The Kingdom of Heaven Is Like Unto: Devotions for Those Who Work in Corrections

By Jane Hall

With over 6 million people incarcerated or under legal supervision, corrections has become a larger and larger part of American life. Indeed, older prisons have become tourist attractions. Do you work in corrections or know someone who does? Do you try to work heartily unto the Lord, and to see each person as being created in the image of God? Let these snapshot meditations show: How a murderer can glorify his creator. Where God drops pearls. The power of a flower. How a life of lies can lead to eternal truth. Who reveals Jesus second commandment. How a kitten can be holy. The pain of the past and fear of the future. How a small obedience can be a great testimony. The power of perception. Where nobody knows your name. How locking down can lead to looking up. How anger evolves to adoration. How obedience breeds blessing. How God is the change agent. Who sees in the dark and hears in the clamor. What matters at the end. The impact of stories known by heart. How bad boys can bless. The pain of pride; the shame of sin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inspiring Voices
• Release date: Jul 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781462402144

Jane Hall

JANE HALL worked 25 years in Georgia Prisons and Juvenile Justice Centers and with other systems through the National Institute of Corrections and the American Correctional Association. She began writing these meditations twenty years ago to fill her own spiritual void and to minister to those who work in corrections.

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Psalm 84

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The prison has covered corridors for inmates around the outside of the building. They have large open spaces and occasionally a bird will fly in. Although he can exit the same way he entered, he may not realize this and as a result, may panic.

As I was going to get my class, I came upon the inmate orderly staring at a beautiful yellow finch. The poor creature was traumatized from perseverative flights from one pipe to another.

He’s been flying from here to there for over two hours. He can’t seem to see that if he’d go just a bit farther that way, he’d be free.

In short order, I was as frantic as the finch. My class ran from their dorms with mixed reactions.

Oh, hell! That’s just a bird. I can kill him!

I’ll help you. We can force him down.

He’s in prison! Just like us!

I was struggling for a strategy when a new inmate with multiple life sentences stepped forward. In a quiet, gentle manner, he began to whistle. Before my very eyes, the bird calmed. Another inmate stepped behind me.

If you’ll ask the officer to leave the corridor doors open, I think he’ll fly through and he can see his way out better.

I did as he suggested. When we came back from class, the bird was gone.

I’d been having a hard time with the whistler; his behavior made me see him in a different way. His gentle calm remains etched in my mind.

Beside it is the realization that I am too often like the finch-so caught up in my fear that I can’t see the way out.

Luke 2:48-52

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It was the end of the month, and I began once again to complete the reams of paperwork required to document my efforts. As usual, I was resistant.

This is a waste of time, energy and paper! I grumbled as I marked, checked and counted. "Nobody ever checks it. It is busywork with no meaning at all."

In the midst of my fussing, I decided to look at the papers I was busily completing. As if they might contain some revelation, I examined the Monthly Education Report for my special education class. I was surprised to note that my students with perfect attendance had doubled. The attendance of the other students had risen significantly and not a single one had missed a day because of bad behavior.

The class had been meeting regularly for over a year, but the beginning months had been marked by problem behaviors and absenteeism. The inmates had changed; they had grown. But the change had been so gradual, I had missed it.

As I pondered the situation, my thoughts drifted to my own growth. I still did not pray as often or as deeply as I should. I didn’t study the Bible as much as I wanted to. But as I looked back, I realized that I was doing better than I used to.

As a child, Jesus was not transformed; He grew. One day at a time.

Matthew 18:12-14

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I had been gone from the maximum-security prison a little over a year when someone told me that one of my students committed suicide. He was difficult – a young man in his mid twenties who had problems with schizophrenia as well as limited intellectual skills. I could recall many hours spent trying to get through to him in a meaningful way. He hanged himself in disciplinary segregation.

God himself only knows why, the person observed.

I thought about him through that night and the next day. The most remarkable thing about him was his smile. When we’d been round and round about a million things, he would finally understand something and his face would quite literally light up.

We had suicides in the prison. People reacted in different ways. Some folks said, That’s one less to count. Others said, "Life always matters."

I don’t know about his salvation. But I know I can’t forget his smile.

And if I can’t

Luke 12:4-7: Ephesians 4:11-14

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One of my special education students was totally apathetic. He came to school everyday but he never really involved himself. Some times he would go to sleep; other times he would just as well have been asleep. I tried many strategies to involve him. Then, one day the student who managed our calendar was transferred. Without really thinking, I asked Ben to fix the dates and weather. Almost instantly, he was transformed. Alert and eager, he placed the numbers of the days and the weather designations on the display.

