Learning to Sing in a Strange Land: When a Loved One Goes to Prison

Prison is a strange land, a land of deep heartache and sadness. Over two million people are serving prison time in America. Millions more are carrying the mark of prison as those who were formerly incarcerated, including large numbers of men and women who have been released on parole. In the midst of such human misery, when "loosened tongues" are freed to sing of God's redemptive love, grief is diminished and the prison loses its power.

Wesley Stevens is a retired United Methodist minister who served for twenty-seven years as the Administrator of Holly Hall, a Christian Retirement Community in Houston, Texas. Since 1998, he and his wife, Marilyn, have coordinated a volunteer week-end ministry to family members and friends who visit loved ones at the three prisons near Dayton, Texas.


Walter Brueggemann is William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament Emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia. He is past President of the Society of Biblical Literature and the author of several books from Cascade Books, including: A Pathway of Interpretation, David and His Theologian, Divine Presence amid Violence, Praying the Psalms (2nd ed.), and The Role of Old Testament Theology in Old Testament Interpretation.(2011), Remember You Are Dust (2012), Embracing the Transformation (2013), and The Practice of Homefulness (2014).