Radix board member Ryan Pemberton recently interviewed Chris Hoke on his work with and alongside incarcerated and formerly incarcerated men and women. Chris Hoke is the cofounder and executive director of Underground Ministries, which mobilizes faith communities and businesses across the Pacific Northwest into relationships of mutual spiritual transformation with men and women released from prison. He is the creator of the “One Parish One Prisoner” model and movement that empowers churches to draw closer to the tombs of America’s mass incarceration system through relationship with one releasing individual, rolling away the heavy reentry barriers that keep millions of Americans shut out of our communities. Based in his years as a jail chaplain and pastor among gang members in Washington’s Skagit Valley, Chris Hoke created Underground Coffee with a former meth cook and a local coffee roaster, which led to networks of more Underground Employers in multiple industries who hire individuals leaving prison and addiction, putting the street’s “transferrable skills” to productive work in our communities today. He is the author of WANTED: A Spiritual Pursuit Through Jail, Among Outlaws and Across Borders (HarperOne), and lives with his wife and two small boys in Mount Vernon, WA. This is the second interview of a two-part series.
Ryan: All right, Chris Hoke with Underground Ministries. Thanks again for taking some time to chat.
Chris: Wahoo!
Ryan: [Laughter.] So, the last time we were talking, we were talking about getting to know folks by name. Getting to know their life, their experiences. Picking up on that conversation, I wanted to ask: Given all your work with people living behind bars, what do you think either incarcerated folks–currently or formerly-incarcerated people–would like other people to know about them?
Getting behind the stereotypes, getting behind the tropes, what’s the level of detail, and what are the experiences that you think they would like those of us who don’t have that experience to know about them?
Chris: Well, I just got a JPay message today [from an inmate]. JPay is a prison corporation that facilitates emails in and out of prison. Which are a lot easier and faster. But they’re making a lot of money off brokering connection in and out of the tombs.
Can I just read to you what he [Adam] wrote? Instead of me speaking for what they want?
Ryan: Yeah, yeah, please.
Chris: He [Adam] says, “Hey Chris, I just got the Stones and Layers packet from Alvin.”
Basically, that’s when people apply to do the One Parish, One Prisoner program from prison, and if we think that they have a sincere desire, we send them our intake form, which we call Stones and Layers. Like in the Lazarus story of resurrection, you roll away the stones, which are the barriers to reentry. Those are the structural barriers: driver’s license, housing, legal debt, child support.
But then there are the Layers, when Jesus invites the community to him. That’s our metaphor for the more human textured stuff of our fears and our protective mechanisms, our false self and our wounds, our addictions and distractions.
Ryan: The personal layers.
Chris: Yeah. Your structural barriers you gotta deal with and your personal shit, basically.
Ryan: Both of those need to be dealt with, yeah.
Chris: So that’s why the Lazarus model is really important to us, to give a narrative to both of those.
And so [Adam] says, “I finished reading the Kinship packet that you wrote, too.” We had sent him the story I wrote for Plough, telling stories about a number of people starting One Parish One Prisoner during the pandemic.
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: So he says, “I’m more excited than ever to give this a go. And it’s funny too, cuz when I read about Ruben and his spider…” There’s a story I tell in my article about a guy named Ruben.
Ryan: I remember that. I read that. It was a beautiful piece.
Chris: You remember that? He said, “That story touched me. At this moment, I, too, have a spider outside my window.”
Ryan: Wow.
Chris: “I started calling the spider Peter,” [Adam writes]. “It’s crazy, huh? Spiderman’s name. I think that this is something many of us do while we’re incarcerated.” They talk to spiders.
“But I did IMU time.” That’s Intensive Management Unit, or Solitary Confinement. “Even on short visits to the hole, I always look for insects at my window. I think it’s a comfort thing that a lot of us do.”
“As I write this, I realize how much many of us in prison have in common. Even though we come from different backgrounds, there are things that always ring true. Even the hardest homies I’ve ever met who seem so unapproachable and hella uninviting, once I get to know them and actually see them, we end up having these great relationships.”
“We would be laughing all the time and clowning around, and I would do what I hated or feared the week before. I’m gonna put the same kind of outlook towards the people of this church, who are doing this program with me as well. Cuz honestly, I felt like once they get to know me, they may not like me. But then I remember, I’m a fucking delight, LOL.”
