Prison Ministry- I Weep with Silent Joy
By Diane McCarron
The first time I was a visitor to Green Haven prison was somewhere around the year 2004. It was for a scheduled Quarterly Meeting which ran on a Saturday from 9:30am to 3:30 pm. This time also included a break for an unsavory prison-food lunch. One of the volunteers from Poughkeepsie Friends Meeting was a facilitator for the day. I designated myself a listener and helper. As a novice, I didn’t know how to proceed in what seemed a daunting ministry.
Towards the later afternoon, each group participant was paired with one of the incarcerated men for an exercise. We were given one query to share between us. Both of us would have a turn sharing what the query evoked in their life in the present time while the other person would listen in silence- no need for oral commentary until after both shared and only then if at all necessary. My partner, a young man in his thirties, started sharing his story-how and why he was serving his present sentence. (This would be considered an unlikely share for such an event.) At a point when he was sharing, tears filled his eyes, then spilled over into continued weeping. He later told me in a shaky sniffling voice that he was weeping his remorse for his sentence, and he wanted forgiveness more than anything else in the world. Rather than saying anything, I reached over and quietly held his hand as we gently cried together.
This incident was a profound initiation into 15 years of prison ministry. Although the letting go of regrets and the process of forgiveness may have started before our joint exercise on that day, this courageous young man became a free man only a few months after. The time we shared evoked a transformative tangible presence – a higher power at work within us. We were loved into a greater silence and newness. I learned then that the greatest gift I could ever give to an incarcerated person was to be present with on-going acceptance as best as I could.
I further learned firsthand- and from accounts the men described- that the prison was noisy twenty-four hours a day. The men told how, even in the middle of the night, cell doors were banged and slammed shut as correction officers yelled commands, announcements, and warnings up and down the block hallways. When the men came to Friday night worship, they marveled at the silence in the meeting room which they never experienced elsewhere within prison walls. This silence in meeting was a welcome respite every week. Each man had the chance to worship in this permeating silence with one another and experience a precious community being built together as well. Individual and group trust was in the making.
As a volunteer, I noted a commitment to ongoing healing and subsequent transformation over and over through the years. With newly built trust, came a sense of a higher power present individually and collectively. This included the men sharing deeply –a sharing that I rarely experienced outside of prison. The silence experienced in the meeting on Friday nights was an active silence. Although extremely challenging, many of the men became committed to enacting the Quaker guideline, “that of God in everyone.” The men discovered that with on-going practice, a stronger inner silence could be accessed to help them deal with demanding everyday situations amidst the prison noisiness.
As a group, the incarcerated men set-up the use of Green Haven Meeting time on Friday evenings much like Poughkeepsie Friends Meeting on Sundays: each sharing briefly about something that happened in their week, Meeting for Worship in silence for about 30 minutes, afterthoughts, announcements followed by a short break for tea or instant coffee, a treasured cookie or cracker served by the men with eucharistic reverence. The discussion and sharing were usually based on a Quaker theme and facilitated by one of the visitors. This similarity of schedule helped us feel in unity with PFM and the outside world. At the end of our allotted time, one of the men would gather us into a circle for a few prayerful words. Then we would hold hands in silence as GH Meeting officially closed for the night.
I am forever grateful for the years I had active prison ministry in my life. It is an on-going ministry that stays alive within. I will not forget the gifts I received over those 15 years that sustain me even now, and I expect, always in some way. In prison ministry, I felt I was learning in a laboratory of life, not from above, but beside the incarcerated men: opening, sharing, growing compassionately, forgiving others and self, letting go of regrets repeatedly. The incarcerated men taught me a lot about being strong in difficult life situations and to have gratitude at the same time… always to have gratitude.
And when I think of the gifts I have been given, my eyes fill with tears as they did years ago “and so I weep. I weep with silent joy.”
By Diane-Ellen McCarron, Poughkeepsie Friends (Featured Image Credit: Worship by Diane McCarron)