DIKKON EBERHART
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Agape

10/19/2018

10 Comments

 
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​Dikkon Eberhart
 
 

I was in prison during four days last weekend, at Pocahontas Correctional Institution in Pocahontas, Virginia. 

I was there as a volunteer for Kairos Prison Ministry.  I sat at a table with two other Kairos volunteers and with four inmates.  Our purpose was to assist these inmates to find—if they needed to find—and to come closer to—which they did need—Jesus Christ. 

Our work at our table was Spiritual Listening.  Kairos’ refrain in training is “Listen, listen; love, love.” 

Each table participated in a succession of spiritual exercises, delivered to the group as a whole—to about 35 inmates seated at the tables with us volunteers.  These exercises included listening to spiritually themed talks of about a half hour each during which the volunteer deliverer included intimate revelations from his own life. 

These were the times when the prison’s gym—where our Kairos walk occurred—was absolutely silent.  There were detailed revelations of missed opportunities, of bad choices, of abuse in various ways.  Each talk was riveting to the inmates. 

Following each talk, each table group was asked to speak among its members about how the talk had been received by each inmate, and then to do a second exercise.  The inmates at each table were instructed to make an illustration with colored markers on poster board that represented the table’s conclusion about the talk. 

By the end of Day Four, about fifty of these posters were pasted up on the walls around us—both moving and informative, and in some cases excellent in terms of graphic design. 

The sequence of talk subjects is ordered by Kairos for increased Christian impact during the whole walk.  The talks alternate with music interludes—we have a guitar player and singer whom we followed in song—and chapel services that included brief homilies, prayers, and also the reading of metaphorical stories. 

There was also sufficient unstructured time between planned events for an increased amount of table chat and also of heartfelt intimate personal revelation.  This unstructured time sometimes occurred when we were waiting for meals to be brought from the kitchen. 

As the days passed, I could feel at our table and see when looking at other tables that inmates’ body language changed. 

Day One—some tightness and stiffness, perhaps defensiveness.  Day Two—more relaxation, some easy laughter.  Day There—earnest two-way discussions for many minutes between an inmate and a volunteer.  Day Four—long, full-body hugs. 

There were four major high points of the weekend toward which Kairos’ sequence was leading us all.  I mean all, not solely the inmates. I believe that we volunteers were affected, too.  As a new man, I know I was powerfully affected by each of these high points. 

Among my next few posts, I will illuminate these high points. 
 
 

Spiritual Listening is a discipline of Agape. 

Agape is a Greek term for the full, selfless, and self-sacrificing love modeled on the love Christians experience from God.  The term has been used actively in Christian spirituality since the early church. 

One of the high points of the walk was the delivery to each of the attendees what Kairos calls The Agape Letter. 

Each volunteer writes a letter regarding his sense of agape to the inmates, the same letter goes to each of them.  At a certain time on Day Three the letters are delivered to each inmate. 

As I said in an earlier post, some of these men have scarcely ever received a piece of mail at all—even from family members outside.  It can be an overwhelming experience. 

I modeled my Agape Letter on one shown me by a volunteer who has attended many walks and who recruited me.  I am grateful for his guidance. 

Here’s what I wrote. 
 
October 13, 2018
 
Dear

This weekend’s Kairos event will leave me with many memories, and I hope the same will be the case for you. 

I don’t presume to understand the challenges you face or how you cope with them, but I do believe that you and I are each men who have made mistakes and at the same time who desire acceptance, forgiveness and reassurance that we are loved. 

I hope you have given—or that you will give—your life to Jesus Christ.  His is the life through which we receive the enduring love of God.  During the weekend, I hope you have felt that enduring love of God.  I have.

It is my experience that God provides His love all the time and without testing you or me. 

There certainly have been times when I did not feel God’s love, or when I thought He had abandoned me.  But that was on me, not Him. 

His love was there (and it is there) all the time.  I needed to allow my heart to soften.  Once it softened, I could again experience the flow of God’s love, as demonstrated to me by the actions of His Son, Jesus Christ. 
 

