Author: Better Life Admin

The Faith Community: FCRPs Part 3
(This is Part 3 of a series on Faith Community Reintegration. Read Part 1 and Part 2.)

Better Life has a clear and intentional pathway for supporting an offender in their desire to experience healthy reintegration.

While, sadly, there are no silver bullets when it comes to reintegration, there are game-changers.

Relationship is vital.

Many men and women coming out of Corrections institutions—often because of the culture they experience within the prisons—are asking the question, “who can I trust?”

The answer is found in communities of people whose faith leads them to be:
- welcoming to marginalized people
- relationally authentic (i.e., “my faith leads me to realize I don’t have my life together”)
- seeking to live their lives by a consistent expression of values inspired by their faith
In so many respects, this is why faith community reintegration can have such a far-reaching impact on lowering recidivism.

Better Life is committed to helping individuals from all faiths to connect with their faith communities, as per the terms of our contract with Corrections Canada as a Faith Community Reintegration Project (FCRP). While our organization is comprised of individuals who are followers of Jesus, we engage with offenders of all faith backgrounds and commit to exemplifying the person of Jesus through everything we do, including supporting offenders to connect with their chosen faith communities.

We are constantly reaching out to faith community leaders to communicate what we do and the difference that a faith community can have in helping a parolee experience a healthy reintegration.

Better Life’s commitment is to be working with faith communities who believe their faith leads them to invest in the support and care of men and women on parole.

To be clear, Better Life’s practice is not to ask faith communities to adopt a “Better Life reintegration program.”

Instead, we engage with faith communities around the essential elements of healthy reintegration they may already have and could further develop within their community and offer our support as a resource centre.

Some of these essential elements include:

Guardrails

Another name for this is Boundaries.

What do a faith community’s members need to know to provide healthy relationships and safety—both for individuals on parole, but also for the rest of their community?

Healthy guardrails protect everyone and ensure the best outcomes possible.

(Next month we’ll look at what specific Guardrails are needed.)

Growth

In the context of a Christian faith community or church we might call this discipleship.

What pathway can the community lead an offender on to help them continue to grow and develop and to experience a healthy integration into the community?

This will look somewhat different for different faith communities, but the common and valuable essentials are expressed through relationship:
- Who are the committed individuals who are going to support the parolee?
- What are they going to engage around that will continue to help the parolee to grow and develop?
- Do they understand the unique challenges a parolee faces?
Things that many of us take for granted can be a significant challenges for a parolee.

These include housing (following the halfway house), employment, groceries, counselling for trauma, and in some cases, addiction.

In the November newsletter, we will provide one possible outline for a small group structure that helps individuals grow in their faith and development.

Essentially, Better Life values faith communities as relational resource centres. Within the faith community is every resource a parolee needs to continue to move forward. And the faith community makes an invaluable contribution to a parolee’s experience and in the lowering of the recidivism rate.

Faith Community reintegration is a game-changer and a life-changer for everyone involved.

This is not limited to the offenders. Involved members of the faith communities often remark that they receive more through supporting offenders than they give, while the community at large benefits as incidents of crime and violence are reduced.

Better Life is developing a “toolbox” that it will offer for training purposes at faith communities, and also plans to make available on our website in the coming months.

If you have questions about volunteering and how to involve your faith community in providing support for an individual’s reintegration, please don’t hesitate to contact our General Director, Adam Wiggins, at adam.betterlife@gmail.com.
October 2, 2020
DG’s Story

This month’s story is a recent one from an individual who has experienced the support of one of Better Life’s chaplains.

His experience reveals what the ‘pathway’ can look like from becoming eligible for parole to reintegration. Hopefully it provides a glimpse into the difference volunteers can make supporting an offender as they are reintegrated back into community!

In his own words:

I knew I wanted to succeed…to have a better life…for I’d spoken to God about this many times. I also knew that it was up to me to take the necessary next step, so I went to chat with the prison’s Pastor about expanding my community support.

