Kiddos, aching souls, and the school-to-prison pipeline

Photo by Mike Mozart

I don’t make the connection until eight weeks into the summer.

“I really love what I’m doing with Reunion and Church of Christ, Right Now,” I keep telling friends, family, anyone on the street who will listen to me gush about my new love.

I feel moved when I go to jail. I feel deep meaning in the conversations and relationships and support groups with the ones coming home from jail, the ones long ago in jail and now leaders in the movement, the ones who’ve never been to jail and desperately don’t want their grandkids to go there. Jesus is in jail. The Spirit is in the vulnerability and open heartedness. The leaders of this movement are prophets and saints and I want to sit at their feet and soak up all their wisdom and commitment and love.

“On the other hand,” I shrug, “the after-school program stuff is fine—I just plan field trips and help out with a summer camp for kids. But I’ve been there before. I’ve taught reading before; I’ve worked in a summer daycare; I’ve written curriculum. I’m ready for something new. I’m ready to put my theology to use.”

Taking kindergarteners to the American Indian museum to build an igloo, after all, is not really theology. Right?

*

It is time to go on a trip with the middle school kids.

I squish into the van with them as we drive the twenty minutes to get downtown.

The three boys sitting on the seat next to me are bragging about how bad they are. “I’ve been expelled from three schools,” one says. “I’ve been expelled from one, but I have a feeling I’ll get kicked out of my new one,” another responds, trying to keep up. “My cousin got suspended,” says the goody-goody, bless his heart.

I want to roll my eyes. I am sure these kids are exaggerating. I keep listening.

“My dad has been in jail most of my life,” is where the conversation migrates. “Almost all my relatives have been in jail,” says another kid. “My brother had to go to juvy for stealing an iPhone from the store,” says another. “My teacher keeps telling me I’m gonna end up in juvy,” says the kid with the dad in jail. “You only get three strikes before you get locked up for good,” someone warns. “My cousin has four strikes though,” one protests.

And like that, the synapses meet, and my heart is weeping and praying for each of them by name.

These kids I work with in the mornings will become the incarcerated folks I work with in the afternoons.

It was only last night that our support group had a heart-wrenching conversation about belonging and love. So many aching souls in that room, confessing that they'd longed for more love from their mothers and fathers. They'd run away from home because of it. They'd ended up in juvy because of it. They'd sought love in all the wrong places, formed all the wrong kinds of relationships. Only to find now, at 28 or 37 or 59, that they are tired of the search. They are tired and they want to rest here in this community, in this place, where if they are brave enough to be themselves, there is love to be found.

And now, when these twelve- and thirteen-year-olds give their macho stories about their dads absent in jail, I know I am hearing the same story in a different tone of voice. In just a few short years, these boys are so likely to become the men in jail, wanting another way but not knowing how to repair relationships, how to break out of poverty without a little quick money on the side to get them started. They are so likely to become those tired men sitting around the table at support group. Because if it’s all they’ve ever seen from every man in their family, who can tell them there’s another way? I grew up without ever questioning if I’d go to college. Everyone in my family went to college. It was a given. What is the given for these kids?

For some of them—the troublemakers, the ones with a rebellious streak—the connection is not hard to visualize. But the little guy in the front row with the sideways baseball cap? The beautiful girl with a scowl who brightens as she comes up with the most thoughtful answer to every question? Surely not them, too?

And then my heart skips a beat, as I think of the sweet little kindergarteners I took to the museum yesterday. The tiny little girls and boys who hold hands and walk through the exhibits with their matching visors and garner the admiration of every stranger. The adorable little voices who chorus, “Thank you, Miss Katie,” and giggle so freely. The open hearts who stare in wide-eyed wonder at the whale hanging from the ceiling and exclaim, “Whoa!” every time I open the box to show them a new type of rock.

It is one thing for the moody, exasperating middle-schoolers to grow up to be incarcerated. But who will these kindergarterners grow up to be?

Lord, have mercy. May it not be so.

*

For the last two weeks, I want to soak up all the love and open-heartedness I can from the re-entry program, from the beautiful spirits of the men and women coming home from prison.

