An angry Christmas

Some are angry at us. Some are just pissed. Some have been angry since they got there. That’s right. For some of the incarcerated, perhaps for many, it’s not going to be a very Merry Christmas.

Freddie is mad because someone in the prison system is messing with his mail, and he’s not even receiving important legal documents. He blames us for not doing more: “You’re just like the rest of them.”

Anthony is mad at me because I tried to persuade him to “cool his jets.” His angry response to things happening in his life was just making things worse for him, in an already unpleasant situation. He didn’t like my advice.

Ann Mary is just bitter. The Parole Board didn’t give her a parole, but granted paroles to her closest friends. It wasn’t fair. Not in the least. They’re celebrating Christmas in freedom. She’s not.  

David is angry at us and the entire system. He’s convinced that doctors have implanted a chip in his body, against his wishes, as part of a sinister international plot. No one will listen.

Georgia is a Muslim, and hates it that the guards stand and watch her everyday while she prays, often making fun of her, and wonders why she can’t have some personal time and personal dignity.  She’s darn mad!

These stories are not uncommon. Prison ministries love to publish touching, heart-warming stories in the season of Christmas. This, on the other hand, is the realistic part of working in the trenches.

It’s my job, it’s our job, to convince these needy souls behind bars, that they can’t get rid us. Our friendship is permanent. Its genuineness is sealed by the story we celebrate in this season of Advent. That humble radical, in his short period on earth, insisted that the marginalized were the special people, the poor would inherit the earth, the Good Samaritan was actually the hero, and the adulteress would be welcome in heaven. Now it’s our turn to offer unconditional love, in his name.

So at holiday time, when many around us are celebrating with family and friends, offering toasts to present and future happiness, we do our best to hold the hands of the hurting, trying to walk in the footsteps of the Christ some say must be reinserted into Christmas...the one who flatly stated that prisoners should be visited.

Father Greg Boyle gets it! “You stand with the belligerent, the surly, and the badly behaved until bad behavior is recognized for the language it is: the vocabulary of the deeply wounded and of those whose burdens are more than they can bear.” 

One can only pray that our faltering efforts provide, for those hurting people, a glimpse of the real meaning of Christmas.