Truth be told…God was watching/listening. He always is! No sooner had the idea of contacting Better Life been suggested as a possibility when Glenn, Assistant Chaplain with Better Life, knocked on the door. We engaged in a brief conversation, exchanging contact information, with a promise to connect subsequent to my release. With a week of my arrival at the halfway house and true to his word, Glenn was here to visit me! I must point out; such promises are not always honoured. As with any new acquaintance, I am slow to ‘warm’ to them, particularly when the concept of disclosure is required. However, feeling no pressure to do so, Glenn has proved to be an attentive listener. Moreover, he has provided very timely and sage advice. By and large though, Better Life has secured as a “sounding board” as I continue to navigate life amongst society once again.

We are months into my release, as well as a budding friendship. I have been truly blessed by virtue of the number of visits from Better Life. They (Glenn) have become an integral component of my effort to successfully reintegrate. I am eternally grateful.

September 15, 2020
ThrowbackThursday with Sheriff Judd

Yes, this comes from a different context, a different country, BUT it illustrates the difference, the hope, the potential that we can introduce into an individual’s life when they are ‘reintegrated’ from prison into a faith community. It’s a game-changer and a life-changer for many, and such a valuable investment!

September 9, 2020
FCRP Part 2
In Part 2 of Faith Community Reintegration Projects 101, I want to look at where the process of engagement begins and what the significant steps of the process are—including how volunteers can get involved inside the institutions and help build that “bridge” of reintegration from the institution to their faith community. (Missed Part 1? Read it here.)

Under Better Life’s contract with Correctional Service of Canada (CSC; in effect to 2025), our work with offenders begins as an individual becomes eligible for parole and one of the following occurs:
1. A Corrections Site Chaplain or faith-specific chaplain contacts us with a referral.
  
  The majority of individuals who invite Better Life to provide support for their reintegration back into the community are Christian. However, under the CSC contract, Better Life provides support for individuals from all faith backgrounds.
  
  This means we may be contacted by chaplains representing any faiths asking if we would meet with an individual to discuss how Better Life can provide support.
2. Individuals becoming eligible for parole may contact Better Life personally.
  
  In this case, an offender may have come across information about us independently or have been referred through another offender who has benefited from their experience with Better Life.
After the initial point of contact, a Better Life Chaplain has an interview with the individual eligible for parole to determine if Better Life is the organization that can provide them with the best possible faith reintegration experience.

Better Life is part of a wider network of reintegration agencies, and our goal is to provide the most helpful pathway possible for an individual.

That may mean that we get to work directly with an individual to develop their Reintegration Pathway, or if there is an agency that can provide more resources and support then we can offer, we will refer them.

For instance, Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA) is an organization that specializes in working with those who have an index offence of a sexual nature. Research (Wilson, Cortoni and McWhinnie, 2009) demonstrates that sexual re-offending rates for men who participate in CoSA are 80% lower than for men who do not participate in CoSA.

Since our priority is to provide the best possible opportunity for faith community reintegration, our commitment is to always have an offender’s best interest at heart—whether that means they have a relationship with Better Life or are better served by another agency, in which case we will help connect them.

Additionally, Better Life’s Organizational Purpose goes beyond the responsibilities specified in our contract with Corrections Canada.

Our staff/chaplains fulfill CSC’s FCRP (Faith Community Reintegration Projects) contractual statement of work. However—and this is where so much opportunity for valuable and meaningful involvement lies—Better Life is also comprised of volunteers.

Volunteers work within the Institutions in support of Site Chaplains—the resident chaplains who provide support at individual Corrections Institutions.

Volunteers may be involved in offering training programs for offenders such as Alpha, Purpose Driven Life, and Real Life Discipleship, to name a few options. They may be a mentor to a specific offender. They may provide a listening ear, or meet with an offender coming up to parole to help establish a relationship with the faith community the offender will be integrating into.

