If I were to ask an inmate what he wants, the first answer would be obvious. When Joe was talking to Commissioner Alexander, he said, "It's wonderful that you are focused on reducing the time some folks spend on parole. But I don't want to get off parole. I want to get ON it!"
But many of the men in State prison have the time and the inclination to think deeper than that. Joe holds an MA in Theology. He has said in other conversations that he wants to have a breather when he gets out. He wants to spend time in the woods, or on a farm with no one around him and no schedules or tasks. After that, he wants to contribute to Cephas' ministry however his talents can fit. These are simple, reasonable and do-able wants. The only disconnect between them and the real world is that he isn't gong to get out on parole any time soon.
Even though recidivism by prisoners released after 20+ years is lowest of all the groups studied (I don't have the statistical reference) Joe is not going to get out. Talking with the men, I can feel the awful contradiction under which they live. They see men who are violent and will injure society when released sentenced to only a few years, and even if they don't adjust well to prison, even if they remain violent in prison, after their term is ended, they leave. Meanwhile, there are men who are imprisoned for crimes they committed as youths, and would never commit again, men for whom the penitentiary system has actually worked. But the parole system will not release them. These are men who have served more than their minimum term, who are penitent, and who have been reformed. But the system can't be sure, and there is a barrier they live behind: once a judge uses the phrase "..to life" the convict may indeed never "earn" release.
In this Lenten season, I shudder that there are people who live under that same fear, that same oppression. What does it do to your soul to think that you may live your whole life clean, sober and pure and then lose it all with one sin? There are those in all three of the major patriarchal religions who believe this, who live in this fear. They talk about Heaven, but they live on the edge of Hell. How can I testify to the reverse? I don't preach in the prisons. That is not my purpose. But my presence there, like Christ's presence on Earth, is testimony to God's love for all his creatures.The Psalmist cried , "I have become a reproach to all my enemies and even to my neighbors, a dismay to those of my acquaintance; when they see me in the street they avoid me. I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind; I am as useless as a broken pot.” God's response was the Incarnation, a concrete assurance of uninterrupted love and forgiveness.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, February 9, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Insecurity
I was once asked "What is the opposite of faith?" The questioner wanted to test me; the 'correct' answer is "certainty." But for me, the opposite is insecurity. Each time something has happened to me that I felt inadequate, unsure or inferior, it was a blow to my faith in myself and my maker. My secretary on Team 16 had a little cartoon from Postal Instant Press of a little black girl. The caption read, "God made me and God don't make trash." I took that cartoon to heart. Lack of self-esteem equates to lack of faith. I must have faith that God made me and he did not make trash. I am valued and valuable.
The prisoners I visited on Friday seemed to read my insecurity. Jim frequently says, "we get as much out of these visits as the inmates do." This visit I got quite a bit. I was overwhelmed by their desire to get me confident so I could do the out-of-prison half of prison ministry. By joining with them, I join their cause. Politically, to work to humanize and make rational the bureaucracy under which they live. Socially, to locate and prepare a place for them, not just an apartment, but a job, opportunity. Spiritually, to create a place of refuge and regeneration for them, which may include a church but definitely includes a community of friends trained to continue the Cephas content, including pricking inflated egos and denying rationalizations and excuses.
I don't feel up to the challenge, and they sensed that. So the session dealt with that. But where do they need support and guidance where they are? If I am going to be present for them, don't I have to focus on them, not me? Don't they?
The prisoners I visited on Friday seemed to read my insecurity. Jim frequently says, "we get as much out of these visits as the inmates do." This visit I got quite a bit. I was overwhelmed by their desire to get me confident so I could do the out-of-prison half of prison ministry. By joining with them, I join their cause. Politically, to work to humanize and make rational the bureaucracy under which they live. Socially, to locate and prepare a place for them, not just an apartment, but a job, opportunity. Spiritually, to create a place of refuge and regeneration for them, which may include a church but definitely includes a community of friends trained to continue the Cephas content, including pricking inflated egos and denying rationalizations and excuses.
I don't feel up to the challenge, and they sensed that. So the session dealt with that. But where do they need support and guidance where they are? If I am going to be present for them, don't I have to focus on them, not me? Don't they?
