Fighting Satan

I apologize to those of you who might have been looking for last night’s blog. It didn’t happen. Satan was everywhere yesterday. And while we fought our hardest, I honestly feared we’d lost. And I was tired. And some wine and some wise counsel from Doug Gaskell, Chuck Russell and Jeff Stein (we Conference Called him in from Colorado Springs) took priority over writing last night.

I guess an explanation is in order. Sunday marked an absolute low point in my prison ministry career. There was not a single event or episode, but it was an amalgamation of hundreds of tiny events throughout the day that gave us all pause and made us wonder what we were doing wrong, whether we were the right ones to be inside with this crew, whether we had the skills or the calling to do this at all. Simply put, some of the Stars were battling us at every turn. Not physically, but everything said and done was challenged. Our Stars chatted during quiet times. They banged drums and when the drums were taken away, they banged trash cans. They cursed openly. They ignored us when we told them it was inappropriate to wear their pants well below where they should be worn. At times they were antagonistic, almost to the point of combative. Never, ever, have I felt such animosity from a group of kids (not all of the kids, but an uncomfortably large percentage). By day’s end, we were beyond exhausted – emotionally, physically and spiritually. By the time the Stars left for the day and we met to regroup, I feared a team coup. I stood behind the Chapel podium to deflect any incoming missiles. Thankfully, the team was gracious to me, even though almost everyone was beyond frustrated.

For nearly an hour, we debated. Should we send some of them back to their cells – effectively ending their Epiphany weekend? Should we have the Corrections Officer speak to them? Individually? En masse? I’d already had one, what we call CTJ meeting with them. Was another in order? (A CTJ is a “Come to Jesus” meeting where the riot act is read in an attempt to bring ill behavior under control. It didn’t work, by the way). I feared a few teamers might not come back.

After an hour’s discussion, we’d begun to rally. We’d talked about our struggles with the Stars and we agreed that Satan was hard at work – not on the Stars, but on us. We recognized that we were treading on his home turf, and that he was particularly angry with us. He was tempting us: tempting us to quit, tempting us to send some kids off, tempting us to lose our cool, tempting us to divide amongst ourselves. And he almost won.

Slowly though, the momentum in the room shifted. We agreed that Satan was winning. And if we gave up, then he would have his way. We agreed that if we turned our backs on the troublemakers, that we’d be doing the same thing that’d been done to them their entire lives. We agreed that Christ called us to be in this ministry, and that he never promised us it would be easy, but he promises us that He’d be there with us. We agreed finally, that Christ won people over by loving even the unlovable. And that we absolutely are called to follow that example, and to be Christ-like in our actions. We had to love the hell out of them.

At the end of our meeting, our Corrections Officer, we called him “Q” asked if he could speak. He’d been lurking in the doorway at the back of the chapel and I asked him to join us if he wanted. He’d been with us for two days and had been amazingly supportive. Well what he said blew us away. “Please, trust me. I know these guys. And you may not see it, but you’re making a difference in the lives of these guys. They’re changing because of you. It’s important that you’re here. They may not even know it yet, but I can see it. You’re getting to them. Please keep going.”

So that’s where we ended last night. And it wasn’t a story with a happy ending. And so far, I’d never written a negative blog about prison ministry. And I wasn’t ready to start, quite frankly.

This morning, with some rest, we jumped back in to the deep end, feet first. And something happened. I can’t explain it. The faces were the same. The names were the same. But the kids were different. You could hear a pin drop during Chapel time. They followed directions. Their language had changed, but more importantly, their tone had changed. They weren’t abusive or abrasive. They asked good questions. They laughed with us, not at us. They sang songs and participated. They stood arm-in-arm when they sang “Lean On Me”. They were honest with us. Their walls came down a little. They began to trust us a little.

It would be easy to explain if Q had gone and intervened on our behalf. But he didn’t. It would be easy to explain if they had gotten together back in their building at day’s end and decided to change. But they didn’t. There’s no chance the same conversation occurred simultaneously in 12 different pods in three different buildings. I can only thank God for listening to our prayers and for Him rewarding us for sticking with it, in spite of what some of us (myself included at some points) wanted to do.

So today, we knew God had taken control of the weekend and, as we often say, claimed that place as His holy ground. And through the day, we heard one of the most smart-alecky kids announce, “Those of you who know me, know I joke around a lot. But I need to be serious here for a minute. I was raised in a church, but left it a long time ago and for the past few years I’ve been studying paganism…Today, I want to tell all of you. I’ve decided to go back and follow Christ again. And you nice people led me to that place.”

There is an oft-repeated story by a scientist/poet named Loren Eiseley dating to 1969 called “Star Thrower”. It goes something like this, though the original is more complex. The moral is the same.

Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work. One day he was walking along the shore. As he looked down the beach, he saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself to think of someone who would dance to the day. So he began to walk faster to catch up. As he got closer, he saw that it was a young man and the young man wasn't dancing, but instead he was reaching down to the shore, picking up something and very gently throwing it into the ocean.

As he got closer, he called out, "Good morning! What are you doing?" The young man paused, looked up and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean."

"I guess I should have asked, Why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?"

"The sun is up and the tide is going out. And if I don't throw them in they'll die."

"But young man, don't you realize that there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it. You can't possibly make a difference!"

The young man listened politely. Then bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea, past the breaking waves. "It made a difference for that one!"