Last evening my sister, my husband, and I attended a screening of the documentary Since I Been Down, which follows the lives of young men and boys from the Hilltop neighborhood in Tacoma, Washington, to prison. For more info, visit https://www.sinceibeendown.com. There’s also an excellent synopsis of the storyline here: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14519366/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1. What follows is my musing after seeing the film.

When someone who has a 777-year prison sentence lives with purpose and hope, that’s God.

When a mother, whose innocent son was shot and killed, forgives—that’s God.

When tattooed men in a prison classroom understand justice as listening to the person next to them, that’s God.

When men who are quarantined from society, for life, choose to give of themselves to the people around them, that’s God.

When men of different races, from opposing gangs, covered with tattoos that censure each other, sit at the same table and joke together, that’s God.

When an older gang member slips $5 to a middle school gang member because he knows that kids’ parents aren’t putting food on the table, that’s God.

When a man who has been shown that he is worth nothing, finds that he is worth something, that’s God.

When fear and self-protection give way to curiosity, and then to the intimacy of shared humanity, that’s God.

When a grandmother forgives the mom who beat her three-year-old granddaughter to death, that’s God.

When a woman stands with the oppressed, and she voices that we are all perpetrators and we are all victims, that’s God.

When a lifer feels free for the brief moments he stands in front of his peers in a prison classroom, that’s God.

God was the Life in this film, though His name was never mentioned.

For where there is courage, compassion, and creativity, that’s God.

Where there is forgiveness, faithfulness, and friendship, that’s God.

Where there is hope, humility, and humor, that’s God.

In the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey visits the richest man in town—Mr. Potter—and begs for help when he is at the end of his rope. After grilling George about his assets, and finding the only monetary asset he has is a $500 life insurance policy, Mr. Potter tells him, “You’re worth more dead than alive.” George Bailey stumbles from Mr. Potter’s office and finds his way to a bridge, where he would have ended his life, were it not for a tattered angel who showed him his worth without reference to money.

Many men and women have been told by those of us with money that they are worth more dead than alive.

When beauty and passion arise in a place where men are left for dead, that’s God.

God, who was tried, tortured, and killed, emerged from a guarded tomb, alive. And He stands with those who are tried, sentenced, locked away, and guarded, and—through them—shows us what it looks like to be alive.