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Contracts
My group got hijacked last night. That is a great event. I asked the question, "What happened in the last week that challenged your positive attitude?" And we began discussing the refrigerator.
It seems that one man had eaten a salad and a glass of juice from his own resources, and had gone out to have a smoke. When he got back, someone had drunk the rest of his juice and put the empty container in the cooler. When he complained, no one admitted guilt, but several complained that they, too, had lost food. My question took the lid off the simmering anger he felt, and the resentment the others felt that he was accusing them all and treating all of them as the guilty party.
I was able, before the session ended, to lead them all to an agreement that he had a legitimate gripe, lead him to apologize for taking it out on everyone, and for them all to understand that there is a contract amongst them, as part of their agreement with the House, to respect each other's property rights. They understood that the Counselor and the house manager would be convening a business meeting to decide how to enforce the rules of property.
The discussion was how people react to violations. We discussed avoidance, blindness, aggressive resistance and pro-active generosity. We discussed gluttony, disrespect and loneliness and even ignorance as motives, too. We did not solve anything, but I was flying high as I left.
On the way home, one of the comments we didn't follow through came back to me. "I feel just like the folks who moved to Webster; I want to put distance between myself and this stealing." I thought about suburban sprawl and the escapism of white flight. The media have been full of stories and opinions about the causes of the City School District's failures, of the high crime rate in the City, and so forth. I wondered about the unexplored motives of people leaving the City starting right after WWII. There was the appeal of home ownership and clean healthy suburban life, but how much avoidance of the responsibility of city citizenship was there, underneath? Finding and moving to a good school system instead of making the one you are in better? Of taking responsibility for reporting crime and making sure the legal system worked rather than fleeing the crowding and the crime? Of learning to get along with "the Other" or avoiding the possibility of having to cope with diversity on one's own block?
The halfway house/transition house system is designed to help people learn how to fit in to society as they are released from institutions. But what the heck are we teaching? I concluded once again that I can't be an activist in just one little area, I can't limit my opinions and mission to one topic. There are only a few degrees of separation between aftercare for a parolee and suburban sprawl, between a recovering addict and the no child left behind system.
It seems that one man had eaten a salad and a glass of juice from his own resources, and had gone out to have a smoke. When he got back, someone had drunk the rest of his juice and put the empty container in the cooler. When he complained, no one admitted guilt, but several complained that they, too, had lost food. My question took the lid off the simmering anger he felt, and the resentment the others felt that he was accusing them all and treating all of them as the guilty party.
I was able, before the session ended, to lead them all to an agreement that he had a legitimate gripe, lead him to apologize for taking it out on everyone, and for them all to understand that there is a contract amongst them, as part of their agreement with the House, to respect each other's property rights. They understood that the Counselor and the house manager would be convening a business meeting to decide how to enforce the rules of property.
The discussion was how people react to violations. We discussed avoidance, blindness, aggressive resistance and pro-active generosity. We discussed gluttony, disrespect and loneliness and even ignorance as motives, too. We did not solve anything, but I was flying high as I left.
On the way home, one of the comments we didn't follow through came back to me. "I feel just like the folks who moved to Webster; I want to put distance between myself and this stealing." I thought about suburban sprawl and the escapism of white flight. The media have been full of stories and opinions about the causes of the City School District's failures, of the high crime rate in the City, and so forth. I wondered about the unexplored motives of people leaving the City starting right after WWII. There was the appeal of home ownership and clean healthy suburban life, but how much avoidance of the responsibility of city citizenship was there, underneath? Finding and moving to a good school system instead of making the one you are in better? Of taking responsibility for reporting crime and making sure the legal system worked rather than fleeing the crowding and the crime? Of learning to get along with "the Other" or avoiding the possibility of having to cope with diversity on one's own block?
The halfway house/transition house system is designed to help people learn how to fit in to society as they are released from institutions. But what the heck are we teaching? I concluded once again that I can't be an activist in just one little area, I can't limit my opinions and mission to one topic. There are only a few degrees of separation between aftercare for a parolee and suburban sprawl, between a recovering addict and the no child left behind system.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Feet of Clay?
