It confirmed for me that the way we work with hope – the language we use to invoke it, and the role we believe we play in offering it – is absolutely central to our understanding of faith. And how we understand hope isn’t determined by our alignment with a particular religion. The gift for me this morning was finding so much in common, in the struggle with these questions, with the Muslim and Buddhist chaplains. Not that our answers are the same – actually, perhaps it was the realisation that we had a lack of answers in common; that we liked each others’ determination to keep asking the questions.

But the blank faces from those who are in a different place – who are confused and bewildered by the fact that we haven’t worked this out yet, like they have, or sorted through the doubt – makes for a pretty exhausting time. I think they would say that doubt is good, but really only the kind of doubt that has faith at its core. I think I’m talking about something different. I have absolutely no concept of the being of God at all. None. But I’m absolutely, completely committed to the things that have always been attributed to God – the event of God, as John Caputo would say. Does make me faithful, or doubting? Who knows [and it was a rhetorical question anyway].

But I had a moment of insight at the end as to why talking about hell was so confronting for many of the women. One of the Muslim chaplains said ‘you’d think that if you were a Christian, being told that Jesus has broken the chains of hell would be something you’d like to hear’… and I realised that part of it is that the women don’t want all that is Good to be sullied by all that is Bad – that God will be made dirty by descending into our hell, and they need God to be pure; the place to escape to beyond our hell. Greg, one of the christian chaplains at the juvie said that he can’t play Nirvana in worship – the lads only want Hillsongs. Not because they believe Hillsongs theology, but because it’s so removed from their reality.

Not everyone has that reaction, of course. For every 10 people you get in prison, you’ll get 35 different theologies… which is about the same number as you do outside prison. And, in the end, when i wonder what the hell we were thinking trying this, I’m reminded of the woman who sat down next to me on Holy Saturday and started a conversation by saying ‘If God’s in my hell, then I guess it’s ok for me to tell you this…’

We’re going to talk about the easter stuff we did at the DPFC, and about the connection between art and spirituality – and in particular, the use of art and imagination to take us into transformative spaces.

We’re also going to look at the effect of doing that – what creating spaces that invite people into doubt, faith, hope and fear leads to.

[This is stream of consciousness, so it's not edited or wrapped up nicely at the end! It's also very, very long.]

The ‘When hope goes to hell’ space on Saturday was really interesting… The idea that God went to hell is most clearly stated in the Apostles Creed [especially its traditional versions], and it was a belief inherited from very early traditions, and from some interpretation of biblical passages. Psalm 139 gives a poetic version of the same concept. I guess the responses of the women was a microcosm of the community / church: some of the women got the idea instantly, and were right there with it. Some were horrified that we could say such a thing – that we could dare to mention the words God and hell in the same sentence, let alone put them in the same place. One woman was outright angry with me… then she came in the next day with her prayer book open to the Apostles Creed. ‘You were right’, she said. ‘Maybe’, I thought.

The women wrote prayers onto black card at the easter saturday vigil. The funny thing about the prayers was that we had the women writing with black on black so that no-one else would be able to read them. But they wanted them to be read… as I’d move around the room, they’d squint into the black card to find the outlines of their words and read out their prayer to me; by the end they were reading them out to each other. We sort of got this group prayer thing happening entirely by accident.

I feel my journey at times has meant nothing to anybody. That nobody hears my cries of anguish. That I am alone in this dreaded place called hell on earth. If God is in hell with me then he understands. Amen.

The Saturday afternoon was perhaps the most intensely theologically demanding that i can remember. Some of the women lost themselves in the art / meditations… for others there was too much prior stuff that needed to be sorted out before they could trust the process – too many questions that arose. Normally we have the luxury of talking about faith theoretically, and our questions have a buffer zone around them. They’re not life-threatening. But here, choices were being made about relationships, lifestyles and pleas in courtcases based on the conversations we were having. And none of these are simple moral choices – they are infinitely more nuanced and complex than that. I have to say, I don’t think I have the faith to do this. I think what we did only worked because it was framed in doubt – i can’t, with any honesty, write anything but out of doubt / disbelief – but it’s when people assume that there’s faith on the other side of it that I get overwhelmed with the responsibility.