As we were leaving the classroom one day, he moved up beside me and asked quietly, "Do you really need me, MS Jane Hall, or can anybody do that job?"

I looked at his earnest face for a moment and understood not only his need but that of each of us. "Do I really matter? Am I important because of who I am?"

Oh, my goodness, I responded. "I surely do need you! Nobody else can do exactly what you can."

Well, I’ll be ready tomorrow!

And he was.

Colossians 3:1-17

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Sanitation is a critical issue in the department of corrections. From the commissioner down to the newest correctional officer, everyone is always concerned with how clean the dining halls and the floors and the inmates themselves are.

Inmates with mental illness present a challenge where hygiene is concerned. Keeping them and their cells clean requires constant intervention by officers and counselors. Having done this work for 11 years, I can testify that it gets old.

The warden took a great interest in the cleanliness of the sheltered living unit and was not above a hands-on inspection.

One morning I praised one of our more handicapped inmates. No, the warden said. I can’t agree with your assessment. He is not doing good enough.

"No, sir, not good enough, but much better than he was. Your standards are too high!"

He thought for a moment and said, I just can’t help believing that they have to feel better about themselves if they’re clean.

I couldn’t argue with that. And holiness is spiritual cleanliness.

Matthew 18:1-3

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I messed up again! I stared through the bars at one of my students. I really don’t know what happened. I was mad. I don’t know; I just know I feel bad…

He had surely messed up again. By his hands, an officer had been injured. He would be returned to disciplinary segregation, his chance at learning a vocational trade was lost.

Later in the day, I was deep in thought about the incident: Why had it happened? Could we have done anything more to have taught him to control himself? Are individuals capable of change?

MS Jane Hall, you got the office keys?

Oh! No! I screamed aloud. I messed up again! I ran frantically to my office. There, totally unattended lay the means of securing the entire school area. I murmured a prayer of thanksgiving and immediately began to kick myself.

"Oh, God, why can’t I do better?"

The realization that I felt just as Thom had almost knocked me over. I’d been saved from disaster; he had not.

God couldn’t mean to save him through me. No way!

Psalm 139: 13-16

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Come on, MS Jane Hall, I ain’t going to tell you no lie! What I look like lying to you? How long you been knowing me?

I walked on down the sidewalk pondering the encounter. I wanted to believe he wouldn’t lie. But I had been burned so many times at that fire that it was hard to trust him.

The longer I work in corrections, the more convinced I become that the real issue with truth and inmates is not between them and me but rather within themselves. They are passionately convincing liars because they first persuade themselves that what they want to believe is in fact true.

And the better I know them, the more likely I am to see through their facades.

What about me? Do I lie to myself? Heavens, No! I’m not like they are! They have not rubbed off on me!

You know that, God! How long you been knowing me?

Matthew 10:28-31; I Peter 3: 8-10

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One of our mental health inmates is intellectually impaired, schizophrenic and has some left side paralysis from a stroke. He has a number of difficult behaviors; as a consequence he is disliked by inmates and staff.

His primary asset is his artwork. Although he cannot draw well, he cuts pictures from magazines and with infinite patience creates greeting cards with matching envelopes. They are not wonderful works; many inmates have more talent than he. But they are meticulous and it is with great pride that he presents them.

I had experienced particular difficulty with him at school one day. Because of his paranoia, he wouldn’t walk with the group and I was forced to retreat to retrieve him. I came upon him staring into the window of my office. I approached him with irritation. He turned and smiled brilliantly.

You put my cards on your board. Look! Look!! You didn’t throw them away.

I wouldn’t do that, I answered thanking God that I hadn’t tossed them. "And I keep trying with you."

It’s a temptation to join the crowd and put Ben down. That’s not, however, what Jesus would have done.

Deuteronomy 32:34; I Peter 3: 8-10

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I know many inmates by face but not by name. Having been in one place for 14 years, I’ve encountered hundreds. I usually make some assessment of their personalities so that I can anticipate what they are likely to do or fail to do. Although it is hard to accept, I know I might need one of them at any minute.

I saw an inmate almost every day at the inmate barbershop. He’d never been under mental health so I had no direct dealings with him. He drew on handkerchiefs and was fairly talented. I would stop to admire his drawings and to give him colored paper.

I considered him respectful and was taken aback when he screamed at me to shut up at a July 4th Field Day.

I didn’t write him up because I didn’t know his name. When he appeared to ask me for colored paper, I asked him why he had behaved as he had.

He was irate, looking me straight in the eyes and insisting that I had him confused with somebody else.

I was mad, but I looked right back into his eyes. I do not have you confused with anybody else. I know what you did; I’m going to give you the paper because of who I am.

I don’t want the paper! he