Joachim

What if she came?

Joachim is the closet encounter to St. Francis I’ll ever have—free, spontaneous, generous, kind. You can imagine him jumping on a table, belting out a song. In fact, he got in trouble at Torres* for doing just that.

Joachim was in my family**during a weekend retreat.***After listening to a speaker, each family made a poster depicting the presentation.  If you could only see the posters we drew with Joachim as our inspiration. A veteran volunteer commented to me later that in all the retreats he had attended, he had never seen posters like ours.

At one Prayer and Share,**** I commented on a “One Day with God” poster on the wall.  Joachim, in my Prayer and Share group, said there had been a One Day with God event the prior weekend that he had attended.  In One Day with God, an inmate’s child spends the afternoon with his or her daddy.  Face painters, jugglers, games.

Joachim said this was the third One Day with God he had attended.  He stood by the door at the first One Day with God waiting for his daughter.  She didn’t come.  He was crushed, despondent for days.

When the next One Day with God was advertised, he first decided not to apply—the pain was just too great.  But then, what if she came?  Joaquim applied.  She did not come.

The same thing happened at the third One Day with God.  Joachim was combatting his disappointment when he saw a little girl sitting across the room making faces at him.  He stuck his tongue out at her.  She walked across the room, put her hand out and said “Would you like to be my friend?”

*Torres Unit is a Texas state prison near Hondo, Texas.

**During the retreat, we sat at a table (called a family) in assigned seats with the same six men-in-white (all inmates in Texas wear white) and the same three volunteers.

***A four-day Christian retreat (Thursday afternoon through Sunday afternoon) held inside Torres.

****Prayer and Share, held on a weekday evening from 6-8:30p, run by men in white for men in white.