And then I want to take and fling it with all my strength into the hearts of the kids in the summer program, whether by presence or by conversation or, simply and desperately, by prayer.

Because my work is not divided this summer into two unrelated ministries. It is one. The love we share in the support group is the same love needed by the kids. If they can receive love now, perhaps they won’t smoke and drink to escape it all. If they can be wrapped in the grace and protection of the spirit now, perhaps they will find a different way than their fathers.

And for me--if this daily breaking of my heart can be captured and bathed in the Spirit, perhaps something beautiful becomes of me, too.

With practice

The daily examen is a prayer exercise developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola. I like its structure (you will see I need it) and how it engenders gratitude and openness. The following is a composite of a few weeks of not-exactly-daily-but-making-a-run-at-it prayer during my summer pastoral internship.

i. Become aware of the presence of God.

You are here, God. Always. If I am a success or a failure. If I remember the kid's name or not. If I sit in a circle of belonging or pace the hall crying. You are here.

(I need to take my medicine before bed. I should definitely set two alarms. Oh no, my phone is dead, I better go plug it in to use as a backup alarm. Why couldn’t I get up this morning? Okay, where was I?)

ii. Review the day with gratitude. Pay attention to the senses.

I woke feeling rested. (Well, I overslept, wasted time, rushed into my meeting late.)

I ate farm-fresh eggs, strawberry preserves, kale chips and watermelon. (I ate half a loaf of chocolate pumpkin bread. I have no restraint. I don’t exercise much here; I feel lazy. I am not treating my body well. But I digress.)

(Why is it so hard to remember my day? I’m not living mindfully and prayerfully into each moment. Social media is destroying my brain. Maybe I should cut myself off. But I have put so much work into my blog!)

Oh! I had a lovely dinner with someone from church. I am grateful for simple hospitality.

I got wonderful news from a dear friend. (I got sad news from another. I haven’t reached out enough.)

iii. Pay attention to your emotions. What is God saying through your anger, or boredom, or contentment?

On my visit to the shut-ins, I felt compassion, empathy. Caring for the outsiders is a good place for me. Maybe all we need to become more loving is to seek out places where love is needed.

Why do I feel anxious and unfocused? I am in transition, but you are with me. You will help me take each step when it is time. Maybe if I were exercising, it would help relieve some worry. (For that, I’d have to get up earlier, though.) Or maybe I should make a to-do list each morning to better organize my day.

But these are self-help tactics. Prayer isn’t self-help. What do you want to say to me, God?

Oh. 

Prayer.

This is why I need to pray, to start and end my day in silence. I worry less when I ground myself in you. 

When I know I am loved and gifted and meant for something beautiful.

Wow.

Good point.

Thanks.

iv. Look toward tomorrow.

I will pray again tomorrow. My prayer will continue to be interrupted by unrelated, sometimes destructive thoughts. But with practice, I can feel myself being changed. (Very slowly. Maybe.)

The yellow blanket [at Little Did She Know]

Today I am over at Cara Strickland’s blog. Cara is an amazing gal, a kind soul, and a beautiful writer, and I’ve enjoyed getting to know her a little over the past few months. She had the brilliant idea to start a series called De(tales), in which the intricate details of a memory become a springboard for reflection or metaphor or simply the telling of a story.

For the series, I wrote about a little yellow blanket and a lifelong friendship. Here’s how it starts:

I am reluctant to rise so early, but I am so excited for fellowship that I agree. Antonia and I hear a tapping on our dorm-room door around seven, and one of us scrambles over to unlock it for Leanne. The October Minnesota mornings have turned crisp and cool, and I am stumbling out of my bed, not yet dressed, so Antonia grabs the faded yellow blanket from her bed and we sit in a circle on the carpet and cover our legs. Dear God, thank you for this beautiful morning, someone croaks, and we have begun.

The yellow blanket becomes our companion, our touchstone for seven a.m. prayer. In between closing our eyes, we stare down at the swirly white-flowered pattern woven into the fabric, and we hold onto it like a piece of solid ground in this new place far away from home, this vortex of new experiences and new ideas snaking around us. The blanket is cotton, warm enough for winter but light enough for spring, always covering our bare legs. We let it bind us together, hoping it can cover our broken pieces and keep us from hurting each other…

Click here to read the rest over at Little Did She Know.