The role of the volunteer is invaluable and often provides the assurance to an individual coming up to parole that there is hope. Over and over again we experience and hear feedback that one of the primary and essential ingredients is relationship, relationship, relationship.

Better Life is deeply grateful for our team of volunteers, and works with individuals and their faith communities to ensure security clearance is put in place so that volunteers have access to Corrections Institutes.

That initial contact of a volunteer with an individual who is coming up to their parole is invaluable in building the “bridge” that leads to healthy reintegration.

So, to connect the steps in order:
1. An individual in prison is coming up to parole, and requests the support of or is referred to Better Life.
2. A Better Life Chaplain has an interview with the offender to both assess whether or not we’re the best partner organization to offer support, but also to begin to engage with the wider network of Corrections members who will be a part of the offender’s Parole Reintegration Plan.
3. Better Life works with the Site Chaplain, the Institution Parole Officer (IPO), and with others within the Corrections Institution, and may take other steps such as attending a Parole Hearing before the Parole Board, to develop a plan for healthy, successful faith community reintegration.
  
  Note: while Better Life doesn’t determine outcomes such as which halfway house (CRF, CCC) that an individual will be sent to, we are often invited to the process and may have influence in the best possible halfway home for the individual and their personal needs.
4. It is at this point—when Better Life has an indication of where an individual will be sent to—that connection with a faith community can begin.
  
  Our ideal scenario is that we would already have a relationship with a faith community in the area of the halfway house the offender will be sent to and can begin preparing the faith community for the arrival of the individual.
  
  If we don’t have a pre-existing relationship with a location-appropriate faith community, or if the individual requests a faith community we’re not already connected with, we will reach out on their behalf.
As you can imagine, the initial welcome and support of a faith community is invaluable in helping a parolee begin to believe that successful reintegration is possible.

Next month we’re going to look at the essential pieces of the “bridge” provided in that important handoff of an offender from the support of a Better Life Chaplain to volunteer-supported integration into a faith community.

If you have any questions about volunteering and how to get involved in providing support for an individual’s reintegration, please don’t hesitate to contact our General Director, Adam Wiggins, at adam.betterlife@gmail.com.
September 1, 2020
TH’s Story

One of the things I love about working with Better Life Integration and Support is having a front row seat to the amazing stories of our care recipients. Viewing God at work in an individual’s life in such radical and transformative ways is such a privilege.

This month, I’ve been looking forward to sharing TH’s remarkable story with you.

But first, some background: Better Life works with Federal Corrections, so every offender we serve has a sentence of over two years because of the severity of their crimes. (Sentences of under two years fall under provincial corrections.)

While in prison for his serious crime, TH had a radical and life-changing encounter with Jesus. It’s important to note that it wasn’t some mystical experience that came about in isolation, but rather was supported by the actions of some very key people. The Institutional/Site Chaplain and volunteers had a significant, invaluable role in engaging with TH—and through their engagement and example, TH encountered Jesus.

To pause for a moment in TH’s story, this is why the role of volunteers within Corrections Institutions, working alongside Site Chaplains, is so invaluable.

We’re incredibly grateful for the volunteers who work alongside the Site Chaplains to facilitate training such as Alpha, Purpose Driven Life, and Jim Putnam’s Real-Life Discipleship (“reproducible” discipleship, where a disciple is defined as someone who is discipling others.)

All of the above influences were instrumental in supporting and leading the way to the experience that TH had with Jesus. But, their impact is also exemplified in what TH decided to do next.

TH recommitted his life to Jesus and was baptized while in prison, and then, recognizing the value of what he had experienced, began discipling other offenders and helping them to find and follow Jesus.

The influence of what Jesus has been doing in TH’s life since is almost immeasurable. TH has had the privilege of baptizing three other offenders who came to Jesus and were being discipled. 70 other offenders came out to witness it!

