Sunday Mornings with Big Mitch: Ep. 6

00:00:10
Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories. This next story is about a friend of mine. We’re close in age, but have little else in common. Mitchell Rutledge, a.k.a. Big Mitch, was born Black and poor in Georgia. I was born kind of brown and middle-class in New Jersey. He never met his father. I still talk to my ninety-four-year-old father every week. He dropped out of high school in his early teens and was illiterate into his early twenties. I was surrounded by books growing up and finished graduate school in my early thirties. Big Mitch spent the last forty-four years of his life in Alabama prisons for killing a man. But this is not a story about an innocent man sentenced to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Big Mitch never denied the crime or made excuses for it. This is the story of my friend’s spiritual transformation while serving his life sentence. It’s also about a friendship. Only God could have engineered a friendship that began with a single Sunday morning call. Through these weekly conversations, I hope you come to know and love him as much as I do. Here’s Episode Six. My conversation. On February eighteenth, twenty twenty-four, will Mitch kick things off reading one of his original poems, “Invitation to Love.”

00:01:40
Speaker 2: This is a free call from an incarcerated individual at Alabama Department of Corrections. To accept this free call, press one; to refuse this free call, press two. Thank you for using Securus. You may start the conversation now.

00:02:00
Speaker 3: Coming up as a youth, I never really understood love because when I was coming up, I don’t think I was told I was loved, well, one time, but I knew my mother loved, even though she never said it. But it was just something there that—the way, the thing she did and what she did—show me she loved. I knew that type of love right there, but just never just really understood love. So, traveling through life, I always thought when people said that they loved you that it was a joke because I never really heard it. I think I heard it one time from my great-great-aunt, and she would always say, “Well, I loved you, a little rout,” because she said I look like my grandfather. But I never saw it when I was out there in society, never saw it in the streets, and, and it, it just was a word that I just didn’t believe it. I, I thought, I thought it was a joke. So when I met Sister Willian and she told me that she loves me—well, I didn’t understand it for real. Well, she meant it because I heard it so many times, so I really didn’t believe it. But as time went on, I realized that she really did loved me. And so what I did, as time went on, I written a poem type of “Invitation to Love.” And I written it because of her and the love that she introduced me to, her, and let me know that it was real. You know, eventually I had other individuals as well. It’d go “Imitation to Love.” Like so many peoples in life, I have heard of Love. However, Love has never invited me into her presence. I was heartbroken because from what I am always heard, Love was free. Money could not buy her. So I got down on my knees and, in a sincere cry, called out to Love, demand an answer of her absence in my life. Within moments, a feeling so wonderful came upon me. A present so bright appeared. A sweet voice said, “I am the foundation upon which the creative stands.” It replied, “How can I serve you?” I said, “Save me! I am lost in this cruel world. Peace and on my life. With you in my life, I could conquer my fears and overcome all my adversities. With you in my life, I could be healed of all the pain and suffering I have faced it. With you, I can become positive and productive. I can grow and become the person God intended me to become.” Love responded, “Your request has been granted.” As time passed, I lived. I forgot my request. Within a moment, Lois, you appeared. Love appeared through you. That’s “Imitation to Love” right there.

00:05:29
Speaker 1: As Mitch reflected on his own life, he discovered many instances where God had tried to reach out to him, but he just wasn’t ready.

00:05:39
Speaker 3: As I looked back all my life since I met God, I can go back further. Before I was arrested, I was coming from my grandmother’s house, and some old ladies on the opposite side of the street that knew me, you know. And they had responded; they said, “Uh, boy, are you gonna stay out of prison this time?” You know? I just said, “Yes, ma’am.” And so their house was about on the same side of the street that they lived on, right across the street from the abandoned church. And as I’m woking, I heard something say, “Uh, step inside.” So, so, anyway, I stepped inside this abandoned church. And when I—it’s had a little, like, at the bottom. It still had a little rail where, you know, I guess the door was where you had to step over there. And I stepped over there and stepped inside. And as soon as I stepped inside the door, all the way in the back of the church to my left. It was in December, and the song was coming directly down through that window, shining straight down to that door. And, uh, as soon as I stepped inside the door, something came home. I had no, I knew what it was, so I said, “Beamless, this the only thing I knew.” So I still welcome out to church and, leaning abroad, and forgot about it.

00:07:11
Speaker 1: And you’ve been listening to one heck of his story. You’ve been listening to the poetry of this man, and the theology, and so much more. When we come back, more of Episode Six, “Sunday Mornings with Big Mitch,” here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, and I’m inviting you to help Our American Stories celebrate this country’s two hundred and fiftieth birthday, coming soon. If you want to help inspire countless others to love America like we do, and want to help us bring the inspiring and important stories told here about a good and beautiful country, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Our American Stories. Go to OurAmericanStories.com and click the donate button. Any amount helps. Go to OurAmericanStories.com and give ‘m. And we continue with Our American Stories and with “Sunday Mornings with Big Mitch.” Episode Six. In a new prison environment, Mitch finds a young man huddled under a table reading what turned out to be the Bible. A familiar force led Mitch to join him against his better judgment. Here’s Big Mitch.

00:08:35
Speaker 3: I got him on the table and talk to him, and he cancil asking him, “How did he know God was real?” He told him to said, “His mama said, if you want no Gods, really, as God to touch it.” So I got down on my knees, and you don’t want nobody to see me break because that was a sign of weakness at that time, and that’s, that’s the way I feel. So I waited there if I want to sleep, and I pray and asked God to touch me, where spirit came over and it began to change his life. So I went on to their throw and filled praying.