When words build walls

Photo by The Delicious Life

We are sitting in a diner, the twilight sun of a beautiful day shining across our plates as we talk, as we catch up. I am telling her about my current quest to discern where I will fit as a pastor—in which brand of church. I smile and stutter quickly past the main options, knowing all of them will be more liberal than the churches in which she finds herself at home.

She was my Christian buddy at public high school. In between the singing in choir and eating chocolate and walking to the creek to test the water for our science project, I would cling to her and ask, “what have you been reading about in the Bible lately?” and “can you pray for me?”

Now, as we are sitting eating spinach salads and basking in this first warm spring day, I notice that I feel self-conscious about my career path and my church journey. She hasn't said anything to suggest judgment, but even still, I worry that somehow the new trajectory makes me less Christian in her eyes.

In order to justify myself, I resort awkwardly to the old language. “I’m sure God will lead me to the right place,” I say, though the truth is I feel more vulnerable than sure, and I can’t wrap it up so neatly, and I’m not sure these days how exactly providence does its work.

*

In certain company, I have started to feel defensive about my faith. I feel the need to throw in phrases like, “praying about it” and “God is calling me”—whether or not I’m praying about it, whether it’s God’s voice or my best approximation that I am pursuing.

I’m not sure when it started, but I think it has to do with two litmus-test items in conservative Christianity. I am a woman who decided to become a pastor. And, worse, I came out as a supporter of gay marriage. By simply being who I believe I am called to be, I worry that I have become controversial, maybe heretical to them. They are my friends. I still look up to them in so many ways. They aren't stereotypes (unloving w/ heads in the sand), just as I am not a stereotype (unwilling to take the Bible seriously or sacrifice for faith). I want to stay connected, keep the conversation going. So I feel the need to show them that my faith is still vibrant, real, spirit-filled.

I suspect it is mostly in my perception. There really is no need to be defensive, to throw in the language I usually don’t use anymore because I have become more careful about words and their theological implications. Maybe it is really I who judge myself: I think of how me of five years ago would have looked at me now and wondered about her devotion. Or maybe I am afraid that if I no longer speak my friends’ language, or what I think is their language, we will no longer understand each other. Maybe I am grasping at straws because if I have come to this, there are definitely some ways in which we no longer understand each other, or no longer give each other the chance to sit down late at night and explain where our paths have taken us.

I worry that if I have to prove myself still Christian enough to use those words, maybe I am insecure about something deeper, about my own connection to the source and the ways in which it has become difficult to pray, difficult to hear God’s voice. Maybe that difficulty exists because I am in some kind of wilderness, or because by my pride I have put a wall there, or because I am not trying hard enough, or simply because I am in a spiritual middle where some forms and rituals have to die in order to spring forth again in new life.

I am tempted to end this post by some beautiful description of a transcendent experience in which I show that I am still Christian enough, in which I make you see that I am deeply connected to God, that I am in fact actually more Christian than I was when I used all the lingo without second thought.

But that is not true. We’re on a journey. You, me, the feminists and the LGBT advocates, the ones who have strong convictions against women pastors and the ones who have strong convictions against gay marriage, the ones who believe in hell, the ones who don’t, the ones who don’t know, the ones who are hurting and lonely, the ones who feel like they can touch God when they pray, the ones whose faith is simple and unassuming and matter-of fact. All of us. I have been in different places on this journey, forward and backward and sideways, and I am here now, and maybe we are in the same place or maybe we are in different places, but we are together on this journey. And God is still working, molding us.

So today, it turns out, is really about confession. 

I have not been completely honest. I sometimes use words as walls. I am sorry. 

As our paths diverge and twist and then meet again, I want to give you myself as I am: plain clothes and plain words, weaknesses and deep convictions and wobbly steps towards a kingdom. I hope you will understand and love me that way. I want to share this journey with you, to see you and understand you and love you, just as you are.