Court Reflection

A few weeks ago, I found myself in a court room that was nearly empty. By the time the judge heard all the other cases, there were three of us left in the room, two mothers and myself. The T.V. came on, and the judge explained to the inmates that they were participating in video court from the county jail. The mothers were there to support their daughters; I was there to support one of the members of my Mercy family who had no one else. I was there with him, but we never physically saw one another.

                 

The judge called his name and listed his charges; she then spoke to his long history of getting into trouble with the criminal justice system. Today he was in court for loitering, a failure to appear on previous charges and not checking in with his probation officer. Before the judge sentenced him, she asked me who I was and if I wanted to say anything on his behalf.

Not having much legal experience nor being an actual pastor, I was a little uncertain of what I should say. I said to her, “Your Honor, I have had the pleasure of working with my friend for the past two years. I know he is not perfect, and he has a long way to go. But I ask that you remember in sentencing him that he is chronically homeless, loitering is his life sentence. He also struggles with addiction and mental illness that has gone untreated for many years.”

In my reflection of that day, I felt powerless. He was sentenced to six months and then he has to face the probation office. In the midst of my powerlessness, I found the truest sense of my call.  I was not the prosecutor there to get a conviction, nor the defense seeking to get him off.  I was not the judge there to sentence him. I was simply there to be with him, to walk beside him. I walked away not knowing if my friend knew that he was not alone, that we cared for him.

After two years of service with the YAV/DOOR program, I find myself in a season of transition, the program ends in August. I don’t know what I will do after this service year, that’s kind of scary. My friend and I share a sense of uncertainty about what is to come. Yet in the midst of an uncertain future, there is one who walks with us both; who reassures us that we never walk alone. God was present in the court room that day, as well as the jail, and is with us now. Whatever I do in the future, I want it to be grounded and rooted in the intentional act of walking with friends through difficult times.

Veni Sancte Spiritu (Come, Holy Spirit, Come)

Veni Sancte Spiritu (Come, Holy Spirit, Come)
Pentecost Sequence

Refrain
Come, Holy Spirit, come
Descend, O Light of the heavens
Fill us with your radiance
Come, Holy Spirit, come

You are father of the poor
Generous Giver of all good things
Light of every human heart
Comforter in all our trials
In our souls, the welcome guest
In our labors, blessed rest
In heat of strife, sweet gentleness
In all our tears, tender solace

Without your light within our hearts
All our works would tend toward harm
So wash now and give us birth
Pour like water on thirsty earth
When we grow hard help us to bend
When love grows cold, to burn again
That the promise of the prophets
Be ours with joy that never ends

Translated from Latin by: Chad Hyatt

Veni Sancte Spiritu (Come, Holy Spirit, Come) is an ancient prayer of the church that we have been singing at Mercy since Pentecost.  I love the movement of the prayer.  Many of the prayers with which I grew-up moved in one direction.  It was as if we interacted with God at a drive-through window—this is what I want, hand it to me, I’ll drive off with it in hand and keep doing what I’ve been doing.  Those prayers were not relational.  They started with an ask and ended with it as well.  Dealing with God in those prayers was very transactional.  If I am a good enough Christian, God will bless me with what I want, I just have to ask for it.  I appreciate that I can always go to God with my problems, but I no longer feel that I should only interact with God when I have a problem that I want fixed.  For me, this prayer helps move me to be more relational with God and provides me with a different model for how to structure my own prayers.

The Veni Sancte Spiritu starts with the invitation for God’s spirit to be in and among us as a community. I believe that God is omnipresent and there is a greater intimacy when we welcome God to be with us. As the prayer says, “In our souls, the welcome guest,” God is not forced on us, but welcomed

God is then acknowledged as our parent, provider, and comforter. I love the language Abba and Amma God, the Aramaic translation for mommy and daddy. My parents played a crucial role in guiding and shaping me as a person. For me thee imagery of God is a comforting one, something tangible that I can draw near to.