Anyway, there were a lot of questions that came up – some of them asked into thin air, some of them that turned into conversations. We’re going to use them at tomorrow’s workshop – to discuss how we reframe the expression of our beliefs so that they actually contribute to a conversation about the questions that are asked; so that we create a shared conversation about faith rather than a forum with a religious expert offering the answers. For example, if we don’t believe in a physical manifestation of hell after death, how do we respond to the question ‘what actually happens in hell?’ in a way that provokes thought and interaction, rather than shutting down conversation. The real skill is in being comfortable enough with our own world view to be able to refocus a question…

These were the questions that arose on the Saturday. They weren’t just asking me, they were asking each other:

‘Who do you think is in hell?’
‘What did God do in hell?’
‘If we all go to heaven, will I need to be with the people who hate me after I die?’
‘If I can’t believe, will I go to hell?’

[learning number 1: belief in heaven and hell is entirely independent to belief in god... and the idea that there might not be a hell or heaven is inconceivable. there's no prior question in this...
learning number 2: prison gives you too much time to ponder the existential questions of life
learning number 3: invoking the fear of hell is an evil motivator for faith]

‘what if it’s not true?’
[indeed. the great unanswerable question]

‘When i died, i just saw a white light. I reckon that means I’m going to heaven.’
[quite a few of the women have had NDE's]

‘how do i know who i should trust to tell me what to believe?’
[too right.]

I think we imagined that the vigil would be the meditative part of the weekend – and it was in Protection where we controlled the space and time much more – but the transformative moment actually happened on the Sunday morning. This links back to the use of art and imagination. I think it was only possible because of the Saturday – that gave it an authenticity, perhaps, that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.

On the Sunday, we started with Libera’s ‘Jubilate’, which is astonishingly beautiful, tear inducing… and it was like we all found ourselves in Rumi’s field beyond knowing… there was a moment where the questions were irrelevant, where belief itself didn’t matter. We just knew there was beauty somewhere; there was no desire to analyse or interpret it, we just wanted to lose ourselves in it… and after the service was over, when we were having a cup of tea, the women kept going back to the cd player to re-play that song…

I’m not a fan of multi-faith services – not because I don’t believe in the principles of multi-faith, but because they often seem to dilute that which is most true, most important to each religion – or they can become patchwork services with elements from different traditions plonked in, in the hope no-one notices the inconsistencies. That said, sometimes the reason for having them outweighs the inadequacies behind them, and we’re doing this one anyway…

This is the statement of purpose which will call us together [the quotes / readings are projected, not read]:

[Rumi quote on slide: “Out beyond the ideas of right-doing or wrong-doing there is a field- I'll meet you there.”]

We gather
as an unlikely community of faith,
each bringing with us stories that have given us life;
that tell of truths
inadequately described by any theologies and philosophies;
that share in common our longing for a very different world;
that offer age-old and tested paths to transformation

Here we will pray for the insight to know that none of us holds the whole truth
and the grace to respect the faith brought by another in this group.

We gather because,
we hold a shared belief that lives can be re-shaped by compassion
and renewed by forgiveness;
because we know the men and women we work with
are more than the story the world knows of them;
because we can witness to hope and life and peace.

Here we will pray for the courage to advocate for justice;
and the wisdom to offer an alternative to the fear of the world.

[change slide to 1 Corinthians 12:7-11]

We gather, a community of individuals with many skills, both well-honed and imperfect,
with both honourable and flawed motivations,
sometimes bewildered and bemused that we have been trusted with this most holy task:
to speak of life in the midst of fear
to be the presence of hope in darkness.

Here we will pray for the humility to understand both the potential and the limitations of the gifts we bring,
and the generosity to honour the gifts offered by those around us.

