God's Inconvenient Call

I wrote a guest post at The Exponent a few weeks ago about my new volunteer opportunity as a chaplain at the local jail. I hadn't gotten around to posting it here, so here it is. (Since the time I wrote it, I've been several more times, but I'm leaving it as-is.) If you want to comment, please comment over at The Exponent.

Prison Chaplain - Part 2

This is part two of a three part series on what it’s like to be a prison chaplain. In Part I, I explained the background of how I got involved with prison ministry. In Part II, I’ll address some frequently asked questions about the work.

1. What is a typical day in the life of a prison chaplain?

Many religious groups have a full-time chaplain who is an employee of the prison. However, there isn’t a full-time LDS chaplain at San Quentin. Instead, there are four of us who volunteer on a part-time basis. We divide up the responsibilities so that we’re able to attend to our respective employment, family, and ward obligations as well.

San Quentin is a men’s facility with a postcard-worthy view of the San Francisco bay. We offer services for mainline inmates (the general prison population), inmates in administrative segregation, and inmates on death row. In addition, we are permitted to visit the cell blocks to see inmates who are unable to attend services. I do services for mainline inmates approximately two to three Sundays per month, depending on the schedules of the other chaplains.

The prison has a chapel complex that contains five houses of worship: a mosque, a synagogue, a Native American chapel, a Protestant chapel, and a Catholic chapel. LDS services are held in the library of the Catholic chapel at 6:00 on Sunday evenings. The chairs are arranged in a circle, and there is enough space for about 12 chairs. Usually 6 or 7 people attend.

I conduct the meeting, and we begin with a hymn and a prayer. After the prayer, one of the inmates gives the lesson. The lessons come from the same Teachings of the Presidents of the Church manual that is used for Relief Society and Melchizedek Priesthood meetings in a typical ward. At the prison, we’re about two weeks ahead of my ward, so I get a nice preview of things to come.

Because of the small group size, there is a lot of opportunity for discussion of the material. Everyone has very insightful things to contribute, and I’ve learned a lot. I especially have been touched by the stories that the inmates have shared about how being a follower of Christ has helped them to turn the other cheek and better handle conflict with the other inmates at the prison.

After the lesson is over, we close with a hymn and a prayer. If there is time left over, we watch a talk from the most recent General Conference, since they did not have the opportunity to watch it when it was aired live.

2. Isn’t it dangerous?! It’s a prison!!

I’ve been volunteering in the prison teaching college classes for two years, and I’ve felt safe the entire time. In that time, there has only been one disturbance while I was present, and it occurred in a completely different part of the prison. If there is ever a threat, volunteers are escorted out of the prison to safety.

San Quentin is a medium security facility, and most of the people I interact with are incarcerated for nonviolent offenses. Although I’ve only been a chaplain for a short while, I feel the same sense of safety in the chapel as I do in the classroom. Prison culture has a great deal of respect for chaplains, and it’s considered socially unacceptable to mess with the “God people”.

Death row has its own chapel, separate from the main area of the prison. I’m not yet cleared to go there to perform services, but when I am, I feel confident in my safety there, too. It’s set up with the safety of the chaplains in mind.

3. Why do you do chaplain work?

As I wrote about in Part I, I’ve felt called to ministry from an early age.

Plus, the words of Jesus in Matthew 25:36-40 stuck with me. “‘I was in prison, and ye came unto me.’ Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when saw we thee … in prison, and came unto thee?’ And the King shall answer and say unto them, ‘Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’”

Visiting those in prison and serving the people our society reviles is as much a part of the duty of a Christian as feeding the hungry and caring for the sick. I’m not very good at making casseroles for the hungry or the sick, but I can listen and I can preach, so I go with what I’m good at and leave the food to people who are good at that.

4. How can you be a chaplain, since you don’t hold the priesthood?

LDS military chaplains have to hold the priesthood because a large part of their service involves the performance of ordinances. However, LDS hospital and prison chaplains do not have to hold the priesthood because the performance of ordinances is not a regular part of the service provided. The service provided by hospital and prison chaplains is mostly pastoral care - a listening ear, a reminder of the love of God, the teaching of the gospel, praying with and for them, etc.

Per church policy, worship services in prison do not include the administration of the sacrament. Non-members are permitted to attend, but they are not permitted to receive the ordinances of baptism or confirmation. If any member of the group were to request a priesthood blessing, I would arrange for one of the other chaplains to come in to perform it.

On the ecclesiastical side, the high council for the stake where the prison is located sponsors me and certifies to the prison that I’m authorized to conduct LDS services for the inmates. Since I’m not a member of the stake where the prison is located, I imagine that they’ve been in contact with my bishop and stake president, though I don’t know that for sure, since my bishop hasn’t said anything to me about it.

On the institutional side, my liaison is the Catholic priest, who is a full-time employee at the prison. If I have any issues or concerns related to the operation of the program inside the prison, or prison rules/regulations, he can help me resolve the problem by working with the prison staff.