The prayer then moves into a time of supplication. It is important to me that I can be real with God and ask for whatever I feel I need in that moment. There is something relieving                                                       of this par of the prayer is, “God here it is. “(insert issue/ request) Take it. Take all of it.” I am comforted that God hears us, our prayers spoken and unspoken. Dare I say it, I feel there is something holy and intimate about being comfortable enough to simply pour out my heart to God. The movement in this style of prayer honors the relational aspect prior to the request.

I don’t often feel connected to traditional written prayers of the church. In the past when reading the traditional church prayers, it felt like I was just reading, not praying. Though I discounted them before, there are old prayers of the church with which I connect and Identify and they can be helpful in deepening my spiritual life.  

I am able to see ways in which this prayer connects with my life.  The images are tangible.  One line reads, “when I grow hard, help me to bend.”  On occasion, when folks arrive at Mercy frustrated with situations unrelated to church, the frustration becomes directed at me.  I struggle with growing hard towards them, not wanting to engage their attitudes.  When I read this line, I am reminded of the times that I wanted to be more flexible, more loving, and realize that there will be situations in the future that I need to bend into instead of becoming rigid.

I really enjoyed reflecting on this prayer, I hope you find something that resonates with you in the movement of the prayer.

Grace & Peace,

Justin

18 Months In

Greetings All!!!

It has been a while since I have done a blog post, but I'm back.......

Holy Moly, who knew that the Lent / Easter season, would be so busy working at a Church......  not me. You may have noticed my previous blog post was a copy of our Mercy Lenten Devotional; we also compiled an Easter Devotional that I will be posting soon.

 This last few months has been quite busy, I have gone on a retreat with my housemates, renovated Mercy, and experienced the behind the scenes of 2 major church calendar events, climbed a mountain and visited a Monastery with my Mercy community. I could write some long drawn out blog post about my feelings and experiences, but for this addition I think I will do a photo tour with a few reflections. Come along with me as we journey back in time over the last 2 months….. (Cue the Tardis sound effect)
 
A few weeks ago my City Director, my housemates and I packed up in a rental and headed down to Panacea, Florida for a retreat with our fellow YAVs/ Dweller in our region. It was an awesome weekend getting to just BE and to rest and reflect. We went fishing, hung out at the beach, cooked for one another; what more could one ask for?

It was so refreshing hearing everyones stories about their experice thus far. We all have had our highs and our lows, but it was so reassuring to know we are not alone in our experience. We are all learning and growing unexpected ways, thanks be to God.

Selfie

On the road again

Yay new expeiences.

Making friends on the dock...

 

Climbing...., We made it to the top of Stone Mountain

Happy

Just Be Happy! Try the 30 day Happiness #PlaceboChallenge created in partnership with Harvard and UC... - http://pinterest.com/pin/61783826112521158/

Mercy 2013 Lenten Devotional

Young Adult Volunteers - 2013

Return to Sender: Postcard-only Mail Policies in Jails

by Leah Sakala

 

When I first started writing our incarcerated brothers and sisters as a part of our Prison/ Jail Ministry here at Mercy, I ran into a lot of hurdles in regards to the individual policies at each facility. The seemingly simple act of writing people turned into tedious production, trying to learn the numerous polices of the handful of jails we have here in Atlanta.The firs few weeks of our letter writing campaign at Mercy can be summarized with following three words "Return To Sender." Leah Sakala has done a great job taking a closer look at the national trend of banning letters and moving solely to postcards. 

February 7, 2013

1. Introduction

"Over the past five years, dozens of local jails across the country have followed a harmful new policy trend: mandating that all personal written correspondence to or from jail take place via postcard. The postcard-only trend began in 2007, when controversial Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio instituted a ban on any incoming non-legal mail except for postcards.[1] Since then, sheriffs from jails in at least 13 states around the country—Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, and Washington—have followed suit by implementing their own postcard-only restrictions on incoming and outgoing mail, radically restricting incarcerated people’s ability to communicate with the outside world. Although several jails that implemented postcard-only policies have since rescinded or relaxed their regulations in response to public pressure and litigation, dozens of postcard-only policies still stand, and more are introduced each year.

