Every time I get the privilege of interacting closely with inmates (which the Gospel of Matthew says is tantamount to drawing close to Jesus), I try to imagine what their daily lives must be like. Airport security procedures–like the ones that led me to lose control over my person and my property for just five minutes today–must give a brief glimpse.
“Don’t touch any of your items,” she intoned. “Now spread your arms.”
“My gate closes in 5 minutes,” I said.
She acted as if she hadn’t heard me and then went on to test my hair for bomb-making chemicals.
In full view of the other passengers, she next patted down my collar, my arms and legs, and ran her fingers along the inside of my waistband.
It was an embarrassing–and yet fitting–beginning to my trip to Alabama prisons. Every time I get the privilege of interacting closely with inmates (which the Gospel of Matthew says is tantamount to drawing close to Jesus), I try to imagine what their daily lives must be like. Airport security procedures–like the ones that led me to lose control over my person and my property for just five minutes today–must give a brief glimpse. What if, I wonder, instead of passing briefly through security, I lived there, constantly monitored, searched, and questioned? It’s hard to even think about it.
In a dangerous world like ours, airport security is a necessary inconvenience, a concession that we all make the best of, in order to maintain public safety. Likewise, the mandate of corrections officials everywhere is not to make inmates comfortable, but to keep the public and the inmates safe. Searches and security measures will always be a necessary component of airports and correctional facilities, though airport security can hardly compare to the constant surveillance and control imposed by prison life.
As my plane sits on the tarmac ready to take off, though, I feel like my experience with the security procedures has helped me identify with prisoners just a tiny bit better. And that, in turn, makes me especially excited to go along for the ride as Chuck Colson enters prisons this weekend to share powerful truths with the inmates who live there: that God has bestowed on them an inalienable dignity, and that by receiving Christ’s love for them, they can have a freedom on the inside that no one can ever take away.
“Free indeed”–a spiritual freedom just as accessible behind bars as in your church or your home–is the overarching theme of this weekend’s prison visits. It comes from John 8:36, which says, “If the Son has set you free, you are free indeed.”
It will be a weekend to remember. I hope that you will join us–by praying and reading this blog, and by sharing what you read with your friends and family as you commemorate the Lord’s resurrection.