Jack Dison. Addiction, Death & Restorative Justice

On March 4, 2009 a man named Jack Dison (above on the right) introduced me to Restorative Justice. I worked at Holy Names University in Oakland, CA as the graphic designer when Jack was scheduled to come and speak one evening through Campus Ministries. I was told that I needed to come back to work that evening and "cover" the event with the camera and take notes. I was responsible for writing up a piece for the campus magazine. At first, I was resentful to be told I needed to leave work and come back because they were understaffed. But my recovery program has taught me to live in a spirit of willingness so I did show up as I was asked.

The event that evening changed the trajectory of the next 10 years of my life and have provided me the richest spiritual education I have received to date. Jack Dison presented about his work at San Quentin State Prison. He did Restorative Justice work with men who lived there, many of whom were serving 25 years to life. He had a man with him, Bryan, who had been paroled in 2007 after serving twenty years on a homicide conviction. It happened when he was 19 years old. Bryan didn't kill anyone, he waited in the car while a friend went inside to get cigarettes, and pulled the trigger. A young man yearning to belong quickly found himself in a hopeless and brutal situation in an adult prison, tagged with a homicide conviction. The only thing he'd been convicted of prior was Class Clown in high school.

They explained the process of Restorative Justice and trauma healing circles. The story articulated love and truth and God in a way that my heart has always known was true but I'd never met the language for.

What if we worked to understand each other and heal our emotional and spiritual wounds together as a human race? What if we took the worst things someone has ever done and use it as a starting point for accountability, humility, the need for community and love? What if our broken systems took responsibility for the harm they can cause? It's not as hippy-drippy as it may sound.

It's powerful, powerful, difficult and transformative work.

Afterward, I asked Jack Dison to have coffee with me. I NEEDED to do what he was doing. He accepted. Over that visit I learned many things and we began a relationship that would show me inside of the prisons and inside the tender spirits of some of societies 'greatest [perceived] monsters' - inmates.

Jack and I were meant to meet and we both believe God put us together during that season of our lives. We were both seeking. His son had died of an overdose, and there I sat, a woman who'd survived addiction. I loved Graphic Design but it wasn't the work of the heart and I craved a deeper connection.

Silence drew us close and into a powerful relationship that would manifest incredible things over the next few years. Today, a decade later, I was reminded of Jack as I did a podcast interview out of New York yesterday. I spoke of him and the work we did in the prisons and the jails. After we recorded the interview, I looked him up to see what he's up to. Last I knew he'd fallen in love, hallelujah, and moved away to enjoy some of the hard-won peace he'd acquired through years of processing trauma, and grieving his own son.

I found this book on Amazon. He and I have both been writing. I can't wait to read it. I'm so proud of this beautiful man and his soul. I hope his son is proud of all the work his spirit did when his body failed. His spirit worked through his father for decades, healing other men and women as his father found peace with questions he'd never be able to answer.

I love you, Jack. Thank you for being gentle and courageous.