 Postcard-only mail policies are ostensibly crafted to save funds by streamlining the mail screening process and limiting opportunities to introduce contraband into correctional facilities. In practice, they have the perverse effect of deterring written communication between incarcerated people and their communities,[2] straining connections that are essential for both successful reintegration and for preventing reoffending. Social science research has repeatedly documented the significant social and economic value of preserving the community and family support systems that keep formerly incarcerated people from returning to jail. Postcard-only policies run contrary to prevailing correctional standards and best practices, and the vast majority of jail facilities around the country, as well as all other kinds of detention facilities, successfully implement mail security measures without imposing dramatic postcard-only restrictions."



To read this article in its entirety and find addition information on  Criminal Justice Policy, head over to  http://www.prisonpolicy.org/postcards/report.html.

 

Hard Time and Hard Hearts

By: Justin Chambers

My oldest brother has been in jail for the majority of my life.  In fact, he is in jail now.  My mom used to try to get me and my other brother to write our oldest brother in jail.  I had no interest in it.  As they say, ‘Out of sight, out of mind.’  Being in jail so often, my brother was rarely in sight and only on my mind when my mother mentioned him.  If I were to say that we were close when he was around, that would be a lie.  Not only did he make bad choices, but he frequently dragged me into the messes he had made.  To be honest, I did not have anything I wanted to say, much less write, to him.  When he would call me collect on my phone, I would become angry; what I perceived as his manipulation did not seem to stop, even at a distance.  He asked me to deliver messages to lots of people, but he never asked about me.

A couple of months back, we started a letter writing campaign at Mercy to encourage our sisters and brothers in jail.  I started writing people I have known for little over a year, and others whom I have never met, reminding them that they are loved and missed.  I was surprised to realize that every jail or prison has different guidelines as to what type of mail can be received and sent by inmates.  In one jail, inmates can receive letters in standard envelopes; another jail requires that mail must come in the form of plain white three by five postcards issued and pre-stamped by the post office.  All of them seem to differ on how or if newspapers, books (including Bibles), or other packages can be sent.  It took me quite a while to sort it all out—the first batch of letters came back with big red stamps informing us that we needed to try again and adhere to policy.

Part of my job is to encourage our community to write our community members who are in jail.  I was surprised with how much resistance I met.  Many folks did not want to write someone else as no one had reached out to them when they were last locked-up.  The loneliness and bitterness was apparently still very fresh for them.  People are now rising to the occasion, however.  I think this is in part because our community is beginning to understand that, as Mahatma Gandhi said, ‘We must be the change we want to see in the world.’ I also think it is in part because people we have written are coming back into the community and are expressing their appreciation for the letters.  I am now sought out by members of our community about the writing program: folks want to know if they have received correspondence from a friend in jail, if there are new people to write, and if I have new postcards to reply to letters already received.  It does my heart good to hear this change of heart in our community.

Now I realize how hard my heart had gotten towards my own brother and how hurtful my silence may have been.  Until I started trying to write inmates, I never imagined how difficult communication could be—perhaps it was not that my brother did not care about me when he called, but that I actually picked up the phone and was the only lifeline he had to communicate with others.  

My eyes were opened further when I had the opportunity to visit a county jail, as well as a maximum-security prison.  While at Jackson Diagnostic and Classification Prison, I felt sick to my stomach.  People--our people, God’s people--were chained and bound, locked down in little cells, practically confined to their beds, bunked three high, for twenty-three out of twenty-four hours each day.  Long gone are the days of exercising in the yard or watching television, much less receiving services that might help an inmate to one day leave the prison as a productive, skilled member of society.  Our ‘correctional system’ no longer aims to ‘correct’ behavior patterns.  Instead as Chaplain Harrell explained it to me, ‘There was a problem in society—someone committed a crime, so we corrected it—we removed them from society.  Prob-lem solved.’  In this business of warehousing people, any contact where someone is known by a name, not just a number, is welcome and rare.

