Christmas Through A Looking Glass

by Dale S. Recinella
Winter 1998

A Word from Francis MacNutt:

After writing my cover story on the deeper meaning of Christmas, our friend Dale Recinella sent me the following section of his journal which is a striking follow–up to my reflections. Because it is so easy to talk about the Gospel and not so easy to live it, I was excited about what Dale wrote, because he and his wife, Susan (and their children, too) are really trying their best to live Jesus' pattern of simplicity in a way that challenges me. I think it will challenge you, too.

Nothing could have prepared me for this. I process through the guard station and collect my chapel keys.

Spirals of razor wire are heaped two stories high on the three rows of electrified fence. The silver–grey teeth glisten like tinsel in the crisp morning air. A dozen inmates peer at me from the other side. They are huddling at the gate that separates the chapel from the prison compound.

"Merry Christmas," smiles the officer. My stomach tenses into a knot.

She hits the button that releases huge electric locks on the steel access doors. A loud bang echoes through the sally port. I step inside the prison. The knot in my belly tightens.

The inmates at the gate beat their arms, warming themselves against the December chill. Small clouds of breath hang in front of their blue fatigues.

Why does this picture jar me? The specifics are no different than usual. It should be just another day as a volunteer spiritual counselor at Florida's Apalachee Correctional Institution.

But this isn't just another day. It is Christmas Eve. In that moment, I am amazed that I have never wondered what Christmas is like behind bars.

Chapel appointments with volunteers are by "call–out," written requests processed through administration. We open the chapel. A clerk hands me the day's roster — 19 call–outs. A normal morning is five.

I phone my wife. ''I'll be here until six." I am wrong. We won't close the chapel until 9:30 that night. But there's no way I could know that. It's my first time in prison on the morning before Christmas.

I dig in with coffee and my first inmate appointment at 8:30 a.m. We pray and I ask, "What's on your heart this morning?"

"Give me a reason not to go for the wall," he whispers.

We both know the term is prison slang for feigning an escape attempt in front of the guards, in the hope they will have to kill you. Men are said to have done such things when they received a "Dear John" letter from a wife or learned of the death of a child. Is Christmas here that painful?

We talk, we cry, we pray. Man after man, blue shirt after blue shirt. Murderers. Rapists. Molesters. No one to call at Christmas. No one to write. No one to see. Relationships with children severed. Children adopted by other fathers. Children too far away to visit.

About five o'clock, I tell the clerks we need more "prison Kleenex." The rolls of toilet paper we unwrapped that morning are all down to the cardboard.

My last call–out, an intelligent and verbal man, has met regularly with me all year.

''I'm not saying I shouldn't be here." Tears tug at his eyes. "I did terrible things and don't even know why. I can understand why society wants me behind this fence. I'll be here for the rest of my life. But I'm a human being. I still need friends and relationships with normal people. I'm a baptized, practicing Christian. Christmas is our day. Where are the Christians?"

My lame response about people confusing passion toward wrong–doers with approval of their bad behavior only angers him.

"Jesus said that when His followers visit an inmate, they visit HIM!" He grips the tissue roll with both hands. "Jesus didn't say the inmate had to be innocent. Why isn't anybody visiting Jesus at Christmas?"

Looking away, I stammer, "I don't know."

Soon, it's time for us to end.

"What do you want to pray for?" I ask. He leans back in his chair, as if he is talking to the ceiling. "What do I want God to give me for Christmas?"

"Sure," I reply.

'That every Christmas all the prisons in Florida will be busting at the seams from all the Christians trying to get in to visit Jesus."

"Brother," I caution, "that prayer could take a long time to answer."

He shrugs, ''I'll be here."

Dale S. Recinella, formerly a lawyer specializing in domestic and international project finance, works two days per week on staff at CHM handling our strategic planning and special projects.