From The Inside

The Kingdom of God has Come?

I have really dried up on the blogging front.  No idea why.  I've probably just settled into work within the prison and the daily routine - and maybe nothing new happens from day to day.  (That can't really be true!?)  I have a decision to make however.  In the next 10 days my annual subscription is up on this blog site.  Do I renew or do I just retire?  I suppose you'll find out in the next 10 days!!

I've also been busy with a new group I've started.  It's called Exodus. I realised that for some of the guys who had been attending Chaplaincy things while in prison, and who had been starting at the very least to investigate the things of God, that once released they often fall away and don't make the transition into a local church.  So, along with one other guy who is now out on parole, I decided to start a wee fellowship group - for worship, Bible study, prayer and general support and friendship.  I told him that even if it was just the 2 of us we'd meet and pray for guys we knew.

It never was just the 2 of us!  We regularly have about 10-12 guys, all ex-prisoners.  Some have returned to the Christian commitments they have made previously, others are starting from scratch!  (During one study recently one guy asked "You mean Jesus came alive again??  I knew he died on a cross - I never knew he came alive again!)

I think it's helping!  One guy in particular came along a few weeks ago and prayed out from the bottom of his heart for God to help him and change him.  It was very real.  And what a change since - he said he left that night and has never felt the same since.  It's early days but he's now stayed out of prison for about 7 weeks - and only once before has he gone so long in the past 10 years.  He's off drugs, his family have welcomed him back, and he feels the urge to go round and apologise to folk he has offended against in the past and pay them back for things he has stolen.

Another guy announced that last week he went out and bought some shopping.  Not remarkable?  Well he said that was the first time he'd paid for his shopping in 5 years!!  Another guy announced that for 3 weekends in a row now he hasn't been lifted for being drunk and disorderly.  He did get into a fight two weeks ago (and had his jaw broken with a baseball bat!) and while family and friends all want to go for revenge, he wants to do it Jesus' way - and turn the other cheek and forgive.

Maybe not all remarkable stories - but as they were telling me these, and more, recently, I kept thinking "Behold, the Kingdom of God is coming among you."  Take control Father!

A Divided Nation

We live in a divided nation.  This has been coming home to me more and more in recent weeks and months.  It's not just that we're divided along racial, religious or national lines - although these are there too - but divided along cultural, financial and class grounds.  I'm probably saying nothing new, and am reluctant to say anything for fear of being 'classist' myself. 

I daily meet guys whose background I struggle to identify with.  But lads brought up in a culture marked with anger.  Whose lives as children was often complex, painful and full of memories and experiences no child should have to face.  Lives marked with a lack of hope for the future, void of aspirations and dreams, and lives marked with rejection and crushed self-esteem.  Where drugs and alcohol flourish.  Where survival of the fittest, or strongest, is the order of the day and where fists have now been replaced with blades.  It's a world that thankfully I have never really known.  I was raised with the support of a family more than the support of my peers.  Where I was encouraged to better myself and reach my full potential.  Where the only limitations placed upon me where essentially those which were self-imposed. 

Too many children are born into situations which will determine their futures before they are old enough to make their first decisions.  Is it right that just because of where you are born will determine your future and your likelihood of facing a prison sentence?  We're not even talking different countries
here - but the difference which sometimes 2 miles can make in some cities.  And, (I say somewhat controversially) is it right that it is those who have never had to live in these communities that make the laws, exercise the judgement and pass the sentences on those who are unfortunate enough to have done so?  Is this why those who through greed and questionably legal practises end up costing the country billions of pounds walk away with bonuses - while those who steal a £30 item from a shop face a prison sentence? 

And what does the Gospel say into these communities?  What hope does it offer?  And, maybe more crucially, where is the church in these areas?  If present at all, it's struggling away in every sense of the word, while mainstream church life develops a Starbucks ecclesiology.

I have no answers and don't mean to be critical of the church.  But it troubles me that we, as the church, are content to allow whole ghettos to develop on our doorsteps where so few disciples are prepared to go.  it troubles me that so much talk of "emerging church" seems to pamper to today's yuppie culture, and ignores the millions of children living in deprivation in our own country, the thousands for whom alcohol and drugs are the painkillers of choice, the millions who are disenfranchised from the church's life and community.  What to do?  I don't know.  "Here I am God, send me.  But show me how!!"

In A State

Today I had a wee afternoon out of prison - to go and see one of our prisoners who has been staying at The State Hospital for just over a year now.  C took unwell quite suddenly while with us - and went through a period where he seemed quite detemined to harm himself and even kill himself.  This included trying to gouge out his eye, slash his wrists, drown himself and set fire to his clothes.  These were no vain attempts nor attention seeking behavior - it was a stressful time for the prison. For some reason C decided I was the only person in the whole prison he would trust - everyone else was intent on killing him.  And so for a 4 day period (including a weekend) I was continually called upon to calm him down and just sit with him so officers could go for dinner etc.  (The health centre manager did write a letter of commendation to the Governor about me afterwards - my one and only!)

