[ hold :: this space ]

i’ve been invited to be part of steering group for an exhibition on Women in the Torah, to be held at the Jewish Museum late next year. I’m really enjoying being part of a conversation with people from another faith, in an environment where i’m the guest, not the host; where mine is the minority perspective.

Rebecca, who is curating the exhibition, talked about a conversation she had with Rachel, a Muslim, who is also going to be part of the steering group, about the story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar, and her discomfort with the way the story plays out for Hagar. Rachel’s reply was that it’s not how the story is understood by Muslims, that from their perspective, what happens to Hagar is a necessary part of the divine plan. Hagar exits stage left from the Judeo-Christian story, and ends up centre stage in a whole new story of faith.

I wrote here once before about those in our stories of faith who are abandoned by the side of the road. I think i need to rewrite that…

In a few weeks time we’re beginning some work with women in Dame Phyllis Frost Prison, exploring some of the stories from the bible that will have particular resonance for them… the rape of Tamar, Lot’s daughters, Hagar’s story, Dinah’s story… These are characters who have largely been left abandoned by the side of faith’s road. i hope we can find the faith they might take centre-stage in…

We had the PPW communal justice network meeting today in DPFCC [the women's prison]. Janey Muir-Smith, director of the Judy Lazarus Transition Centre, met with us to talk about transition and post-release issues, and what we might be able to do to help. The primary issue outside the prison is housing, the primary issue inside the prison is mental health.

There was another conversation about the rental crisis on the radio on the way home - the vacancy rate in melbourne is the lowest on record, and it’s only going to get worse as there are more foreclosures, etc. Not only does this mean that the cost of renting is at record levels, it also means that the competition for each property is fierce. The program host was interviewing people - employed professionals - about their lack of success in finding places to live. What they didn’t talk about was what that means for those who are much further down the pecking order: when the applications for each property number in their hundreds, and include accountants and lawyers, who would pick someone fresh out of prison?

The uniting church is short of ministers. i suspect there are a number of congregations who are renting out manses. perhaps the church should ask them to rent their manses to those who will get housing nowhere else. i’m going to find out a bit about this during the week…

We’re beginning a process with prison chaplains in a couple of weeks which involves looking at Mark - next year’s lectionary gospel - and getting them to explore how the gospel can be interpreted from within and into the prison context. The plan is to put the chaplains’ insights together with some prayers, images and music to create a worship resource that they can use throughout the year.

i’m preparing for the workshop that will kick start the process, and opened up Francis Moloney’s commentary on Mark to discover this quote on the dedications page:

Bella memorized, repeating phrases, until her fingers were so tired they gave up resisting and got it right… But when she finished memorizing - bar by bar, section by section - and played the piece without stopping, I was lost; no longer aware of a hundred accumulated fragments but only of one long story, after which the house would fall silent for what seemed a very long time.

Anne Michael, Fugitive Pieces

i keep getting frustrated by fragments. i just want the long story without the work it takes to get there… here’s to memory and rehearsal, patience and resilience…

The next meeting of the Port Philip West network is on Sunday afternoon, at the Dame Phyllis Frost Correctional Centre. We can’t take any more into the prison this Sunday, but if you are interested in being part of the ongoing work of the network, let me know. The network is working in three particular areas: advocacy [in government and communities], post-release integration [mentoring, housing and employment], and post-release support [metcards, phone cards, toothpaste, clothing...].

Word on the street is that the next state election [which is not due for a couple of years] will be fought on law and order.

We want to believe in the essential, unchanging goodness of people, in their power to resist external pressures, in their rational appraisal and then rejection of situational temptations… We simplify the complexity of human experience by erecting a seemingly impermeable boundary between Good and Evil. On one side are Us, Our Kin, and Our Kind; on the other side of that line we cast Them, Their Different Kin, and Other Kind. Paradoxically, by creating this myth of our invulnerability to situational forces, we set ourselves up for a fall by not being sufficiently vigilant to situational forces.

The SPE [Stanford Prison Experiment]… reveals a message we do not want to accept: that most of us can undergo significant character transformations when we are caught up in the crucible of social forces. What we imagine we would do when we are outside that crucible may bear little resemblance to who we become and what we are capable of doing once we are inside its network. The SPE is a clarion call to abandon simplistic notions of the Good Self dominating Bad Situations. We are best able to avoid, prevent, challenge, and change such negative situational forces only by recognizing their potential power to “infect” us, as it has others who were similarly situated…

Any deed that any human being has ever committed, however horrible, is possible for any of us - under the right or wrong situational circumstances. That knowledge does not excuse evil; rather it democratizes it, sharing its blame among ordinary actors rather than declaring it the province only of deviants and despots - of Them but not Us.

from the truly chilling Lucifer Effect: How good people turn evil, by Philip Zimbardo

The more reading i do on the prison system, the more horrific it gets.

this is an article worth reading on Victoria’s prisons, from the Age today. It’s a frightening description of the abuses of power that are going on within the system. One of the more sickening paragraphs:

In February, Australia’s only independent prison watchdog criticised the lack of transparency of Victoria’s prisons. The Western Australian Inspector of Custodial Services, Professor Richard Harding, described the system of monitoring abuse and corruption in Victoria’s jails as “well short of what a democratic society is entitled to”. Against this backdrop, prisoner abuse keeps occurring. In 2005, asthmatic remand prisoner Ian Westcott died in his cell after scrawling a note that read “asthma attack. buzzed for help. No response”. The intercom in his cell was broken.

