“I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.”
Leprosy
Leviticus 13:45–46 “The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ 46 He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp.”
The camp sits on a high bluff in the Music City of Nashville surrounded by trees and dense undergrowth. Each encampment is about 100 feet away from the other.
The camp is made up of outcaste sex offenders sentenced to a life of solitude. Each of them keeping to themselves day and night, many with mental illnesses that fail their mixed up minds. Mental illnesses that started for most of them as children in this crazy and sometimes abusive world in which we live.
It is written in Tennessee Law by legislators that sex offenders pose a high risk of engaging in further offenses after release from incarceration. It is also written into law that the public must be able to adequately protect themselves and their children from these persons.
Those who call this wooded area home have a long list of rules to follow, which is good for society in many cases, but hard for them… Can’t be close to a school, can’t be near children, have to report a change of address or campsite within 48-hours to law enforcement, and the list goes on and on.
Leprosy.