“So they, too, might end up being some fucking delights in my life. You feel me? Just like you have been. Real shit, Chris. I thank God all the time for putting people that genuinely care in my life. So even though I fear to fail, and I fear to let people down, I will try again, and again, and again. This time though, I’m not doing it alone.”
Adam is putting language perfectly to how, well . . . I think people want to know that maybe we’re not that different. And it’s important to see the barriers between us. So we’re not like, “What’s your problem?” [toward those who are incarcerated or who were previously incarcerated.] So we see the trauma. We see injustice. We see racism. We see incredible tragedies that pile upon tragedies upon some people’s lives. But underneath all the rubble, we see that these are people on one hand who are fucking delights, like us. People who are struggling with trusting, like us. People that are trying again and again, like us. And they are people who “don’t want to do it alone.”
Isn’t that nice? I just got that message this morning. Right when I wanted to quit my job, I read that and I was like, “mmm… that’s better.” That’s as good as Steinbeck right there.
Ryan: “…Even though I fear to fail, I will do it again, and again, and again.”
Chris: Yeah. I would’ve taken my life long ago if I was in these guys’s shoes. I understand what Fr. Greg Boyle talks about when he says, “I’ve never met a more courageous person than some of the homies I work with.”
I’m like, yeah, that sounds like a holy thing to say, Greg. But I’ve three or four times in my life been at a place of such overwhelm that all I can think about is turning off my life somehow.
And, to think, to just be in this spiral of addiction and hopelessness and going nowhere. For me, it’s like, Are my dreams all coming together? Are my efforts all collapsing? And, can I deal with that devastation?
But the amount of hopelessness and arrest and losing loved ones and death and self-hatred and letting people down . . . That they haven’t all killed themselves is a level of existential buoyancy that I’m in awe of.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Resilience.
Chris: Yeah.
Ryan: Courage. That’s not a platitude when, when [Fr Greg] Boyle uses that word. It’s full sincerity.
Chris: Yeah. I’m just like, that’s courage to not throw in the towel and instead say, “I’m gonna try again.”
Ryan: And not because that fear is less.
Chris: Yeah, man.
Ryan: Thank you. That’s a great response. I’m grateful for the timing.
Part of the reason for this particular issue of Radix Magazine, and the previous one, is: How do we get folks involved? How do we encourage people out of the armchair and into sharing life with folks?
And so the question I wanted to ask you is: if you were to get more help from the Church community, what specifically would that help look like? How would you encourage folks to start, either with Underground Ministries or otherwise?
Chris: Well, everything we do at Underground Ministries is based around that exact question. When I wrote a book about my adventures in and out of jail and relationships with gang members, I knew heartbreak and the holiness in all that. But people’s questions were: “Well, what can we do?”
I was like, “Well, I dunno. Send a check. Become a donor.”
I’m not gonna try to tell them about all the different ills they need to call their senators about. That’s important, but not the homework that I’m gonna do for them.
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: But then someone told us about “One Parish One Prisoner.” Someone else had the title. It was just a really poorly typed-up little prospectus. They put it in my back pocket.
There are “roughly the same amount of churches in Washington [state] as folks in prison.” And so we built One Parish One Prisoner. My whole life and career is based around that question now: “What CAN a church do?” This! This is what you can do. If you are in Washington state, go to oneparishoneprisoner.org, and check it out.
And it’s not like, “Well, do it if you feel you want to.” The challenge of our idea is “what if is every church…” So my question’s just, “Why not?”
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: And so if you’ve got seven people in your congregation or your home group, or your pub group of post-church folks that still give a damn about Jesus and want it to matter, we made this for you guys.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Chris: Sign up at oneparishoneprisoner.org. We are putting all our efforts into creating learning modules and making it like bumper bowling. We’re putting as many [guides in place] so you don’t have to fall into all the errors. It’s just like bumper bowling. You just throw your lives for two years down this alley, you’re gonna hit something like a strike.
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: Connect with folks in prison. You’re gonna be entering the Hades of prison–and of your own community–and seeing a beautiful human being who looks a lot like you come out of it and grip your hand.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Chris: And you might get hurt. But, if you’re the kind of person that doesn’t want that, you wouldn’t be reading Radix. You wouldn’t be going to church.
