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Settling In ˜ 31
so badly that he kept going to the others, saying, “Look, can’t you just break this
down for me just a little bit Can’t you explain this thing to me” Finally, one of
his friends drew a chart of Revelation. I really wish I could have seen that chart
because I would like to have seen exactly how the Book of Revelation was reduced
to a chart and explained to Jerome.
We went to see Jerome one day, and he was dying laughing. He started to
tell us the story of how the guards had come into the cell block for a shakedown.
They threw his stuff all over the floor and looked for contraband and weapons.
One guard came across Jerome’s chart of Revelation. He was convinced that it
was an escape plan! So Jerome’s chart was confiscated and taken straightaway to
the warden’s office, where numerous prison bureaucrats put their heads together
over this chart of the Book of Revelation. They tried to figure out how Jerome
Bowden was going to escape from death row with this chart. And Jerome couldn’t
stop laughing. But he never got his chart back.
When Jerome’s execution date was set, the Georgia Association for Retarded
Citizens took his case and began to advocate for him. A stay of execution lasted
for several days. During that time the Board of Pardons and Paroles sent an
Emory University psychologist to study Jerome and to determine just how retarded
he was. The conclusion drawn by this eminent psychologist was that
Jerome Bowden was retarded, but not quite retarded enough to be spared. What
an ironic twist that the test the psychologist used asked Jerome to define the
word sanctuary. And Jerome said, “A place to go and be safe.” And it killed
him.... Sanctuary—because he knew the word, Jerome died.
We sat with Jerome on the day before he was scheduled to die, and he was
telling us another story. He was a great storyteller. He described a series of mean
things that one of the guards had done to taunt one of the prisoners on the cell
block. Jerome was confused; he couldn’t understand people being cruel to each
other. And as he thought about it, he stopped and said, “You know, peoples was
not made to dog around. Peoples was made to be respected.”
Jerome Bowden was retarded—clinically retarded. But I think his statement
is one of the wisest things I have heard in my life. I think it’s one of the best
summations of the dignity of the human creation that you will find. “Peoples
was made to be respected.” We can learn this respect as we come to table companionship
and let our eyes be opened to see the presence of God in each other.
This respect is the basis of our love and solidarity.
Our task in these days is that of loving the poor in a time when the poor,
in attitude, in words, and in policy, are hated. We hear so much talk about wanting
to make poor people work; getting people off welfare and making them
work. But just being poor is the hardest work in the world. So many people in
mainline culture don’t have any idea what that means. And it cannot be understood
apart from solidarity—sharing life with the poor.
Being poor is the hardest work in the world, but all we can think of is,