In a prison culture that often can lean towards cynicism and despair, the example of TH and the others who have come to know Jesus has been far-reaching in multiple ways.

First, while TH, now out of prison, is in a halfway house, employed, and rapidly moving towards being released from his ‘warrant,’ he continues to recognize that God’s purpose for his life is to invest back into others.

TH recently shared with one of our Better Life chaplains how he has been struggling with painful areas in his life. During their time together, our chaplain received a phone call from an offender still with prison. TH was able to talk with this other man and encourage him in his faith, and what it means to continue to trust in and follow Jesus, especially through the restrictions of COVID-19.

But—and this is so significant—TH not only provided support for another, through the phone conversation he gained perspective and clarity about his own situation, re-affirming God’s purpose for his life!

As the restrictions of COVID-19 continue to ease, Better Life hopes to be able to hold several Vision Nights this fall in various locations (tentatively: Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Victoria).

TH is going to be the featured speaker during these nights to help all of us envision how to be engaged in this valuable work of healthy reintegration!

Please keep an eye on our newsletter or the events space on our website for updates as to when and where Better Life Vision Nights will be taking place. We hope you can join us!

On behalf of our amazing team at Better Life Integration & Support,

Adam Wiggins

General Director

August 15, 2020
Faith Community Reintegration 101
Over the past weeks, I have had many encouraging conversations with individuals and churches about the work of Better Life Integration and Support.

I’m relatively new to the position of General Director/Lead Chaplain with Better Life and so, like many of you, I am just beginning to discover what the work of Better Life is all about—and what a game-changer it can be for men and women in a Federal Corrections Institute as they come up for parole and look to integrate back into the community. (Federal sentences in Canada are sentences of two years plus a day; otherwise, offenders go into Provincial Institutions.)

Before I begin defining Faith Community Reintegration Projects (FCRP), I want to provide a brief history:

Better Life was formed in the early 2000s and motivated by the significant difference helping parolees within the context of a faith community makes.

Initially, Better Life functioned under Corrections Canada as a Community Chaplaincy, which involves supporting and helping parolees in halfway homes and in the community experience healthy reintegration. This also involves the valuable work of supporting the families of men and women who were incarcerated.

Many former offenders and their families experienced the care and support of Better Life’s lead chaplain Pascal Bergeron and the team of chaplains who served with him over the years. However, in a summary of the work of Community Chaplaincy, it was noted that the number of parolees to one chaplain was 1000:1 in the greater Toronto area and 650:1 in Metro Vancouver.

In response to this overwhelming ratio of parolees to chaplains, FCRP’s (Faith Community Reintegration Projects) were developed by Corrections Canada (CSC).

Better Life has the FCRP contract for the Pacific Region (in effect to 2025), which includes Vancouver/Fraser Valley and Victoria/Vancouver Island. There are nine Federal Corrections Institutes in the Region:
- Fraser Valley Institute (The Only Women’s Facility | Abbotsford)
- Kent (Maximum Security | Agassiz)
- Kwikwexwelhp Healing Village (Harrison Mills)
- Matsqui Institution (Medium Security | Abbotsford)
- Mission Institutions (2: Minimum & Medium | Mission)
- Mountain Institution (Medium | Agassiz)
- Pacific Institution/Regional Treatment Centre (Addiction & Psychiatric Centre | Abbotsford)
- William Head Institution (Minimum Security | Victoria)
FCRPs offer a couple of significant benefits:

Firstly, there is a significant reduction in recidivism when a parolee is connected with a faith community.

The statistic I’ve heard most often is that a parolee has a 70% likelihood of reoffending (recidivism) if they are not connected with a faith community.

That’s obviously a huge motivation for connecting offenders of faith to a faith community on their release from prison!

Secondly—and closely connected—is the importance of the faith community in the healthy reintegration of a parolee.