Ryan: Right.
Chris: You’re not gonna be very far into this interview.
Ryan: Yeah. And specifically, that involvement is going to look like writing letters, reading letters?
Chris: Yep. So: our program. Okay. First off, that’s if you’re in Washington state.
If you’re outside of Washington state, still go to the same page, but we don’t have the infrastructure, which is contained inside the state to pair you with someone.
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: As the word gets out, now we’re gonna create kind of a DIY pairing model, which is kind of what I’m testing out with different language. Like a “Lazarus Inventory” in a church.
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris: Pastors who are interested will be like, “Okay, raise your hand if you know someone who’s incarcerated.” And oftentimes they’re there. But people feel like they can’t advertise it.
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: The pastor will say, “Raise your hand if you have loved someone or a cousin or a family member or neighbor has been incarcerated. Now keep your hands up if they’re still locked up.”
“Take a look around and keep your hands up if it’s someone that might be coming home in less than, you know, two to three years.”
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Chris: Even if you don’t get any immediate pairing from that two-minute exercise, I think that’s starting to shed the light on something that’s in the darkness.
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: And then be like, “You find your person coming home in the next two or three years? Rock and roll. You do our program. We just don’t need to do the pairing in that case.”
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: It begins with forming a team of seven people. And we’d like to have a pastor involved, if it’s a normal church. So it’s not just another cool thing they can say they’re doing, that’s often on the margins. But rather, it involves storytelling and support from the front.
And then, as fears come up in the congregation–which they will–the way through it is not through an FAQ page about How We Make Sure That No Problems Ever Happen. The way you work through it is to preach through it. Fears come up and you’re like, “Oh, that’s a really interesting fear. Let’s read a book called . . . the New Testament.” Right?
Like, oh, everything we’ve been hearing, these [Bible] stories that get old, are suddenly very relevant when you’re worried about the sex offender coming back into town.
Ryan: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Chris: So anyway, for churches in Washington and out, we’re building a platform for them to build a relationship with someone in prison–with seven people. ‘Cuz a whole congregation can’t be in that relationship.
Ryan: Right. Right.
Chris: But they’re extending a hand, so to say, of seven fingers. We started with five, which was nice, but we really need seven fingers for these teams.
It starts with an orientation. And with some time in letter writing. The first module—out of 24 learning modules—is “The Lost Art of Letter Writing.”
Ryan: Mm-hmm
Chris: The second one is “Success? Re-orienting What Success Is.” We’re not putting pressure on [the releasing person] to “succeed.” The pressure is off of us to have a “successful experience.” But, rather, kinship is the goal: finding those connections of mutual revelation.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Chris: Whether or not they transition with shining colors their first time.
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: [The 24 monthly learning modules continue] all the way through identifying the Stones. Looking at, you know, setting up different roles on the team: someone’s looking into ID and driver’s license stuff and LFO debt to be working on. And someone’s working on looking at housing connections and some DOC stuff with the prisoner’s parole officer when they get out. And another person’s gonna be looking at an employment model that we have to help get some employment connections within the community.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Chris: And [the team] starts to realize they don’t have to be social work experts. But in the business world and in the reentry world and the drug world, it’s all about who you know. And churches are departments of connections.
Ryan: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
Chris: Churches are rich in social capital. So we’re kind of saying, “Don’t try to go look for every nonprofit in the area that does this. You can do it.”
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: We don’t need an expert. Be the person. You can have healthy conversations about addiction together and not bring in “the addiction expert.”
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: [More like,] “Well, what do we know about addiction? Let’s talk about how addiction has affected all of our families.” (Oh, shit!) That’s exactly what they need: to have real talk with people in a church. Not to go through one more chemical dependency program. [The releasing person] might need that, but that’s not what [the teams] need to search for.
So that would be the addiction conversation. That’d be one example of the Layers modules (one of the 24).
The modules aren’t just about having conversations about addiction, mental health, etc. There’s always some very specific stuff in the modules. Like, “Okay, make sure you have them get their prescription so that their 30 days of meds don’t run out after 30 days. So they don’t go AWOL in month two.”
There are some articles, too, about the tragedy of how many folks with mental health problems in America end up in prison. Half the time, it’s not a crime problem.
