PRISON DESERT IN JULY 2013

PRISON DESERT IN JULY 2013

As the prison cells begin to bake in July, Desert Prison Ministry is in desperate need of stamps, cash, and prayers. How’s that for a short appeal? Benedicite!

Hermit News # 1

An occasional publication of Desert Prison Ministry.

“Now what is this?” Miss Luthien asks, sticking her paw all over my papers. “You ain’t no hermit!” “I am, too,” I answer, pushing her paws aside (a futile behavior), “I am a poustinink.” “Puss-tin-ink?” She says. “That’s a Russian style hermit. Poustininks stay in their hermit huts unless their help is needed outside. So Hermit News is meant to be a help. It may or may not be. Just keep your paws off the papers and go be purr-plexed.” “Hmmmmpppphhhh.”


During the last year and a half, I have been privileged to correspond with prisoners from New York to California. During that time I have been writing prisoners in state penitentiaries (what a misnomer!) who are short-timers, long-timers, LWOP, and death row. Gradually, I began to get a clearer sense of what I am doing and why. I am convinced that Our Lord has given me this task as a gift. Like some others who undertake this kind of ministry, I set out in ignorance and spent much of my time just trying to learn the ropes on simple things like money orders, commissary rules, prison visitation, and the mailing of books. Bureaucracia. It is a mad, mad, mad world! It is meant to confuse, befuddle, torment, and tax—both the inmates and those who try to help them. And in the Bible-belt states of the South, to execute.

My primary response to all that has transpired—I have tons of letters in files and piles, which my resident cat Luthien delights in throwing onto the floor—is simple gratitude, which is the way all Christians should live daily. The people I write teach me far more than I can teach them. Mostly a life-long teacher, I cannot resist the impulse to teach others, even when they don’t want me to.

The clearer sense that I have come to is that my mission, such as it is, is to two kinds of people—Catholics, and people who want to understand things about Catholicism. My experience is that both need to learn more about Catholicism. Generally, most Catholics today know little about their own faith, its history and teachings. Often, they have been mistaught. Often, the priests or laymen who teach them have been mistaught.

In the non-Catholic (the way I learned to refer to Protestants and heathen when I was in Catholic school) category are people who are seriously misinformed about the Catholic Church and are usually hostile. This includes people who like to say, “I used to be Catholic.” Using the word Catholic in the American South—and I mean just using the word—is like throwing a fire cracker into a henhouse. Some people need to be vaccinated or detoxified before they can be informed.

Informed. I say, informed. Simply that. I cannot convert people to Catholicism. I don’t intend to. And so the only requirement I make of people who want to correspond with me is that they have questions, even hostile ones, and want to learn the difference, as Shakespeare’s Hamlet says, between “a hawk and a handsaw.” They can continue to be hostile as long as they are willing to question, learn, argue, and laugh. But they are required to put forth that much effort. Or they can find other pen-pals. It’s a big world.

So, if you are receiving this, it means you are already a correspondent or that you are a person who supports DPM with prayers or contributions. I am happy to receive new prisoner names from those with whom I am in contact by mail or from other sources.

“And now,” Luthien mews, “having offended nearly everyone on the planet, could you pass the food bowl?”

Next: in Hermit News # 2, “Why isn’t Jesus enough?” And in Hermit News # 3, “Why isn’t just the Bible enough?”

PRISON DESERT IN JUNE

THE PRISON DESERT IN JUNE

Thanks again for all the generous gifts of prayers, stamps, and cash.

Bubba is happily watching TV, thanks to you, though he continues his spiritual reading. He is a man to be admired. Barring a miracle (for which we nevertheless pray) Bubba will never see the outside of prison walls. At age forty-two, presently in an 8x10 maximum security cell in Oklahoma’s Davis Correctional Facility, Bubba does his best. His hope is that he will be transferred to medium security where he will be able to do some work and engage in his avocations of knitting and painting.

I am happy to report that he has now been visited by Father Le of the Diocese of Tulsa who brought the sacraments and the good news that His Excellency Bishop Slattery will come to give Bubba the Sacrament of Confirmation. After many, many letters, e-mails, and phone calls, DPM has finally managed to call clerical attention to Bubba’s situation. If you want to help, wherever you are, look into what prison ministry is or is not being made available to Catholics and prisoners who want to learn about the Catholic Faith.

Now that DPM has secured a TV for Bubba, we turn our efforts to Wes, who is on death row in the infamous Polunsky Unit in Texas. Wes would like to purchase a portable typewriter from the prison commissary so that he can write a book aimed at young people, like his own sons, who are attracted to the gang lifestyle and who think prison is “cool.” Judging from his letters, I think Wes can do a good job and I have offered my editing services.
If you want to help with this project or with the ongoing ministry of DPM, contact me at kentoncraven@hotmail.com or at 661 S. Edgewood Drive, Sparta, TN 38583-1105. 931-979-1938.