Rottnek, Fred

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Conversations on Jesuit Higher EducationVolume 51 Article 26February 2017Over the Transom: How 15 Years in JailTransformed My TheologyFred RottnekFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/conversationsRecommended CitationRottnek, Fred (2017) "Over the Transom: How 15 Years in Jail Transformed My Theology," Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education:Vol. 51 , Article 26.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/conversations/vol51/iss1/2648 CONVERSATIONS ON JESUIT HIGHER EDUCATION                                                                                                                                          OVER THE TRANSOMOur capacity for growth and sustained ministry comesfrom experience, wisdom, and persistence. There are noshortcuts. I fear that we educators try to package trans-formative life experiences into a syllabus or a sign-insheet. We want students to have the life-changingepiphanies, but we shy away from preparing them forthe turmoil and heartache that contributes to self-knowl-edge. Often the transformation takes decades – over thecourse of our education and our professional lives.  Or,using a more Ignatian metaphor, we want the revelationwithout the cannonball.        My cannonball hit over 30 years ago. And the last15 years of my convalescence have been in jail.My Path to JailI was a good Catholic boy. The middle child of three ina household of working-class parents in Saint LouisCounty, Missouri, I grew up with the very best of inten-tions. I was introverted and bookish, but I wanted to dosomething with my life worthy of the talents that Godgave me. And I cultivated those academic talents at a fe-rocious pace.       My cannonball came at age 22, but I couldn’t name itas major depression until I was 25. It was manifest insome spectacularly bad choices: leaving a full scholarshipin graduate school at Harvard and, later, abandoning thepath of becoming a Jesuit after eight days in the novitiate.After my diagnosis, a new drug called Prozac, and someinitial years of psychotherapy, I entered medical school atSaint Louis University.  The path of medicine as a voca-tion did not come all at once.  It required effort to find myauthentic self and experiences of service that createdmeaning with different definitions of success. I chose elec-tives that resonated with my upbringing and my values,including electives with the city’s homeless population.After graduation, I found my comfort zone in a familymedicine residency focused on community-based expe-riences with the poor and underserved.       After my family medicine residency, I joined theprogram’s faculty, and through a new contract with theCounty Health Department I started my time as theMedical Director of Corrections Medicine. In the shel-ters, I had already begun caring for the frequent fliers ofthe criminal justice system  –  the homeless, the poor,and those without resources. Now, behind bars, I hadstaff support and resources; professionally, in my mind,this was a step up.       I entered my work within the criminal justice systemwith another important tool – the study of theology. Justa few months before I started in correctional health care,I enrolled in the Health Care Mission graduate programat Aquinas Institute of Theology. I learned how to en-gage in focused, critical reflection, how to articulate mat-ters of mission across intersections of professions bothinside and outside of Catholic health care, how to re-spect the human side of theology, and how to be patientand grateful for my own convoluted journey.In Jail, Life’s Lessons AreTaught with a 2x4We love jail and prison stories. Correctional facilitiesprovide interesting and intense intersections. As a result,the correctional health care setting is an ideal setting fortheological reflection. People are at their best and theirworst – often on the same day. Some emotions are raw,some are absent, and others are disciplined. There arehuge power imbalances – allowing for great charity orgreat brutality.         Sam was a patient of mine in juvenile detention. Hewas charged with raping and almost killing a seven-year-old girl. The day he turned 13, he was certified asan adult and transferred to the jail to stand trial as anHow 15 Years in Jail Transformed My TheologyBy Fred Rottnek1Rottnek: Over the Transom: How 15 Years in Jail Transformed My TheologyPublished by e-Publications@Marquette, 2017                                                                                                                                                                                                               49adult. He spent most of the next three years in the jail’spsychiatric infirmary. At trial, faced with a life-without-parole sentence, he accepted a plea bargain and will notbe eligible for parole until he is 64. Both of Sam’s parentshad criminal records related to drugs, and they had lostcustody of Sam’s two younger siblings. During his in-carceration in our jail, Sam went from a D and F studentto an A student; he was able to adhere to a behavior planso he could shoot hoops on a daily basis; and he grewin stature and personal responsibility. Now he willspend the rest of his life behind bars.       Caring for a 13-year-old in an adult jail forced me toask whether theology could explain a child committingsuch a horrendous act.  I had been raised in a popularculture and in a church that divided people into goodand bad. I had been taught to stay on the safe side – withgood, well-intentioned, holy people. Now more thanever, in caring for Sam, these core beliefs were shattered.Sam was a child – a child who had been repeatedly trau-matized by those who should have been caring for him.Labeling Sam as bad didn’t inform my understanding ormy actions. If I were to make sense of Sam, much lesscare for him as a physician, I needed to revisit my mostbasic belief structures on human nature.         A trauma-informed lens was my way in. As chil-dren, none of us aspire to be chemically dependent. Wedon’t aspire to rape and murder. We don’t aspire to bein prison. So, if we find ourselves in these situations,something has gone terribly wrong in our lives. How werespond to those root causes of behavior, our baselinesof normal, affects how we care for those who are incar-cerated. Few of my patients’ choices are as simple asthey may appear. I had to move beyond a good/evil di-chotomy to broader yet very practical questions:  • Do people have value in and of themselves?   • Do human beings have the ability to grow andchange?  • Do people make the best choices based on the datain front of them?  • How does living in an environment of violence,trauma, and toxic stress affect an individual’shealth, well-being, and decision-making?        My answers that came over the past 15 years: Yes,yes, yes, and deeply yes. I have learned that my strengthand resilience as a jail physician comes from a lens ofunderstanding my patient’s behavior even more thanmaking a correct diagnosis. The better a physician listensthe better he practices. Now I can listen far more com-fortably to the senior who has molested children or thepregnant woman who is addicted to heroin. My patientsare now people with unimaginable stories of barriers toflourishing; they are no longer bad or weak or broken.       The Gospels guide us to move beyond the false sim-plicity of good and evil. Jesus taught to people’s behav-ior. Jesus hung out with people often criticized – if notostracized – by their communities, and he enjoyed theircompany. He understood complexity. He pointed indi-viduals and crowds towards self-care, healthy relation-ships, and welcoming communities.       Treating people as evil is too easy. It’s dismissive,and it’s a way we let ourselves off the hook. More im-portantly, it’s a paradigm that does not allow for im-provement of the human condition. Although I cherishmy formal theological education, it was Sam who forcedme to question my beliefs about human nature. In doingso, I became a more effective physician.Professional Formation andMessinessWe may want simple and only somewhat risky lessonsthat result in transformational learning and growth forour students. But, the reality is that transformation andvocation do not occur in a structured course withclearly-defined learning objectives.  We need our can-nonballs to force us to flourish and to live in effectiveservice to others.         Nothing has been tidy about my professional forma-tion. But without my messiness and reflection, my serv-ice and my teaching would have been impossible.       We cannot – and should not – protect our learnersfrom their cannonball experiences and the subsequentmessiness. And we should pray they encounter a Sam.  Fred Rottnek is professor and the director of CommunityMedicine in Family and Community Medicine at Saint LouisUniversity. For the past 15 years, he has practiced in correc-tional health care at the Saint Louis County Department ofPublic Health at the jail and juvenile detention facility.2Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education, Vol. 51, Iss. 1 [2017], Art. 26http://epublications.marquette.edu/conversations/vol51/iss1/26

Over the Transom: How 15 Years in Jail Transformed My Theology

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Over the Transom: How 15 Years in Jail Transformed My Theology

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