Finding Purpose in Jail

“There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.” Fyodor Dostoevski

My husband and I go to jail weekly. One night a week we enter a maximum-security facility, get searched and patted down, and led deep into the bowels of the place to be locked in a room with inmates. Once there, we huddle around tables and talk to them about how to parent kids from behind bars and again on the outside once they are free.  We discuss the generational struggles of families trying to build strong units when many have never seen a strong family unit. We talk about how to help their kids avoid the pitfalls that have plagued them.

These men have left so much behind. They’ve left behind the clothes that reflected their unique identities and culture, replaced with matching orange jumpsuits and maybe a worn long-underwear shirt underneath to keep them warm. They’ve left behind the physical touch of loved ones, the smell of fresh air, jobs, careers, relationships, and many substances that numbed their pain.

Most of the guys would admit to being at the lowest point in their lives since being incarcerated—and many would admit to finding value at this low point because they’ve embraced the opportunity to grow, change, and see the world through a different lens, often a spiritual lens. Many have never seen a successful marriage, a loyal relationship, a faithful walk with God, but in jail they’re meeting an assortment of teachers, volunteers, and staff who invest in them. So they choose to finish degrees they never completed outside, read books and think about topics they never investigated before.They are a breath of fresh air to us who live in a land where folks are either lavishly comfortable or numbing their sufferings through a myriad of options, silencing any pain that might otherwise call them to a more purposeful life.

Pinned to the bulletin board in my  home office, hovering over me like an impossible to-do list, sits a newspaper list of “Books You Must Read Before You Die.” Recently I squeezed in a moment to cross one book off the list when my son’s fiancé loaned me Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. Written by a Viennese psychiatrist about his horrific experience in Auschwitz and other concentration camps, the book chronicles his time there. Despite losing his wife, parents, and brother in the Nazi camps, Dr. Frankl came away with a deeper understanding of our need to find meaning and purpose in all suffering. And suffer he did.

He writes of prisoners taking great risks to help or save someone else, giving purpose to their existence and igniting their spiritual lives by looking beyond their own comforts and safety. If he had to die, Frankl wanted some sense in his death by helping others. Quoting Nietzsche, he writes, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” On occasion, they rushed outside to bask in a sunset, rejoicing in the momentary beauty. They put on skits for each other out of the sight of guards, sang songs, trying to escape from the oppressive darkness. They took the time to express gratitude for the smallest of mercies, like being deloused. Survival tactics in the most heinous of situations.

For the brief time we huddle together with our inmates, they often find humor to distract from the hardships. We share our stories—and our failures—hoping to impart hope to them. Some try to be sacrificial to others during their stay.  They hope to be different people when they walk out those locked doors, presenting a new self to family members waiting for them – if family members are waiting. They hope for reconciliation where relationships have shattered.

I see Frankl’s words offering significance to the inmates’ experiences. But aside from the inmates, I believe Frankl offers a message for us all. If he could find meaning and purpose in Auschwitz, with a little intentionality, we can certainly find meaning and purpose in the United States of America with our wealth of resources and comforts. Haunted by an epidemic of anxiety, depression, loneliness, addiction, injustice, and more, Frankl encourages us to search for purpose.

In the prison camps, Frankl noted those prisoners most likely to survive knew a task waited for them to fulfill. Our inmates need to know valuable work awaits on both sides of the bars. One day most will be released, and helping them catch a vision for a new way to live and think about their world will go a long way to offering them success.

Ever since reading the book, I’ve mulled over the message, thinking about our jail class but also thinking about the message in terms of parenting a generation of kids in our world today. Do you know young people lost and drifting, making bad decisions? Point them to the possibility of finding hope and meaning in the most challenging of situations by living beyond themselves and their wants. Steer them on the path of finding the purpose in life.

The message applies to us all. If prisoners in a death camp can find meaning and purpose when people are being starved, murdered, dehumanized, and torn from family members, we can all find hope after a broken relationship, a job loss, a disorienting move, unemployment, etc. when we choose to live for a larger purpose.

Frankl shows us one man’s visit to hell offers the rest of us the opportunity to experience a taste of heaven on earth if we put these truths into practice.

Off to the next book on my long reading list….