5. How can I get involved?

My initial involvement was fairly serendipitous, so I don’t know that there is necessarily a set path. If you live near a correctional facility (a jail or prison) and want to go inside as a religious volunteer, a good first step would be to talk to your bishop, stake president, or someone on the high council. They will likely be able to put you in touch with the right people. If you’re not in a situation to go inside a facility, there are organizations that provide pen pals for inmates. I haven’t worked with any of those organizations, so I can’t vouch for any of them, but I do know that the inmates love getting mail.

Prison Chaplain Experiences - Part I

I went to a small Jesuit university for college, where I was one of only 6 LDS undergrads. There was no institute associated with the school, so I enrolled in an institute class at the nearby public university. About halfway into the semester, I was asked to be the secretary in the institute presidency.

I served in the presidency as the secretary for two years, under two different presidents. Then, when the president moved out of state at the start of my last year of college, I was asked to replace him. During this time, I probably spent more time at the institute than I did on campus at the university I was actually attending. I found the time at the institute to be remarkably fulfilling, both taking classes and ministering to the students.

I studied in the philosophy department at school, and many of my professors were Catholic priests. I began to really envy them because they had a built-in opportunity to have a lifelong ministry. It was their career. I wished that there were something like that available to me.

I graduated college right after my 21st birthday, so I decided to serve a mission. This once again filled my desire to minister to people. While I was serving, I had an opportunity to spend time visiting people in the hospital and in juvenile hall, listening to their stories and sharing the love of God with them. I found that to be way more meaningful than riding my bicycle around town knocking on doors.

I started law school a few weeks after I returned home from my mission. Sadly, after a year and a half, my law school education was interrupted without warning. I had to find a new path quickly. I thought back on the times in life when I was the happiest, and I realized that it was when I was deeply involved in the running of the institute.

So I enrolled in divinity school. My plan was to become a hospital chaplain. I didn’t tell anyone about it because I feared disapproval at such a non-traditional career choice. The school I picked was all by correspondence, and it wasn’t very good. I dropped out a month later and tried to figure out something else to do with my life.

Eventually I went back to law school. Instead of returning to the law school that had treated me so badly, I was accepted to and chose to enroll in the school I had attended as an undergrad. In my last year of law school, I took a seminar on the prison system. I was uninterested in the subject matter, but the professor came highly recommended, so I signed up anyway.

In order to graduate, I was required to write a paper of publishable quality. I chose to use my seminar paper to satisfy the requirement. I wrote about the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and how it applies to the religious freedom of prison inmates.

The next semester, I was attending an academic conference, and I met a Muslim woman who volunteered as a chaplain at a women’s prison near Salt Lake City. She mentioned that the staff was interfering with the ability of the inmates to pray. I talked with her a bit about my paper and about some things she could try in order to convince the staff to work with her on the matter. I wanted to ask her how she carved out a space for ministry while being a member of a religious tradition that places limits on women’s public ceremonial participation (since it’s something I’ve been trying to figure out in my own life), but I chickened out because I didn’t want to offend her.

I graduated a few months later, and by that time I had decided that I want to become a law professor. I needed to get some college level teaching experience. My prison system seminar professor had volunteered in the past at San Quentin Prison in their university program. I decided to sign up, and I love it. I’ve taught math and English for the past two years.

Many of my students are openly religious, and they often discuss spiritual matters with me. In addition to being a good career move to gain experience, I feel like teaching at the prison is a form of ministry. But I still wanted to do more.

A few weeks ago, as I was driving to the prison to teach my math class, I was listening to the Mormon Matters podcast episode about LDS military chaplains. I was fascinated and wondered if there was an opportunity for me to do something similar at San Quentin. I had seen Buddhist and Protestant chaplains at the prison, and I had heard that there were Catholics as well. But I never saw any LDS chaplains.

When I arrived at the prison that evening, I saw an older man I had never seen before standing at the gate. He was wearing a white shirt, a tie, and a missionary name badge. I went over and introduced myself and asked him if there was an opportunity to serve at the prison in a religious capacity. It turns out he’s a ward missionary in the ward where the prison is located. His assistant just had to step down due to an employment conflict, and he will be moving next month. He said that he could use some help.

Once my background check clears, I’ll be good to go.  I’m really excited for this opportunity. The timing couldn’t be more perfect.

Ye Visited Me Not

The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.

Søren Kierkegaard

This quote has been on my mind a lot lately as I've come to understand that being a follower of Christ requires a lot. He gave His all for us, and we must give our all for Him. Turning the other cheek is hard. Loving those who harm people is a huge challenge.

Lately, I've been trying to focus on the knowledge that everyone I meet is created in the image of God. One scripture that I keep in the forefront of my mind is in the book of Matthew, chapter 25. I normally focus on verses 31-40. Christ is prophesying His second coming, and He starts out by saying that when He returns, He will divide his followers from those who do not follow Him. His followers are welcomed into His presence because when they cared for the sick and the poor, they were caring for Him. However, I was stung by the rebuke contained in the verses that followed.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels . . . I was . . . in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee . . . in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

Matthew 25:41-45 (emphasis added)

I've never had a problem with feeding and clothing the poor or visiting the sick and lonely. But I have been negligent in the command to visit those in prison. I always considered those in prison to be somebody else's problem. Out of sight, out of mind, plus, they deserve to be there - they're criminals.