I never expected this year to bring healing to a place in my heart broken and bruised and buried so deep I nearly forgot it was there—my relationship with my brother.  My heart has softened, maybe not yet as much as it may, but it is a start.  In this digital age, we forget how important a hand-written three by five post card reminding us that we are beloved can be.

The Stewart Detention Center and the School of the Americas: Imperialism and Pain Profiting in Georgia

 "From November 22 through the 24, we held the 23rd annual School of the Americas Vigil in Columbus, Georgia. November 22 also marked the 7th annual Shut Down Stewart Detention Center Vigil in nearby Lumpkin, Georgia. It was the sixth year in which large numbers of SOA Watch activists have participated in the Stewart Vigil, which has become the first event during the School of the Americas Vigil. This year once again saw a moving rally, march, and vigil in which the reprehensible treatment of migrants in the U.S. was made painfully evident to the over 300 protesters in attendance. We sang, we laughed, we cried, and we raised our voices in unison to say "!Ya Basta!" "Enough!" to the incarceration of migrants."

 "Corrections Corporations of America (CCA) is the largest for-profit prison company in the U.S. CCA is the owner of the Stewart Detention Center, which is the largest immigrant prison in the country. The fact that CCA and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) warehouse almost 2,000 men in Stewart simply for seeking a better life for themselves and their families is infuriating enough. That they do so for profit is immoral. But that is only the tip of the iceberg of the injustice occurring in Lumpkin and other private and public immigrant prisons across the country."

For the rest of this article and other great information on Stewart Detection Center and Schools of the Americas check out the website at  http://soaw.org/news.

Looking for a new pair of wheels

A little over two weeks ago I sold my truck because the repairs were adding up, now I’m on the market for a used car.  Would anyone in the Atlanta like to join in on my search for a used car? I'm looking for a 4 door sedan, under 160,000 miles, preferably 2000 or later. My price range is $15, 00 to $25, 00; it could be more if anyone decides to chip in (hint dropped lol).  I am hoping for a Honda or a Camry, I hear they are all around good cars. I need to get a car that won’t need a lot of repairs, seeing my monthly income as a missionary is quite humble

For last few weeks I have been taking the Marta, which the mass transit system here in Atlanta. Taking the Marta has been an awesome opportunity to live simply and see the daily struggles of folks who have no other option but mass transit. I have also gotten to meet some pretty cool people in my community as a result taking the Marta on a daily basis. 

The downside to taking Marta is that it bookends my day by two or more hours. I am also limited in the services I can provide to people in my prison ministry this year, like taking people to their court dates and doing jail visits. Please let me know if you have any ideas, would like to chip in or if you know of any available vehicles that fit my wish list. You can find my contact information below.

Grace and peace,

Justin

Justin.A.Chambers90@Gmail.com
616-780-4753

Bryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an injustice

 “The opposite of poverty is not wealth. … In too many places, the opposite of poverty is justice.”

This speach is monumental for me because it calls us to do more than simply write a check (though helpful!) to solve the issues of poverty in America.  But furthermore it calls us to actively seek justice (to do something) and not just applaud those who do. I remember coming down to Mercy, and several other non-profits, on alternative spring break and thinking, "Wow, this is awesome." Fifteen months later, I have started my second service year, and I'm realizing that this is my opportunity seek justice. The other day I was driving along and saw one of our brothers from Mercy being shuffled along by the police because he was drunk and bothering others. Interestingly enough, I was in that same area not two nights before for dinner, and it seemed that everyone was drunk and no one was being arrested or forced out. Let me be clear, I am in no way advocating public intoxication, but I find it interesting to see who gets harassed, arrested, threatened--and who doesn't.