In other words, while Better Life Chaplains and other FCRP Chaplains all across Canada work actively to provide care and support to men and women who request it within a variety of different contexts and phases of their experience, the contractually mandated work of Better Life and related organizations is specifically to provide a “bridge” from an offender’s time in a Corrections Institution to a faith community.

A faith community that welcomes and provides a growth pathway and mentorship for a parolee is the best environment that a parolee can experience for healthy reintegration back into their community and toward become a contributing member of their community.

Better Life as an organization has a fantastic team of chaplains and volunteers who invest deeply in the men and women who reach out to us looking to connect with a faith community as they come out of the corrections institution on parole. We also extend care to the families of offenders who often feel lost and alone during their loved one’s incarceration.

But also—and in many respects, more significantly—we partner with local faith communities who are committed, and even have a sense of calling, to provide a place of welcome, safety, and growth for a parolee, knowing that the environment they provide is a game-changer when it comes to healthy reintegration back into the community.

In Part 2 of Faith Community Reintegration, we’ll look at where the process of engagement begins, and what the significant steps of the process are, including how volunteers can become involved inside the institution and help build that “bridge” of reintegration from the institution to their faith community.
August 1, 2020
Prayer & Powerful Stories

Dear Friends of Better Life,

Our goal is for the content we share with you to be as meaningful and valuable as possible.

As mentioned previously, we want to use this space to develop and communicate the pathway Better Life supports men and women on as they move from eligibility for parole to integration into a faith community.

But at the same time, we recognize the importance of stories.

We recently shared some stories of transformation in the lives of men and women coming out of incarceration with the local church they have connected to—remotely via Zoom, of course—and many of the staff were brought to tears. God is clearly at work, and what He is doing in the lives of men and women both within the Corrections Institutions and out on parole is awesome!

So we’re going to start weaving in more storytelling into our content calendar, alternating between highlighting various aspects of the process of reintegration and practical resources, and sharing the powerful stories of our men and women.

I also want to invite you to sign up as one of our prayer partners. Reintegration can be challenging.

We would love to have you praying with us for the men and women coming out of Corrections and practical needs and challenges they face.

Email us at prayerforbetterlife@gmail.com to join the list and get regular monthly and as-needed urgent prayer requests.

If you are a part of a faith community or ministry team already supporting an individual who is incarcerated or paroled, please email us prayer requests at prayerforbetterlife@gmail.com so we can pass those along to our prayer partners on a monthly basis. (Please write “urgent” in the subject line if it’s time-sensitive so we know to share it right away!)

Photo by Monstera Production on Pexels.com

Today we’re sharing the story of one of our care recipients.

YC had been doing well for a number of years after a significant time of incarceration. He is married and is meaningfully employed.

However, like with many the men and women we support, the COVID-19 pandemic, with all of its many changes and challenges, has had a significant impact on his well being.

YC recently violated a condition of his parole and was in lock-up for 48 hours—but came to a powerful understanding through his difficult experience.

He wrote his support network these words:

Dear friends,

I am writing this letter because I have been struggling very much in the last few months. My stressors have been building up and I have been having difficulties dealings with all of this.

I was locked up at the Chilliwack RCMP detachment for 48 hours on Easter Sunday. I was released on the following Tuesday. I was detained because of a breach on my parole conditions.

On Easter Saturday, feeling really depressed and overwhelmed with a lot of the stressors in my life, I went to visit a friend and started to feel really depressed. I started to drink one beer after another. After a couple I thought that I might as well keep drinking because I realized that I have already (messed) up, one or twelve doesn’t make a difference on (messing) up. I didn’t want to risk driving my vehicle anywhere, especially under the influence. I haven’t drank for so many years and not having had anything to eat all day, the drinking really hit me hard. I ended up sleeping there on their couch.