While sitting with him during that time, and trying to get him to explain what was going on in his head and why he wanted to die, he told me of something he did as a young teenager (while drunk) and how that had come back to torment him.  I spoke to him of grace and forgiveness - not much, but hopefully enough to help him, and I always made a point of praying for him while I was in.  We spoke too of other events in his life - such as his mother's suicide on Christmas Day when he was 16, his father who then went into a depression and switched off from the family, his sister who was also in prison due to her drug addiction (and had just given birth while in there), and his brother who had also been found dead a few years previously due to his drug addiction and not long after he too had been released from The State Hospital.  It was an emotionally draining 4 days and I did wonder at times whether we would be successful in keeping him from killing himself.

We heaved a sigh of relief when we got all the paperwork in place to section him and have him transferred to hospital - and thought no more of it.  Until, about 6 weeks later, the hospital phoned me and told me that C had asked for me to attend his initial case conference at the hospital.  When I got there they told me that I had "obviously made a significant impact" on C.  He had decided he wanted to become a Christian, was attending all the church groups in the hospital, was reading his Bible and was asking for a cross necklace for his Christmas.  The hospital requested that I remained as part of C's support network since he didn't really have anyone else on the outside.

Anyway - that was a year ago.  Today he was looking great.  He's keeping a lot better, and looked a new guy.  He's going back to the education within the hospital and doing his intermediate maths - great for someone who failed at school when younger.  He wants to do a welding course when he gets out - and is looking to move to a different city to get away from the problems at home.  And the first thing he needs to do is find himself a good church he said.  (He's just finished reading the book of Romans - not the easiest read!).  It was a real encouragement seeing him.  And despite his own tragic life, he said to me today, "You know, there are people in here who've had really horrendous up-bringings.  At least I have one or two good memories, there are some in here who have none!"

I usually don't like visiting The State Hospital - I find it a disheartening and depressing place.  Patients can end up spending their entire lives in there, a longer 'sentence' than any of my prisoners do!  Today I was just glad I went.  I have said this before - but if you are the praying type - say a wee prayer for C!

Under The Influence?

I went into the prison last night to attend the Prison Fellowship meeting.  It was a good night with 9 guys there.  You often find that when you are in the prison Chapel worshipping and praising God, praying and 'having church'  that you can forget for a short while where you actually are - and for just a short period of time the prisoners can forget that they are prisoners, and can feel 'normal', free and yes, sons of God.  As a result the meetings in the Chapel are usually relaxed, informal and fun, with laughter and enthusiastic singing.

All that changed at the end of a good meeting last night when the guys came out to be met with additional security officers.  The whole atmosphere became heavy and quiet for prisoner and Fellowship volunteers alike as the area was searched, and then one of the prisoners was randomly pulled for a strip search.  It was a rude and abrupt reminder to the prisoners that they were still prisoners, and that this was still a prison.  Turns out that the officers responsible for supervising the meeting from outside (not the normal folk, maybe due to summer holidays) had reported that they felt that there was a "strange" atmosphere, that the men were acting differently, and they suspected that some of them must be under the influence of drugs!  Hmm - where have I heard something like that before?

Then Peter stepped forward with the eleven other apostles and shouted to the crowd, “Listen carefully, all of you, fellow Jews and residents of Jerusalem! Make no mistake about this. These people are not drunk, as some of you are assuming. Nine o’clock in the morning is much too early for that. No, what you see was predicted long ago by the prophet Joel:
        ‘In the last days,’ God says,
        ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.'  (Acts 2:14-17)

Maybe even prisoners?  Aye, it's not easy being a Christian in a place where no-one understands.

I'm Back!

I've been neglecting my blog - sorry.  Just feel that I've not had a lot of inspiring thoughts to bring you, but then "what's new?" you may be asking!

Life has settled down in the prison a little.  I'm learning however that you can take nothing for granted - and anything can change at any moment.  Prison is a stressful place to work however, and can be very emotionally draining too.  I find this particularly so - you pour so much time, energy and passion into some of these guys, but it's up to them to make the changes.  For some however, whose lives are broken and fractured in many ways, to even have the hope that change is possible seems a mountain too high to climb.  They can be doing so well for so long, and then for no apparent reason, or when a crisis hits, they return to their default settings and old patterns of behaviour and responding.  When they are doing well you celebrate with them; when they muck up you feel it too.

Of course many would say that I get too emotionally involved - and maybe I do.  I just don't know how to do it any other way.  I genuinely love some of these guys, and feel that this is part of what a Chaplain is called to do.  Yes I could keep a professional detachment, and for my own sanity and emotional health I wish I could.  But is this the Gospel?  Is this what Jesus calls me to do as a Christian?  I'm not convinced - and so maybe I just need to bear the burden of caring for these guys, and feeling the pain of disappointment with them when it all goes wrong.

On a personal note I've been working hard at keeping a better work/life balance - trying to switch off when I'm at home; NOT reading my work emails - and trying to do fun and relaxing things at the weekend with my family, who after all are the most important people in my life.  Last weekend saw me flying a kite on St. Andrews beach - something therapeutic about that!