My blog this morning will feature a guest columnist, the Rev. Emily R. Braut, a prison chaplain, who sent some of her colleagues the following statement recently. Emily writes, in part:
"Our prisons are growing. We are getting more and more inmates every day, and filling up beyond capacity. The state is getting ready to break ground on a new prison in Junction City (outside of Eugene, I think), and there's one scheduled to be built in White City (outside of Medford) after that. That will be 16 prisons total. We have almost 14,000 Oregonians in state custody now, and that's obviously expected to continue to grow. The Department of Corrections also takes the largest chunk of cash out of our state budget every year. And now <the prison system is> in a position of growing and having to cut our budget dramatically, too. This means fewer options for alcohol and drug treatment, mental health care, physical health care, dietary care, etc., etc., etc.
"Unfortunately, I cannot change the system. I cannot make it better. I am witness to the struggles of life, of living in a broken and exhausted system, and it is easy <for me> to lose my cool. I am also witness to the struggles of living in a broken mind, a broken heart and body, a broken psyche that is not equipped to deal with the normal hardships of life, let alone the hardships associated with incarceration. And I can't change them, either. I can't fix their minds. I can't heal their hearts. I can't implant any magical coping skills or spiritual perspectives that will make their lives easier. I wish I could--but really, it's them who have to do the work. They have to make the change, to face the pain, to figure out what it takes to get through this impossible life with any sense of hope or dignity or illusion of control.
"So what can I do? I witness their lives. I affirm their struggle. When I can, I try to offer different ways of seeing things--struggle as opportunity, pain as signs of growth, change as chance to revision priorities, to see theings differently, to re-imagine life. And I try to foster some sense of hope and light in the darkness--some sense that <they> can make it, that maybe there is meaning to the chaos, that maybe there are better ways to live. But sometimes I feel my hope is bankrupt, that life is going to suck no matter what I do or say or hope or pray. And what is the spiritual import of "suck"? I know I sound despairing, but sometimes I think that this is the most honest response.
"But I do hope. I am silly that way perhaps. I do dream. I do pray for change and help and healing, for the stubbornness to get through, for the courage to <wrestle with> despair. To sit in the darkness with people--that is sometimes all I can do. Like Jonah in the belly of the whale. . . . . I sing. I pray. I cry. I sit in the belly of the whale. <And yet> I hope. I think that someday I will get spit out--when it is time. And I will begin again. Until then . . . here I am."
Comment: Sometimes all we can do is just to show up, and witness. And that in itself is powerful. Sometimes it is enough. Thank you, Emily, for this difficult and exacting work that you do.
Share this
Leave a comment