I first wrote about Carlos Walker last September after the Returning Citizens Luncheon in Virginia. We’d met the year before when something about his art pulled me in. Since then, we’ve built a friendship through weekly texts, phone calls, and the kind of check-ins that start with “love you, bra.”
Carlos spent 13 years in prison. He’s an artist, an author, and someone who has given away 3,500 books to kids. He’s sold over 14,000 copies of his book, What If?, hand to hand, standing in front of the National Museum of African American History and Culture nearly every day for four years. He doesn’t hide from any part of his story. And that honesty is what makes him one of the most love-centered people I know.
This past winter, we sat in front of a fireplace at a friend’s house in Bethesda, Maryland. We talked about faith, fear, vulnerability, what love actually means, and why sharing your whole story matters more than most people realize.
The Caterpillar Story
One of the most striking things Carlos said was about caterpillars and butterflies.
“People always see the butterfly. But you have to be able to hear the caterpillar story. If you never share that story, people don’t know that they can grow or that they can become something great.”
Carlos lives this. He doesn’t skip over the parts of his life that are hard to talk about. He started with selling candy at 14, then selling drugs, then prison at 24. Not to shock anyone. He just believes that hiding your past robs others of the proof that transformation is possible. Fear says protect your image. Love says share the whole journey.
Love Is Vulnerability
When I asked Carlos how he defines love, he brought it back to prison. He talked about learning to love other men in a place designed to harden people.
“Love is vulnerability. Just being vulnerable. And when you do, it’s not a weakness. It’s a strength.”
He compared the bond to military service or a fraternity. You learn to love by being forced into proximity, then choosing to stay open instead of shutting down. That choice, made in the hardest possible environment, is what makes his understanding of love so grounded.
And Carlos doesn’t just talk about it. He lives it. He has over 3,000 contacts in his phone. When the spirit moves him, he reaches out just to say he loves them. He’s not worried about how it lands.
“I can care less what they may think. I know what they going to feel once I do it.”
Fear lives in what people might think. Love lives in knowing what they’ll feel.
A Box of Crayons
Near the end of our conversation, Carlos shared an idea that had come to him the night before while driving home.
“A box of crayons. Many colors. But the thing about it, they’re all crayons. People, different colors, different genders. You got everything going on. They’re all people. They’re all called to do the same thing and let’s get the picture done. But they all have to work together in their place to get the picture done.”
I love this because it’s so simple and so true. A picture made with one color is boring. The picture needs every crayon in the box. And no crayon gets to decide the others don’t belong.
This feels like something the world needs to hear right now. We spend so much energy sorting ourselves into separate boxes when we’re already in the same one.
Be Fruitful and Multiply
Carlos talked about the difference between leaving money and leaving impact. Money dies off in a generation. Impact multiplies. Then he reframed one of the most well-known verses in the Bible.
“God told you, or in the Bible it says in Genesis, be fruitful and multiply. It wasn’t just dealing with kids, it was dealing with ideas, thoughts. And those thoughts multiplying. But impact does that. And when you impact people, it continuously grow.”
I loved this framing. Most people hear “be fruitful and multiply” and think about having children. Carlos hears it and thinks about planting ideas in people that keep growing long after you’re gone. The 3,500 books he’s given to kids aren’t just books. They’re seeds. And those seeds will produce seeds of their own.
Fear hoards. Love plants.
Why This Matters
This conversation is part of my Heart-Strong Adventure, a year-long exploration of where love and fear show up in our world, especially in the lives of men.
Carlos’s story is a living example of what happens when someone chooses love over fear at every turn. Not once. Every day. In front of a museum. In a text to a friend. In a room full of kids holding books for the first time.
He told me that love flows through you, not just to you. And if you stop giving it because someone didn’t give it back, you cut off the flow for everyone downstream.
That’s a question worth sitting with. Where in your life have you stopped the flow?
If Carlos’s story sparked something in you, I’d love to hear about it. And if someone comes to mind who might need to hear this, please share it with them.
Because the stories we tell each other around the fire have always been how we change.
Learn more about the Heart-Strong Adventure: heart-strong.org