I’ve been reading The Lucifer Effect: Understanding why good people turn evil this week. It’s written by Philip Zimbardo who led the research project the Stanford Prison Experiment. He’s exploring in the book the situations and dynamics that lead to good people turning evil. I’ll blog more about it when i’ve finished, but there are two things from what I’ve read today that resonate with the article from the Age:

Most of us hide behind egocentric biases that generate the illusion that we are special. These self-serving protective shields allow us to believe that each of us is above average on any test of self-integrity. Too often we look to the stars through the thick lens of personal invulnerability when we should also look down to the slippery slope beneath our feet.

And then, talking about what it is that happens to make good people [like you and me] turn evil:

Dehumanisation is one of the two central processes in the transformation of ordinary, normal people into indifferent or even wanton perpetrators of evil. Dehumanisation is like the cortical cataract that clouds one’s thinking and fosters the perception that other people are less than human. It makes some people come to see others as enemies deserving of torment, torture and annihilation.

I’m finding the article and the book chilling. We began the communal justice project as an issue of justice for the prisoners. I’m getting more convinced though that prisons aren’t just destructive for those who are sentenced to live there, but that they are slowly and insidiously corroding our society.

back at the office today, listening to the gale force winds outside and revelling in the freedom that comes from not having looked too closely at my diary for the next few months… by memory it’s not a busy few months, event wise, and the plan is to focus heavily on worship in prison … including working with a group from the women’s prison to plan a christmas alt worship service… [i suspect a midnight mass is completely out of the question, but it would be wonderful...]

this is a psalm from William in Exeter prison…

How long must we wait, God?
Every day is the same.
Time to do yesterday again.
Each door, each day to keep me.
No news from home.
No home for hope.

How long must we wait, God?

The only things that happen are
the rattle of keys
banging of doors to keep me
Feed me, watch me and work me.
The circle I walk has no end.

How long must I wait, God?
All we do is what we’re told,
When we’re told.
How we’re told.
Till we’re old.

How long must we wait, God?

Every day we ask for a breath of different air.
An old face to see new.
A family to bring me home.

How long must we wait, God?
Every day we wait for a gentle touch
the softest breath
freedom for my mind
The walk with no doors

How long must we wait, God?

This video was shot by Jenn Ackerman in a US prison… it could have been shot here. It’s hard watching, but it tells the right story - the feeling i get in my gut when i watch it is the same feeling i get when i go into some of the prisons here. There’s some text that accompanies the video. you can read that here.

Trapped: Mental Illness in America’s Prisons from Jenn Ackerman on Vimeo.

In our research into communal justice we’ve heard of judges here in Victoria who have been giving prison sentences to people with mental illness because there is no other way they can get them access to mental health services. That’s an indictment on our community.

The three areas we’re focussing on with the communal justice project are mental health in prison, alternatives to sentencing, and post-release support. One of the reasons i value being part of a denomination is that we have some voice within political circles. Maybe, just maybe, that means we’ll be able to influence some policies about all of this.

The thought that echoes through my mind as i watched the video is the same one that i have each time i go into a prison… we all have only this one fragile, precious life… it is unspeakable tragedy that this is how someone’s unfolds.

Due to the vagaries of the prison system [we can't get access for the whole group into Marnganeet prison] we’ve changed the location of sunday’s gathering for those in port phillip west who are wanting to take the communal justice stuff another step. We’ll now be meeting at Werribee UCA, cnr Synott St and Duncans Road at 2pm. We’ve got in touch with everyone who had registered, but as numbers are no longer limited, feel free just to turn up on sunday afternoon. Email if you want more details.

a few things coming up…

the newly formed communal justice network from Port Phillip West presbytery will be meeting on July 13 at Marngoneet Prison, near Lara. We’ll be sending information out about this tomorrow to the people who indicated interest at the workshop a few weeks ago. If others from the presbytery are interested in being part of this then let me know. Places are limited on the day - we’re going inside the prison, and we can’t get large numbers in - and we will need to know by the beginning of july.

we came up with an idea while in a meeting this morning. we’re going to give different prison chaplains passages from the gospel of mark [next year's lectionary gospel] and ask them to reflect on the passages as they speak into prison culture, and what the perspective of prison has to offer the passages, as such. i’m going to spend a day with prison chaplains in october facilitating this - i think we might be able to link it with some of the psalms that have been and are about to be written by people in prison, and some of the liturgies we’ve developed, and create a really useful resource… I’ve also said I’ll do a full easter in the women’s prison next year - Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday. It sounds fantastic in theory, in practice it terrifies me…

i was back at the women’s prison today where the new chapel and garden were being opened. the garden is going to be planted with biblical plants - pomegranates [perfect for molasses, i hear], figs, olives… wormwood wasn’t allowed because it can be used for some less than biblical purposes…

i was talking with the buddhist chaplain afterwards, and she talked about how the air is so different in the women’s prison to the men’s. She’s right. It’s not toxic. I don’t come out feeling suffocated, I come out feeling like I can breathe.

It was a multi-faith service this morning, which i always like… i like having to find the language that speaks beyond our truths. it always feels more honest, somehow. and much simpler.

a prayer for the opening of a chapel…

In this chapel are the elements of earth, fire and water.
These have been symbols, since time began, of the most fundamental realities of our world: that life is, at once, fragile and resilient.

They remind us of the things that are most fundamental about each of our lives:
We are human -
fragile and flawed,
needing a place to belong to and a people to be part of,
reliant on forgiveness and mercy,
dependent on the promise that life can begin again.

Because while earth, fire and water are the building blocks of the world,
they are only brought to life
by a breath of grace, of hope, and love.

So we gather today to bless this chapel,
to set it apart,
so that it will be a place where we can bring the stories of our lives -
the dirt, the pain and the promise -
and know that here they will be held and changed
by grace, hope and love.