God on the Radio, Vicar in Jail

The Stay-At-Home Dad and Go-To-Work Mum were up a little late this morning, due to the alarm clock 'not being loud enough'. Although its not my alarm clock, and it wasn't me it didn't wake!

After a hasty breakfast we got into the Family Chariot, in readiness for the week's second and last run to drop off Go-To-Work Mum at The Office (she catches a bus usually) and The Boy's last day at the Baby Farm. GTWM was was restraining The Boy in his seat while I performed the all-important task of putting the fascia on the stereo, plugging in the ipod and choosing the music.
As anybody with an ipod will know, this is not always an easy task; when you carry round almost your entire music collection what do you choose to listen to?
In the end I decided that I couldn't decide what music to listen to in the car, so I thought I'd chuck on the radio, as it's been a while since I last caught the aural delights of Terry Wogan in the morning. It turned out that Johnnie Walker is sitting in for Terry this week (or at least this morning), but he still had the regular slot, what my Dad would have called a GodSlot, with a man of the cloth speaking a few well chosen words for you to reflect upon as you go about your daily grind. I think its called 'Pause-for-Thought'. Indeed.

This is where we turned the radio on - Perfect Timing!

I can't remember the name of the vicar, but it is unimportant to this story anyway, so don't worry about it. I won't. He was talking about being in a prison (as a chaplain or some such thing), that he passed a prisoner in solitary confinement, or the prisoner passed him and they got to talking. The prisoner had drawn the chaplain a picture of some shoes and had said it was to symbolise that "you should spend some time in my shoes". The prisoner felt the chaplain should spend some time in prison, to feel the pain the prisoner felt at being in solitary. (At this point, I'm thinking that the guy is probably in Solitary Confinement for a Reason, but the story continues). The chaplain arranges to spend a day with this prisoner, in solitary, to try an understand his 'pain'. There they chat about God, The Prisoner's life, his reasons for being in prison etc.

The Moral of the story that the chaplain was telling is that we all need someone, to talk to, share thoughts and ideas and feelings with; we all need one another in effect. Now that isn't necessarily a sentiment I disagree with, in fact quite the opposite - The Stay-At-Home Dad made a definite concious decision to spend as much of my time as possible with the people I want around me - so I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment behind the chaplain's story.
No, the thing that stuck out for me in the whole tragic tale of one man's isolation in a British Gaol, was the fact that the chaplain stated twice in his story, yep, not once but twice that he passed the prisoner in solitary confinement. I was under the distinct impression that Solitary Confinement was just that - Solitary. Alone. Isolated. This means that the chaplain could not have passed him in solitary confinement, nor could the prisoner have passed the chaplain. Again, he was alone, in solitary confinement.

I believe the chaplain, purposefully and wilfully made the effort to go and see this prisoner in solitary confinement. Possibly for the specific purpose of doing some focussed God-Bothering. And there's my point. Maybe. That while I agree with the idea that we all need someone, the example of the prisoner just doesn't ring true, for it was the chaplain who sought someone to talk to, and the chaplain who volunteered to spend a day in solitary confinement; the prisoner was just doing his time. It was the chaplain who was feeling isolated, maybe down to the choices he himself had made in his own life, a metaphorical prison of The Church compared to the prisoner's physical prison.

Pause-for-Thought indeed.



Deep!

I'm off to get a coffee now before doing some article-writing. Until the next time...

The Stay-At-Home Dad