So that’s what this program, this journey, looks like. But it all happens all through relationship. And so our teams sometimes get too into the learning modules in the meetings [instead of the relationships].
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Chris: As if it were a book group. They’re like, “Oh, who’s talked to so-and-so lately.” So, the first year, I got really confused and frustrated. Like, [yes, the basics are:] 1) do the learning, 2) do the meetings, and 3) be in relationship with your person. But if you only got time for one this month, be in communication with your person.
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: But that’s normally at the bottom of their thinking.
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris: They–we–love meetings. We love talking about that documentary or that book, that Bible verse. But, when it comes to some folks writing their next prison letter, the early responses were like “Gee, I don’t know. I’m having problems figuring out the JPay system.”
I’m like, Okay, but you figured out your health insurance in America. It’s the most complicated thing in the world. I think you’re able to figure out the JPay system.
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: Or: “I just don’t know what to say.”
Ryan: It’s the actual correspondence piece. Yeah.
Chris: Yeah. So we’re constantly refining our models as we’re talking with teams. Like, Where are people getting off track? Where am I giving them too much kind of cognitive bait?
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: And where do I just be like, “Do this: write your letter”?
Ryan: Increasing those bumpers. Narrowing the path.
Chris: Yeah, “path” is probably better than “bowling.” We’re just making the path really clear through the forest between us.
Ryan: Yeah. In thinking about the folks who are getting involved so far, thinking about these volunteers, what kind of motivations are you finding? Why are people getting involved? Is it because they know someone[in prison]? Because they read a book? What is it?
Chris: That’s a great question. I think a lot of people are resonating. I think the time is ripe in America.
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: When people just hear about it, in this past year, their deacon just says, “Hey, we’re doing this thing. If you want to do it.” And people are saying “yes.”
Ryan: Cool.
Chris: We just need to get the word out there more. And then the first thing at the Kickoff Orientation ishe whole Simon Sinek thing, which is great: “Start with the why.”
So we get everyone going around. Just: “Why? Why did you say yes?”
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: And it’s great to hear the rainbow of things people say. One of them we’ve got, like a really progressive Mennonite pastor, a young woman, who’s saying: “Mass incarceration is evil and the image of God is caged, and we need to undo that. And if we, if a church can do that, there’s nothing more I wanna do as a pastor. That’s why I became a pastor.”
And then you hear someone who’s like, “Well, I’m a retired judge and uh . . . and I’m not sure what to make about what I did with my life. I saw a lot of people in my court, and I started to, by year 30, realize that I’m not sure we can incarcerate our way out of the problems that I’d see day in and day out in my court. That frustrated me. And I think I wanna try something different.”
And you’ve got another person saying: “I’m retired and I’m kind of scared, but a little lonely. And I miss writing letters. No one writes letters anymore. And I can do that.”
So you just hear a lovely variety of voices emerge.
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: I almost wanna start a whole social media platform of all the “why’s” we get. And then we read from the person in prison, answering, “Why did you wanna apply for this?”
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Chris: “[In applications, a common answer is] “I’m tired of coming back in here.”
Ryan: Right, right.
Chris: “But my program isn’t working and the people I know aren’t really helping me. So I thought ‘What the fuck, might as well try something new,’ you know?”
[Laughs.] It’s so great!
Ryan: I hadn’t thought about asking that question on the other side of the equation. Why are folks choosing to get involved behind bars, folks underground. Why are they choosing?
Loneliness, same reason. Failure, again and again. Wanting to try a different path.
Chris: Yeah. “I need help.”
Ryan: “I need help.”
Chris: It’s some variety of, “I need help.” And. “I need some new people.”
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Chris: Normally guys in their twenties don’t apply [for the program]. You have to suffer a certain amount of decades to fill out a paper and say, “I want seven strangers to know me, intimately. And assist me in my future. And I don’t think I can do it on my own.”
That’s courageous.
Ryan: Yeah. Thanks, Chris. Thinking about how intimately you are now working with churches. That hasn’t always been the case for you, but that is now your soil. If you could get all the pastors in North America into one room (which is quite an image), and they had to listen to you, what would you say to them?
Chris: There’s at least two different registers I’d want to hit. One is the big picture. The Big Topics kind of stuff. Like, “Why’d you become a pastor?”
