Imagine that you've spent 15 years of your life in a highly structured institution. Imagine that you spent many years of your growing up in a controlled atmosphere, with its own set of social rules and ways of doing things. Imagine that most of what you know about the world comes from the filter of this institution.
Imagine that they let you out.
How do you know what to do and where to go from here? How do you know how to navigate the complexities of the financial and employment world, let alone the subtleties and nuances of the social world? How do you know who you are without the support of the institution?
No, I'm not speaking of graduating school and being thrown into the real world, though between freshman move-in at W&M and SLU, I had a "holy crap I'm not a student anymore!" moment. No; I am referring to being released from prison/paroled.
Today, I had dinner with a group from a ministry in the St. Vincent de Paul Society (SVDP). The ministry focuses on reintegrating people into society after they are released from prison. Part of this ministry operates by creating social situations for such people to re-learn social skills and create positive networks -- by having dinner with the community.
The room was mostly filled with men trying to stay out and religious, but other SVDP members floated around, and all of the Six Pack made it. I spent most of the dinner talking to two men, one of whom, David (not really, of course), had plans to go to school in January. We discussed ideas, which of course I loved, ranging from religion to history to politics to movie and books. He wants to major in philosophy, and he certainly has the type of mind to love it. David told me he'd been in prison for nearly 15 years and that he'd been in his early teens when he went in.
Now, he wants to stay out of prison, have a family, have a good life. As did everyone there, which inspired me so much.
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