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40 ˜ A Work of Hospitality, 1982–2002
istry, and we decided that a lot of us should mark the time with an evening of
stories, singing, and recollections. So much of the prison work is overwhelmingly
sad, depressing, fatiguing; this time we would schedule an evening to bring
together some of the wonderful people who make the wheels turn—prisoners’
families, lawyers, ministers, former prisoners, visitors—and celebrate the good
gifts of the struggle: remembering how our unity and commitment is strengthened
in the heat of the movement. Sounded like a great idea.
And then May 15 arrived. At 10:00 that morning we buried Viva Lamb—
our dear friend and a leader in the movement against the death penalty—who
had been killed three days earlier in an automobile wreck. At 7:00 that evening
our good friend Joe Mulligan was executed in the Georgia electric chair. At 7:30
in the evening, 250 friends gathered in the church hall at Central Presbyterian
Church for the “celebration.”
Bill Tucker’s family was there; his execution was two weeks away. Richard
Tucker’s execution was one week away.
Good people. Good food. And Will Campbell’s stories were good. But it
was a hard evening to pull off, to say the least. A number of friends who would
have been there were in jail as a witness against Joe Mulligan’s execution. For
some who had wanted to tell stories, the grief overwhelmed any remembrance
of the hopeful signs or happier times. I was simply numb—and exhausted with
the realization that within the two weeks to follow, the funerals would probably
total four. And they did: Viva, Joe, Richard, Bill. It was a rather brutal reminder:
in the work with and on behalf of the oppressed, the celebrations are spontaneous
and often unexpected. You can’t be sure about scheduling them.
But this still has been a time of looking back and looking forward in the
work of our prison ministry. It began for Ed and me at Clifton Presbyterian
Church. We had gone to this tiny congregation soon after we were married in
1975, thinking of it as a stopover while I finished doctoral work at Emory. Ed
would serve as interim pastor to what was classified a “dying inner-city church.”
And then we would move on as teachers.
We were unprepared for much of what we learned. A newly formed Biblestudy
group that met on Sunday evenings took on Isaiah. What was this relentless
theme of liberty to the captives Go to those who sit in dark dungeons! Hear
God’s word of freedom to all the people! And Matthew 25 began to pound in
our ears: Feed! Clothe! Welcome! Visit! A seed began to settle in our hearts.
A Supreme Court decision in July 1976 upheld the Georgia death penalty
laws, and Ed got involved in a little group called Georgia Christians against the
Death Penalty. He also began to visit a man in prison. In November 1976, we
rode with Austin Ford to Macon, Georgia, for a meeting on the death penalty.
There we met and heard from the mothers of several death-row prisoners—Viva
Lamb, Betty George, and Marian Butler.
Henri Nouwen describes the task of liberation spirituality as a constant lis-