Lenten thoughts on holiness, part 6: For Lent this year, I went to prison
When I first began thinking about what to “take up” for Lent this year, I admit, spending many hours in a detention facility was not on my radar. However, as providence would have it, Ash Wednesday found me undertaking my second day in a federal facility designed to detain, for an indefinite period of time, migrants whose status is “unresolved”. In case you’re thinking, “Wait a minute, Sam. You’re a Canadian citizen!”, let me explain. The reason I often find myself “behind bars” this Lent is that I’m working as a chaplain for a facility run by the Canada Border Services Agency. What have I learned about holiness while behind (many) locked doors? Well, it seems to me that compassion is more frequently “caught” than taught. Spending my days among detainees has given me a small taste of the discomfort, frustration, anxiety, anger, desperation and fear that are the daily lot, not only of detainee...