When I feel alone, sometimes I am sad or frightened (or sad and frightened).  There are two things I do that help me recapture my assurance that God loves me.  I hope you will do them, too.  One is I read my Bible.  The other is I pray. 

I have two ways when I open my Bible.  One is to have a particular passage in mind and turn to it.  The other way is simply to open the Bible to whatever page falls open (I think of this as receiving the particular page God wants me to read right then).  In either case, I read carefully, slowly, attentively. 

Usually reading my Bible leads me into prayer. Often my prayers have a certain order, but sometimes they don’t.  I judge that to be okay.  God is our heavenly Father.  He made us and loves us.  He wants to hear back from us.  In His wisdom, he answers our prayers—He may say yes, He may say no, He may say wait.  Also, He may say nothing at all. 

There have been times when I resented it that He didn’t say anything at all. You might have felt that same way.  But then I thought about it again. 

Imagine it this way.  Maybe there was a time when you spoke urgently and importantly to a very close friend of yours.  You told him about your most private failures and also about your need for forgiveness and to become a better man.  But your friend didn’t answer you directly.  Instead, he just nodded to reassure you he had heard you. 

If you are like me in that situation, you were reassured and were comfortable that he was taking time to decide how to answer you.  You were eager for his answer.  And you were confident his answer would come at the right time. 

Same with me.    

Prayer, really, is a conversation between you and God.  Always close your prayers by stating that you are sending your prayer to God through Jesus Christ, who is your savior—or I hope He will become your savior.  It is Jesus who passes your prayers along to his Father, the Lord of the universe.    
 


​Bible reading and prayer are personal and often private activities. They are wonderful. 

There is one more activity which I recommend for you.  Find a community of friends who are followers of Jesus and spend time with them.  Open yourself to these friends—we are all of us men who have made mistakes but who long to be accepted and loved.  Be together with these men who you may grow to love, and who will show their own love back to you, since you are all lovers of Jesus Christ.  

As for me, I will pray for you as a participant in our Kairos weekend.  I will pray that you have experienced the love of God.  I will pray that you will truly and deeply know you are loved, and that you will seek out ways to show that love to others around you at Pocahontas. 

May you be blessed!

Dikkon Eberhart

10 Comments
floyd samons link
10/20/2018 04:48:10 pm

That's so awesome that your doing prison ministry! It's amazing how when we sacrifice we end up getting as much in the way of blessings as the ones we're trying to serve.

I'm praying for those men and that they too would accept the invitation from their and our Father.

Reply
Dikkon
10/20/2018 09:26:33 pm

Hi Floyd,

I've only been doing this for a short period, as you know, but I have been told the same as you say by my other Kairos brothers...and I already sense it for myself. There will be more to describe during future posts.

Thank you for your prayers!

Blessings to you, my friend.

Reply
Betty Draper link
10/21/2018 06:41:31 pm

Dikkon, excited about your new book even though I have not read your first one but plan to get both. Excited to once again be led to your site by Floyd, I have missed the wisdom and insight one can gain from your view of God, Life and other.


Sometimes life gets my mind full, too full of just plain living I cannot sort it out to write. Seems this has got harder for me since my heart surgery. Doctors assure me since I had two major surgeries in one year it is normal. A new normal to go into my 70 with. I have not been fretting over this but do miss writing. Today in church I got the finish to a post I started but did not write it down...it mostly gone but praying when I get over at my blog it will begin to flow again.


You write as if this prison ministry has fulfilled a part of life for you. I love this part you wrote, "It is my experience that God provides His love all the time and without testing you or me." I am meeting with a women, been saved many years but suffers with such low self esteem and constantly second guesses all she says or does. She runs on feelings most of the time but also has a lot of knowledge of the Word but it sinks no lower then her head. It so much easier to deal with assertive pride then introverted provide pride which could be her problem. I tell you this because I am sending her your blog address, I want her to read and then she and I will meet to discuss it. Thanks for being faithful to the Lord.