Below is a talk by by Bryan Stevenson that stirred me, both in the work I do and at a personal level.  Here's a little of his personal bio: Bryan Stevenson is a public-interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned. He's the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, an Alabama-based group that has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent prisoners on death row, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill, and aiding children prosecuted as adults.


This reminds me of when I first started going to court with our brothers/sisters from Mercy.  I saw people get offered plea bargains--in most instances, the charges would be a mile high and the ADA would offer to drop a portion of the changes in exchange for a guilty plea. For many, it seems so simple in the moment, one can either go to jail for X number of months/years or get probation for X number of years and pay a few fines; who wouldn't choose the latter that seems like freedom? I am coming to understand that there is a correlation between race and social class in the in the plea and sentencing aspects of our criminal justice system. Objectively, I noticed that the people pleading guilty overwhelmingly tended to be poor and black/ brown.  this group people being prosecuted tended not to be able to afford an attorney, so they were assigned a public defender. Public defenders do great work in this country represent those who can’t afford or don't know how to represent or even carry themselves.

That being said, I have also noticed some issues with the public defender’s office. A few weeks ago I went to court multiple times for two men in our community, both of them are homeless. They had been in an altercation and one of the guys was stabbed in the back with a pair of scissors. They were both charged with assault and were represented by different public defenders. The first time they went to court, their case was reset because they were not brought to the courthouse. At their second court date, the case was reset only one of the men was sent to the courthouse.  The case was reset a third time because the public defender’s office finally realized that they were representing both the guy accused of the stabbing and the victim, an obvious conflict of interest. The defendant’s public defender, received the case only an hour before she entered the court room. One hour, can you imagine facing charges with a 10 year sentence and the person representing you had no longer than an hour for prep?  Not only that, but most people who were represented with a public defender had little to no time to talk with their attorney, forced to sit at a distance from them behind a line marked on the floor if they were even brought into the room.  Those who could afford to pay for a lawyer sat with their attorney and had everything explained to them as the case proceeded. I witnessed a private attorney comfort his client, my homeless friends did not receive similar assurances.

Along with a guilty plea to a felonious charge comes a life sentence of discrimination in employment, housing, education, public benefits, jury service and voting. This year offers me an opportunity to see the discrepancies in our justice system, to stand beside the marginalized and open my eyes to the reality of jails and prisons in America.

 

Doing Time

By: Gunnar

Borning, boring, boring—it is the only way to describe my time in jail.  2 am breakfast, 11 am lunch, 5 pm dinner, then sleep, sleep, sleep away boredom between meals.  No smoking, just sleeping, eating, and a lot of praying—talking to God.  I got one hour each day free time, spent watching boring TV.  I was sentenced to seven days and served seven months.  I felt it was unjust to serve serve so  much time for such a small sentence.  When they finally let me out, they did not even help me get home on public transportation.  I am glad to be out.

My Calling, Right Now

By: Justin Chambers

All my life it seems I have been searching for the proverbial “call” or purpose for what I am supposed to do with my life.  I wanted God to come down and say, “This is Justin, my beloved child, in whom I am well pleased, this is what I have called him to do.”

I recently went to a retreat where an awesome, awesome man-of-God shared some wise words that have changed my outlook (I really enjoy his speaking as you may be able to tell).  David LaMotte spoke, and sang, some great messages, but what really stood out to me was his belief we do not have a purpose; as in a singular call in life.  We do, however, have many callings.  This idea was profound for me because I have spent much time—perhaps even wasting time—searching for my one singular call.  This idea, this sense of call has been both what I have been passionate and excited to find, and horrified and stressed to discover.  What could this calling be?

If we have many callings, then we are called to live in the moment and to be faithful to the calling of that moment. My call today may be to share my sandwich with the person sitting on the curb next to me. Or, my calling tonight may be to listen to how my roommate’s day went, without interrupting or trying to put in my opinion; just listening.