There was also very poor cell reception, so that I didn’t communicate at all with my (wife). (My wife) was extremely concerned about my whereabouts, she didn’t know if I had committed suicide, ran off the road and was laying at the bottom of a ditch or ravine somewhere. What I have done was extremely selfish and irresponsible. My bad choice of actions that Easter Saturday with dealing with my stressors and depression was out of character for me. I am truly sorry for having put (my wife), her family and all of my support group through hell by not having been able to deal with this in a better way.

It is too simple to say that this proves that I am only human, but no, I should have known better. This incident has made me realized that one of the contributing factors for this shortcoming is that I have been trying to deal with some issues by myself. In the last few years I have been distancing myself from my support group that I have built over the years.

I have now realized that I have the need to reconnect and tighten my support group. Realizing that I can’t do this on my own, I can’t deal with all my stressors all at once. I can deal with those stressors when they are one at the time, but when I let them pile up I get extremely overwhelmed and my depression goes into overdrive. Unfortunately, I have a difficult time opening up and sharing my weaknesses because I don’t want to burden anyone. That’s the reason that my response to “How are you?” is usually “fine.”

So I am reaching out to all of you, in the hope that I haven’t lost your friendships, trust, love and support. I am truly sorry if I have let anyone of you down. I’m so grateful to have my dear wife by my side to support me through these difficult times, but my wife cannot be my only support, because of my history, this is way too much for even her to handle. That is the reason why I need to reconnect with all of you.

Please pray for YC. His story represents the very real challenges of reintegration, as well as the game-changer having a supportive faith community can be in the lives of the men and women we care for.

July 15, 2020
Black Lives Matter
Photo by Brett Sayles on Pexels.com

I had promised to begin laying out the pathway for Reintegration in this update, beginning with a basic explanation of what it means for Better Life to be a FCRP (Faith Community Integration Project), but I want to hit pause on that for a moment to reflect on the historical moment we’re currently witnessing.

I’ll begin by acknowledging that I grew up white and privileged in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and I have no firsthand understanding of what African Americans are experiencing, nor of the racial injustices other people in North America experience.

Over the past weeks, I’ve realized I need to listen and have a posture of recognizing not only just how much I don’t understand, but that if I don’t understand, I can’t take meaningful action—which, ultimately, is what I want to do.

Here are some of the valuable voices that have guided me to that realization and helped me start to listen and learn:
1. Dr. Clint Smith, an African American writer, teacher, and researcher, speaking in this TED radio podcast episode
2. A number of books, including:
  1. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
  2. The Myth of Equality: Uncovering the Roots of Injustice and Privilege by Ken Wytsma
  3. How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
  4. White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
  5. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
  6. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
3. And “How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change” by Barak Obama on Medium
Now, you may be asking why I’m sharing resources and dedicating this edition to #blacklivesmatter. Here’s my motive:

Better Life Integration & Support Society is all about justice.

Not the limited view of justice that calls for exacting “an eye for an eye,” but true justice that recognizes the immeasurable worth of every human being.

The work of Better Life—the vocation, even—is all about supporting true justice and, most significantly, justice within the practice of faith.

Let me be clear: Better Life exists to help people from all faith backgrounds find community within their faith community.

But at the same time, I practice, communicate, and lead out of my faith as a devoted follower of Jesus. And this is what’s so significant for me when it comes to our current cultural reality. It’s what has far-reaching influence on the work we do with men and women and faith communities as Better Life.

It’s as simple and complex as this: Jesus—who from the Christian perspective is the Son of God come into the world to suffer and die for humankind so that, in and through Him, we can experience the love, forgiveness, and grace of God—said:

For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28)

Injustice is rampant in so many parts of our world, and the atrocities that have been committed against African Americans in the United States just over the past few weeks alone have been heart wrenching.

I want to be a part of the solution. Better Life wants to be a part of the solution, as we help men and women who have been incarcerated to experience being a productive and contributing member of their community.

I definitely don’t have all the answers, other than to say: Jesus gives us a model, a way to listen, and a way to love, a way to engage with everyone around us.

