Joint Venture

“I was a working journalist; I sat and listened. My reporter’s curiosity and detachment often were replaced by a kind of awe. Listening to and watching the men talk about their crimes, their traumas, and their struggles before and after they had been imprisoned, I was moved by the depth of their honesty and the deep healing that I was witnessing.” That’s how my friend Robert Rosenthal reflected in his first experience seeing San Quentin’s GRIP (Guiding Rage Into Power) program in person. What he didn’t know at the time was that he’d return to interact with the group more than a decade later following the suicide of his son, Ben. “I never imagined that I would return not as an observer, but as a member of their ‘tribe.'” An enlightening and moving essay: My Unexpected Healing at San Quentin. “To be entrusted with someone’s despair is a great privilege and something happens that is very important. You become intimate, vulnerable, worthy of your suffering. It is honest, not hidden and it gives others the opportunity to do the same. To be entrusted models a way of being.”