Call to Arms
Yet another post today--I've got to stay in, so why not blog? Well, Sunday night 3 of us from church held a women's Catholic Bible Study at the jail. Almost an entire wing showed up (24 women)! The class went very well, with the women responding positively and sharing a lot about their own lives. I opened up as well and shared things I rarely share with even my closest friends. It was an intimate feeling, talking about Christ and hardships and how God can pull us out of even the toughest situations. After the class some of the women came up to us and chatted for a small while. Many of them (about 16) wanted us to come visit them one-on-one so the next day I went to see the woman who had seemed the most supportive. We talked for a long time--even while a huge fight broke out in the jail. All of the COs went yelling and running in the pod and suddenly a primal female scream erupted: it sustained for a long time and was full of pain. Things like this happen all the time there. I asked my companion how she deals with it (earplugs and headphones.) She was very happy I came to see her and I learned so much from her faith. Really, she was like the religious worker and I like the prisoner. But she kindly mentioned that she felt Jesus had brought me there to see her. Of course that made me feel good! When I came home, however, a letter was waiting for me from a death row prisoner I've known a long time. He's one I wouldn't claim to know deeply--we don't share strong bonds of trust--for no particular reason other than human diversity. We just never "clicked." Well, this letter screamed out at me insults, the most powerful of which had to be the claim that I had no God in me. It hit me hard because I had been flying high from my visit with my new buddy at the jail. I'd risen to a messenger from Jesus only to crash on the rocks of godlessness, all within a couple of hours. Ouch. Of course I recovered from both the flattery and the insults: after all, this is the type of work this is. One Baptist religious worker called it "torture" as I met him in the jail, a term I defiantly renounce. It isn't torture dealing with prisoners and their problems, oftentimes their mental illnesses and personal hells. It's torture for me to sit still knowing I could be sitting in front of someone who desperately needs a listening ear. No, that sounds too saccharinely-righteous. Rather, it's torture for me to lazily know I'm wasting my time, wasting the life in me, and for what? So I go into the prisons and jail even though they smell like urine, they sound like pain and they look like dungeons. Join me!!! There is no reward like there is with children. Children, you teach them and they smile, you pat them on the back and they giggle--a piece of candy heals the deepest scar for a moment. But prisoners: drug addicts, hookers, hungry eyes staring at you and barely hearing what you say: You can rattle off some fond cliche to no avail...they have to go back to a crowded cell block with screams and violence and insults. To affect them you need to have the Hand of God on you and you need to push them seven days a week, twelve months a year, for many years--never letting them down. If you let them down, you need to start all over again, because trust has been broken, respect lost; their scabbed wounds have been opened once more. They've always known they couldn't trust you, but you tricked them: they'll never trust you again. The second time around is an uphill battle. So, there is no reward in prison ministry; nothing but the knowledge that you're fulfilling a much needed and very confusing command of the Lord. And the hope that each second you spend in such cess-pools will somehow lift you and the prisoners an inch closer to heaven--an inch farther from hell. There is one more strong proof for the existence of God: religious workers in prisons and jails. There is no $, no approval from the outside world, no comfort, no safety, no positive energy. One needs God to go into such places, the General leading us into a spiritual battle. And we trust this General because like all good generals, he doesn't ask of His Army that which He isn't willing to do Himself. These dank pits were His home as He awaited His Crucifixion. Prison ministry: won't you try it? The lack of reward now promises a better reward in the future.
2 Comments:
You're WAY more holy than I could ever be...your prayer life is really delevoped. I need to learn a thing or 2 from my sweety....
wow...I'm glad there are people like you in the world...
I don't know...it sounds really scary and i'm not sure I'm that kinda girl...but I'll pray about it...we'll see what Mom and Dad say (not the neurotic ones...the other ones)
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