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Chris: I don’t think everyone said, “I wanna manage a religious social club of middle-class folks who wanna argue about the hymns and the carpet.” I don’t think that’s why you went to seminary.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Chris: I think there was something about the wonderfully extreme life and person and possibility of Jesus. And the people that Jesus called disciples. Something that we wanted to do, or be about, or foster. This grace and forgiveness thing. We wanted to be about that, right?
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: How many of you feel like you’re not sure where that even happens anymore? And you’re tired of preaching. But how many of you would like an opportunity where all those things—why you went to seminary, became a pastor—might be possible and right on the front burner . . . for someone coming home from prison?
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: Where, even if your church is afraid or bitching about it, at least that’s a meaningful thing to have an argument about!
Ryan: Right.
Chris: Instead of the carpet, right? You can be like, ‘Okay, well, now let’s crack open any New Testament series, and let’s talk about how we face our fears. And the challenge of Jesus with the fears that we face.
Ryan: Mm-hmm, right.
Chris: From there, I’d want to go from the big why of the gospel and social problems to, like, their existential–I mean, I don’t know how it’d sell this to businessmen–but if they’re pastors, I’d be like, You got in this game for some reason.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Chris: And you’re probably sipping as much whiskey as I am these days, because you feel so at odds with, and far from, your why. And you’re just trying to get through the slog of social club management.
Ryan: Right.
Chris: We offer you a way. No pastor can figure out a prison reentry ministry on their spare time. So we’re trying to just bring it right to you and say, “Here you go.”
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Chris: Figured it out, A through Z.
Ryan: Yeah. In relationship. Not just on your own, but with us.
Chris: Yeah. Get a number of churches in your diocese and your synod and your small group, whatever your kind of network of others doing this is. Then it starts to be fun.
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: You start to talk about, “Well, our guy is getting picked up by Immigration. And here’s what we did last week. You should come join us.”
Or, “Our person just got out and they’re talking with the businessmen in our community. We just had this interesting talk on Saturday morning. You should come.”
This will make ministry fun again.
Ryan: Yeah. That’s a great word. I appreciate you wanting to undo some of the cobwebs for folks.The cobwebs that have just piled up in the minutia of the day-to-day. And invite folks to get a little bit closer to that motivating impulse for them. Cuz it’s so easy to lose that in the details.
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: What question do you wish more people asked you when it comes to the work you’re doing, or the work you’re trying to do?
Chris: I wish people said more often, “You know, where do I send my check?”
Ryan: [Laughter.]
Chris: Honestly, this work is getting really hard. And we need about eight professionals yesterday. So that I can do what I’m better at, and so that we can reach more folks. So I wish people did send financial support to Underground Ministries. I really do.
What I wish people asked about my work? I don’t know. Maybe just people saying, “Tell me a story about someone you love in there.” I mean, that would be a fun softball pitch, more often.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Chris: Maybe, maybe that’s how One Parish One Prisoner has helped me not worry about that question anymore. Then, like all I have to do is get them to do One Parish One Prisoner. And then once they step in, we open and address so many questions. It’s all in there.
Ryan: Yeah.
Chris: They spend two years inside the questions that I want to talk about. [Laughs.] I invite them into my lair.
Ryan: [Laughs.] Yeah. Well, maybe then instead of wrapping up on that question, I’ll just ask if you would tell us a story about somebody you love.
Chris: [Laughs.] Well, I just read you the email from Adam that I got this morning. I’ll tell you about another guy that just came home–with his team. Right here to Mount Vernon. His name is Paul.
Paul we paired with Saint Paul’s! And the priest’s name is Paul. There’s another guy on the team that came forward and joined the team . . . named Paul.
Ryan: That’s fun.
Chris: Paul’s coming home from prison. He’s from New York, and he’s Argentinian. And he came over here to Washington [state] after an incredibly traumatic childhood where his mom had immense mental health challenges. His dad left early.
His mom was involved in prostitution and abused him immensely for most of his childhood. And he hit the streets when he was a little kid and survived and found his way to Washington state, where he committed a crime and went down. He did 17 years.
During his time in there, he helped found a Latino Development Organization. And towards the end of his time, he realized he had no release plan, cuz he would release to Washington. He had nobody. Didn’t know anybody. There’s no one in Washington state for him. Smart guy. He’s a leader. But he doesn’t know anybody out here.
