Today began with a four mile walk in 55 minutes. My legs pick up the pace when the temperature falls below freezing, as it did for the first time this fall. The day is ending now as I watch the vice-presidential debate, or at least half watch the debate.
The most significant thing I did today was go up to Ypsilanti to visit a parishioner at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility. She was jailed for habitual drunk driving. I took her father with me. He no longer drives out of Adrian. His parents were born in Lebanon. He speaks Arabic and loves to cook Lebanese food. His daughter is learning day by day to reach for the Bible instead of the bottle. She asked me to send her a study Bible via Amazon. She wants to start a prison ministry when she completes her time next year. We sat in a large, open area, surrounded by other women inmates and their visitors. All the women wear black leather shoes and white socks. They must always wear socks. They can never go barefoot (except when showering); it’s against the rules.
As we talked, I mentally linked her to the sinful woman who anointed Jesus’ bare feet with her tears in today’s Gospel reading (Lk 7:36-50). She found a depth of grace the righteous Pharisee could not grasp. I hope my parishioner has found a similar grace. Grace bubbles up in unexpected places, and often in the lives of people whom others look down on.
..get behind me satan!
..from the perspective of a recovering Alcoholic and confessed know-it-all,this post is a huge temptation to lapse into my usual AA spiel/diatribe,but for once,Im resisting ..this young lady needs a miracle, and thats beyond me God help her
Thanks for resisting.
She has a lot of challenges ahead of her certainly.
One of the many reasons to wear shoes in prison is that the floors are almost all concrete (if not concrete, then tiled concrete). They used to get dark socks and white socks… but in an effort to save money the State decided to just give them white socks. Often, when they’re not wearing the black leather shoes (which don’t come in custom sizes) they wear a kind of plastic flip-flop (only inside the houseing unit) but they may only be allowed to wear the black leather shoes on visits. (They may very well have other shoes, but not be allowed to wear them on visits. The list of “Visiting Room Rules” may be a page, to two pages long – they’re on display in the visiting room.)
One of the advantages of being “At rock bottom” is similar to being in the Army and surrounded: you can advance against the enemy in any direction.
Someone asked a prostitute once why she thought prostitutes were so attracted to Jesus. She said, “When you are a prostitute, you have gone as low as you can go, and the only thing you can do now is to look up.”