My first visit to a jail came when I was 20 years old. I really had no business even being there. My head an Ewok-and-a-half off the ground, my body a little on the large side for a jockey, and my personality as dorky as the day is long back before the Geek Chic era, all rational sense told me I was in the wrong place. After all, what could a law-abiding, baseball-card-collecting, crossword-puzzle-creating college nerd have in common with people who spent their days and nights behind bars? What would we talk about? “Hey, did you get 38 down in yesterdays LA Times? And how about the bet the guy made in Final Jeopardy last night? What was he thinking?”
But when I walked into CCA-Nashville that Sunday night back in 1994, I wasn't following my intellect or even my conscience. I didn't feel particularly duty-bound to visit people in prison (after all, Matthew 25 is a menu, not a checklist, right?). I had nothing in particular to say; to that point my life story was anything but remarkable and my oratorical talent was, shall we say, raw.
That Sunday night I was following my heart, which at the time was securely in the possession of the 21-year-old blond sitting next to me. She had been involved in jail and prison ministry for several years and wanted me to try it once.
The things we guys will do for a girl.
Anyway, when the guard opened the outside door it was time to go back and see the guys. The girl wouldn't be with me, as it turns out; this facility had separate services for men and women at the same time, so Laura went back into the women's pods and I went with Harold, Harold, and Harold – their real names, by the way – to the chapel. The Harolds were going about the business of setting up a jail service, distributing song books, showing the communion trays to the guards, sorting through prayer request cards and correspondence courses, waiting for the guys to come in.
I, meanwhile, was trying to disappear.
Since the door to the chapel was at the back of the room, I took a seat on the front row next to the wall. One of the first inmates through the door was, physically speaking, everything I wasn't. Standing 6-foot-6 and probably weighing in the neighborhood of 400 pounds, he was the picture of everything I had imagined a prison inmate to be. Which is to say, big. Scary big.
I started to get out of my seat to join the handshake line when he spotted me. I put on my “Try to look friendly even though deep down I think I'm probably going to die” face and shook his hand. Excitedly, he shook my hand and took a seat on the front row. He seemed genuinely excited to be there, and especially happy that I was there too.
Uh oh.
After the handshakes, I reclaimed my seat and resumed my futile efforts to dissolve into the wall. I too was sitting on the front row, next to this behemoth of a man whose name I still can't recall sixteen years later as I write this. Sensing my unease, my new seatmate decided to try to help.
“This is your first jail service, isn't it?” he asked.
I nodded.
“You nervous?”
“Yeah,” I squeaked, wondering if the giveaway was the clammy skin, the shallow breathing, the paleness of my face, or the thin line of sweat forming on my forehead.
“Well don't worry about it,” he told me. “If anybody wants to get to you, they have to get through me.”
Now I've never been one to pick up on the finer points of human psychology, or to possess any real instincts that would help me understand why people do what they do and under what circumstances they might find themselves wearing an orange jumpsuit in a medium-security incarceration facility. But I did have at least a rudimentary knowledge of physics. And since I had serious doubts that my Toyota Corolla would be able to “get through” this guy, I figured that anybody else who wanted to make trouble for me faced long odds indeed.
My mind at ease, and my body's flight response dimmed from “incandescent terror” to “not quite comfortable but probably not going to die in the next few minutes,” I took in the rest of the service. I helped pass the Lord's Supper trays. There were six responses to the sermon, including one request for baptism (I found out later that these are fairly typical response numbers for a room with 35 men.). As the Harolds packed up our supplies and the last of the inmates left the chapel, my new really large friend said, “I hope we see you again.”
“I hope so, too,” I replied.
At the time, I had no idea why I said that, but reflecting on the conversation later I realized that the sense of comfort and safety I felt as I was leaving CCA-Nashville didn't really have much to do with merely surviving the night. Facing a ministry career that would probably be defined by what I could or could not do, in prison work I had found a way to share the grace of God with people who needed it just by showing up. The fact that I was willing to be there, that I cared enough to take time for them, that I was willing to set aside my prejudices and fears long enough to be a presence in their lives – that by itself was genuine ministry. I didn't have to prove I belonged. It didn't matter what level of talent or skill or personal charisma I brought with me into the facility. What mattered was that I was there.
That night, I felt like I belonged in jail.
In the last sixteen years, I have bounced in and out of pulpits all over the country. I have gone to grad school, spent a year working with the homeless, displayed my talents (or usually the lack thereof) before audiences large and small. I have had the privilege of being midwife to roughly 300 new births into Christ, most of them in correctional facilities. I even got to spend a year helping one of the Harolds (along with his wife Helen and Federal Prison Outreach Ministry director Ron Goodman) run their Madison prison ministry office.
But everywhere I've gone, I've tried – with varying degrees of success – to be involved in ministry to the incarcerated. I don't go back over and over again because the work is easy; I've learned that there are times when jail work is genuinely difficult. Nor have I ever felt particularly duty-bound; there are souls to be saved everywhere you go, not just behind bars. I keep going into jails and prisons because people need to experience God's grace, mercy, and forgiveness. They need love to be based not on what is in their past or what they might have to offer in the future, but on our shared humanity and potential eternity of fellowship in heaven. Most of all, they need to know that no matter their surroundings, real security – real safety – is available in Jesus.
And so do I.
P. S. – About the girl. She'd have me tell you she's not blond anymore. This week we celebrated our fourteenth wedding anniversary with a trip to the National Jail & Prison Ministry Workshop in Huntsville, Alabama. And yes, when the Star Wars exhibit at the Space and Rocket Center opens later this summer, we'll be back. Still dorky after all these years.