Because of the prison’s volunteer policies, the one person that he had a great relationship with, who helped sponsor the Latino development organization, was not allowed to have a relationship with him when he gets out. Cuz volunteers are supposed to have those “professional boundaries.”
Ryan: Gosh.
Chris: It’s an anti-relationship institution.
Ryan: Wow.
Chris: So this person reached out to me and said, “Hey, I heard about this One Parish One Prisoner thing.” And I said, “Hell yeah, let’s talk. Tell me about your dude.” And he did. I said, “I want this dude in my community. He sounds awesome.”
So I think that’s actually what drove me, from the beginning, to do re-entry: just thinking these people I meet in jail and prison are so cool and so interesting. I want them in my life. That’s why I went dumpster diving: to pull their asses out. Cuz I like them! I wanna hang out and go fishing and have coffee. Not just talk with them [in lockdown] with the guard listening.
So I’m like, “This dude sounds awesome!” I talked to [Paul] and I said, “Okay, if you had a county to go to, I would wanna pair you with someone in King County or Pierce County or wherever. But you got nowhere. Let’s do a change of county. Let’s get you up to my county. Cuz I wanna work with Latino youth and troubled youth, too. In our community, I know the people who do that at our community college and a guy I’m working with. I wanna wrap you up with them.”
“And I just met this church and it’s an Episcopal church called St. Paul’s. And they have a bilingual church service kind of thing called Iglesia De La Resurrection—Church of the Resurrection.” So he said, “Let’s do it.” And I roped this church into saying yes to a guy, knowing that they would have a lot of risk and paperwork ahead. Cuz it’s no guarantee he will be approved for change of county–unless you can prove to DOC that he has housing, he has a job, he has a support network.
I can say support network, but [the parish team is] on the hook now to find housing and all that. So it worked! The team was amazing.
Their anxieties were high for the last year. They were just freaking out. Stressed me out. But they were stressed because they cared. There’s a lot of teams that are calm because they really never put themselves in a vulnerable position of hope.
But I think [this team] fell in love with Paul. And it worked. Some really amazing Type-A’s on the team went to bat with DOC and got the paperwork done and braved the bulletproof vest guys coming in and reading all [Paul’s] terrible charges and trying to convince the people [of the church] not to do this.
Ryan: Wow.
Chris: And [the team] was prepared for it. They could say, “I know Paul.” Because normally someone would say, “I, I can’t do this.” And their spouse would intervene. But if she’s been writing letters and doing visits for years, she knows Paul.
Ryan: They’re sharing life, yeah.
Chris: The rap sheet doesn’t sound so scary.
Ryan: “I know who this person is,” right. Yeah. “You can, you can tell me all you want. That’s not gonna change the fact that I know this person.”
Chris: So Paul’s two blocks up the street right now, staying at Mike and Carol’s house.
Ryan: Wow.
Chris: And they’re washing the dishes together. And working on Paul’s driver’s license. And sending out daily emails and text threads to the team about, “Okay, so here’s some pictures of us out with the snow geese yesterday.” And, “Who can pick him up for his driver’s license appointment?” And Northwest Washington, no one has New York accents. I go over and hang out with him. And he’s hilarious.
As Adam says, he’s a fucking delight. And Mike and Carol are fucking delights to him. She’s writing glowing emails now about like, “You know, we were just washing the dishes tonight. And Paul looked at me and he said, ‘Why are you guys doing this? Why are you guys being so nice?’”
She turns to him with soapy hands and her yellow gloves, probably, you know, and her washing the dishes, and uses her shoulder to wipe her cheeks and saying, “Because we love you now. And we’re so proud of you. The work that we do is nothing compared to what you’ve accomplished this last week.”
This all so moves her that she has a story to tell to her parish. And she logs on to her old aol.com email, or whatever it is, and writes a long email that night telling us this story.
Ryan: Wow.
Chris: Not only the content of the story, but how many people sit up late night writing stories to seven other, other people in church saying this happened today!
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Beautiful, and transformative.
Chris: We’re just eight days in and I think Paul’s gonna do well. But even if he wasn’t–what if just that early reentry story was the norm? If people practiced resurrection rather than preached about it or sang about it, only? If those stories could happen, I think we would know better what the glory of God looks like. It looks like that moment in the kitchen.