Doin' Time

I recently saw the movie, Henry's Crime, with Keanu Reeves. It's a little-known black comedy about a young man who may best be described as "absent." Only the particles that make up his physical presence can be accounted for, until he has an epiphany - which he has while in prison. His passivity in all things relevant cost him his freedom and his marriage. He simply could not commit to anything, anything at all. He was used by friends to play an unwitting role in a robbery. When asked by a fellow inmate why he did not defend himself when he was totally innocent, Henry said he felt that prison was his ticket out. Little did he know that prison would be his ticket in. One day, his cell mate, played by James Caan, said that if you're gonna do the time, you might as well do the crime. This was the revelation that Henry had been waiting to hear his whole life. A short time later, when released from prison, to do the crime for which he had done the time, became his raison d'etre. As Henry's life was nourished by the purpose and challenge of actually robbing the bank for which he had been wrongly convicted, his life also flourished. He grew. He grew up. He grew into his life. It became a life he wanted, a life he claimed for himself and for those around him that he grew to love, and for that one in particular whom he grew to want to love him in return. In the end, as these things go, he had to chose to keep the life that had been born to him or return to the passive life of lost everythings.

Henry's Crime was not the best movie I've ever seen. But it rated more highlythen it probably deserved due to the after-thought factor. It had sticking power – stick to your ribs kind of sticking power. When I was a kid, my dad would always make a big breakfast for my brother and me. "Nothing like a bowl of grits to stick to your ribs – they’ll stick with you all day," he'd say robustly rubbing his belly. We need things in our life, like grits, and thoughtful films that no one has heard of, to stick to our ribs as we work our way through this life.

The sticking point of Henry’s Crime was the revelation, of course; or rather the revelation that begat a revelation. The advice Henry got was actually much richer then just robbing the bank; with it came a heartfelt plea from a long-time inmate who Henry looked up to like a father. The older man could see the emptiness in Henry’s young life; the flat affect and overt passivity that imprisons him far more than any iron-barred door. When Henry tells him that there is nothing he really loves about life, no vocation or anyone in particular, his mentor tells him that he must find something. He must find something to really care about – to feel really passionate about, something that he really wants and then to put everything he has into it. To do the crime for which he has done the time is simply the vehicle that gets him to where he needs to go. It’s the grits that sticks to his ribs.

The Maundy Thursday service is the grits of Holy Week. It has enough substance to stick to our ribs to see us through drama of Good Friday and the painful silence of Holy Saturday. It is also the vehicle that gets us to where we need to be. It takes us to the Upper Room; to the contemplation of Jesus’ mortality as well as our own. It leads us to the table, where we dine with Christ, in this Eucharistic way, for both the last and the first time. It leads us into the hands of Christ to whom we learn to entrust our feet and our spirits. It set us on the path of this annual pilgrimage into the longest of dark nights, enshrouds us with all its dread and despair, betrayal and denial. It leads us with great care into the very hands of God, in whom is found every revelation that leads us to every thing we have and ever will care about. And it leads us to an end; into that ending place where all new life must begin.