I decided to do a second YAV year after meeting with the director of an organization that engages the prison system.  I hope to become a lawyer and thought the opportunity would be advantageous to my career.  When funding fell through, it felt like my calling was also blocked.  Through some conversations, and knowing that Mercy has wanted to be more intentional about supporting our members while they are locked-up, we decided to formally expand Mercy’s ministry to include a jail and prison ministry.  I am interning with them to help in this expansion.  Things finally seem to be falling in place, though not in ways that I expected.

One Friday, during a Bible study with a passage rooted in community and solidarity, Pastor Maggie illustrated the theme by using an example from the civil rights movement.  When one activist was attacked by a mob, the others dived into the skirmish so that the blows would be divided between many—I remember her acting it out at Mercy.  What an awesome example of solidarity.  I do not know what situations I will have to dive into this year while walking in solidarity with people in the correctional system and I do not know what bruises will come along with it, but I do know is that God is in this call.  God is present behind the walls, the fences, the barbed wire and the chains.

One of my friends, a frail, fifty year-old sister who is a part of our Mercy community, was lost behind those walls.  Gunnar, our sister, who is homeless, was arrested in the early part of February for trespassing when she took refuge in a parking garage—the safest spot she could find to lay her head.  Spring and summer went by, we were confused by why she did not have a release date; we prayed for her, along with other folks in jail.

At the beginning of my new internship, I was tasked with not just praying for Gunnar but finding out why she had been in jail for so long and what was needed for her release. By our estimation, she should have been released long ago.  I called the local jails and got bounced back and forth between offices, leaving many voice-mails saying, “Hi, my name is Justin. How are you today? I was wandering if you could help me find a friend of mine; she seems to be lost in the system.” Nobody had an answer.
One Monday, I was overcome with joy to arrive at Mercy and see our sister.  When I interviewed her about her experience in jail, it became apparent that the stories of what she was being told on the inside and what I was being told on the outside did not match up.

Gunnar was sentenced to seven days, but instead sat for seven months in a single cell by herself for twenty-three hours a day.  I do not know if it was our calls or if someone finally realized on their own that a mistake had been made, but whatever it was I give thanks for the captive being set free.

I think I have found that passion about which David talked. I have found that thing that I have been trying to describe to people for years, yet words seem not to come. I can see how broken our criminal justice system is and, for now, I am not called to change it but to be present, if only by phone, with people who are navigating it from the inside.  Solidarity can be hard and messy at times, but it is the calling; my calling.

With 2.3 Million People Incarcerated in the US, Prisons Are Big Business

With 2.3 Million People Incarcerated in the US, Prisons Are Big Business

Meet the corporations who are profiting off our prison system.

Liliana Segura

October 1, 2013  

(Reuters/Joshua Lott)
 
“Global Tel* Link. You have a collect call from: ‘Tim.’ An inmate in Shelby County Correctional Facility…. If you wish to accept and pay for this call, dial zero now.”
I don’t know how many times I heard the same robotic voice speak these words since last fall. I was researching the story of Timothy McKinney, a Memphis man facing his third death-penalty trial for the killing of an off-duty police officer in 1997. Tim would call from Shelby County Jail, to answer my questions and to do what anyone facing trial would want to do: air concerns about his case, vent. Sometimes he would call multiple times a week. Because the phone calls were limited to fifteen minutes at a time, a couple of times he hung up and called right back, so we could keep talking.
The calls were expensive, more than a dollar per minute, depending on the time of day. In order to accept one, I had to set up a prepaid account with Global Tel* Link, or GTL, “The Next Generation of Correctional Technology.” If Tim called and my account was out of money, the automated voice would prompt me to replenish it via credit card, while he waited on the other line. “By accepting an inmate call, you acknowledge and agree that your conversation may be monitored and recorded,” the company advises.


http://www.thenation.com/blog/176533/meet-medical-company-making-14-billion-year-sick-prisoners#

Scales Falling Off

As promised in my first blog post, here is an article from my experience at Mercy last year.

