Video I saw from YouTube about Christ's temptations. Preached on this text for the 1st Sunday of Lent. The imagery and animation gave me new insights into a very familiar story. Hope you enjoy.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-6a25Yo2wE
Monday, February 22, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
"If you're not nervous, you're crazy..."
"Hey Chap, got something I need to tell ya," says an older man with thick glasses standing at a caged door to a room just off the main visitor's area. Chaplain Harrell steps over to the man, leaving me standing next to the entrance lock. I watched Chap Harrell speak to the man for a brief minute, hearing only something about a meal selection, and Chap telling him, "You did a good job." As Chap turned back towards me, I met eyes with the man in thick glasses looking at me from behind the cage door. I nodded my head towards him, he responded doing the same.
The man I caught eyes with, who spoke to Chap about his meal selection, was Melbert Ray Ford, scheduled for execution on Tuesday, February 23, 2010.
The drive home was a constant whirl of thoughts. I feel extremely unnerved knowing I looked a man in the eyes who, one week from today, will put to death in an ultimate show of state power.
As I read The Executed God, by Mark Lewis Taylor,I am struck by his tongue in cheek comment as he pretends to be the "wise ethicist" who logically reasoned the use of the capital punishment. "Hmm," he writes, "murder is a serious crime, and so we need the ultimate penalty of death to express society's outrage over murder and help the victims find closure." This is not how capital punishment made it into US Legal Code. With the use of capital punishment we are "living out a historical legacy that resorts to official killing". In this official killing, there is no love, there is no forgiveness. All that remains is the demise of another child of God, and realizations that we really aren't as free and civilized of a society as we think we are.
"Since 1976, for every 8 people executed, 1 on death row has been found innocent."
- Mark Lewis Taylor (www.deathpenalty.org)
Before I spent a couple hours talking with the prisoners, Chaplain Harrell asked me how I felt. I told him I was a little nervous. "That's good. If you're not nervous, you're crazy, and we've got enough crazy people here," he said with a tickled laughter. Chaplain Harrell has a fairly crude sense of humor.
For over an hour I spoke with Bobby A., a Bronx native doing time for drug possession with intent to distribute. It truly was a pleasure to talk to this man. I rarely see someone with such a positive attitude, and being able to keep that attitude in a place that was built for "Spiritual death" (Abu-Jamal) is absolutely a work of God. I didn't have to say a whole lot during our time of conversation. I was there really to give him the opportunity to just get anything and everything off his chest without fear of retribution or other punishments. He told me about his family; how much he loves his wife; how is oldest son has been diagnosed with cancer; how it finally struck him the other day that he is a grandfather at 42 years old.
I began to ask him how his faith impacts his life, and boy did he start to talk! Bobby was "saved" in Butts County jail about 2 years ago, reads the Bible everyday , attends Bible studies, and as he puts it, "converses with God at all times." "People think I'm just talking to myself!" he added with a huge laugh. We continued to talk about faith, Scripture, and family but Bobby kept going back to the few things that he really struggles with in prison. Waiting, Numbness, and Patience.
Waiting to go home...Numbness at the isolation of an uncaring system...Patience to make it through the day.
He brought up patience a lot. Bobby told me how he prayed for patience each and everyday, how he needed patience to overcome the hatred that guards show him, how he needed patience to overcome the hatred he sees with love. Puts patience in perspective when I pray for it to get through theology class or a Sunday evening when the youth group has less of an attention span that usual....
Before ending with a prayer, I asked Bobby what his favorite passage was. He told me, Matthew 5:2-12. I knew immediately he was referring to the Beatitudes. "My favorite too," I told him. He gave me a big hug, then went back to his cell.
The man I caught eyes with, who spoke to Chap about his meal selection, was Melbert Ray Ford, scheduled for execution on Tuesday, February 23, 2010.
The drive home was a constant whirl of thoughts. I feel extremely unnerved knowing I looked a man in the eyes who, one week from today, will put to death in an ultimate show of state power.
As I read The Executed God, by Mark Lewis Taylor,I am struck by his tongue in cheek comment as he pretends to be the "wise ethicist" who logically reasoned the use of the capital punishment. "Hmm," he writes, "murder is a serious crime, and so we need the ultimate penalty of death to express society's outrage over murder and help the victims find closure." This is not how capital punishment made it into US Legal Code. With the use of capital punishment we are "living out a historical legacy that resorts to official killing". In this official killing, there is no love, there is no forgiveness. All that remains is the demise of another child of God, and realizations that we really aren't as free and civilized of a society as we think we are.
