Fog

Today, after visiting with the men in the jail, I drove out to the state penitentiary to get indoctrinated, printed and ID'd. The topic in the jail was anger. Dick asked if anyone disagreed with the author that anger could be useful. One man missed the point, talking about how making others angry was a game or a way he manipulated others. Another man said he got angry when he called his fellows to prayer (he has made himself muzzain and apparently cultural police as well) and they stay in bed. A third man asked him, "Why is that your business? Are you Allah's bailiff?" At the end of the session I thanked them for their openness and willingness to share with the rest of us. The muzzain, who has been confrontational with me previously, licked eyes but did not answer, The other two shook my hand as they left.

At Wyoming, I was amazed at the intimacy of having my prints taken. The woman DOC cop stood next to me and gently but firmly held my hand and printed me 4 times, twice for the State, twice for Homeland Security. Our bodies were side by side as she rocked each finger on the ink pad and then rocked it on the paper, our arms entwined, her leading the dance and me following.

Afterwards, my escort brought me back to the waiting room and the receptionist called the Chaplain's office. She apologized to him for not reading his note carefully; I was supposed to see him first and get printed second. Now, he had a service to conduct, and I would have to reschedule. I was amused that he did not come out to tell me, and although she apologized to him, she did not to me. Why was I not angry? I merely shrugged and smiled and drove the hour home. And watched the fog rise up off the snow banks, like ghosts rising from dead bodies, drifting across the Thruway, lost souls looking to catch a ride, torn to shreds by the heavy material semis ignoring them in haste.

I got home in mid-afternoon, with two large coffees and three donuts under my belt, but my limbs were heavy and I could hardly get into the house. I fell into my easy chair and slept for three hours. Then I drove back to Brockport, played duplicate bridge for three hours and came home. As I write this. I once again am fighting exhaustion. I will soon drag myself upstairs and struggle to get undressed before I fall into bed.

Unity

Somewhere, somehow, I got the mistaken belief that I had to be part of a team. I had to follow coach's orders, remember the plays and do my part to beat the opponents. Well, that is creating a disconnect for me. It doesn't fit my theology nor my social theory. It is all well and good for a particular purpose to form a team and work with unity of purpose. I see that in the hospital trauma unit: when the injured person arrives, the twenty people in the room transform from a mob into a noisy machine. A nurse stands in the corner recording, another at the medicines and supplies, feeding the doctors tubes, vials, syringes and IV bags, a tech taking the blood for testing, the radiology tech pushing a plate under the patient and swinging the arm overhead. And when the patient is stabilized, removed to surgery or declared, the machine disintegrates until the next time.

What is the model for Prison Ministry? Well, apparently it is not a well-oiled machine. We seem to get by with the minimum planning, management and reporting. We seem to be a group of individuals with more or less common goals, visions and intentions working together just barely enough to get the volunteer to the prisoner. And the jail gives the same impression. No military order, not even a schedule like a high school, things happen when they happen, and the food distribution seems to govern. Visitors, classes, groups and everything except security bows in that direction. Individual volunteers find a niche and live in it. One of my fellow workers has been going in to visit prisoners at the same time of the same weekday for 15 years. If a prisoner wants help, the other inmates tell her, "Wait to see ES when she comes in. You can depend on her to be here."

What is my own model for my own life? Not as a member of a long-standing team, certainly. I am more like a family member, one who lives in another town, but whom a sister or cousin can call with good news, or ask for help making bail. But that tension with the team concept remains for me. I am not a serene individual alone by choice and among others by choice; I constantly want approval. I "check in" with people much more than they want. Silence hurts. I want to be greeted when I arrive and missed when I am gone.

Because of this tension in myself, I watch the prisoners and ex-offenders I meet. Where are they in that particular process? Are they comfortable in who they are and where they are? How does their need to belong, their need to get approval feed into their criminal behavior, their understanding of the judicial process? By watching this, I have had the opportunity to reflect with a few and give them a perspective on themselves they might not have gotten elsewhere. When that happens, it is like a little nod from the Authority for me.