From The Inside

Streets of London

It's humbling to see how many hits this blog still gets even though I myself haven't been near it in months - despite promises every now and again that I will return!  So no more promises - but we'll see how it goes.

I've just returned from a few days in London where I was starting yet another module (number 5!) of my everlasting MTh, at Spurgeons College.  (Not that I've actually finished module 4!)  This module was really a preparation for starting my dissertation.  Having just finished my 15,000 word dissertation for my MSc (which looked at the work of Chaplaincy in prisons in relation to current research on desistance) the thought of starting a 20,000 word dissertation does not greatly appeal to me.  This time however I'm thinking of asking permission from the prison service to interview both willing prisoners who attend church services and chaplains, in a number of prisons.  I want to find out why prisoners actually attend church services in prison, especially when few of these guys would ever attend church in the community - and to try and probe what is behind this.  At the same time I want to interview the chaplains who were conducting the services to see what they were trying to achieve through prayers, sermons, songs etc - to see whether prisoners' longings and chaplains' hopes actually coincide.  From this of course I will need to theologically reflect to discover the missiological implications for the church (and chaplains!).  Lots of big words - but I hope you get the gist!

I love visiting (stress on visiting) London.  Yet it never amazes me the sheer number of people (from such a range of multi-racial, -ethnic and -national backgrounds) and yet just how lonely and isolated you can feel, as everyone seems to be such a stranger.  I found myself walking along and humming "All the lonely people"...  from the Beatles' 'Eleanor Rigby'.  All those people whose lives just connect for a moment on a train or tube carriage, who go off their separate ways probably never to meet again.  Each with their problems, cares, hopes, loves, dreams.  But faceless strangers.  Coming from Scotland I want to at least smile at them all if not say hello (a bit like Crocodile Dundee!) but I think it gets you locked up down there!  The opportunity for the churches down there to provide a sense of community must be immense, because the need seems so great.  Yet at the same time the very concept of 'stranger' builds barriers and walls, and creates fears and suspicions.  I recognised this personally as I passed hooded black youth, and was aware of the not-so-sub-conscious concerns as they approached, yet as I deliberately looked beyond the stereotype and into the eyes and faces (in itself a risk!?) I just saw the faces of typical young folk seeking to find meaning in such a sea of concrete.  

I ramble!  But I do always find visiting London and seeing the multitudes of people, almost like scurrying ants, a poignant and thought-provoking experience.  And yet God knows them all by name, and even the hairs on their heads are counted.....  

Giving An Account

"Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect" (1 Pet 3:15)

Where has September gone??  I can't believe that already the shops are filling up with their Christmas merchandise.  Maybe I'm just getting old - but I wish time would just slow up a little.  Enjoying life too much for it to fly past!

Been a busy month (thus the lack of posts!).  Both kids have had chicken-pox - not at the same time of course - that would have been too easy!  It was our wedding anniversary on the 7th - and we were given money to go out for a nice meal and just haven't had the time to as yet (unless you call Frankie & Benny's on the day itself a "nice meal"  - followed by "The Time Travellers Wife" at the cinema (not my choice!).  Supposedly the book is better than the movie - will take folks' word for it!!)

Most of this month I've been spending my spare time writing an assignment for my Masters degree.  Is due today - and was sent off in good time - so that is me now finished my first module - has only taken 5 years - not bad eh??  Shocking!  Have also started a second Masters which is going better - basically because it's a structured course with deadlines - I need deadlines!!

Work has been good, but busy.  The group of guys that have been coming to the Chaplaincy groups are not exactly convinced Christians - and so tend to question/contradict/ask me to justify everything I say - I can't even get through a sermon at the service without interruption.  I don't mind really - but it can be mentally draining!  And can be hard to keep the "gentleness and respect" part of the passage above - maybe that's why Peter said it!!  I find myself having to defend the church for a lot of her faults (my faults).  Was even told by one guy yesterday that I'm not really a Christian because I don't do enough for those leaving the prison without a home (including him!!) and if I was a real Christian I would be taking them to my house!  Maybe he has a point.  Wealth is a big issue to them - why are Christians so wealthy if Jesus tells us to give it away?  Why is the church not doing more for the poor?  The drugs addicts?  It is easy for me to get defensive and explain about things that are happening - but sometimes I leave wondering whether Jesus would agree more with them than me!  Anyway - keep me in your prayers folk - really appreciate them - and desperately need them.

(Now I need to go off and find out more as to why the Gospel of Thomas isn't trusted by the Church - where do the guys get to know about all this stuff!!??)

No Words To Say

Sometimes as a prison Chaplain I get accused of being too soft on criminals.  Too gullible for believing their sob stories; too quick to minimise what they have done.  I hope that isn't true, although at the end of the day it is my calling as a Chaplain to care and seek to empathise, and my duty as a Minister of grace and hope to help the men resolve their past and look upwards to seek a better future (and in doing so hopefully help them not to reoffend and harm any more victims). 

But it is also true that I get to hear stories of childhoods and home situations which are truly tragic.  This doesn't excuse what they have done - but it helps to explain how they ended up in the situations they did.  From that point of view, my job can be quite emotionally draining. 

Take today.  I met a young man who was serving his first sentence - for carrying a knife, which, thankfully, he never used - so maybe his was a victimless crime (although it could easily have turned out otherwise).  But I had been asked to go and chat with this young man cause he really wasn't coping too well with the trauma of being in the jail.