"Since 1976, for every 8 people executed, 1 on death row has been found innocent."
- Mark Lewis Taylor (www.deathpenalty.org)
Before I spent a couple hours talking with the prisoners, Chaplain Harrell asked me how I felt. I told him I was a little nervous. "That's good. If you're not nervous, you're crazy, and we've got enough crazy people here," he said with a tickled laughter. Chaplain Harrell has a fairly crude sense of humor.
For over an hour I spoke with Bobby A., a Bronx native doing time for drug possession with intent to distribute. It truly was a pleasure to talk to this man. I rarely see someone with such a positive attitude, and being able to keep that attitude in a place that was built for "Spiritual death" (Abu-Jamal) is absolutely a work of God. I didn't have to say a whole lot during our time of conversation. I was there really to give him the opportunity to just get anything and everything off his chest without fear of retribution or other punishments. He told me about his family; how much he loves his wife; how is oldest son has been diagnosed with cancer; how it finally struck him the other day that he is a grandfather at 42 years old.
I began to ask him how his faith impacts his life, and boy did he start to talk! Bobby was "saved" in Butts County jail about 2 years ago, reads the Bible everyday , attends Bible studies, and as he puts it, "converses with God at all times." "People think I'm just talking to myself!" he added with a huge laugh. We continued to talk about faith, Scripture, and family but Bobby kept going back to the few things that he really struggles with in prison. Waiting, Numbness, and Patience.
Waiting to go home...Numbness at the isolation of an uncaring system...Patience to make it through the day.
He brought up patience a lot. Bobby told me how he prayed for patience each and everyday, how he needed patience to overcome the hatred that guards show him, how he needed patience to overcome the hatred he sees with love. Puts patience in perspective when I pray for it to get through theology class or a Sunday evening when the youth group has less of an attention span that usual....
Before ending with a prayer, I asked Bobby what his favorite passage was. He told me, Matthew 5:2-12. I knew immediately he was referring to the Beatitudes. "My favorite too," I told him. He gave me a big hug, then went back to his cell.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Why Incarcerated Grace?
So after reading MK's blog, I realized that I should probably comment on why I chose the title Incarcerate Grace. To start off, during January term while studying in Jamaica, we had the opportunity to visit the 2nd largest prison in that country. Prisons there are very different from the US. The one we visited was constructed in the 18th century under British rule, and very little has changed. The whole complex is in desperate need of repair/rebuilding. Prisoners lived in a kind of an ordered chaos, moving almost freely throughout the yards. Despite the squalid living conditions, the prisoners retained a sense of humanity and pride. We were able to make eye contact with the prisoners, talk to them, and even throw a few fist bumps around. We were served bread in the prison's bakery by a man as big as a house. There our eyes were opened and we could see the grace that was present.
I will maintain my belief that there is no place on earth where the grace of God cannot be found or where the Holy Spirit cannot move, but a US penitentiary locks it down pretty tight. America is obsessed with incarceration. We have more of our population in prison or in some stage of the judicial system than any other country on earth. The populations of our prisons, federally and in every state of the union, have individually risen staggering amounts, in some cases up to 700%, since the 1980's.
Throughout this semester, I hope to discover more about what it means to be a Christian, and how we can extend grace to those individuals who have been condemned to a life or death in prison. I know that a criminal justice system is a necessity, but warehousing our prisoners with no rehabilitation offered is not a system of grace. It is simply a system created to protect society from those who are deemed unwanted criminals, outcasts.
Grace can be found everywhere. Grace is offered to everyone. Do American prison's offer grace to inmates, or simply incarcerate them?
I will maintain my belief that there is no place on earth where the grace of God cannot be found or where the Holy Spirit cannot move, but a US penitentiary locks it down pretty tight. America is obsessed with incarceration. We have more of our population in prison or in some stage of the judicial system than any other country on earth. The populations of our prisons, federally and in every state of the union, have individually risen staggering amounts, in some cases up to 700%, since the 1980's.
Throughout this semester, I hope to discover more about what it means to be a Christian, and how we can extend grace to those individuals who have been condemned to a life or death in prison. I know that a criminal justice system is a necessity, but warehousing our prisoners with no rehabilitation offered is not a system of grace. It is simply a system created to protect society from those who are deemed unwanted criminals, outcasts.
Grace can be found everywhere. Grace is offered to everyone. Do American prison's offer grace to inmates, or simply incarcerate them?
First Trip to 'The Big House'
So today, 2/10, the class piled into 3 cars and made the hour trek south to Jackson, Georgia. For about an hour, Ross, MK, Becky, and myself talked about parts of the assigned readings we liked, and more about the looming day when we all have to start looking for calls in a church market that doesn't have much for us. At the time, I thought that would be the most depressing part of my day...
