Proximity

What does his work have to do with Christmas? Everything.

Several times during our 30-hour drive we had to put his story-telling on pause. At first it was fascinating to hear how he arrived at Harvard Law School as a Black dude from Delaware feeling out of place and unsure why he was there; how he took a practicum that took him to Atlanta, Georgia, to work with death row inmates; how he was sent to a prisoner on death row to tell him that he was not at risk of execution during the next year; how he learned from that one conversation how important it is to be inside with these inmates, talking with them face to face.

“Proximity” is the word he uses to describe it.

Then his stories revealed more of the horrors of men and women wrongly convicted, the horrors of men and women wrongly sentenced, the horrors of men and women wrongly treated, with justice denied and execution piled upon execution. The worst stories involved teens locked up in solitary confinement in adult prisons for 14 plus years, with no advocates, no resources, only a trail of poverty, abuse and mental health issues. We had to put it on pause just to breath. It was intense!

But sometimes we put it on pause to weep over the sheer grace of it all. He showed up. He didn’t have to. Nobody expected him to. Nobody else did. But Bryan Stevenson believes in the power of proximity, the power of being there in person to affirm their humanity, to affirm their dignity, to validate their worth in a system that takes it all away, to hear their stories firsthand. And being there with them always reveals more of the narrative than anyone has yet heard.

The amazing thing is that Bryan Stevenson doesn’t just show up and listen, he makes their fight his fight and doesn’t stop fighting until something is done.

The opening lines of the Gospel of John tell the Christmas story in this way.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it …

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

Proximity. God also knows the power of proximity and came to us in our captivity and darkness to bring light, life, grace and truth, in the flesh.

Bryan says he learned proximity from his grandmother, who would hug him so hard it hurt. The last words she spoke to him on her death bed were: “Bryan do you still feel me hugging you? I’m always going to be hugging you.”

Yeah. Bryan Stevenson embodies God’s Christmas hug to me and to so many others whose lives mean nothing to anybody but God.

The Rev. Dr. Mary Graves has served as pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church in San Carlos since 1996 where she is active in local mission partnerships. She is a member of the Peninsula Solidarity Cohort, a group of some 40 interfaith leaders working for justice and compassion in San Mateo County.