In the course of the conversation he told me that his mum died suddenly last year; her heart basically stopped while in mid-conversation with himself.  She was only in her mid-40s.  A few days later his eldest brother, who was a drug addict, was found frozen to death on a park bench having been too drugged to get himself home.  This young lad found it so difficult to come to terms with this that it culminated in him ending up being pulled naked from a toll bridge by the police where he had been standing ready to jump.  (I noticed that his arm was covered in scars - the tell-tale signs of a self-harmer).

One of his biggest fears of being in prison is that his father, who doesn't keep well, dies while he is not there to take care of him.  "Take care of him?"  I asked.  It turns out that this young man is his dad's main carer since his mum died - showering and clothing him etc - since he is in a wheel-chair, having broken his back.  "What happened?" I asked.  "Och, he tried to commit suicide a few years back and it didn't work - he just broke his back and now he's paralysed."    Every day, he told me, his dad says he wants to die - but he doesn't know what he'd do if his dad wasn't there.  Some young lives have just had too much pain to bear.  The thing is, he didn't tell me all this with an air of self-pity.  In fact it was his matter-of-factness that made it all the more tragic.

He tried to move out and get his own flat.  On the first night, as he and his dad were just sitting down having moved him in, a brick came smashing through the window - a welcome gift from some of the local lads.  His dad wanted him to come home there and then - but he wanted to stick it out.  He gave up the next week however when he came home to find his front door kicked in.  His is a rough area (he told me that a group of lads recently rolled a police car into a burn while the policemen did nothing but watch and radio for back-up).  He'd love to move away but (apart from his dad) he is on Methadone, having been a heroin addict since a young teenager - and it would be too complicated to get his treatment transferred to a new area.

Why do I tell you all this?  Simply because as he was speaking I was wondering - "what can I say here?"  "What does the Gospel have to say into this situation?"  "How would this young lad even begin to walk the Christian path in the midst of this community?"  Tell me, how would you have 'ministered' to him?

The Touch Of The Master's Hand

We have a prisoner at the moment who attends the groups run by the Chaplaincy, and who recites this poem from memory whenever he gets a chance!  (He has made one or two wee amendments!).  I like it, and hearing it spoken among a group of prisoners makes it seem specially poignant.  Thought that I would paste it here for you!

’Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer
Thought it scarcely worth his while
To waste much time on the old violin,
But held it up with a smile.
“What am I bid, good folks,” he cried,
“Who’ll start the bidding for me?
A dollar, a dollar. Then two! Only two?
Two dollars, and who’ll make it three?”

“Three dollars, once; three dollars, twice;
Going now for three...” But no,
From the room, far back, a grey-haired man
Came forward and picked up the bow;
Then wiping the dust from the old violin,
And tightening the loosened strings,
He played a melody pure and sweet,
As a caroling angel sings.

The music ceased, and the auctioneer,
With a voice that was quiet and low,
Said: “What am I bid for the old violin?”
And he held it up with the bow.
“A thousand dollars, and who’ll make it two?
Two thousand! And who’ll make it three?
Three thousand, once; three thousand, twice,
And going and gone,” said he.

The people cheered, but some of them cried,
“We do not quite understand.
What changed its worth?” Swift came the reply:
“The touch of the Master’s hand.”
And many a man with life out of tune,
And battered and scarred with sin,
Is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd
Much like the old violin.

A “mess of pottage,” a glass of wine,
A game—and he travels on.
He is “going” once, and “going” twice,
He’s “going” and almost “gone.”
But the Master comes, and the foolish crowd
Never can quite understand
The worth of a soul and the change that is wrought
By the touch of the Master’s hand.

—Myra Brooks Welch

Disenfranchised Grief

“Disenfranchised grief can be defined as the grief that persons experience when they incur a loss that is not or cannot be openly acknowledged, publicly mourned, or socially supported.”

We had a woman come into the prison during the past week to speak to the Chaplains, who has just completed a Masters degree on "disenfranchised grief" within the prison context.  It was very interesting.

As the definition says, disenfranchised grief is grief which needs to be surpressed because the context in which one is grieving doesn't particularly support the grieving process.  Prisons are ideal examples of this.  The hard, macho image which most prisoners feel they need to maintain doesn't allow for tears or emotion.  And so prisoners who experience grief are prevented from working through the grieving process.

This doesn't just happen on the death of a loved one of course.  Grief is about loss and coping with loss.  And prison and prison sentences are essentially about loss too - loss of freedom; loss of contact with friends and family; loss of self-government; loss of dignity, personal belongings, routine, home - you name it.  Loss of what essentially defines you as a person.  All is stripped away and replaced with prison clothes and a number.  You cease being an individual and become a "prisoner" instead.

So, the challenge for Chaplains then is, if all prisoners are essentially coping with loss, especially those near the start of their sentences, and that grieving process is "disenfranchised" and surpressed, how do we support and offer pastoral care before the suppressing of emotions turns outward in anger and rage, or inward in depression and drug-taking.  (Not that I am saying that all these things are simply a coping (or not) with grief!).

Perhaps, especially for our long-term prisoners, we also need to prepare them for the sense of grief that they will experience when they are released.  Many expect that all prisoners will be delirious about their liberation but for many the reality is a whole mix of emotions.  It may simply be because of the sense of loss, and grief, which they experience once they are out, as they re-adjust to a new loss - that of the routine, friends, and familiar that they have come to know, regardless of how much they hated it while they were going through it. 

Anyway - haven't blogged for a while - so there are some of my musings as I sit here on a lazy Sunday afternoon.