The Spirituality of a Child in Jail

In the past, I have commented on my reluctance to do what Jesus asked -- namely, to visit those in prison (Mt. 25).  My reluctance has not been because of the prisoners, but because of the system one has to encounter in visiting jails or prisons.  Now that I am retired from working in the Criminal Justice System, and then as a priest having visited a number of persons in jails and prisons, I think I am more concerned about how the system treats its visitors -- even visitors who are there to help.  Our society could do a lot better with regard to making visitors feel more comfortable in visiting prisoners.  It has been my experience that system seems to distain the visitors as much as those who are incarcerated -- guilt by association, or?

Nevertheless, there is nothing worse for me than visiting a child who is locked up in either prison or jail.  Of all my life experiences, it is an experience that I wish I didn't have.  But within evry event or experience, I feel we must ask ourselves these questions: Why is God putting me here?  And what is it God wants me to do with this experience?  It is the answer to those questions which strengthens our spirituality.

This discussion comes about because I recently visited my youngest son in the Dane County Jail (picture on the left. The white building in the background is the City-County Building.  You can almost see the ground-level office in which I resided for over 20 years as the city's chief of police). 

My recent jail visits were not his first from me and his mother -- nor our first family visit to a jail.  Yet I have to admit that every time I go is a challenging spiritual journey -- almost a wilderness experience from which I would like to run from and a place in which I feel I am being tested by interior wild animals).  It may be difficult for you to imagine one of your children in prison -- it was, and still is, for me.  After all, I spent over 30 years of my life putting people in prison.  I never thought one of my children would be in that situation.

Each time it causes me to re-think parenting, how we treat addicts, and how we rehabilitate offenders.  After all, more than one-half (maybe as much as 3/4) of those in prison are there because of alcohol or other drug addictions.  Like many families of addicts, we have tried just about everything and nothing has seemed to work -- at least YET; at least so far!  It is difficult to understand the mind and actions of an addict.  Even when you love them.  In my life experience I have seen some things work for some people some of the time.  That's it.  So we have to keep on trying the "some things," some time again and again.  I also kknow that either the addicted person is rehabilitated, he dies, or she simply gets sick and tired of being an addict.  I have seen all three of these numersous times -- and, unfortunately, officiated at more than enough burials involving suicides, accidents and over-doses.  The greatest fear I have is that my son will die before he becomes sober and drug-free.  That is a frightening thought for me.

I went through that for years with an adult daughter.  Every day I thought I would get a call telling me she was dead.  Now, through the grace of God, she has been sober for 10 years now.  This became a blessing our of a very terrible wilderness.  So hope works and so does prayer.

So where is this going?  It is a father's sadness... my grief, my inability to "fix" my child... and yet still knowing that life is a combination of things -- of things not being fair... even unjust... and often my lament "Why, O Lord, me?"

But what I want to get out of this is to be able to put aside my shame... work through my grief and accept this situation and do what ever I can do.  And remembering that sometimes love has to be tough!  At the same time, like my experience when Sabine was first diagnosed with an incurable cancer, God stands with me.  God has got my back covered. God will get me through this.  I know this!

The Serenity Prayer seems appropriate here: 

"God give me the courage to change what I can, to accept that in my life that I cannot change.  And the wisdom to know the difference.  So be it!"

Filled with Awe: Coming out of the Omaha Men's Retreat

This is my second "One Year to Live" (OYTL) Retreat which has been developed by Lyman Coleman for Lutheran Men in Mission


. My first retreat was last November and you can read all about it at an earlier blog (November 16, 2009, "Talking to Men").

I am really passionate about this retreat for men. If you have talked with me recently you know. I went to Omaha with my good friend, Pastor Rob Nelson. We are so on fire for this spiritual experience for men that we committed to go to Omaha to learn how to be a team leader. It was our second experience with the rerreat and I think we both went up a notch or two spiritually! The word I have is "awe." And it comes from the New Testament. Those who followed Jesus were constantly filled with awe. In Luke's Gospel we read:

"Jesus said to the paralyzed man, 'I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.' Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, 'We have seen remarkable things today.'" (5:24-26).

Many of us men are paralyzed. We are paralyzed by a false sense of masculinity, the need to control and dominate, and the fear of being emotional and people finding out who we are behind our masks. What I again experienced at the retreat was not only release from the various paralysis and fear in my life (like my fear of Sabine dying) but also the same thing going on with the men assigned to my small group. Jesus was a man. He was not a pansie! Let's not forget that.

I can't give you the details of the retreat because it would detract from the total experience. But I can tell you that I would be prepared to personally refund your tuition if you didn't think it was a one of the best experiences you have ever had in your life. You can hold me to it!

Now... what do you need to know? You need to know that if you decide to attend you need to commit to being at the retreat from 5:30 Friday afternoon to 3 p.m. on Sunday. The rest is based on your trust of me and whether or not you think I would steer you or any other man wrong.

You can see a video of some men who were at a recent OYTL Retreat in Colorado at: http://www.youtube.com/user/EwersArchitecture?feature=mhw4#p/a/f/0/wbKfEa3JF3c and an application blank for the May 21-23 Retreat at the McKenzie Center near Poynette, WI can be downloaded at this site: http://lutheranmeninmission.org/events/oytl.html.

