction. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be a part of a church family. About how easy it is to carry a grudge quietly or to be so thin-skinned that almost anything can set the wrong way with me. And this morning, again, I was thinking about the words of Jesus when he said that we are to go the second mile, turn the other cheek, bless when we are cursed, pray for the ones who persecute us. And the words in Corinthians when we are instructed to give up our rights for our brothers and sisters and that we are to forgive.

Forgive. That’s the word right there. The only way to living free of the bondage of having to collect is to forgive. Where else in all the world is there a word that encapsulates a loosening of chains like this one? I looked up synonyms for this word and some of them are extravagantly descriptive. (“Dismiss from mind,” “bear no malice,” “wipe slate clean,” “allow for,” “bear with.”) Words that would change the state of my heart as well as my outlook if I were to just live there!

I honestly believe that it’s impossible on our own. And when I say, “that’s what GRACE is for,” I know it sounds trite, overused and simplistic. But it’s still Truth. God’s GRACE, extended so freely to us, is the means by which we extend grace to others, offer forgiveness, live in forgiveness, and empty out that collection of offenses.

We all have things that we feel we have to have, or we want deeply. I really like it when I can feel understood. Even if someone doesn’t agree with me, if they understand where I’m coming from, that feels good. There are a few other areas that are very important to me, and I’ve written and re-written this paragraph as I’ve tried to defend myself against past charges. It suddenly occurred to me that I was collecting offenses again, as I thought about complaints that have troubled me that I wish I could somehow straighten and disagreements over petty things that I’ve allowed to fester in this old heart. Some of these are as old as our marriage. Some are a recent as this week. Will I never learn?

And so, tonight, once again, I turn a heart that knows the darkness of the suffocating blanket of offense to the light of God’s truth and the blaze of his Holiness. May he shed light and truth and peace into those corners where old affronts and injuries (real or imagined) cower, awaiting the chance to rear their unseemly heads. And may the freedom wrought by their dispersal be that which will lead more than this Delaware grammy home.

I’m not able to do this. But I know the one who is.

For this and for so much more, my heart gives grateful praise.

MaryAnn Yutzy lives in Milford, Del. She blogs at maryannyutzy.wordpress.com.

How My Adopted Sister Found Her Biological Father--And A Missing Part Of Herself

John Hite, united with his daughter, my adopted sister, in '99 

My dear younger sister Mary Beth came into our home as a foster child at four months of age. At age 69 she and her husband Harven, 77, died in a tragic fire that destroyed their mobile home in Greene County on the night of December 12. The following is a touching letter she wrote to members of our family over 16 years ago:

March 13, 1999

Dear family,

Well I want to sit here tonight and write a story for all of you so you will get it first hand.

I was born in 1946. In February, 1947, I was taken to a house so full of love. I was a happy little girl living there, at least as long as I knew I belonged there.

When I got older there was an empty place in my heart because I knew that out there in this big world was somebody I belonged to, someone whose heart missed me like I did them. Oh I was very special to this big family that gave me so much love. But outside of this loving family were people who couldn't understand how Ben Yoders could take into their home some child who was not born to them.

At the time I didn't realize that it was because Ben and Mary Yoder had a bigger and broader heart and had opened it up to more than just their offspring. They had love for all of God's creation, but for me it was a big empty hole because I felt that I was so bad even my Mama couldn't love me, and Mamas were supposed to love everybody. Where had I gone wrong to be so little and not be loved by a Mama?

I overheard some of the older women of the church telling each other that Mary Beth had bad blood in her because of her mother. So every Sunday for a long time at church I'd pick my nose to get the bad blood out. Oh it sounds so stupid now, but to a little girl I thought people would like me if I got the bad blood out of me.

There were times I thought people would see me coming and turn away and act like they didn't see me. Or if in Sunday School they would always run for the chair farthest away from me. Maybe no one else even noticed it, but I did.

Many a night I fell asleep crying because I felt no one wanted out there wanted me, and that I must have been no good. So I decided to do everything I could to get people to like me, since I was so different from everybody. The "English" [a term used by the Amish for "outsiders"] didn't want me either because I was different. So which way do you go?

My sister as a teen

Some of the mistakes I made in life were made just to get people to notice me and like me. Well, I know I'm loved by lots of people and I feel whole for once in my life.

Four weeks ago I had the best surprise I could have asked for. It was on a late Monday afternoon and I felt like I wanted to talk to my [biological] half-sister, so I called her. She said she had some very exciting news for me. Her husband, the overseer of the Augusta Memorial Cemetery, said he had buried three people that day, including a Raymond Knight, and my Mom spoke up and said, "Not Knight, but Hite." She [my mother] said Raymond was my uncle and Johnny Hite was my father. Then she quickly said, "Oh, but he's dead."

