Corporal Work of Mercy #6: visiting those in prison

If you don't know that the corporal works of mercy are, you weren't raised Catholic. If you don't know what they ARE, or mean, you are in the majority, regardless of faith-based upbringing.

Here's the list:
1. Feed the Hungry.
2. Give drink to the thirsty.
3. Shelter the homeless.
4. Clothe the naked.
5. Visit the sick.
6. Visit the imprisoned.
7. Bury the dead.

I always found it intriging that the level of discomfort seems to rise as one goes down the list: Feed the hungry, Give drink to the thirsty. These seem innocuous enough. Shelter the homeless. A little more challenging, but sure, that seems like something we should do. Clothe the naked. Well, hey, for us First Worlders, that isn't so bad, because we are definitely talking one of two things: (1) cleaning out our closets/dressers and sending our cast-off clothes to someplace, like Goodwill or Salvation Army or the like, where our used clothes can be recycled into outfits for poor folks, or (2) sending money to a registered charity to help out the poor orphans in a third world country.

Visit the sick. That seems to be the transitional point, for many of us, anyway. Hopitals are so depressing after all, not to mention hospices. But, as long as we think Aunt Martha is leaving us the silver tea set or the Jag, well, we can manage.

Visit those in prison. There's a concept for you, and one foreign to most middle class Americans. No wonder lots of us just gloss over that little directive on our way down the list.

Bury the dead. Ooops. Isn't it more politically correct to cremate them these days? Still, death comes to us all, and it wouldn't be civilized to just let Uncle Felix rot there in the living room. Of course we take care of him. Distasteful? In our insulated, disinfected world, yes, but still something most of us know we will have to do, in one form or another, during the course of our lives.

Which brings us back to work of mercy #6: visiting those in prison. I would venture to guess that most North Americans believe that they can go their whole lives without ever visiting someone who is in prison, and for the most part, they would be right.

As an attorney whose work involves a lot of contact with the criminal justice system, I see the inside of a lot of jails. I have friends who have seen the inside of more jails than I, who put their bodies on the line for peace, for justice, to protest the deliberate indifference to human suffering that seems so pervasive in our time. Sometimes, I have occasion to visit these friends, too.

Why, when Jesus was talking about the last judgment (its toward the end of Matthew 25 for you Bible referencing folks) did he include visiting those in prison as a way to do something for "the least of these" and therefore for him?

I think that there are several reasons, but two come to mind most readily.
First, Jesus gave this discourse in the days leading up to his own arrest and brief imprisonment. If we are going to be followers of Jesus, and not just admirers of Jesus, we must go down into the dungeons of Jerusalem with him. Walking this difficult, painful, frightening part of Christ's passion is not a place most Christians want to go, but some are able to do it.
Second, it is in prison that humans are reduced to their most basic existence: they have no liberty, and very limited capacity to exercise their free will. Many are in prison because they have made poor choices, many of these are there because their ability to make good choices has been impaired by mental illness or substance abuse. We are not talking about the cream of the crop here, we are talking about the gleanings. So if we are going to be good, upright Christians, how can these addicts and bad decision makers offer us anything we would go through the hassle of a prison visit to find out about?

It turns out that I have learned a lot from men and women in prison over the years. I re-learned to play chess visiting a young man facing a capital murder charge in Kansas in the mid 1990's. I learned about gracious victory from the woman who knitted through her trial and after a favorable verdict, sent me roses. I learned about grace in defeat from many clients who have sent me hand-drawn cards over the years. I have shared the ups and downs of incarceration with many who will not ever really understand why a big chunk of their life was stolen, and yet find a way to remain human in the face of inhuman suffering.
I also am privileged to have friends who have chosen to walk with the prisoners because they were compelled to acts of civil disobedience in an effort to bring our society's attention to injustices great and small.
Each person I have met within prisons or jails throughout the United States has given me something, an insight, a laugh, a reason for outrage, whatever. But to see them in orange or black and white stripes, or some other unflattering ensemble, is to see Christ. Because no matter why they are in jail, and no matter what they have done, none of them is as bad as their worst act. And they are all human beings, created in the image and likeness of God. So I can't very well let them sit there and rot, with no human contact, now, can I?

I am one of the humans charged with the duty to tell the stories of the imprisoned; I am obliged to work to show others that these are not caged animals, these are people. They may fight demons you and I will never meet; they forfeit things we take for granted: basic everyday things, like being able to choose whether to go for a walk around the block, or what they will wear or what and when they will eat, even when they can sleep or shower. But they, like us, are human beings with the needs and wants of humans in our society. I have been honored to call many of those who have lived parts of their lives behind bars my friends.

Maybe for some, I hope that friendship will help them stay out of prison when their time is up. For others, especially those who feel called to jail themselves for justice, I hope they will let me know their visiting schedule.