I recommit myself, along with our chaplains at Better Life, to continue to engage with others—all others, inclusive of every race, sex, and faith background—from a posture of serving, as we continue to listen and learn from their experiences.

And, particularly in this moment, I want to affirm that Black Lives Matter.

Sincerely,

Adam Wiggins

General Director | Lead Chaplain
June 17, 2020
Dreaming for a Renewed Life—Bob Goff at San Quentin

Photo by Robert So on Pexels.com

For the past year, Bob and friends have been regularly visiting the inmates at San Quentin State Prison just north of San Francisco. Although the context is for Bob to teach a modified Dream Big workshop, the inmates have been the real teachers. They are living examples of grace, redemption, respect, and the courage to dream again.

Maybe you find yourself stuck in the circumstances of your life. Listen in to this thoughtful conversation between Bob Goff and Kevin (a.k.a. ‘Special Kay’), Vincent, and Brandon and be inspired by the courage of the inmates to dream for a new life.

Listen to the podcast here.

June 1, 2020
“Physical” Distancing
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I love when someone says something that brings clarity.

One of my favourite educators, Tim Elmore, made the valuable distinction between social distancing and physical distancing in a recent episode of his Leading the Next Generation podcasts.

What Elmore observed is that “social” distancing—a term being widely communicated during this season of pandemic—is actually not a good description of what we’re being asked to do, and may even be harmful for our mental health.

What he’s referring to is this widespread sense of unease as we try to cope with our new pandemic-influenced reality, and how that translates into how we interact with each other.

Or perhaps even how we ignore each other.

You may have experienced, like I have, people literally turning themselves away as they pass by. No eye contact. No acknowledgement.

It’s an unsettling experience.

The distinction Elmore makes so well is that this is absolutely a time for “physical” distancing.

We need to make a concerted effort to put more space than we’re used to between each other to “flatten the curve” of COVID-19, limit exposure, and keep cases to a trickle rather than a river until a vaccine is available.

However, while all of that is true,

social engagement and relational closeness are more important than ever.

I was impacted by this idea again as I listened to a podcast interview by Tim Ferriss with Dr. Vivek Murthy, a former U.S. Surgeon General.

What I found so relevant in that interview was the idea that, in this cultural moment, we’re experiencing a loneliness crisis on a global scale.

Loneliness—a lack of meaningful connection with others—impacts us physically, in terms of our health and longevity, but also—and this is especially relevant when we think about incarceration—in Dr. Murthy’s words:

loneliness is “a root cause and contributor to many of the epidemics sweeping the world today, from alcohol and drug addiction to violence to depression and anxiety.”

So, let me encourage you today to recognize the distinction between “social” distancing (harmful if taken literally) and “physical” distancing (essential in flattening the COVID-19 pandemic curve).

Perhaps you can be a catalyst for helping the people around you experience connection in creative ways.

In fact, I’ll end with this:

Dr. Murthy, in his book, Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World, recommends four key strategies to “help us weather this crisis, but also to heal our social world far into the future.”
1. Spend time each day with those you love.
  
  Devote at least 15 minutes each day to connecting with those you most care about. (In this season of pandemic use the ‘tools of connection’ – video, phone, conversation with appropriate physical distance).
2. Focus on each other.
  
  Forget about multitasking and give the other person the gift of your full attention, making eye contact, if possible, and genuinely listening.
3. Embrace solitude.
  
  The first step toward building stronger connections with others is to build a stronger connection with oneself. Meditation, prayer, art, music, and time spent outdoors can all be sources of solitary comfort and joy.
4. Help and be helped.
  
  Service is a form of human connection that reminds us of our value and purpose in life. Checking on a neighbour, seeking advice, even just offering a smile to a stranger six feet away, all can make us stronger.
Wishing you well,

Adam Wiggins

General Director | Lead Chaplain
May 15, 2020