We gather because we cannot do this work on our own.

So here we will pray for each other…

i’m preparing for the workshop that will kick start the process, and opened up Francis Moloney’s commentary on Mark to discover this quote on the dedications page:

Bella memorized, repeating phrases, until her fingers were so tired they gave up resisting and got it right… But when she finished memorizing – bar by bar, section by section – and played the piece without stopping, I was lost; no longer aware of a hundred accumulated fragments but only of one long story, after which the house would fall silent for what seemed a very long time.

Anne Michael, Fugitive Pieces

i keep getting frustrated by fragments. i just want the long story without the work it takes to get there… here’s to memory and rehearsal, patience and resilience…

Philip Zimbardo ‘The Lucifer Effect: Understanding how Good People Turn Evil’
John Caputo ‘The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event’ [another book worth reading along this vein is 'How [not] to speak of God’ by Peter Rollins.

[The other book that's been really critical in my thinking, especially about the perspectives from which our theologies are formed is Sallie McFague's 'Life Abundant', esp. chapter 2]

The images I showed by Banksy can be found here, the Amnesty International advertisements can be found here.

Someone asked about the music playing behind Kevin’s Psalm this morning – that was Sufjan Steven’s song ‘O God, where are you now?’ – it’s available as a download through iTunes, or if you wanted to buy the cd to take into prison, it’s on his ‘Greetings from Michigan’ cd [it would be a great song to base Holy Saturday worship around].

I forgot to mention that I have a book of liturgies available through Proost [you can either subscribe to Proost for a year's worth of fabulous worship resources, or simply buy the book on it's own! it's available through the Proost website as a pdf download, or at UniChurch bookshop in the city]

If you search through this site, looking under the ‘worship in prison’ category there are a stack of other resources… Email me if there’s stuff I’ve forgotten!

welcome to worship

there are those who say that this is a cop-out -
an avoidance of reality
an escape from responsibility
and a denial of the truth.

They can’t know the courage it takes
to come here today,
to face the parts of ourselves we’d rather deny,
the things we’ve said and done that have hurt and destroyed;

to imagine a life
and a world
where all is made new.

welcome to this time and space
where we dare to hope the impossible can happen
and we pray for courage to believe it just might today.

In the course of the conversation i realised i need to think more about how to create an environment in prisons that immediately make it obvious that people are coming into a different space when they come to worship – how to turn a room that, 15 minutes before, has been used for drug education or anger management sessions into a sacred space. It’s not just about aesthetics, it’s more atmospheric than that – creating an environment that gives people permission [incentive] to be present differently to how they are present in every other part of their life in prison, from the moment they walk in the door, even before we’ve said a word. We do that all the time with installations, etc – the moment people walk into a room they know something different is going to happen, and that they can be different in that space. It’s much harder in prison where you have so little control over the environment. i also think it’s more important in prison than in any other worship context i work in. We might play around with some ideas next time I go into the Marlborough Unit with Ross.

I confessed to my control-freak nature… i script every word in worship, including instructions – which is not my normal practice for anything else – i didn’t even have a workshop outline written down for this morning, just a vague idea in my head. People are much more likely to ‘lose’ themselves in worship if i’m not stumbling or searching for a word. My task as curator is to be guardian of the space – to make it safe enough for people to be vulnerable. They have to trust me for that to happen, and trust that i’m not going to take them somewhere that is too vulnerable or unsafe. They also have to not be waiting for my next slip up…

We used Alf’s Psalm in the gathering… i asked the group to read it through silently and find a line or two that particularly resonated for them. I read the psalm out loud, and people spoke alongside me when it came their lines. It was surprisingly moving and beautiful.

I also used this prayer, which i’ve put up here before

this is a holy space and a sacred time
not because god is here in any special way -
god is no different in this place
to anywhere else -
but because we are here in a special way

in this space and time
all of who we are
is welcome

so bring the broken, darkest parts of you -
the parts which strive to be beautiful
and those which are nothing but flawed -

put them next to mine

as together,
in this holy space and sacred time,
we let them be shaped
by god.

welcome to worship.

