We Use Beloved

It was during our rarely performed “Children in Bed on Time” ritual of bouncing between streaming services and naysaying thumbnails that we came across a film entitled Sing Sing. As we debated the future of our night, my wife commented on not being in the mood for a “prison” movie. By this she meant what one would typically expect from a movie about a group of prisoners (i.e., unnecessary violence, gang affiliation, abusive expletives, sexual wantonness, united revolt, or possibly an attempted escape). These are the classic prison tropes played out in movies over the years. And thankfully, Sing Sing did not follow them.

The Sing Sing Correctional Facility has had a checkered history. Built in 1825, it was aptly named after the marble that was used to construct it. The first prisoners mined the marble that contributed not only to building material for the prison, but also Lyndhurst mansion, New York University, Grace Episcopal Church, the New York State Capitol Building, and the United States Treasury Building. Eventually, reforms came and inmates were allowed new freedoms. A barber shop, chapel, and mess hall were set up, along with access to a library. (Not to mention a match against the New York Yankees with an appearance by Babe Ruth.) While playing ball with one of the greats is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, in 1996 a life changing experience was born in the program Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA).

After searching for meaning in his life, Hans Hallundbaek found himself a graduate from New York Theological Seminary as an interfaith minister, which led him to teaching theology and ethics to prisoners at Sing Sing. Soon after, his wife, Katherine Vockins, became interested in his work and helped a group of male inmates write a play. Thus, in 1996, the RTA program was born with this mission statement:

RTA helps people in prison develop critical life skills through the arts, modeling an approach to the justice system based on human dignity rather than punishment.

While punishment may be socially necessary at times for certain crimes, the RTA program has caught on to something we all know is true. As their website states: “The US prison system is based on punishment. The problem is, it doesn’t work — more than half of people released from prison are back within three years.” The RTA program instead helps people become human again, teaching them life skills and revealing their human worth.

Now, the closest I’ve been to jail time is stealing from the book fair in fourth grade, when my father asked the police to come by the house and give me a stern talking to. After being told a story about a woman who stole a gold coin and was arrested and sent to serve time, I was certainly terrified by the prospect of a life behind bars. Suffice it to say, I never stole from a book fair again. In high school, however, I was slick at breaking Lunchables open and tucking the contents into my waistband to sneak outside of a Vons grocery store. The childhood threats didn’t hold. Because punishment, or even the threat of punishment, doesn’t always show results. Most of us could point to similar experiences in our lives where punishment didn’t fully blossom into a new attitude.

Conversely, the film Sing Sing is the dramatization of the true story of John “Divine G” Whitfield and numerous other men who found hope, a future, and a new identity in the RTA program. Besides Oscar-nominated Colman Domingo playing Divine G, the characters are played by the prisoners themselves, and the movie was filmed on location in a decommissioned prison. Instead of following the typical prison movie tropes, Sing Sing depicts the prisoners as truly human with accompanying humanizing shots. As one of the actors, David Giraudy, states: “We are humans with hopes, dreams, insecurities, faults, and feelings. Like anyone else in the world.”

In one powerful scene, a seemingly hardened Divine Eye, who is new to the RTA program, uses a word that the NAACP has deemed “derogatory, degrading, dehumanizing” and “one of the most offensive words in history.” Divine G responds by reminding him the word is not used in their group and instructs him on the one that is: “We use beloved.” A dramatic identity shift, one that alters not only language used towards oneself and others but allows one to become human again, to see themselves as God in Christ sees them.

The world knows punishment doesn’t always prove as efficacious as we would hope for. While it may cause behavioral change at times, it does not have the same effect as “beloved” does. Although not prisoners, children are prime examples of the ineffectiveness of punishment. I can attest to fruitless time outs, regretful spankings, and futile raised voices gaining temporary results (if that) but not providing long-term change. As RTA points out, punishment doesn’t work. They rightly boast of less than three percent of their members returning to prison whereas the national recidivism rate is sixty percent. Our hearts require more than punishment. We are desperate for a new identity, to become human again.

While the prisoner’s plight is significant, it is also indicative of humanity’s predicament. It isn’t just those behind bars in need of a new identity. One doesn’t need to be handcuffed, sentenced, and locked in a cell to struggle with identity issues and human worth. A download of any social media app could also provide such an assault on the soul, or rather reveal the condition of it. We are rather proficient at doling out verdicts and judgements ourselves, and the society around us will fill in the gaps where we fail. Much like those under the watch of the United States correctional system, the Law (God’s law, that is), rules over us and has a one hundred percent recidivism rate. We will always find ourselves back under the same sentence and the same cell.

God’s people have notoriously struggled with this. The prophets repeatedly call out to those rebellious ancestors of ours but to no avail — and usually with the expressed assumption that they wouldn’t heed the warnings of punishment before the prophet even began his ministry. Even in the story of Jonah where the Ninevites actually do turn from their ways, it could be argued this is a polemic to prove the point that God’s own people are extremely resistant to change through the method of punishment or threat of it. Still, today, punishment is used as a tool in religious circles and churches to enact growth, perhaps successful at times with temporary external change, but the heart remains in chains.

Thankfully, there’s a voice which calls out to us. To our hearts burdened with low self-worth, false identities, and deep brokenness, he calls “beloved, come.” He beckons us out from our cell and invites us into a new identity and reality to play in. Sean “Dino” Johnson, portraying himself, puts it this way, “Brother, we’re here to become human again. To put on nice clothes and dance around. And enjoy the things that is not in our reality.” It’s during the dance, through the art of play in another reality, that someone new is born. So, dance around as if punishment is off the table. And remember, we use beloved.