On the Row

AM Psalm 95*, 88 • PM Psalm 91, 92
Gen. 47:1-26 • 1 Cor. 9:16-27 • Mark 6:47-56

* for the Invitatory

Though I spent 42 years teaching English, I have been an actor most of my life (and what is teaching, of course, but acting?), but I have never been involved in a more profound theatrical experience than the one I have had working with the Prison Story Project’s On The Row production.

Most folks at St. Paul’s know about On The Row. In 2016, thanks to the efforts of the Prison Story Project director Kathy McGregor, we were permitted to work for six months with eleven inmates on Arkansas’ Death Row, housed at the Varner Supermax Penitentiary in Gould. Working in a hallway between the visitors’ center cells, Kathy, Matt Henriksen, and I engaged these men in a writing/storytelling group for several hours a month. Everything they wrote went eventually to Troy Schremmer, who assembled the material into a readers’ theatre script. Our first performance (I am honored to have a role in the staged reading) was on October 8, 2016, on Death Row—performing it for the men who wrote it. Since that time, On The Row has been performed not only in Arkansas but also in Colorado, North Carolina, Indiana, and West Virginia. We will go on what we envision to be our final tour—this one to juvenile detention centers throughout Arkansas—in May.

The most moving part of the experience has been getting to know the men we worked with. Most of them are middle-aged or older. On average, they have been on Death Row for over two decades. They live alone in their cells 23 hours a day. They are deeply thoughtful, wry, caring, and sometimes quite funny. But uniformly, they live with the remorse that has grown from their circumstances and actions in earlier, different lives—of dysfunction, substance abuse, and violence. They tell the stories of their lives in On The Row.

When I read Psalm 88, appointed for this morning, I think of these men.

“I am overwhelmed with troubles
and my life draws near to death.
I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am like one without strength.

“From my youth I have suffered and been close to death;
I have borne your terrors and am in despair.”

“You have taken from me friend and neighbor—
darkness is my closest friend.”

All of us know we will eventually die. None of us exists in the condition these men live with—knowing that someday, someone will come into our cell and tell us, “On this day, the state of Arkansas will kill you.”

But even though these men live in a world that resonates with Psalm 88, they rise up daily as creatures of God, as they did during the On The Row experience. They believe, as the psalmist writes in verse 1, “Lord, you are the God who saves me.” Indeed, I can attest that they are worthy of being saved.

Written by David Jolliffe

At St. Paul’s, David sings in the choir, helps to coordinate the Tippy McMichael lectures, and supports the Prison Story Project.