There but for the Grace...by Janie DeVos

                                                  

     ‘Tis the season for a whole lot of giving and it’s interesting to see how creative people get in the different ways they do it.  Some opt for store-bought gifts, while others make beautiful handmade ones, and then there are those who choose to give the greatest gift of all; time spent helping others.  

It’s amazing to see how widespread and varied the gift of time-giving can be during the holidays.  On street corners you’ll find Salvation Army Santas ringing their bells as they stand in the cold next to their recognizable red pots, and all across the nation, volunteer carolers spend time spreading cheer at health care facilities, while warm smiles accompany warm suppers in countless soup kitchens and churches in almost every neighborhood.  

One of the most gratifying things I’ve ever done at Christmas was going with some of my church family to our local prison to feed the inmates a homemade Christmas dinner.  I did it several times, and it was actually one of the things I looked forward to the most when Christmas rolled around.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t do it last year, and I missed it.  I missed preparing the food in great anticipation of how welcomed it would be by those who enjoyed a homemade meal only once a year, if that, and I missed briefly chatting with those whose normal day consisted of orders being sharply barked at them, and harsh, ugly words being the common language spoken in their restricted, regimented society. 

I made cornbread dressing as my contribution for that last prison dinner, and, as I put all the ingredients together, I prayed over it hoping that the inmates who ate it would feel it.  Silly?  Perhaps. But the whole experience was one of gratitude and humility that I just happened to be standing on one side of the serving table instead of the other.  As the old adage goes, “There but for the grace of God go I,” and when I think back over my life, it’s not hard to remember times when I could have made a different set of decisions and ended up holding out my plate for someone else’s cornbread dressing as I stood in government issued clothing with a number stamped over my breast pocket instead of a holiday brooch. 

After dinner that year, the inmate band performed a short program of a variety of Christmas music.  Everyone sang along, taping their feet, and laughing at little quips made by the band members, as well as calling out song requests.  For just a short moment in time, the inmates forgot where they would wake up Christmas morning, and that breakfast wouldn’t be their mamas’ homemade biscuits.  And they forgot for just an instant that they couldn’t look into their children’s excited faces or hear their joyful squealing as they scrambled down the steps to find that much-hoped for present that Santa left under the tree.  For just a small window of time, the inmates weren’t consumed by the hard coldness of their reality—a reality that most had brought on themselves in a split second, but one which they’d pay for through an eternity of seconds.  All of us in the room were connected to each other in that hour as we laughed and sang together or grew quiet when an especially poignant Christmas song was played, like “I’ll be Home for Christmas”, which strummed the deepest cord of pain and remembrance for the men in identical gray jumpsuits, reminding them of what life once was or might have been. 

All too soon, the prison warden stood up in the back of the room and made his way to the front, signaling that it was time to end the Christmas festivities.  He thanked our church for a wonderful dinner then instructed the men to stand up and thank us, as well.  They did so in unison and then each table was directed to file out.  The inmates exited in line, watching the tops of their shoes as they did, as their grim reality reset the look on their faces. 

After the room had emptied, those of us from the church gathered up the things we’d brought in with us—things that had been carefully cleared, counted and recorded by prison officials before we were allowed to enter the facility, and recounted again before we left.  Then we made our way through different sets of locked and barred doors that sounded sharply as they closed behind us.  When the last door clanged shut at the entrance to the prison, we stepped out into the cold December night.  Looking up at the sky, I saw a trillion stars and took several deep breaths of the pine-scented air, saying a silent prayer of thanks as I did that I was free to leave and get back to the good life I was blessed enough to be living.  The rest of my group was doing the same thing for I could hear deep inhalations around me and I knew they must be feeling that same relief, while also feeling a little humbled by it, too. 

As we drove away in our van, I looked back at the prison that had been lit up like high noon by towering lights surrounding it, illuminating the razor wire sitting atop the massive walls like a macabre crown.  Then I turned back around and looked ahead with gratitude at the road leading home.  “There but for the grace of God go I,” I uttered, and somewhere in the back of the van a soft reply of “Amen” was returned, followed by another, and yet another.  In the quiet darkness we knew without saying another word how very different the road ahead might have looked had we simply taken a different fork in it, and how very important something as simple as a stranger’s cornbread dressing might have been to us on a cold and lonely December evening. 

Wishing each of you a wonderful start to the Christmas season, and may you find unique and fulfilling ways in which to give that most special gift of all: yourself.