THE PRISON DESERT IN SEPTEMBER 2013

On Tuesday and Wednesday, September 3 & 4, I visited Riverbend Maximum Security Prison in Nashville, TN. In Unit 2, Death Row, Ron C and David D joined with me in a four hour meeting of prayer and discussion of our formation of a Benedictine community in that unit. Ron and David continue their artistic protests of capital punishment.

On Wednesday, I visited with the Benedictine community in Unit 6, Minimum Security, which has been meeting for over a year and is now entering a new phase. Last week David S., recently confirmed in the Catholic Church, was invested by Father Joe as a Benedictine Oblate novice, and on September 28, Devin B. will be invested by Father Joe as a full Benedictine Oblate. After liturgical Morning Prayer, the group agreed to take charge of itself by having all future prayers led by members of the group and by selecting leaders of the group to administer the Rule of St. Benedict. I would continue to visit and counsel on a monthly basis. Devin B. announced that a daily prayer and study group would begin at 4PM each day.

Other prisoners in lockdown maximum security were visited for individual sessions of counseling and discussion of serious reading materials.

VERY MUCH NEEDED THIS MONTH: Stamps, money for gasoline, money for books, especially catechisms, The Rule of St. Benedict, and other religious classics, such as The Confessions of St. Augustine. Also needed if you have any: Pray the Rosary Daily from www.marian.org.

Thanks for your donations and prayers for the ongoing work of DPM!

Hermit News An Occasional Publication of Desert Prison Ministry


Hermit News # 2, Part 2 Why Jesus is Not Enough (continued)

The Hermit: Since the first part of this newsletter went out, Luthien and I have received a letter from Bubba in an Oklahoma prison. Bubba is responding to the passage in Hermit News # 2 about prisoners who build a wall around themselves and their private opinions by saying, essentially, “I have my Jesus and that’s that.”
Here is an excerpt (printed with permission):

And correct, a lot of these guys build a wall around their heart and mind. And no man can get through one of those walls until that person lets the wall down. Maybe some sort of trauma in that man’s life can drop the wall, but only for a very short time, a day or two, that’s when someone needs to say something to him that will reach his heart. Yeh, I had me a wall built on death row for a lot of years, then I lost both my grandmas around 2000. And I finally thought to myself that maybe I wasn’t as tough as I thought I was. Then I lost my Mom and I lost all that I had gained again. I put the wall back up, stronger than ever. And then lo and behold, I got my case over turned and it made me upset at first, then about two days later, a thought came back, maybe God did hear my prayers and my Mom’s prayers. Maybe my Mom’s prayers and pain were not for nothing, maybe there is more to life than waiting for tomorrow. I guess tragedy in a man’s life can make or break him. I’d say mainly it breaks his thinking, makes him bitter about life, God, the world. You see a lot of guys with tattoos like F.T.W. and that tells you they had some bad things go on in their life. I hope I never put that wall up again, and I try to let my feelings show a little more nowadays. Maybe not cry, but definitely let a friend or loved one know I care and I appreciate them in my life and I pray at meals even in the Chow Hall [Bubba has recently been placed in Medium], not out loud, but I just bow my head and pray. Each night I ask for forgiveness for anything I think I done wrong. Even if it’s nothing to worry about.  Just want people to know I am grateful to be here and God is in my life, in my heart. I don’t got a personal Jesus , I have a personal relationship with Him. And he hears me. That’s all I need from Him, is just to listen to me and know I want him in my life, for better or worse, Praise God. . . . Tell Luthien thanks for her questions and opinions, cause it was good to hear you explain it all.

[Note: last week, after several months of lockdowns because of gang wars, Bubba was able to attend Mass, make his Confession, and receive Holy Communion from Father Le, the chaplain to Catholic prisoners in the Tulsa diocese of Oklahoma. Next week he will be able to attend a class that will eventually permit him to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation. Please pray for Bubba!]

Bubba’s response to Hermit News # 2 speaks volumes in a nutshell about being a member of the Body of Christ. Through his membership in the Catholic Church, Bubba is able to receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord and Savior in the Eucharist, in which Jesus is truly present. “Take and eat,” Jesus said during the Last Supper, “this is my body.” AND IT IS!

Next Hermit News: “Why isn’t the Bible enough?”

DESERT PRISON: AUGUST 2013 FOLLOWUP

Thanks and blessings on all the many who generously donated to the cause of electric fans. In Riverbend Prison’s Death Row, these men expressed gratitude in writing for the relief the fans now afford: Ron C., David D., Oscar S., Howard W., Gregory R., and Billy I. An additional purchase was made for Harold H. in Davis Correctional Facility in Oklahoma, who also wrote to express his thanks to the donors of Desert Prison Ministry. Contributions which arrived too late to purchase fans or which were in excess of what was possible to purchase before the deadline will be applied to other pressing needs. God bless you all!

