For decades, ever since Mary Baker Eddy asked her secretary to begin holding Christian Science services at a local jail in Concord, New Hampshire, Christian Science chaplains and others on institutional committees around the world (approximately 517 today in the United States alone) have been volunteering countless hours in local jails, prisons, and mental health facilities. They are the unsung heroes among church workers—those whose unselfish care for their neighbor often goes unnoticed or under-appreciated among other “church work.” With the support of branch churches, many of which supply Bibles and Christian Science literature to the facilities they serve, these volunteers bring the comforting and healing message of the Christ to people in great need. These workers’ efforts to include the men and women they minister to in the larger church community truly exemplify the spirit of a “church unconfined.” To honor their service, make it more widely known, and to help prosper it, the Journal will begin publishing regular reports on institutional work around the globe.
The man mentioned in the following account gave the author permission to tell his story.
When I lived in the San Diego area of California, I loved to walk on the beach. The sound of the waves washing ashore, the sea gulls soaring above, then dropping to the sand around me—they had a calming effect, allowing me to turn more easily to God for answers. On one of these walks I asked myself, What can I do next? I had recently completed six years working as an advertising representative for The Christian Science Monitor, and I was looking for other work that was as meaningful to me. Working for my church has filled my life with opportunities to share the truths I have learned and the spiritual healings that have blessed me through the years.
Suddenly, an answer came. I would ask my branch church to appoint me to the Institutional Committee, where I could fill the volunteer chaplain position that had just become available. That position, which involved making weekly visits to inmates in nearby federal and state prison facilities, and encouraging their spiritual growth, was the most rewarding of all my church activities. I was a chaplain in those facilities, and also made occasional visits to local county facilities, for six and a half years. I hope the inmates I worked with felt as blessed as I did.
Most of my life I believed that capital punishment served my sense of justice. But this was before I looked into the troubled eyes of the prison inmates, before I realized that desperate people can sometimes change, if given the opportunity.
We can never give up on anyone, no matter what the circumstances are.
Visiting with inmates, I sensed their pain, loneliness, confusion, and fear. And sometimes, in their eyes, I glimpsed my son, who, for a terrible time, was deep into drug and alcohol addictions. During one visit in a facility, one of the guards said, “Nobody’s hopeless. Just because someone has an attitude at some point, it doesn’t mean they can’t change. You should never throw somebody away.” To condemn means to render incurable, to give up and think there is no hope for them. We should never throw a person away—anyone can change. The rays of possibilities shine on us all.
Early one morning, a woman called and said her son-in-law had been arrested. She asked if I would please visit him. And so, several hours later, I found myself deep inside a county detention center. The heavy steel doors slammed shut behind me. I had been told to follow a purple line along the wall. After climbing the stairs, I followed the line to one of the visitors’ sections, empty except for a large hulk of a man, standing behind the glass wall. He sat down and picked up a phone by his seat. I sat opposite him and picked up the phone next to me to talk to him. I told him my name and why I had come. He nodded, frowning. In the course of conversation, he said he had been arrested for assault with a deadly weapon, and for bombing the front entrance of a United States federal building.
The rest of our visits after that were in private, guarded rooms. In the beginning, while he was still under psychiatric evaluation, his manner seemed cocky, his conversation disjointed and sometimes frightening, his dark eyes wild and unsettling. He had shaved his head as a protest because he believed God had told him to do what he did to help end the Persian Gulf War.
Several times I wondered why I bothered going to see this man, but as the weeks and months passed, he became calm and receptive to the spiritual ideas in the Christian Science Bible Lessons that we read together. I learned that he was an avid Bible student and probably knew more about it than I, though his understanding was strictly from a literal point of view. So it became obvious that my work was to help him understand the spiritual aspects of the Bible stories and bring their lessons to life for him in a practical healing way. He eagerly took them in, and I was impressed by his intelligence and willingness to learn.
One day the Bible Lesson that week included the story about the three Hebrews, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and their deliverance from the fiery furnace. He stopped reading, paused and looked away, deep in thought. Then, in a quiet voice he said: “You know what? The fire, which was supposed to destroy them, was the very thing that burned their bonds and set them free. Maybe that’s what’s happening to me in this prison furnace.” He fell silent for a bit and I waited for him to speak. He continued: “I don’t know, but maybe I can be of some help to the guys in here. I’m not fighting with everybody any more, and I even stopped a fight not long ago. Now that I’m not out of my head on drugs, things look pretty clear.”
I looked at him with new appreciation and realized how radically he had changed. His dark eyes were bright and he smiled when he spoke. His skin allergies were gone and he no longer had nightmares about shooting up on drugs (a common occurrence among inmates). I beheld a new man, a man I felt happy to call my friend. A statement by Mary Baker Eddy came to thought: “In mortal experience, the fire of repentance first separates the dross from the gold, and reformation brings the light which dispels darkness” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896, p. 205). I was reminded of the story of the insane Gadarene who dwelt in the tombs. Jesus healed him and later he was found sitting at Jesus’ feet, “clothed, and in his right mind” (see Luke 8:26–36).
And so it was with my friend. He was sitting at the Master’s feet, clothed, and in his right mind—still behind locked doors, yet free in his heart. He said he was ready to change his ways and start a new life. After that, he held Bible study groups with inmates, learned to use the computer, worked in the office, and helped inmates to get their high school diplomas. At one point he told me he was afraid that his wife wouldn’t take him back, because he had changed so much, but I reminded him that she had probably changed as well, and that all would be well.
About ten years ago, after serving only a portion of his sentence, he was released and is now living with his wife and his two daughters, who have been attending the Christian Science Sunday School near where they live. We stay in touch with each other by e-mail and sometimes by telephone. He says our study while he was in prison is bearing fruit, and his heart is filled with gratitude for the good life he once feared was lost to him forever.
This experience reformed me as well. We can never give up on anyone, no matter what the circumstances are. All of God’s children are pure and perfect, and with love, patience, and understanding lives can be changed.
