wfn.org | Ex-pastor finds peace, freedom as chaplain in Michigan prison

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Note #6047 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

28-June-2000
GA00100

	Ex-pastor finds peace, freedom as chaplain in Michigan prison

	by John Filiatreau

LONG BEACH, June 28 - After 27 years in pastoral ministry, the Rev. Sandy
Shaw was forced to admit that he couldn't take the stress anymore. So he
decided to go to prison.

	So far he's sentenced himself to a seven-year term.

	He's the chaplain at a state institution on Michigan's upper peninsula,
where he enjoys maximum security.

	"When you're the pastor of a 200-member church," he explains, "you've got
200 bosses, and none of them can agree on anything. In the prison system I
have just two bosses, and I'm clear on what my job is, and none of my
prisoners ever calls or drops in on the weekend. And if I need to, I can put
one of my 'parishioners' in the hole for seven days!"

	He says he never had any illusions that he could convert all 1,200
prisoners: "If I can reach a handful of men every year, then I figure I'm
doing pretty well."

	He says he has no trouble relating to the prisoners. "I have two boys,
they're 30 and 26," he says. "All the prisoners are the same age as my sons,
all scared and trying to bluff their way through."
	
	Shaw says he has shed 37 pounds of stress-related fat since he locked
himself up, and has "60 more to go."  A lifelong Presbyterian ("a
diminishing group"), he hails from a family of Great Lakes shipbuilders and
sailors, and he and his family sea-kayak together for fun. "When you turn a
kayak over, it does take your breath away," he says.
		
	Shaw says he's "a first-timer" as a General Assembly minister, and has been
both "impressed and depressed" by what he has seen during the 212th GA..

	"For a relatively large group of people, a good amount of work gets done,
and it seems to flow quite smoothly," he says. "It's been an interesting
experience. ... I didn't think I'd find the Bills and Overtures Committee
interesting, because I'm a people person, not a paper person. I was hoping
to get an assignment that had something to do with social witness."

	Shaw said Bills and Overtures has been more interesting than he expected,
and he has been "really enjoying talking to the YADS and especially the
seminary advisory delegates." One drawback of working in a hoosegow, he
says, "is that I don't very often get a chance to connect with people." So
he has been trying to "hustle up resources for African-Americans, because
about 60 percent of the men in my prison are African-Americans."

	Shaw admits that he's less serious than most clergy. "I take faith
seriously, but I don't take religion seriously," he says. "I think any
church that doesn't laugh at itself is dangerous. Sometimes in life you have
to laugh or cry, and most of the time I prefer to laugh. I think I do a
pretty good job of not hurting other people. ...

	"And the older I get," adds Shaw, who is 54, "the less judgmental I am. I'm
a lot more comfortable letting God take care of the judging."

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