Introducing the New Chaplain at Saskatchewan Penitentiary
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 at 12:00PM 
By Ed Olfert
This article was originally published in the Prince Albert Herald. Reprinted with permission of the author.
Recently I had an extended coffee with a new friend. Joanne Beacon is very passionate, the best kind of friend to have.
Joanne is a new chaplain at Saskatchewan Penitentiary. Her denominational affiliation is Anglican. In fact, the contract under which she works is held between Correctional Services Canada and her Anglican diocese. In this way, her church is both her source of support, and her source of accountability. In this line of work, both are of utmost importance.
Joanne is originally an Ontario gal. She has a resume that touches on the arts, media, science, hospital work, animal care in a zoo, storytelling in a library, parenting, and probably a number of other ventures that this deaf listener missed in a noisy coffee shop. All of these directions came long before ministry, yet all play a huge role in who Joanne is today and what she brings to her church leadership role.
For example, Joanne told a story of lessons learned from animals caged in a zoo. When young people came to visit, young people who yelled and hissed and threw things, the animals disappeared, and no amount of enticing could make them appear. But when the nuns came, a totally different atmosphere was created that not only humans could feel, and the creatures would appear, relaxed and magnificent. It was a lesson that has application in regular church ministry as well as reaching out to the incarcerated.
Another piece of Joanne’s story had her raising three children alone in very difficult circumstances. In those days, society could be judgmental toward a person in her position. Her support came, strongly, warmly, unquestioningly, from her church. Practical support, financial support, spiritual support.
Joanne has experience ministering in rural Saskatchewan, with the delight, weariness, and sense of call present in every aspect of that work. Her face filled with energy as she told of a time she was invited to a healing service by a First Nations community, a service conducted on the grounds of a former residential school with much sadness in its past. She was made to feel welcome and important, recognized as a woman, as a survivor, as a spiritual leader who represented a crucial stop on the healing journey.
Joanne is in awe of a God who has prepared her for this chaplaincy work through her rich history. She is determined not to get bogged down in things that sap energy. “My job is to tell the guys that they are loved, that their names are written on God’s hand. I’m not here to be an advocate, to decide guilt or innocence. I’m here to celebrate the Eucharist with people who were created by God, in the image of God.”
There are lessons about “the system” still to be absorbed. There are realities about working in this rigid and often tense environment that will be learned. But there is also passion, that Joanne has been placed here for a reason, a reason that will be given to her as she offers, as she discovers, God. Her passion is fortified by affirmation given by her bishop, by the support of Anglican clergy and laity, and hopefully, by the larger Prince Albert community as well.
As I recall the determination in Joanne’s voice, as I remember her story of difficult days, days when her church stood by her almost to the exclusion of all others, I pray that there are many such stories. We are indeed created in the holy image of God. What greater role can there be for the church but to remind us of that truth, to hold that before us, to hold that before the world, when both are having trouble believing it. What greater role can there be but to go into prison to visit, and to find that the Christ is already there.
Hey, doesn’t the Bible say that?
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