My sister Beda waited until Mom left then looked in the "Obits" and saw that Raymond was survived by Ella of Staunton, Kenneth of Staunton, Johnny of Waynesboro and Marie of Indiana, and Beda said we needed to take a day and hunt for them. So Friday morning we went to the funeral home, but had no success, then went to the church where Raymond was a member to talk to the minister, but he wasn't at home. Then we went to where the preacher worked and they gave us Ella's phone number, but she didn't answer her phone. They told us she might be at Raymond's house cleaning it out, but she wasn't there, either.

I was about ready to cry, but decided to go to the next door neighbor's house. The lady there was friendly, and said Ella used to work at the District Home in Waynesboro and that Johnny Hite was a resident there. So off we went to the District Home.

When I got there I froze. My sister told me I had come this far and to not give up, so I got out of the car and went in. I asked the lady there if there was a John Hite there, and she said I had to talk to the head nurse. When the nurse came down the hall she asked me did I need help, and before I could tell her what I wanted she asked me if I was John Hite's daughter.

I almost hit the floor. I asked her why and she said I looked like him across the eyes and nose. I told her I had always been told my father was dead, but had learned on Monday he was still alive. She said, "Oh yes, Oh yes," and she showed me his whole record

When she asked me if I wanted her to go with me to see him, I was so glad, because at that time I was scared to pieces. When we knocked on his door and came in, he seemed surprised to have anyone come see him. He was lying down, and when he got up and looked at these two strangers who walked in his room he looked at me and said, "You're my daughter." [Beda is not his]

All the nurses cried, and so did I. He was so happy he cried, too. Since then I've seen him two to three times a  week. The nurses and even the administrator told me that before I came into his life he never smiled or talked much, now it's all he talks about.

He's been moved to Staunton to a much nicer place, but he hates it there and wants to be out on his own. So soon I might see if I can find a place for him.

Finding him I now feel like I know me. All the parts of me feeling so empty are now filled. I have a mother and half sister [that she had found earlier], now a new step brother, two aunts and an uncle I didn't know anything about. My uncle and aunts are just amazed at my finding them. They seem to not believe that such good luck could have befallen them.

I'm happy, too. But I'm also glad I have a family like the Yoders, and I'm glad I got my start in life in the Yoder family. I don't believe I'd be as whole in finding my blood family if I hadn't had that upbringing.

I thank God and all of you for that.

Aunt Beth and sister Beth

Here's a link to a tribute to my sister's life http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2016/01/in-memory-of-my-sister-mary-beth.html

HARD TIME VIRGINIA (Vol. I, No. 1)

One of hundreds of deserving men in Virginia prisons, the second from the left was incarcerated at 16,  has served 36 years and has been denied parole 12 times.

This is the first of an occasional "newsletter" containing items gleaned from inmate letters:

Some Parole Eligible Inmates Decline Release Interviews

According to a recent letter from a Virginia correctional facility (not the one housing the above), some 49 offenders there decided to forgo their parole interviews in February. They have all been behind bars for over 20 years (before parole was abolished), and have each been repeatedly turned down for parole release in spite of their best efforts. They remain as committed as ever to earning their release, but no longer see any use in meeting with their parole interviewer. "Only three of over 243 parole inmates have been granted parole here in the last three quarters," stated one inmate, "and we don't want to sit down and talk with an interviewer if they have shown no desire to release us."

Question For Virginia's Parole Board

One prisoner writes, "Is it lawful for the Parole Board to consider an inmate's prior criminal record when determining eligibility for parole? The Virginia legislature enacted a statutory parole review procedure [Va. code 53.1-155(A)] that creates an expectation of parole release based on inmates' behavior while incarcerated, yet the Board continues to arbitrarily detain thousands of parole eligible felons for reasons of the crime they committed, no matter what rehabilitation ('correction') they have demonstrated."

Prison Food Budget Cut by Over $1 Million

The 2015 Virginia Department of Corrections budget for food and food supplies and services was cut by $1,363,459 from the prior year, according to the Management Information Summary Annual Report (page 20), as researched by one inmate. He also cites the increased use of low-grade processed meats he fears increases everyone's risk of cancer. At one men's facility as many as 100 inmates at a time are locked in their chow hall with only one officer in charge, raising concerns about what could happen in case of a fire or a fight.

Inmate's Granddaughter Makes Contact After Seeing Blog Post

"My granddaughter is now 16 and lives with her mother. She came across your blog about my accomplishments and looked me up on the JPAY email services. I had not seen her in eight years. She is a gifted honor student and wants to go to college to pursue forensic psychology. I feel my short moment of influence can inspire her to excel. Yes, it does make a difference to do right, even when others think the worst of you and don't really know you. I told my wife that my granddaughter had read your blog and found me, and she thanks you also."