Peace and all good things,
Ruth

"It is in the shelter of each other that the people live."-- Irish proverb

Homeless.
What does the word conjure for you? I have been in the Catholic Worker so long that I do not trust that the visions that spring into my mind are anything like those of people who do not share their daily lives with homeless men and women.

For some, “homeless” means “shiftless” or “lazy” or “addict” or “crazy” and some of those terms can be applied to some of the people I know from the street. But not all.

There are as many reasons a person becomes homeless as there are homeless people on the streets, but there are common themes. Some type of trauma in their background is practically a given, and some part of their circumstances or their psyche processed that trauma in a manner that caused them to end up on the streets.

Sometimes it was the trauma of war, sometimes the trauma of an abusive home. Sometimes it was the trauma of losing a beloved caregiver, or the trauma of being treated badly by people who did not understand what it is like to be mentally ill. It could even be the trauma of losing the job that allowed one to live in dignity, paycheck to paycheck. But trauma weakened the resolve and eliminated the resources, until housing was no longer an option.

I know a lot of mentally ill street folks, including many who use alcohol or drugs to escape from their reality for a while. I also know a lot of folks who are on the streets because they lost a job, or made a string of bad choices about money or relationships, or who started out on uneven ground and never got to that level playing field that America is supposed to be all about. But the saddest homeless folks I know are the ones who do not seek out the companionship of others, who live the life of the truly lonely. Because being homeless does not necessarily mean friendless.

I see the community of the street more frequently than some people do. I see it at the soup kitchen and at St. Francis House, and even downtown on 9th Street where the panhandlers ply their trade from time to time. I have known people who choose to live in homeless camps because that is one of the only choices left available to them and they prefer the freedom of nature to the rules of the shelters.

I know people who came to our house of hospitality for shelter, and found a home there. Some have stayed; others return to visit, to help out, to enjoy community. They can do that with us because we don’t treat them like clients in an agency. We are not an agency, we are a community, and we are open to the possibility that each new person who walks through the door has something to share with us that will make our lives richer or more meaningful, or just give us another story to share. We provide the building, but it is in the community that gathers, from the house or the kitchen and the street, that creates the shelter where we live among one another.

It is already in your hearts...

"For this command that I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you.
It is not up in the sky, that you should say, 'Who will go up in the sky to get it for us
and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?'
Nor is it across the sea, that you should say, 'Who will cross the sea to get it for us
and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?'
No, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts;
you have only to carry it out."  Deut. 30:11-1
When I see some diatribe about how "social justice" is code for some type of political system, or hear a claim that creating a socially just society is anathema to the message Jesus of Nazareth preached, I want to cringe.
But I want to cringe, too, at the idea that doing social justice, living the sermon on the mount or the works of mercy is just "too hard" or just "not practical".
It's not really rocket science, this social justice thing, you know?
And really, the words of the Old Testament reading above says it better than I can.  Treating other human beings with dignity and respect is at the base of social teaching. The great comandments are not about pie in the sky or a super society buried beneath the waves of the sea. It is as simple as it is profound: Love God above all other things, and love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
I think sometimes that we in the first world, and especially we in the United States, are addicted to the cop out.
We are more than willing to abdicate our responsibility to our sisters and brothers. We prefer to believe that there is a program for helping the truly needy, the "deserving poor" whether it is a government program, an NGO or some private philanthropic endeavor. We believe we can cast our cash at these nonpersonal entitites and they will do our caring for us. We corporatize our charitable acts, because we  are a nation of corporations. We believe that if a group is a "non profit corporation" that they will accomplish the actions described in their mission statement, and will be "financially accountable" to those whose donations pad their bottom lines. After all, we are familiar with the bottom line, we are familiar with the ability to large corporate entities to do things that individuals cannot do on their own. 
Meanwhile, we are free to do what is most convenient for us.
Personalism, as practiced by Catholic Workers and others, is a reaction and response to this depersonalization of the "needy" who we "help" with our financial donations. 
A Catholic Worker community, ideally, does not spend resources developing strategies to maximize the bottom line. A Catholic Worker community, ideally, begs alms and seeks the face of Christ in everyone who walks through the door.
Catholic Workers, and their ilk have learned that the acts we will be called to account for at the last judgment are not about the beauty and grandiosity of a strategic plan, or the number of prayer partners supporting out ministries. We will be asked whether we did things for Christ, in whatever distressed disguise he wore for us in our lifetimes. Did we feed the hungry? Shelter the homeless, visit the imprisoned, bury the dead with dignity, welcome the stranger? Were these simple acts of love and justice in our hearts, and if so, did they manifest in our works?
Anybody can do social justice. We just need to decide to listen to the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts and decide to take literally the example Christ gave us.