People Are People

Lessons from prison ministry

“You’ve never been in here before, have you?”

It was my second week doing prison ministry, and the man who asked me this question was an inmate serving a life sentence.

“No,” I said.

He nodded.

“I can tell. You seem nervous.” Then he said something that floored me: “We’re all just people, you know.”

We’re all just people. I had been looking at the inmates like they were an alien species. Some of them had murdered people. Some of them were addicted to heroine. Some of them had been dealers. Some of them, in a twist I hadn’t seen coming before I started volunteering behind bars, were still dealing.

Even though I was in here to help these folks, on some level I had convinced myself that we didn’t have a lot in common.

But once my friend pointed out that we’re all just people, I started to see the inmates in the classroom where I was a facilitator differently. Some of them had girlfriends or wives on the outside. Some had family members who wouldn’t talk to them, and they were desperate to be better so that they could heal those relationships. Some were grappling with guilt over things they had done. Some were exhausted because they slept in a single cell next to their toilet and it kept flushing at odd hours of the night and waking them up. Some were in seminary school. Some weren’t remotely sure about this whole “God” thing.

A lot of them were lonely.

It turns out that folks in prison and folks on the outside aren’t all that different. We all have hopes and dreams, shames and regrets. Most of us are just trying to get by in a world that can feel pretty rough sometimes.

I think sometimes we can psych ourselves out when it comes to talking to people who seem like they’re different from us.

“He’s a Republican, I don’t have anything in common with him.”

“She’s homeless. Even if I wanted to talk to her, I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“That guy’s Muslim. Our faiths are too different for us to have a real conversation. I don’t even know what we’d talk about.”

But I think the truth is that we’re all pretty similar. We all want to feel seen. We all want to feel understood. We all want to feel loved. We all want to be free of our fear and guilt and shame. We all want our children to grow up to live safer, happier, healthier lives than we ourselves have lived.

Which is to say, we’re all human.

Next to that, I’m not sure that our differences are all that important.

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