So what is it like?

Spent a while in prison this evening at the commissioning of a new Chaplain.  I needed to leave and they told me I couldn’t – so there was an incarnational dimension to it.  But what was, to be honest, surprising was the way in which prisoners came up to me and the other visitors and wanted to talk about anything and everything.  And, as I have often found in prisons, it was sad to find how bright and articulate many of them are.  What a waste.  One of them made a real effort to describe the dehumanising character of the experience: ‘You want drinks of cool water and they give you glasses of sand’ and ‘You go in as a plum and come out as a raisin.’  Obviously I would not suggest that to be a prisoner of the Lord is a dehumanising experience – but the church ..  I hope to get parole eventually.