Finding Light in Broken Places

 Some time ago, I visited a prison with a few other volunteers from a chaplaincy team. The experience was not quite what I expected. As we approached the prison riding in a tricycle, what impressed on me first was the land: it was hilly and dry, with the long grasses going brown under the summer sun, a sign of resilient life. The prison complex itself was surrounded by two layers of barbed wire fencing.

After being checked by security, we were shown to a large, open-air visiting hall. Many people were there visiting their family members, enjoying time with each other over baskets of food, almost as if they were at a picnic. A tall, young inmate came in as we were there, and was hugged immediately by a little girl of around 7, who looked to be his daughter. I felt a little guilty, as if by looking we were interrupting a private moment.

A few inmates then led us into the prison proper. The complex had many buildings: some were residential, but there were also small food and provision stalls which I later learnt were operated by the inmates themselves, with their goods being supplied by relatives from outside. The inmates were free to move around inside the compound, and many were sitting around under trees, out of the sun.

We walked past a mosque and a Christian church, then found ourselves in the Catholic chapel, where a mass was about to begin. The chapel was surprisingly full, and there was a very spirited choir of inmates whose upbeat singing enlivened the mass. That mass was, unexpectedly, the most festive yet prayerful that I have experienced in a long time. All who attended participated enthusiastically in the singing and responses, raising their hands in prayer at certain points and joining hands as we sang the “Our Father”.

After the mass, we were greeted by many people in a most friendly and welcoming way, and a few inmates then brought us around to tour the prison complex. We saw the vocational school where many inmates were making handcrafts to sell, learning to draw architectural plans, welding, assembling electronics, sewing, making shoes and the like. Then there were the regular school buildings where those who wanted could enroll in elementary school, high school or university programmes. There was even a fine arts school.

It was plenty to take in, and I wished I had better Tagalog so I could really understand what people were saying, instead of just nodding and pretending I did!

As I think back on the experience, what I feel most is surprise: at the friendly hospitality that I received; and at what a life-giving experience it had been for me. The inmates we spoke to were not unlike anyone else I could have met outside the walls, and were in their own way finding meaning in the life they were experiencing at present. It made me glad that, whatever the benefits and drawbacks of this prison system, it was obviously providing an empowering space for at least some to grow.

The Gospel reading for that day, coincidentally, was the parable of the prodigal son. This is one of the most powerful stories in the Christian scriptures about forgiveness. It goes like this:

A father had two sons. One day the younger son asked for his half of his inheritance, left home, and then squandered it all. When he was out of money and desperately hungry, he returned home, thinking to apologise and ask for work just as a servant in his former home. But the moment his father caught sight of him in the distance, he ran to meet him and hugged him. Even before the son could stammer out his apology, the father was shouting for the servants to prepare a party to welcome his wayward son home. 

The elder brother, returning from the field, heard the commotion and asked the servants what was happening. They told him that his brother had returned, and a party was about to start. He was angry and refused to go in. When his father came to persuade him, he said resentfully, “I have always worked like a slave for you and you haven’t given me anything, and yet when this wayward son of yours returns, you prepare a party for him!” The father looked on him with love and said, “Son, whatever is mine is yours, and has always been. But we must celebrate and be glad, because your brother was lost and now is found.” (adapted from Lk 15: 11-32)

If you haven’t heard this story before – or even if you have – it could be beneficial to sit with it for a while and see what its symbols or metaphors might say to you in your own life. For me, hearing it at mass in a prison was very powerful. It made me think about how we as a society deal with wrongdoing.

But more poignantly, it also made me think of the brokenness and need for forgiveness that I have in my own life. Memories began to surface for me of a particular time of struggle in the past that resulted in broken relationships. As I sit again with these memories and remember the prison and the prodigal son, I am more aware of my own darkness, fragility and helplessness to put together these broken shards as I would wish to. But I am also grateful for this brokenness; for it is precisely in these dry and broken places that God’s healing light shines.

And so my prayer for you and for me is that we may be still and open, and let God bring new light and life out of our broken places.

Food for thought:
What is my experience of forgiving and being forgiven?
How is God bringing new life out of my broken places?