Tasting salvation during a fellowship meal at a maximum security prison

The correctional officer escorts Lauren and me to the prison’s visitors’ center, where she ushers us into an office and tells us to sit and wait. “The chaplain will see you soon,” she says as Lauren and I find a couple of chairs. We’re nervous, anxious for the prison administration to approve the class we want to teach. After we wait for five minutes, ten minutes, 15 minutes, a half hour, the chaplain bursts in and we jolt up from our seats. He acknowledges us with a nod as he lifts his cowboy hat from his head and drops it on the table.

“So y’all gonna teach some classes here, are ya,” he drawls while staring at us, his eyes shifting from Lauren to me, from me to Lauren, studying our faces and clothes and bodies. His gaze and the long silence make me antsy, so I start bumbling, thanking him for meeting with us, appreciating his willingness to approve our class, complimenting the prison staff for their hospitality, saying anything and everything that might ingratiate us to him.

“Y’all can take a seat now,” he interrupts. “I gotta tell you a thing or two before I’ll sign off on your paperwork, to get you approved.” Lauren and I plop into our chairs; he stays standing, looking down at us. “The most important thing you need to know,” he booms, as if speaking from a pulpit, “you need to understand that they’re not like us. They don’t think like us. They don’t have the same kind of mind that we do. They’re criminals. They’re corrupted.”