No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. That kind of symbol sticks out like raisins in raisin bread. Raisin bread is all right, but plain bread is better.

I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things. The hardest thing is to make something really true and sometimes truer than true.

- Ernest Hemingway [via kottke]

If the face of the Beloved
does not make you gasp in wonder
and laugh ecstatically with joy
then you must be like a stone
good only for building prison walls.

- Rumi

[speaking of which, lisa hall is a teacher in Utopia, a remote indigenous community in the NT. she's a voice I trust in the current sea of ignorant opinions... her blog posts at the moment are heartbreaking and eyeopening].

we realised pretty early on that working out what needs to happen before redemption and restoration are made real in our society is a never ending process, but that we need to begin asking the questions and naming the problems even if we don’t know the solutions to them. that’s counter-cultural in the church, we only like asking questions we can answer.

this was the beginning of our list today:

what do we, as a community, do with prisoners with mental illnesses and intellectual disabilities when they leave prison, and when their primary carers [normally their parents] are too old / unable to care for them… and when the government has dismantled the institutions that could have cared for them?
how do we, as a community, look beyond ’single issues’, which tend to focus on symptoms not problems… [take away gambling and some other addiction will take its place]?
what do we do about the fact that often the only accommodation, post release, that recovering drug addicts can find is with people who are still using?
what do we about the cycle where the parole board won’t release prisoners until they have accommodation, but prisoners can’t get accommodation without knowing when they’ll be released from prison
what do we, as a community, do about the fact that the prison population is increasing, even though the rates of crime are decreasing
what do we, as a community, with the knowledge that the majority of victoria’s prison population comes from just 14 postcodes… and with the knowledge that we’ve known this for years and done nothing about it….
what do we, as a community, do about the fact that much of the prison population is made up of people who are 4th generation unemployed and dependent on welfare…

[i've been thinking about why i'm pro-denominational recently, even when i'm pretty ambivalent about church! this is one of the reasons: a denomination has the capacity and resources to work on issues like this. the church has a vision of redemption and restoration which it can offer the world; a denomination has a loud enough voice to advocate to governments, and can do so unapologetically, as well as having resources to put into work that simply wouldn't get funding any other way.]

on my first day back i have a meeting with the chaplain at the women’s prison in melbourne – planning a ‘cutting of the ties’ liturgy for another chaplain at the facility, which will then lead into Christmas worship.

so i’ve begun thinking about christmas. i can’t imagine many more difficult places to experience christmas than in a prison. one man i met in prison a few months ago – who is due to be released this week, and has been on my mind a lot – told me that one of the hardest things he’d had to come to terms with in prison was that he could give nothing back while he was there – he felt he could contribute nothing to society, and especially nothing to his family… not even a gift. so even the christian christmas slogan of ‘it’s all about the giving, not the receiving’ becomes another cruel taunt. The chaplain tells me that they normally do worship on christmas eve, because the women can’t bear to be with other people on christmas day. Most of them will just seek solitude on the day.

it would be arrogant – and i think somewhat unfaithful – to think there are words we can say which will make this better, which will make christmas palatable. i think there’ll just need to be lots of silence and space.

we love silence at christmas – we sing of silent nights in hushed voices, we whisper prayers of beauty and calmness, we equate silence with peace.

i think the silence we’ll encounter will be the kind that comes after an earthquake, or devastating news – the stunned, shocked silence when you know the world is turned upside down, but you have no comprehension of how to live with it, to make it fit. somehow honouring the awfulness of the moment and the time of year.

Pete Rollins talked at Greenbelt about God being what happens in the aftermath of rupture. I guess i see prison as a rupture, an apocalyptic event – and at christmas we’ll be waiting there, deeply hopeful and unavoidably cynical, to see if God happens.