I have been here in Georgia and at Mercy for roughly eight months now.  That’s been more than enough time to have more than a few life-changing experiences. Each experience has invited and forced me to grow my proverbial edges, sometimes to the point of discomfort.  Yet each produced amazing growth. I came to this year of service expecting to help others and be the face of God for someone else.  More often, however, I have seen God’s face in those I came to served.


I followed God’s call to Atlanta, but was skeptical about what I would find.  I wondered if I was going through some kind of a quarter-life crisis, spending a year volunteering instead of getting a “real job.”  I came seeking to change the world, instead I have had a journey-to-Damascus-scales-falling-off-the-eyes-life-changing kind of experience.

I first started to notice that my world view was changing when I visited the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia—it is the largest immigrant detention facility in the country and is privately owned.  The detention center looked a lot like a prison to me.  Security was tight: the gates were 10 feet high with barbed wire at the top, families were sent away unable to visit their loved ones, and for those of us who did make it in, we had to talk to the detainees on a telephone because the plastic window was too thick for sound to pass through.

I assumed once again that I would have the opportunity to be a super-volunteer and minister to an “evil-doer” who had reason to be locked away. Once again, I was wrong. The detainee ministered to me more than he may ever know.  He asked me about my life  goals—he was genuinely interested, and it showed. We even talked about my relationship with my estranged eldest brother who is in prison. My life connected with that of this stranger—noticing injustices in the world and expressing our hopes for the years to come. In the midst of all the uncertainty—deportation—we connected and the figurative barriers fell, though the thick plastic remained. At the end of our conversation, we fist-bumped through the glass and parted ways.

I had no idea that many people like my new friend had no choice in  coming to the States. Frequently, people are brought to the States by their parents when they are just two or three because their parents hope to be able to better provide for their family here.  And honestly, I had never cared about what I did not know—I was comfortable with the “us/them” rhetoric and scapegoating debates of politics.  They were not like me and it did not concern me.

Soon after, I found myself standing at Catch-Out Corner sharing food with Mercy.  As I looked at my sisters and brothers who had gathered around our coolers, grateful for lunch with few prospects of catching-out a day labor job, I realized that many of my friends could easily end up in the detention center.  I saw how vulnerable my Latino sisters and brothers were, standing out on this corner, ready to work, and frequently watched by the police. I knew I saw them differently.

But they were not the only people I saw differently.  I knew other scales had fallen to the ground, in fact, the ground around me was littered with scales.  I hadn’t realized it, but I spent my first month at Mercy in a state of blindness.   I realized that day by day folks in our community were helping to free me of those scales that blinded my eyes.   Now I am aware that some days my sisters and brothers merely had to wipe the scales off, my view of the world changed, became clearer.  Other days they were surely using pliers to yank off the scales as I resisted change.

I am grateful to know that I don’t go about experiencing change alone.  I am supported.  I am in community.  Just as Paul had Ananias, I have my sisters and brothers at Mercy walking with me.  We help each other.  Saul would never have regained his sight if it were not for his obedience and the obedience of Ananias. Talk about walking by faith and not by sight! Ananias chose a hard, uncomfortable journey—that is living in community. We all have shameful moments in our past, but in this same c

ommunity we come together and find, or regain, our sight and perspective. It is in this community where folks come and touch my eyes with their stories.  Day by day, I learn to see this world a little differently.

This community has changed my life; I can never look at church the same. Truth be told, sometimes I find myself living with my new sight and other times I find myself on my knees trying to piece my old life back together.


Christ offers new sight every day! The choice is ours. We can either stand up and live or try to take steps back into blindness.

I know I have so much more to see and learn (and it’s probably going to take a jackhammer to get the rest of the scales off), but I choose to see. I choose to see the church being called outside the four walls of a building. I choose to go out to the hedges and highways, remembering to look in the hedge and under the highway because that may be where one of our brothers or sisters is looking for community. Seeing as Christ sees is a process, one that can be painful and joyous; yet a process never the less. I look forward to what is to come; there is no point in turning back now!