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36 ˜ A Work of Hospitality, 1982–2002
The good gift that God gave us in 1985 is borne out in fruits here today, in
the leadership of Phillip Williams, Ed Potts, and Ira Terrell, who have come to
this gathering and are leaders at the Open Door Community. They give shape,
structure, and vision to our life together because God helped us see each other.
Our lives are full of ironies. I love the story that is told about the wedding of
Dorothy’s daughter, Tamar. They say that Peter Maurin got up to make a speech
that was a discourse against raising pigs for profit! That’s kind of like life in community.
You never quite know where the other person will be coming from. But
we learn to endure, to find a sense of humor, and to go on with each other.
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I want to tell you about another friend on death row, a man named Alpha
Otis Stephens, who died in the electric chair in Georgia in 1984. It took them
twenty minutes to kill Alpha, and they said that he didn’t have the right body
chemistry. I thought, “Lord, have mercy. He couldn’t even die right to fit these
folks.”
Alpha didn’t get anything but the short end of the stick. He grew up in a
very poor area of Macon, Georgia. He had an abusive and violent, alcoholic father.
He and his mother were beaten regularly. But when Alpha was about six,
he began to try to get between his mother and his father to defend her. His
mother saw the handwriting on the wall, so one day she packed him a little
lunch, dressed him warmly, and put him outside. That was it. He was on his
own from age six, basically a street kid in Macon. Sometimes he would stay with
another relative or hide in an abandoned house. But he was never again “at
home.”
It wouldn’t come as a tremendous surprise to learn that Alpha grew up to
be a violent person, and he took the life of Mr. Henry Asbill. Alpha was guilty;
there was no question about that. Death row seems like a dead end, where everything
is over. But we have been privileged witnesses over the years to the fact that
growth and change can still come, even among people on death row.
On one visit, Alpha told us about Charlie and his persistence, and how God
used Charlie to move Alpha toward hope and redemption. This is kind of the
way Alpha said it: “Yeah, I changed. The thing that made me change was what
Charlie did. When I came to Jackson Prison I was violent—good Godamighty
I was violent. Most everybody here just left me alone, except Charlie. I stayed in
my cell all the time. He started coming sitting in front of my cell, just sitting,
looking at me. Finally, I say, ‘What you starin’ at’ ‘You,’ he said. ‘Just trying to
figure out how can anybody be so mean. You crazy Or just ain’t got no sense’
So I didn’t say nothing. He didn’t go away. He didn’t never go away. Seem like
he just worked so hard to make me be his friend. Finally, I just give up. Me and