Now let me talk straight to you men: Unless you take time to slow down, go on a retreat and reflect on your life you will never find the peace and happiness you desire. You can work extra hours, make lots of money and have lots of toys to play with, but you will never find happiness in things and stuff. You may even think the woman in your life is happy until one day she walks out on you and the fight for your kids begins!

You may be half-way through life's game. If you are, you need to take a break -- like a halftime in a football game and see what plays are working for you and which ones aren't. Half-time is a time to change your game in order to get what you really want out of life. And I can tell you this from my own experience as a hard working cop and then pastor -- I have never met a man who on his deathbed wished he spent more time at the office or at work. What do you think that man really wanted out of life? When you think about having one year to live the really important stuff floats to the top of your bucket list.

If you bring your "A Game" to this retreat, I can guarantee you will get an "A Game" out of the remaining years of your life -- that is, if you have a year. I pray you do, because your wife and your children will see the difference and you will know the peace and happiness you have struggled to get but seem to be thwarted from achieving.

A Time of Refreshment

In the second chapter of the Book of Acts, Luke tells the story of the emerging disciples of Jesus and how Peter was emboldend by God's Spirit addressing the crowd about Jesus' Lordship and Resurrection.  This was, as Peter said, "so that times of refreshing may come..." (v. 20).  This passage is one of the readings for the Thursday after Easter and yesterday it deeply grabbed me.  I love it when that happens.  All of a sudden I am ambushed by God's Word.  Bang!  "Times of refreshment!"

Is this not it?  For me, this time of Easter is this "time of refreshing" that Peter talked about.  As Sabine and I have journeyed nearly two and one-half years through the darkness of cancer we are now joyfully experiencing the result of a positive cell transplant -- a "time of refreshment."

Each year at Christmas time I hear the words of the German mystic, Meister Eckardt in my ears reminding me that the birth of Jesus means nothing unless he is born again in my heart.  Unless Christ is born in us Christmas means nothing -- might as well give it back to Rudolph and Santa.  And on Easter, unless we raised with Christ, we remain dead.  We turn our backs on that "time of refreshment."

I hope you, too, have both felt the birth of Christ in your heart and have experienced the power of God raising Jesus from the dead.  I was emotionally dead that time in January, 2008 when Sabine was diagosed with cancer -- and yet here we both are raised again.

Brothers and sisters, that is the Christian journey, we enter into little deaths all of the time and the hope we have is our being raised again just as Jesus was.  This raising again, each time, can be for us a "time of refreshment."  Alleluia, Christ is Risen!  Enjoy and give thanks for this refreshment!

It's Been a Holy Week

I have to admit that I am an Easter guy.  For me, it is Easter that lifts up my soul and not Christmas.  I know that if we didn't have Christ's birth we could not share in his Resurrection, but the secular world seems to have stolen Christmas.  And while there is the Easter bunny, he doesn't (thankfully) command as much attention as Santa does!

This is Holy Week -- that spiritual journey we are invited to make from Palm Sunday (The Sunday of the Passion) to the washing of feet on Maundy Thursday, Jesus' Friday death on the Cross -- and now, beginning tonight, the GREAT EASTER CELEBRATION.

This past week, Sabine and I have been serving little Holy Trinity Church in Prairie du Chien on the Mississippi River.  They are a small, faithful group of Episcopalians who recently lost their priest who had served them for forty years.  We began this week with the procession of palms singing that familiar refrain, "All glory, laud and honor, to thee Redeemer King..."

On Maundy Thursday, whose name comes from the Latin, "mandatum" -- to command -- we washed one another's feet as Jesus asked us to do (for by being a servant to one another we show others we follow Jesus).  On this day we also celebrate the Lord's Supper together.  On this day we begin the three-day "Triduum:" one continuing path of worship from this day to Good Friday and then to the Great Easter Celebration!

As we left the church on Thursday evening the sanctuary is striped of it's paraments, candles and crosses in preparation for the Solemn Liturgy of Good Friday.  We began the Good Friday with the Stations of the Cross (using Joan Chittister's meditative, "Gateway to Resurrection," followed by the Good Friday liturgy which includes the Solemn Collects and an adoration in front of a large wooden cross.  At the end of the lituryg, we silently exit the church after sharing Communion from the Reserved Sacrament.  All the bread and wine are consumed leaving the Aumbry (tabernacle) which houses the Reserved Sacrament empty -- like a tomb.

All this is in spiritual preparation for the The Great Easter Vigil at sunset on Saturday.  At the Great Vigil we build a new fire, light the paschal candle and enter into the darkened church we left on Good Friday.  Prophecies from the Hebrew Bible are heard, and baptisms conducted.  It is also the time for all Christians to come forward and renew their baptismal convenants and be reminded of our baptism as we are sprinkled with holy water from the font.  Then the congregation exits the dark church praying the Prayers of the People.

Soon, the door of the church is opened.  I shout, "Alleluia, Christ is Risen!" and the congregation responds, "The Lord is Risen, indeed, Alleluia!" and enters a church filled with light, the fragrance of Easter lilies, and the joyous Gloria which has not been heard since the beginning of Lent -- "Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth!" 

It is now that the Easter celebration begins.  Bells are rung -- rejoicing is everywhere as we all celebrate the first Easter Mass and partake in the bread and wine and experience the Risen Christ!

So this is why I love Holy Week.  It is a spiritual journey which both nutures and blesses me and mine.

HAVE A BLESSED EASTER.  Rise up with the Risen Christ!  Move out of the tomb which holds you and go toward the Light of all Lights!