Reply
Dikkon
10/22/2018 09:42:14 pm

Hi Betty--

It's nice to have you back, and I had no idea about your heart surgeries. My condolences, and I hope your recovery continues to proceed smoothly even though you are having trouble now: I presume the doctors are correct about the normality of your difficulty with writing. Evidently, you and I are about the same age. I'll be 72 in ten days. Hello, sister!

If I hear from your friend, I would be happy to correspond with her if she would like that--and off the public forum of blog comments. It is important to move from the head to the heart--though you say she emotive--not because our intellects cannot help us get close to God but because, in my view, our hearts are the dwelling place of His Holy Spirit when it pursues and captures us.

You'll hear more about my prison ministry--it's going to be woven into posts for a while as I bring the posts back to a focus on writing. Thank you for your your own faithfulness to the Lord, Betty. It is a blessing to be back in touch.

Reply
Betty Draper link
10/24/2018 02:08:26 pm

I have been reading through the information you sent and there is one statement on page 27 that grab my heart.

"Readers are not interested in your sequence merely of events, Christians as your events may be. No. What they hope to get from you is truth". Truth is exactly what I want to write about. How truth changed my perspective on my past, present and future, truth set me free. I am not free from the troubles of this world, free from myself.

I had to stop at that page due to life interruptions but looking forward to putting so much of what you wrote into practice. God has already provided a place for me to write where there are no interruptions. We share a house with our son, wife and three children so it is hard to have much free time. Again thanks for the information.

We are the same age, I will be 72 in Jan. Blessings brother.

Peter Cutler link
10/22/2018 10:06:49 am

One never knows when the opportunity to help others may arise. Evidently you have been blessed with this chance and have begun the journey to practice and expand it. I wish you success and I am sure that with your established talents you will make the most of this newly discovered avenue of service.

Reply
Dikkon
10/22/2018 09:45:34 pm

Thank you, Pete. I am truly blessed to have been introduced into this ministry. I was a deacon for seven years before we left Maine and, during the two years here before joining Kairos, there was an element of my heart I see I had had no avenue along which to put it forward. My new experience is fulfilling indeed!

I am grateful for your kind words, my friend!

Reply
Dikkon - responding to Betty Draper above
10/24/2018 03:28:27 pm

I'm honored you are reading my booklet about writing one's Christian story. Over the years, I've found that there is much more subtlety to doing it than some people think will be the case of it at the beginning of their project.

Yes, truth is the reward of a good story for its readers. When I mentor writers, often I find that they have not yet discovered that writing their story for themselves, while fun to do, does not deeply engage their intended audience. Why? It's what you quote.

There is a fork in the road (a la Frost: "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood") which a serious writer needs to take. The road less traveled by--which will make all the difference--is the road that is NOT about himself or herself, but is about the reader's need for truth. The whole thing is subtle because, clearly, a memoir IS obviously ABOUT the writer of the memoir.

But, to be honest, who actually cares about the author (unless he's some sort of a cultural icon)?

No, the reader cares about the reader. Th reader is reading to find something that stirs him or her. What stirs him or her is truth that the reader gets from the writer...which is NOT about the writer but, through literary alchemy, suddenly becomes about the reader instead. And that's the art of it!

Reply
Betty Draper link
10/24/2018 07:59:39 pm

"the reader cares about the reader", truth, truth, truth.
Exactly why my reading list includes such authors as Paul Tripp, he drives truth straight to my heart. I read novels on my Kindle but my spiritual books I have to be able to mark all over them so I know what I want to post on my facebook wall, what I will tell my husband, what I will tell my friend but most of all what to remind me what is for me.

Reply
Dikkon
10/26/2018 11:00:27 pm

Betty--OF COURSE, YOU GET IT!

That whole revelation came to me in a sudden flash during a late revision of my Mom/Hitler book. That flash has been instrumental in shortening the number of revisions I may need to make for the new book. I was prompted by my wife Channa that I had the wrong voice on this one when I was about 150 pages in. She was right. That caused a major revision--but fortunately I'm past that revision now and rolling along (I hope) smoothly...and at least with the proper voice now which takes into account what I believe the READER wants!




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