We get off the interstate, Exit 201, to normal sights, truck stops and Wendy's. We take an immediate turn through a pair of nonchalant brick placements and we are now on Georgia Department of Corrections property. We see a beautiful lake, lots of wooded land, and fields for picnics and recreation. A few red brick, two story houses begin to spring up here and there, homes for wardens and chief guards as best I can figure. We take a few turns around some road construction, and there it is.
This penitentiary is not Alcatraz or Sing Sing, it looks almost like a high school surrounded by a double layer of chain link fencing. These fences, 20+ feet high, are absolutely covered with more razor wire than I have ever seen, hundreds of miles of it, glinting in the afternoon sun.
We get through security and make our way down a long, underground corridor. On the walls are those motivational posters, the same ones used at local elementary schools says our professor. The posters speak of focus, pride, teamwork and the like. Georgia's way of boosting the guards moral as they enter a hostile environment I suppose.
At the end of the corridor and up a flight of stairs we meet Rev. Stanley Harrell, the chaplain for the prison and our guide for the day. We also meet, more like come in contact with cause they didn't talk to us much, a group of highly trained guards of the CERT force. I can't remember what CERT stood for, but Vojta, a foreign exchange student from Czech Republic, said in Czech it read "devil". Ha!
We toured almost the entire prison over the course of 3 hours. We couldn't talk to many people because the guards presence was a constant. There are 2 things that I am stuck thinking about:
1. Guards force the inmates to turn and face the wall whenever we would pass by. There was no eye-contact, no humanity.
2. The Georgia execution chamber is a place that I struggle to find words to describe. Our hearts sunk as we entered and saw the gurney behind the glass. Dazzling white sheets, half a dozen straps from top to bottom, an extended bar for the right arm of the condemned. Tears were fought back or allowed to flow. We all left in solemn silence...
This has just been a summary of the tour. More reflection to come later.
"We trust in Jesus Christ, fully human, fully God. Jesus proclaimed the reign of God: preaching good news to the poor and release to the captives, teaching by word and deed and blessing the children, healing the sick and binding up the brokenhearted, eating with outcasts, forgiving sinners, and calling all to repent and believe the gospel."
-A Brief Statement of Faith. PC(USA)
We get off the interstate, Exit 201, to normal sights, truck stops and Wendy's. We take an immediate turn through a pair of nonchalant brick placements and we are now on Georgia Department of Corrections property. We see a beautiful lake, lots of wooded land, and fields for picnics and recreation. A few red brick, two story houses begin to spring up here and there, homes for wardens and chief guards as best I can figure. We take a few turns around some road construction, and there it is.
This penitentiary is not Alcatraz or Sing Sing, it looks almost like a high school surrounded by a double layer of chain link fencing. These fences, 20+ feet high, are absolutely covered with more razor wire than I have ever seen, hundreds of miles of it, glinting in the afternoon sun.
We get through security and make our way down a long, underground corridor. On the walls are those motivational posters, the same ones used at local elementary schools says our professor. The posters speak of focus, pride, teamwork and the like. Georgia's way of boosting the guards moral as they enter a hostile environment I suppose.
At the end of the corridor and up a flight of stairs we meet Rev. Stanley Harrell, the chaplain for the prison and our guide for the day. We also meet, more like come in contact with cause they didn't talk to us much, a group of highly trained guards of the CERT force. I can't remember what CERT stood for, but Vojta, a foreign exchange student from Czech Republic, said in Czech it read "devil". Ha!
We toured almost the entire prison over the course of 3 hours. We couldn't talk to many people because the guards presence was a constant. There are 2 things that I am stuck thinking about:
1. Guards force the inmates to turn and face the wall whenever we would pass by. There was no eye-contact, no humanity.
2. The Georgia execution chamber is a place that I struggle to find words to describe. Our hearts sunk as we entered and saw the gurney behind the glass. Dazzling white sheets, half a dozen straps from top to bottom, an extended bar for the right arm of the condemned. Tears were fought back or allowed to flow. We all left in solemn silence...
This has just been a summary of the tour. More reflection to come later.
"We trust in Jesus Christ, fully human, fully God. Jesus proclaimed the reign of God: preaching good news to the poor and release to the captives, teaching by word and deed and blessing the children, healing the sick and binding up the brokenhearted, eating with outcasts, forgiving sinners, and calling all to repent and believe the gospel."
-A Brief Statement of Faith. PC(USA)
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