Between my oddly compelling biblical lectures about drugs, my Semitic facial features, thin-cut build, age and long brown hair, I have earned a nickname in prison. Actually, two nicknames.

Most inmates call me Jesus, except for the Muslim inmates, who call me Isa (that's the Arabic name for Jesus, a prophet in the Islamic tradition).

Nobody worships me, obviously enough. The nickname falls more into the category mostly of affectionate ribbing. Still, it's always a little unsettling when a 6'5" 205-pound cocaine dealer starts to sing old Negro spirituals at me each time he walks by.

I spend my days teaching yoga to crackheads and heroin junkies and telling wide-eyed fascinated 18 and 19-year-old corn-rowed small-timers about Ethiopian late Emperor Haile Selassie's kinship and lineage to the Bible's King Solomon (for those readers not in the know, Haile Selassie is otherwise known as Ras Tafari, the unwitting father of the Rastafarian movement).

And virtually all the prisoners, hyperactive impulsive males 17-60 years of age, are fascinated to hear about the role of the Hebrew plant called kaneh-bos in the Old and New Testaments and the later Quran. Most people (and prisoners), it seems, have never considered that scripture contains our culture's first drug restrictions, and these jailbirds in here gather around me two or three times each day to learn. Mostly, I use scripture to discourage them from taking pills and powders (not by advocating the Bible's kaneh-bos, but by pointing out the Bible's warnings about refining any drugs, beyond the natural forms in which God/Evolution created them).

Last night, a funny thing happened, though. I caused a minor miracle of sorts: the whole cell block of 53 men, all laughing and chanting, "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus" over and over. "Je-ZUS, Jee-ZUS, Jee-ZUS."

Sometimes, at night, the cell block's African-American men partake in a now classic ritual game of rhyming, swearing insults, traded back and forth with mock ferocity masking adoration and respect for one another.

There are a few to no rules, other than that participants use the words "muthafucka" and "n-gger" as often as possible (but white guys can't really say the last word to a black man). The audience's hoots and hollers serve both as judging and instigation, and it can sound downright ugly at times. The hand waving, fist-pumping, jumping crowd energy frequently brings guard running into the midst of the fray, because it looks like a gang fight (and is often used to conceal contraband trades and other shenanigans).

Last night it got louder and longer than I had ever heard it. I was trying to study scripture, but there was no reading, no sleeping, no nothing. The noise was just too intense from the "hip-hop slam" going on.

Finally, I couldn't stand it any longer. I just had to interject, and something very strange happened. I don't know if I can explain it to someone who wasn't there, but I'll try my best.

Have you ever been at a loud party or nightclub, trying to carry on a conversation above the noise, when suddenly and inexplicably, everyone else just seems to run out of steam at the same time and your voice seems to carry impossibly well, just falling into a rhythmic void as if God created it just to embarrass you?

Well, right as I spoke last night, that happened to me.

I'm as pasty white lily-assed as a guy could be, and I've never even tried to "rap" before, but last night I think I got pulled into some kind of African collective consciousness, because suddenly, out of nowhere, in a perfect sonic gap, I began to rhyme with impressive cadence:

Suddenly, all heads turned to the white guy on the bunk beneath the stairs (me), and a few guys made a beat for me, chanting "Go! Go! Go!" They were all staring at me, so I had to keep going, or face a roomful of catcalls and insults. Before I could stop myself, I finished:

That's when the whole room, black and white (and even the guy from El Salvador) started laughing, clapping and chanting as one: "Jee-ZUS, Jee-ZUS, Jee-ZUS!"

It could never happen again, and that's probably a good thing. It put an end to the hip-hop slam, and more importantly, it did so on a happy note. I had the last word, and it was a good one, a fun one.

Is there racism in prison? There can be, but when it happens, it's not about differences. It's about fear and hatred. Time after time, I have found that humor (self-deprecating, if necessary, but fearless) and curiosity are more compelling than negativity. Time after time, I have seen that prisoners are more bonded in common captivity than we are separated by color or creed. God's blessings are upon us all, even sinners.