In situations like this, it is controlled chaos. I wish I had the code to unlock Michael’s mind. But no such code exists. All I can bring to the conversation are my heart and my trust that God wants me in the midst of this chaos. The imprisoned are the poorest of the poor. If the heart of God is to be found anywhere, it is to be found in the hole.

through the game, Mary pulled out a five-dollar bill and, with great motherly solicitude, told me to go buy myself a hot dog and beer and to please get her a diet Coke. It was one of those moments to die for. After rent, five dollars is actually a significant percentage of her monthly budget. It was the unmatchable gift that only the poor are capab

It is always painful for me, as it is for most prison chaplains, to see a man or a woman attacked so directly in the courtroom, all in an effort to pile as many collateral accusations on the defendant as possible, the implication being that he or she is intrinsically evil. It is difficult because we have come to know and love the person, perhaps ha

The older guys have a wisdom that is born not of desperation but of an acceptance of their status and an unwillingness to continue to con themselves. There is a point in one’s self-realized poverty where humility and truth make their entry. Power and its little brothers, honor and reputation, are the agenda of the young. This agenda blinds them and

My dearest Father Gary, I cannot adequately put into words what your friendship has meant to me over the past few years. You have been my steady rock in the raging storm. You’ve been the father to me that I always wished for when I was growing up. You’ve given so much, and I know you’ve got so much more to give. Your ministry has just begun. When t

He makes sense of our life and our commitments in a world that thinks what we are doing is naivete at best and folly at worst. He has turned our world upside down.

Shea had suffered. He knew better than most about life’s ups and downs, its misunderstandings and broken relationships. He had endured the disorder of internal battles and physical disabilities. He came through it all not as a bitter, cantankerous, and introverted old man but as a human being capable of a loving response to those he trusted. Of cou

Before we left, he suddenly asked if we would pray with him, and so we sat in that crappy little room, hand in hand, Mary Sue and Robert seated on his bed and me in a chair facing them. We lit the place up. It was a positive visit. It is clear that he trusts the two of us.

Most literature on mental illness and homelessness indicates that more than half of the people on the streets are mentally ill with manifestations of the following, to name a few: affective disorders; schizophrenia, in all its many variations; recurrent depressive and manic-depressive disorders (bipolarism); post-traumatic stress disorder ; borderl