THURSDAY, April 21 Maundy Thursday

This brought tears to my eyes. I didn't understand how it relieved overcrowding, though. Was it that they were being permanently removed to a new prison? Thanks for your wonderful meditations, in any event. I've really enjoyed them!

It didn't relieve overcrowding, Nancy. The decision was the result of having an audit done, by one of Keating's long time associates, which su*gested that Oklahoma contract with private prisons instead of building state prisons (no one mentioned taking the Governor out of the parole process, uniform sentencing, alternatives to incarceration, treatment or any of the other myriad proven methods of effectively changing lives and reducing prison populations).
Then, it turned out, it was discovered that Keating's wife was a signigicant stockholder in an investment outfit that happened to invest a significant portion in private prison stock. No one ever said a word or connected the dots.
I've been criticized some for criticizing our leaders, almost as if that were somehow un-Christian. I believe in my heart that's the path Jesus would want us to take. It's exactly what he did; stand up for those who couldn't stand up for themselves.
I realize we all see life differently; I'm glad to hear these meditations work for some people. They're from my heart and that's all I can do.

Today's comment has implications beyond those our writer experienced. Many of us find ourselves in prisons unlike those described -- for expample those followers of Moses in Egypt. The blood on the doorposts for us can be found in belief in Christ asa well as prayer and support of those activities in which our church pursues.

This greatly disturbed me. GREATLY! It is inferred that the prisoners were lead out like sheep to the slaughter or like those in Exodus that were NOT passed over and killed. Today we have Jesus - it is not like OT times when Jesus had not come to save us yet. God is our judge - certainly NOT the OK prison system.

The anecdote is incomplete to the point of unfairness; it is political to the point of spoiling the meditation. The Christian message of blood on the lintel is of certain evil marking certain innocence. The story in this pericope' of FORWARD implies evil leading innocents away to uncertain and unearned punishment in the setting of an execution. I seriously doubt that is what was really happening in that prison in Oklahoma. Implication that it is an allegory of same is dishonest, political, and the meditation becomes a personal statement of pain, not a corporate reason to meditate. Christ taught us to suffer those in prison for any reason...not to pillory the jailors unfairly.

Unfair treatment of any human, even guilty prisoners, is relevent to the Christian faith. Likewise, the fact that prisons, where redemption, penitence, reconciliation should be the focus, become marketplaces where private corporations can profit and the bottom dollar is relevent to the Christian faith.
Jesus, the person our faith claims to follow, was very political; can we not seek to follow his example?
Just wondering.
Peace, Bo

I left out a sentence; I meant to say, where the bottom dollar, not human lives, becomes the bottom line, is relevent to the Christian faith.

I'm still confused - sorry. But, do you mean that prisoners were selected to be sent to new prisons that were for profit? Maybe they did it in the middle of the night for security reasons or convenience (fewer people on the road). But, in any case, it does seem like the prisoners could have been informed before the move. Maybe that was a security issue too, though. I do think prisoners should be accorded the respect they deserve - the Golden Rule. I know in AZ there are prisons devoted to specific groups such as inmates from Alaska that were transferred here. I just don't like the idea of for profit prisons!

Sister Helen Prejean offers that a society's level of civilization is measured by the way it treats those disenfranchised. Prisoners are disenfranchised at levels most people are completely unaware of. I was involved in prison ministry when the Oklahoma prison system began secreting people out in the middle of the night. I vividly remember the first time it happened at Mabel Bassett. We had just held the first Kairos weekend in a womens prison in Oklahoma. Wow....lives were transformed - both prisoners and free people. We were all looking forward to the next gathering in the prison on the following Saturday. I was especially looking forward to seeing Crystal again who had been at my table. She couldn't come that Saturday because she was shipped out in the middle of the night to west Texas. Talk about powerless for all of us, but especially for the prisoners. They knew it might happen and had been told that consideration would be given to those with family near at hand. That did NOT happen! And then private prisons...a scourge. Bottom line, none of us are innocent so that argument doesn't fly. How we treat people does matter, regardless of what they have done. God didn't wait until we were worthy to send his son Jesus. Jesus didn't wait until we were worthy to give ourselves over. Crystal, shaved her head, stru*gled and then drew from her renewed friendship with God. She was also Native American...exemplary for many years in the prison...not deserving of that night ride away from all she knew. I did get to see her in West TExas. If we don't appropriate the words of scripture into our hearts as Bo has done, then they are dead words. God gave us the Holy Spirit to do just that. Thank you Bo for your words!!! Well done good and faithful servant......

I'm remeinded of the passage in Eugenia Collier's novel Beyond the Crossroad in which slaves on a plantation lie frozen in their cabins hoping that the slave-traders haven't come to buy THEM.