By Deb Conklin
This last week I had the privilege of meeting Doug Walker and spending several days introducing him to various parts of the Spokane Community. Walker, like me, is called to work on social justice issues and blessed to be supported in this work by the People of the United Methodist Church. While I work on the local level, Walker is employed by our world-wide UM connection to work on issues that are primarily addressed at state and local levels. He is the national coordinator for criminal justice reform at the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society.
He was in Spokane as part of a Western trip to talk to communities about “Healing Communities,” a framework from moving from traditional approaches to prison ministry (evangelism within the prison) to creating communities that are welcoming and inclusive of families affected by our criminal system and mass incarceration. He met with local groups such as “I Did the Time” and Spokane Ministers’ Fellowship. We spent time at Unity in the Community meeting NAACP President Naima Quarles-Burnley and other community leaders.
I was personally touched by his story and the stories he shared. He told of a man who had been incarcerated for killing another man. After he got out, his sister tried to get him to come to church with her. He was not a ‘church person’ and resisted for quite a while. One Sunday she got him to come to church with her. As they approached the building and saw the woman who was greeting people at the door, he started to pull back and got ready to leave. His sister said, “Don’t leave now, you’ve come this far.” He said, “I can’t go in there. That woman is the mother of the man I killed.” As he was turning away, the woman saw him and called to him. She said, “Please come. You are welcome here.” This was a community that had learned to see returning citizens as human beings, deserving of the care and concern for which each of us longs.
There were other stories of simple things a community can do. One community simply had an attorney who would sit down with any family who had experienced an arrest. The attorney would not represent the family or the person arrested. She would simply explain to family members what would be happening: how charging decisions are made; what a ‘first appearance is; what the steps in the court process would be. This would help families navigate a very confusing system with understanding and allow them to make more informed choices.
As I heard the stories and participated in the conversations this week, I began to see a vision. Imagine Spokane as a community in which people who are arrested and/or incarcerated are not seen as bad, but as people of sacred worth who may have made mistakes. Imagine a Spokane in which a child can come to church or school and say “My Dad is going to be in Airway Heights for the Next year.” or “My Mom went to jail last night.” and not be ostracized. Instead, the universal response would be “What do you need? How can we help?”
Imagine a Spokane in which having a record with the Department of Corrections does not automatically disqualify you from getting a job, renting a home, parenting your children.
Doug Walker is ready to come back to Spokane this fall and help us to become that community. He would start by meeting with three to five people from various communities (non faith-based, as well as congregations) for a six hour event in which we learn how to begin the transformation from communities of fear to communities of healing and care.
If you want to help move this vision toward reality, contact Pastor Deb at The Oak Tree or at LibertyParkUMC@yahoo.com.