Books continue to make their way to prison cells. In August, Shorter Christian Prayer, The Rule of St. Benedict, The Missionary’s Catechism, The Compendium Catechism of the Catholic Church, Where We Got the Bible, Prefer Christ Above All: The Bible in The Rule of St. Benedict, and Heavenly Homecomings were mailed to individual prisoners. Catholic Catechisms and Shorter Christian Prayers continue to be needed: if you have copies, DPM would like to have them!

THE PRISON DESERT IN AUGUST 2013

THE PRISON DESERT IN AUGUST 2013

I will allure her [Israel], I will lead her I to the desert and speak to her heart. –Hosea 2:16

The name, Desert Prison Ministry, reflects my searching in Catholic spirituality as a hermit. The Desert Fathers frequently shut themselves into tiny cells in the deserts of Egypt and Israel in order to shuck off the world entirely and find God in the wilderness. Sometimes armed with only a few verses of Scripture and their nearest neighbor miles away, the desert fathers returned to the traditions of Elijah, John the Baptist, and Jesus himself during his forty days in the desert before He set about his public mission on earth.

Now, picture yourself in a space 8x12 or so. Many of the prisoners who write me are restricted to such a space except for an occasional shower and an hour’s exercise a day in a cage about as small as the cell. That is why I have sent many prisoners The Hermitage Within, a rare anonymous book on desert spirituality, which tells the reader that if he is to follow the desert way, he must leave all the things of this world and turn through absolute repentance.

That is the challenge that faces prisoners on death row, life without parole (LWOP), or just very long sentences, since the life expectancy of prisoners over fifty is very, very low. Please join with me in prayer for these men and for all prisoners in this world. Your contributions to DPM continue to enable me to send them good books.

THANKS! For all the generous donations to the emergency appeal for electric fans. DPM was able to purchase seven electric fans and get them into the hands of prisoners for August. Books like A Missionary’s Catechism, Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory, and Scott Hahn’s Hail Holy Queen are deeply appreciated by men who are living lives of repentance (as we all must be).

Hermit News # 2 (Why Isn’t Jesus Enough?) is ready. Write me at kentoncraven@hotmail.com and I will be happy to provide an e-copy.

EMERGENCY APPEAL IN JULY HEAT

EMERGENCY APPEAL IN JULY HEAT

Ron C., a Catholic convert living on Death Row in Tennessee (17 years), does all he can to help other prisoners and to work for prison reform on many fronts. Right now he is concerned with conditions in prisons where there is no air conditioning or existing air conditioning is inadequate (or turned off at night!). Prison cells have no open windows and prisoners who have health problems are especially at risk. Ron has already raised money for four electric fans which are sold through the Tennessee Inmate Package Program. Two more fans are needed, for two good men who, Ron says, “would never ask anyone for anything.” Each eight-inch fan costs 26.95, and the deadline for ordering them is July 31.

If you can see your way to help with this very corporal work of mercy please let me know by e-mail or phone and send a check for the amount to me at the address below. God bless you!

Ken Craven

Desert Prison Ministry
661 S. Edgewood Drive
Sparta, TN 38583-1105
931-316-1796 (NOTE: this is a new number)

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.

THE PRISON DESERT IN MAY

THE PRISON DESERT IN MAY

Dear generous supporters,

I am happy to report that Bubba is getting his TV as a result of your kind prayers and donations. I am hopeful that if things work out, he will also soon be cellmates with a young man who is very interested in learning about the Catholic Church. Contact with Deacon John Johnson of the Tulsa Diocese also makes me hopeful that Bubba will soon be receiving regular sacraments and preparation for Confirmation. Bishop Slattery of Tulsa makes visits to the prisons in his diocese and administers the rite of Confirmation.

I am slowly shifting the focus of DPM to center on men who are Catholics or who are genuinely interested in learning about the Church and its teachings. The experience of the last fourteen months has led me in this direction. After I heal from the installation of a pacemaker, I hope to resume prison visitation in Tennessee. I am also happy to report that correspondence with men interested in becoming Benedictine Oblates or who have already entered that status is going very, very well.

Compendium Catechisms, Shorter Christian Prayer (a short version of the Office), Father Ciszek’s He Leadeth Me, Jean Antier’s Charles Foucauld, GK Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, Orwell’s 1984, and other solid books and pamphlets are now the main assistance to prisoners.

DPM continues to need stamps (!), ink, gasoline, and prayers!
God bless you. Bubba blesses you!