00:09:12
Speaker 4: And that’s when I realized that same spirit that I felt when I went in that church, for the same spirit that came over me that time when I prayed in the county jail and the time after that.

00:09:26
Speaker 3: So God had reached out to me way even over.

00:09:31
Speaker 4: there, but I didn’t know.

00:09:33
Speaker 3: And then as I continue to pray and get to know God, then, as you know, then I understood that what God got for you, you came missed.

00:09:42
Speaker 1: And God just continued to enter and to save Mitch’s life in more ways than one, leaving him to wonder, “Why me, Lord? Why me?”

00:09:54
Speaker 3: See, I’d have been on the deil bed, and more than one time—more than three times—I had off interview paralyzed from neck down. But C2, C3, C4, C5, and C6 of my server vertebrate was on the verge of crashing. I didn’t even know it. He saved me from that, and I was diagnosed with the tumor in my digestic tract. Here they told me it was cancer in society. When I went out there, they told me it was free canclor, and so they told me said, “Don’t worry about it, is it hadn’t spread.” So it didn’t spread, so thank God for that. But I didn’t been through a lot of stuff. Just almost died last year, my hall. I read there below twenty-one percent. And then I laid in here for four to five months like that. And they said that they didn’t know why I didn’t have a heart attack. Use, my heart used to knock me out at night, just beating so fast.

00:10:56
Speaker 5: It just knocked me out.

00:10:58
Speaker 3: But the power of God and has continued to rescue me and continue to save me. God just gave me favor. And I’m a good person. I got a good spirit about man. I got a good personality. I’m just a likable guy. And like I said, that stopped a lot of foolishness from happening. One time, a guy waiting to staff the guy up, but he wouldn’t do it because I’m standing there. He didn’t wane that. He told me later on, he said, “Well, Miss, I ain’t want to make no mistake and hits you.” God killed me there, you know, because if I was moved, boo boo boo would have stamped him up, because that’s what he did. That’s, that’s kind of the type of stuff he did. He did stuff like that. He would stamped you up for things that me and you considered to be foolish. But he’ll do it. But anyway, he’s just other of those things that if God then used me in so many different ways, and I thank God, but I took it like, but God didn’t allow me to save so many others.

00:12:01
Speaker 1: Life with his newfound purpose in life, revealed to him by God. It shares another poem he wrote.

00:12:09
Speaker 3: I wrote a poem called “The Book of Life.” And one of the reasons that I wrote it is because of the way I had lived my life, the way I had walked through the early part of my life—blind, confused, lost, I was ignorant, and I was foolish. And so I said, “Well, man, I need to write something that I can give away to somebody and they can read it and maybe it’ll help them not make the same mistakes that I made.” And I called it to “The Book of Life.” But I knew it couldn’t be no whole book, so I had to really, really write it in a mound where it can be show but it would be powerful. But it can also be like “The Book of Life,” you know. And so that’s why I wrote it. And here it go, “The Book of Life,” coming toth from that shadow of nothingness, seeking my purpose for my existence. While on my quest, I found myself on a path without meaning and in direction, without knowledge of the present fear of hopelessness. However, life placed it me here. While growing in darkness.

00:13:30
Speaker 5: Eating from the fruits of the trees in the midst of my garden, I truly understanding which trees to eat from. And my growth and development, I became parsing from the fruits I ate to tell them, also parsing everything I touched.

00:13:49
Speaker 3: The parson consumed in my life and every life and my mist. I became nomadic, lost and confused. As I traveled in the willingness state of my parsingness state, without understanding and knowledge of who I am and my purpose for existing. At that point of self-destruction, I heard a peaceful, loving voice speaking to me and the nothingness of my existence, saying, “Eat from the fruits from the trees in the midst of my God. You will be healed and save.” I accident, “What and who are you?” The God said, “I am the Spirit of Everlasting. I am loved, peach, hope, your mercy, understanding, knowledge, reasons.” I am the voice of timeless meaning and wonders. As I eat of these fruits of these trees, a dull fail hail from my eyes. I thought, for the first time, I began to understand myself. I began to grow in knowledge of life and the meaning of it. I knew my purpose, my reason for existing. I am a messenger of the Everlassing Spirit. The voice of Time is meanings and wonders. All the eels of life cannot defeat you. Not hopelessness nor despair owning. You can defeats you. It’s from the fruits of these trees and experience and relationship with the vase of time. Listen, meanings and wonderess, and see for the first time, a messenger. So yes, that’s “The Book of Life.”

00:15:39
Speaker 1: As a disciple of God, Mitch knows all too well how to guide his fellow inmates back to the right path through knowledge, through experience, and when it comes to motivating troubled youth, he does things his own way.

00:15:54
Speaker 3: I used to speak to youth proofs coming through home and for, oh, probably pass seven, eight years. And I told the warden at that time, and I told all of them, I said, “I’m not gonna get into this fuel factored thing because of a skin straight thing.” It just fear, because that’s I want to momentary. You know, fear only lands as long as you need. And you see what I’m saying. But I said, “I want to give them some got to be with them when they’re out there involved in things, and they can recall the knowledge and the information that they didn’t receive.” So, yeah, every time I talk to them, I wasn’t trying to scare them for real; I’m trying to give them some information. I told him, “I’m trying to wake you up. I’m trying to let you be able to see.”

00:16:40
Speaker 1: And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Gregan Hangler and Reagan Habib. And you’ve been listening to Episode Six of “Sunday Mornings with Big Mitch,” and now I think you’re coming to understand why this was such an important friendship I had to bring to bear, to get you to know the man I’d come to know in love. By this point in time in our conversations, I had considered Mitch one of my best friends. “Sunday Mornings with Big Mitch,” Episode Six, here on Our American Stories.