The news about George Alexander, the Chair of the NYS State Parole Commissioners resigning over a laptop allegedly taken from his office over a year ago has finally settled down. The opinions I have heard are that he pushed too hard for reform. Many other people have sadly added him to the long list of politicos who feel they are above the law. I am troubled by both because they assume the worst. The first group are ready to believe there is a conspiracy, the second group that no one in politics is honest. Is there no middle ground?
I personally go back to my faith. I believe that we are all sinners, and that we cannot always avoid doing the wrong thing. I have a strong sense of judgmentalism, specially for myself. But how can I decide which errors of judgement are unforgivable? I sit in groups with child molesters, embezzlers, murderers, muggers, and rapists. How can I be angry at George A. (accused but not convicted of stealing a used laptop, value $500) when I am sitting next to and befriending David B. who molested a church member's 12 year old daughter? And I refuse to tell my own crimes in this public space. What does my faith say to me?
As a Christian, I believe that we are all equally sinful, that one sin is no more grievous than another in God's eyes. And I believe that God has forgiven us all equally. That does not mean there need not be punishment, atonement, vigilance, isolation, whatever. It means that the sinner still has value to add to God's creation and to the community and to me. That faith has led me to sit and befriend the men I visit, to do what I can to assist them to get parole, to find a place back among us and to help them return to "outside life."
It has led me to look at George A.'s alleged theft and subsequent resignation the way a farmer looks at an orchard destroyed by hail, a vineyard or potato field ruined by nematodes: I cry for the loss of the crop; I fret about how I will manage without the crop; I sigh for the loss of all the potential benefit. But I don't get angry, certainly not at George.
I personally go back to my faith. I believe that we are all sinners, and that we cannot always avoid doing the wrong thing. I have a strong sense of judgmentalism, specially for myself. But how can I decide which errors of judgement are unforgivable? I sit in groups with child molesters, embezzlers, murderers, muggers, and rapists. How can I be angry at George A. (accused but not convicted of stealing a used laptop, value $500) when I am sitting next to and befriending David B. who molested a church member's 12 year old daughter? And I refuse to tell my own crimes in this public space. What does my faith say to me?
As a Christian, I believe that we are all equally sinful, that one sin is no more grievous than another in God's eyes. And I believe that God has forgiven us all equally. That does not mean there need not be punishment, atonement, vigilance, isolation, whatever. It means that the sinner still has value to add to God's creation and to the community and to me. That faith has led me to sit and befriend the men I visit, to do what I can to assist them to get parole, to find a place back among us and to help them return to "outside life."
It has led me to look at George A.'s alleged theft and subsequent resignation the way a farmer looks at an orchard destroyed by hail, a vineyard or potato field ruined by nematodes: I cry for the loss of the crop; I fret about how I will manage without the crop; I sigh for the loss of all the potential benefit. But I don't get angry, certainly not at George.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Ministry of Presence versus “doing good”
Elsa Schaefer asked a question today that provoked quite some energy in me. She asked if it were necessary to be able to accomplish something measureable in order to do ministry in the County Jail. It took me back to my days at Strong Hospital C.P.E. training. My nickname was "Mr. Fixit" and that was not a compliment. Chaplaincy as taught by that program is a ministry of presence, not of tasks. How does one measure the "success" of visiting someone who is scared, lonely or sad (or all of the above and more?) At Strong hospital, we used the acronym S.O.A.P. for our charting: Subjective impressions, objective observations, (spiritual) assessment, and plan. Frequently my 'plan' was to continue visiting. What we measured for the administration was number of visits, length of visits and number of patients visited. But how can one measure outcomes? Frequently the outcome was that the patient went home or "went home" and visits stopped. Is a chaplain "successful"? I don't know. Likewise, how can one measure outcomes of a prison/jail ministry? The measureable data are violent incidents in the jail, and the commission of crimes by the releases, or recidivism. Elsa helps individuals by making phone calls to family and attorneys and landlords. I lead groups about self understanding and self-acceptance. How can she and I measure our outcomes? I understand the jail's need to spend their time and money as effectively as possible. Is it then up to the Church (note the upper case) to provide the rest?
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