A Peculiar Means of Grace (revised from an earlier post)

Since October 2006, I have been engaged in one of the most interesting and transformative ministries I have yet to encounter. For almost a year now, I have been corresponding regularly with William Barnes ("Tim"), prisoner #0020590 at Central Prison in Raleigh, NC. Tim is on Death Row for the 1990 murder of two people.

As I have gotten to know Tim through his letters, he has become a unique source for information, questions, and challenges to my life. Tim converted to Islam while in prison and we converse often about religion and spirituality. Tim is not afraid to share his faith or to ask pointed questions about mine. Once he asked how Jesus could be born of Mary and also have in him the fullness of God. Tim couldn’t make sense of this, and it became my task to explain the Christian belief in the humanity and divinity of Christ. Tim challenges me to articulate my beliefs in very basic terms. As a student of religious studies, I am so used to inhabiting conversation space where words like "eschatological" and "soteriology" are second nature that to have to delineate the fundamental beliefs of the Christian faith is not only humbling but also a reminder that communication and debate in the interfaith community is important, difficult, and requires practice.

One of my friends who is in seminary tells about his friendship with a Muslim graduate student. My friend was working in the library when his friend poked his head in the door and then turned to leave when he saw the room was occupied. When he realized he knew the person in there, he came back, nodded a greeting, then laid out his prayer rug and proceeded to pray. My friend was struck by the fact that this man felt comfortable openly practicing his faith in the presence of a Christian, and he wondered what he would have done had he been seeking a place to pray and had seen his Muslim friend in the room. For my friend, this man became a means of grace as the act of performing a spiritual discipline led him to reevaluate his own practices.

For me, Tim is also a peculiar means of grace. He ends every letter saying that he will pray for me and signs it "God bless, Tim." To know that a man in prison facing no escape but death is praying for me lends a great deal of perspective to how and for what I pray. Tim often quotes the writings of Muslim imams, talks about Ramadan during that season, and asks me questions about my own spiritual disciplines when describing his own. How often do I pray? How often do I fast? In a way, I've found that Tim's curiosity and candor have become a greater source of accountability even than some of the Christian communities of which I am a part.

When I agreed to write to a death row inmate, I knew it would be a unique experience. It has done all the things I thought it would: it has helped me get to know someone from a completely different sector of society, given me another perspective on the justice system, and challenged me to work for an alternative to the death penalty and to explore avenues of restorative justice rather than the punitive justice with which our country is so familiar. However, I did not expect my faith to be revitalized by conversation with a Muslim prisoner, and I do believe that Tim has been a means of grace in my life as a Christian.