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!

APRIL FOOLS IN CHRIST

Again, dear friends, thanks for your huge generosity in March.

The Desert Prison Ministry account again stands at $2.18. Funny how that happens. At least I can tell you that your financial support goes directly to the work—our staff is one unpaid hermit, one well fed cat, and assorted blackbirds. No other staff, no overhead but gas, printing supplies, and yes, stamps. A year ago I purchased a box of 500 envelopes—it is now nearly kaput. As for your prayer and Mass support, well, those are on different accounts in very secure banks.

A SPECIAL PLEA FROM BUBBA. Bubba has been in prison for over 14 years, 13 of those on death row; he is now on Life Without Parole. He is a convert to Catholicism and pursues the faith with great zeal. That is remarkable since he went for seven years on death row in the infamous H Unit in Oklahoma without seeing a Catholic priest. In the last nine months, he has seen a priest once. Bubba needs to be confirmed so that he can become a Benedictine Oblate. I have written on his behalf several times to Bishop Slattery in Tulsa without receiving a response. You may wish to write in behalf in Ernest (Bubba) Phillips #187810 to:

Most Reverend Edward J. Slattery, Bishop
Catholic Diocese of Tulsa
2233 S. Gary Avenue
PO Box 690240
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74169

Now, Bubba says, “how would you like to live in a bathroom for 14 years?” Bubba does not have a TV. Most prisoners in the U.S. have TV’s only if someone pays for them. I know, there is the standard response, “they shouldn’t live in luxury!” Believe me, it ain’t luxury, and Bubba says it’s a good thing: prisoners with TV are not likely to cause trouble.

So here we have a good Catholic denied the sacraments who was not able to see any news about the new Pope, sitting in his bathroom-sized cell, listening to the noxious roar of prison, reading Evelyn Waugh’s Life of Campion and St. Thomas More’s The Sadness of Christ (supplied by DPM). Would you like to help with a small TV? Send the money to me, earmarked for Bubba’s TV, and I will get it into his commissary account. If you send too much (!), I will use it for good books and the work. No, as a hermit, I don’t have or watch TV myself, but then I don’t live in a bathroom. Yet.

Desert Prison Ministry
661 S. Edgewood Drive
Sparta, TN 38583-1105
931-979-1938

MARCH 2013: CRY IN THE DESERT

O God, my God, to thee do I watch at break of day. For thee my soul hath thirsted; for thee my flesh, O how many ways! [3] In a desert land, and where there is no way, and no water: so in the sanctuary have I come before thee, to see thy power and thy glory. –Psalm 62 (Douai)

VERY SIMPLY, AS BECOMES A DESERT SITE:

Desert Prison Ministry: bank balance as of February 25: $00.40

Immediate needs: stamps, gasoline money for two prison trips, books, packaging, prisoner allowances ($10 per prisoner every other month), printer ink, paper.

Constant needs: prayers, novenas, Masses, rosaries, encouragement, patience, sense of humor.

FEBRUARY LENTEN CALL FROMTHE PRISON DESERT

“The desert is an invitation and purification for the soul.”—Blessed Charles de Foucauld (Charles of Jesus)

As we begin to enter into Lent, I would like to emphasize why I have called this ministry to prisoners Desert Prison Ministry. It was not an idle thought that prompted me to do this. Standing at the head of a Wadi canyon in the Sultanate of Oman a few years ago, I was impelled to cry out that I was reclaiming this desert in the name of Jesus Christ. Before Muhammed began the great jihad that took over much of the world for Islam, the Arabian peninsula was spotted with synagogues and monasteries. Within a few years, all traces of Judaism and Christianity had been purged by the armies of Islam and, of course, they have not been able to return. If you are interested in this subject, you may wish to read “The Cross and the Desert,” on my other blog, http://failedhermit.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html

In recent years I have entered more into the spirit of hermitage and the Desert Fathers of the early centuries of the Church. Like Monsignor Hugh Benson, the author of the apocalyptic The Lord of the World (1907), I can easily foresee a Europe as a dying sunset, Rome as a heap of ruins, and the Papal chair removed to a white-washed hut in the desert near Jerusalem. I also think that it is now time for the Church to return to the spirituality of the Desert Fathers and the hermits of every age.

My contact with prisoners across the country brings me shocking stories each week. Prisoners on death row or in long-term sentences such as life without parole are daily subjected to abuses I would blush to describe. No, dear friends, it is not true what you may hear in the bars—that most prisoners are living in the lap of luxury with nice gyms, free TV, and coddled therapy groups. It just ain’t so. Even when they live in almost tolerable conditions, they are often deprived of the Sacraments or the visitations of priests and deacons. To many prisoners, deprived of even basic necessities, five dollars a month to purchase stamps, paper, or a few snacks, means a great deal.

Thank you for the outpouring of donations in January and throughout 2012. Thanks to you, over sixty packages of books, catechisms, Bibles, religious publications, and good literature have arrived to lighten dreary cells, and small money orders have made it possible for prisoners to write their families and lawyers.

Blessings! Please pray for this ministry, for the prisoners throughout the world (think of Korea! China! and the Islamic countries!)

-Ken Craven
661 S. Edgewood Drive
Sparta, TN 38583-1105
www.kencraven.blogspot.com
kentoncraven@hotmail.com

THE PRISON DESERT IN JANUARY

Yes, I know, January is the bleakest month on the money front. Bills, dues, appeals, fiscal cliffs, insurance, prescriptions, and the debt ceiling (whatever that is). Nevertheless, this hermit comes a begging with the news that the Desert Prison Ministry bank account is registering at $1.26.

The good news is that all the prisoners on my list received Christmas cards and letters, and many of them received good books, including the recommended A Different Kind of Cell: The Story of a Murderer Who Became a Monk by a Trappist hermit. If you read this book and want to share it with a prisoner, let me know. Or, just send the list price plus estimated shipping and I’ll send it in your name, if you wish, or anonymously, if you prefer. Or send me copies of the book (new or used) and I will do the rest.

I’m off to Riverbend Maximum Security Prison and Morgan County Corrections Complex in January. I’m nearly out of stamps, and will need printer ink, paper, gasoline, books, packing envelopes, and prayers this month. Please help! Send checks, stamps, good used books, money orders, questions, uncut diamonds, and gold bullion to the address below. You know where to send the prayers. Benedicite!

Thanks to everyone for their contributions during Advent!

Special thanks to Holy Angels Book Shop (http://penitents.org/giftshop.html) for providing copies of Shorter Christian Prayer at cost!

PS Please pray for Ruth, a Third Order Carmelite who gave some twenty-plus years to a letter-writing prison ministry after the death of her husband, and has recently retired from her saintly labors while giving me much needed help!

Ken Craven
Desert Prison Ministry
661 S. Edgewood Drive
Sparta, TN 38583-1105
kentoncraven@hotmail.com
931-979-1938