Another afternoon at the JC

Red: You're gonna fit right in. Everyone in here is innocent, you know that? Heywood, what you in here for?
Heywood: Didn't do it. Lawyer f*%* me. 

***

Andy: Maybe it's time for you to switch careers.
Tommy: Huh?
Andy: What I mean is, you don't seem to be a very good thief, maybe you should try something else.
Tommy: Yeah, well, what the h*** do you know about it Capone? What are you in for?
Andy: Me? My lawyer f*%* me. Everybody's innocent in here. Didn't you know that?

 from The Shawshank Redemption 

Lately I've been going to the Justice Center (JC) on Friday afternoons. I sign in, buzz central control and announce who I am. They open the door and usually announce over the intercom which room I'll be using. Yesterday I was assigned Private Visitation 1 (P.V. 1), an approximately 5' by 5' room that has enough space for a table and two chairs. This serves as both confessional booth and pulpit, a place for them to tell their story and for me to share how I feel the Scriptures apply to what they have told me. In the years I have been serving as a volunteer chaplain at the JC, I've heard lots of tales, plenty of admissions of wrong-doing but with caveats of how there is more to their case than what the D.A. is saying. Yesterday was no different.

It was a busy afternoon in that I saw five inmates, a few of them for the first time. And with the exception of one, every one I met let me know in no uncertain terms that they have been screwed over by the system. I don't know enough of their story to know if their contention is true or not. The life of an addict is so much about subterfuge – lie and spin, telling tales in order to gain sympathy or favor with the very people who now control their destiny. For some of them, they've told their story so long and so convincingly that they now believe it themselves. One former inmate that I am still in contact with informed me last fall that he had cancer and that his doctor had informed him that the cancer was too far along to do anything about it. His story was so persuasive that he had all of us who were trying to help him convinced that before Christmas we would be laying him to rest. And then one day last November – poof – he was transported to a half-way house in Chippewa Falls that catered to the mentally ill. Come to find out his illness was all a mirage, a figment of his imagination. Whether he had concocted this story so he could get access to a morphine drip or because he simply believed that he really had cancer I really don't know. The fact is he really believed the diagnosis he was sharing with everyone – and still does as I have remained in contact with him since moving from our area. So, when I hear a sad story – and I heard a very sad one, yesterday – I have to rein in my knee-jerk reaction to simply feel sorry for them.

That's not to say that I don't feel empathy with them. I do. Most of the inmates at the JC have been assigned a public defender (p.d.) who already has a large caseload and who may see their client 5-10 minutes before they walk into the courtroom. It's not that the p.d. is not qualified. As far as I can tell it's simply about numbers – how can they do justice to all the cases they have to represent? My guess is if any of the five I saw yesterday were wealthy people they would benefit from higher-end legal representation. But none of them are. They are poor and so they must take the legal counsel that fits their budget.

But I have to remind myself as I sit across the little table from them why am I here. I'm not their lawyer. I'm not their judge or jury. I'm not the author of their presentencing investigation (p.s.i.) whose recommendations usually influence the judge's ruling. At this moment in time I'm their pastor, listening sympathetically to them while at the same time praying that the Holy Spirit help me be his voice at this moment. I want to direct them to look up, to direct their focus to God and his ability to work in even the most screwed up of situations. Just like the inmates of Stephen King's fictional Shawshank prison who profess they are the victims of circumstance, fate and the capricious whims of the justice system, I feel it is my job at that moment in time to hear them out, read the Scriptures with them and pray with them. One First Nations guy I met with has been found guilty by a jury of his peers of sexually assaulting a woman. He is adamant that it was the equivalent of a kangaroo trial, a farce of due justice, that his accuser has made the entire story up. He's facing long-time at a state correctional facility the length of his stay he will find out on Monday at his sentencing hearing. He's scared. He's angry. He feels lost and questions out loud if life is even worth living any more. All I know to do is turn to the pages of the Gospels and remind him that he and Jesus have a lot in common – both were innocent, both were found guilty in a mockery of a trial, both were dealt with mercilessly. Jesus' reaction was to put his trust in the Father and to forgive those who were intent on dealing him such great harm. I read to him the opening words of Psalm 22 -

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?”

- the very words he uttered on the cross while he was dying. I think more painful to him than the physical torture the soldiers doled out to him was that moment when the Father turned his back on his One and Only beloved Son. Jesus, who never knew the absence of the Father's company,  now feels totally bereft as God turns his back on him. “Go to Jesus, Aaron* (*not his real name)...he knows what its like to be abandoned, to be betrayed, to be defenseless before the judge.” I remind him that while we may not understand all the twists and turns our journey in life takes God is greater than these things and those of us who put our trust in him find that there is always life on the other side of suffering.

Do my words help? Does my reading of Romans 12:17-21 to another brother I met with that afternoon with the gentle admonishment to pray for the D.A. with whom he is so angry with for what he believes is a total miscarriage of justice help as well? I really don't know. I have to remind myself, however, that it is the Holy Spirit who does the heavy lifting when it comes to persuading men of their need for Jesus and the truth about themselves. My role is to be there and affirm them as people loved and cared for by God regardless of how sincere or deceitful they may actually be.

I think that's why I'm good for the JC. I'm naïve – yes, maybe even gullible – but I also choose to believe the best about people regardless of their reputation or their rap sheet. They may be pulling the wool over my eyes but what of it? Then, I guess, they play me for a fool. My pride is not wounded about such a thing. Eventually, the truth about people's intentions regarding Christ come out in the wash anyway. In time they'll either turn to a new scam or, just maybe, they'll begin looking for a new way to live their life. For their sake, and the sake of their children, I can only hope they do.