At the Prison Service Chaplaincy Conference last week I was invited to give a two minute ‘reflection’. I don’t write my speeches nor do I have anyone else write them for me so I can’t report now exactly what I said but I’ll try and give you some idea. You may remember from an earlier entry back in February that the theme of this year’s conference was ‘Trusting the Journey’ and while I was determined not to utter those words I accepted that what I had to say had somehow to chime with that theme. This then is roughly what I said.

There was a time when for me a journey was simply something I had to endure in order to get somewhere and home again. In those far off days my journeys were nearly always about work and my need to be somewhere on time to do what I had to do on some stage or film set somewhere or other. My journeys then had an objective; I had something to do, I had to be somewhere. Later, when I decided to go east and take my Buddhist interests and commitment a stage further I felt that I should make that journey a pilgrimage. At the time I had little idea of what a pilgrimage was but I took off and by various means made my way overland to India where for two months I wandered around the Buddhist holy places. The pressure was off, I had more time to look out of the window and I wasn’t so concerned about when I was going to get there but still I was journeying with the aim of getting somewhere. Then I went to Thailand and made my way up to the North East, to that corner bounded by Laos to the North and Cambodia to the East. There I joined a famous and wonderful teacher called Ajahn Chah and became one of the forest monks. The forest monks include monks who wander, who go on journeys that have a purpose but no objective. They might say that they are going in search of peace or a peaceful place but they are not travelling in order to get anywhere, and certainly not on time, or indeed to be anything. There I began to understand another kind of journey, one that has no objective but is done simply for its own sake.

Yesterday, the last speaker, talking about the latest developments within the Prison Service and the direction and journey it’s now taking, quite candidly admitted that no one really knows where this is going to take us. We could make fun of this or be quite cynical about the Prison Service off again, driven by yet more bright ideas and still not knowing where it’s going to be this time next year! But in truth we never know where we’re going to end up. We can’t possibly tell what’s going to happen or how things are going to turn out. On any journey it’s only this that we can really know about, just the placing of this foot in front of the other, now, at this time, that’s all. And if only we can do that well.

Doing it for the sake of doing it, doing it without wanting to be or gain anything, doing it without really knowing or bothering too much about where it’s going to take you, but doing what has to be done and doing it well, acting skilfully and virtuously, is not only the way to approach chaplaincy, it’s the way to approach life.

There’s talk of evaluating chaplaincy. And who thinks they can do that? The guys in suits who only talk money? But what about the inmates? At this conference there has been nothing from the prisoners but at the last conference we heard from two former prisoners. One of them, Bobby Cummins, I used to visit twenty years ago when he had long hair and was very angry. Remember what he said of you chaplains? ‘You’re diamonds.’

When you love the unloved, when you care for the uncared for and rejected, when you befriend the friendless, you’re diamonds.

Thank you.