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It was late August when I first met with Evelyn Vigil for this project, and after offering to buy me a drink from Starbucks, she told me “I have a someone who wants a Satanic Bible... He’s crazy.” She chuckled at this and mentioned that there’s a good book store down the street. I couldn’t believe that she actually wanted to buy a Satanic Bible for a crazy man. So, we strolled down Castro Street, and she talked all about her job. And before I knew it, we were at the bookstore… Looking for a Satanic Bible. She said that to join the Church of Satan, you have to have $200; this inmate didn’t have $200, so he decided he wanted to become a Wiccan. So we (I don’t know how I got roped into this) were now looking for books on witchcraft. Evelyn knew exactly where to go in the store, had she done this before? I saw a book and turned it over expecting to see the author’s face half in shadow with a maleficent grin, and long grimy fingernails nested together. The author was a caucasian man with graying hair and a goatee, he was probably about 45 years old, with a pleasant grin on his
face; he had a wedding ring on, and, much to my surprise, clipped fingernails! After about five minutes of searching, Evelyn grabbed a book and casually walked to the cash register to buy it as if it were just a copy of “The Berenstain Bears”. The selflessness she showed completely baffled me. She went against her core beliefs to help someone who was a convicted criminal, and whom she had called crazy about 20 minutes previously. It wasn’t until after we walked out of the store that I realized how amazing this truly was. To Evelyn this was no big deal; “We’re required to meet whatever their faith demands are... We’re required also in our contract to provide New Testaments in any language necessary” (Vigil). Evelyn is a jail chaplain at the Main Jail in San Jose; she also works with the Elmwood Correctional Facility. Many people see the inmates of a jail as a faceless mass. As a group of people who don’t understand the way the world works, unintelligent, uncivilized. But just talking to Evelyn made me realize that she doesn’t assume
anything about anyone. When I first interviewed Evelyn, she told me that she used to teach ski conditioning, and I thought of the irony: she used to depend on ski poles for support, and now, she has gone to being the support for hundreds of people in the community. She is always ready to understand what happened to someone, and forgive them when the time comes. Forgiveness is a big sense of closure for many people who have done something wrong, and without forgiveness one is constantly reminded of their actions they regret. This leads to sadness; sadness in a jail can quickly become worse. “Jails have the highest risk of suicide” (Vigil). “At midyear 2005 more than half of all prison and jail inmates [in the U.S.] had a mental health problem...About 23% of State prisoners and 30% of jail inmates reported symptoms of major depression” (James, Glaze). Studies show that healthy relationships and a good social life can result in emotional healing. Evelyn provides inmates with a person they can confide their worries and problems with. “Thursday night... some of the
Miss Molly - Evelyn’s puppy
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guys were talkin’ about [how] they’re not happy with where they are. But it’s giving them a chance to evaluate… ‘What can I do differently?’” (Vigil). I asked a man named Bob Willwerth, who works with Evelyn in the jail, how he would describe her to someone who didn’t know her. “Depth with an infectious humor” was his response. On the 14th of September Evelyn filled in for the pastor of Foothills Congregational Church, who was recovering from knee surgery. The service started off with the bell choir, which performed beautifully. She listened and closed her eyes as the harmonies and dissonant tones bounced off the hard walls and high ceilings of this church. I sat there looking at her, she could have been thinking about anything; about troubled inmates, or her little dog, Miss Molly; or, perhaps how she hopes to see her extended family soon. After the bells ended and the congregation sang a couple of hymns, Evelyn gave a sermon, a sermon more unusual and albeit interesting than most I’ve heard. Part of it went like this: “I’m gonna tell ya exactly what happened at a Bible study. We were talkin’ about the Kingdom of God.” The next moment she was waving her arm frantically in the air like a student in a classroom. “‘I know Chaplain! I know! The Kingdom of God is like a clown car!’” She took a long pause, showing a bewil-
dered look on her face, “‘A clown car? How so?’” She gave a loud, ringing laugh along with everyone else, “‘The doors open, and out come fat people and skinny people and tall people and short people, people who are sick and people of all colors. All kinds of people!’” Maybe this is what the Kingdom of God looks like, I wouldn’t know, but it’s certainly a philosophy that can be applied to any kind of setting. Evelyn was raised in Los Alamos, New Mexico, “which is the place where they built the atomic bomb… the place with all the scientists” (Vigil). I asked Evelyn’s sister, Charlene Vigil, what she was like as a child: “She talks a lot more now than she did then, as far as being studious and having her nose in a book, that’s been throughout her life… and as we grew up together she got into more sports...”. “I used to teach ski conditioning years ago before I tore my knee up on the ski hill... I did exactly what I told people not to do: ‘Don’t take that last run on a beautiful day when you’re tired’” (Evelyn Vigil). In high school, a couple of her English teachers encouraged her to write. “And then when I went to college, the director of the journalism department was Tony Hillerman, who’s a well known detective story writer based on the Navajo Nation” (Vigil). Soon thereafter, Evelyn became a journalist, but it started becoming “really underpaid, too much
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news, too little staff to cover it. And it was just becoming horrible” (Vigil), so she went into seminary and then into chaplaincy. In journalism, slander on the subject of an interview or story is very common and perhaps she was tired of trying to find the bad side of decent people, so she switched to find the good side of those who society deems bad. “I went to seminary in Berkeley...the only place that was open for training was the Santa Clara Jail” (Vigil). They only wanted her on for two weeks until they could find a male chaplain, but every time a possible male chaplain entered the picture, something happened, “...one guy broke his leg, and another missed his flight…” (Vigil), and she has now been there for 15 years. Currently, Evelyn is in the process of helping a new support group for the family members of those incarcerated, called the “Love Connection”. “Yes, it seems like a really bright spot in her career” (Charlene Vigil). It is a free meeting, and takes place every second Thursday of each month. While it is just getting started, Evelyn and those involved are hoping to have a solid group by the end of the year. I emailed Evelyn one day asking if I could come to a jail training session. The training was happening in San Jose at a place called the Maranatha Christian Center. She said it would be fine for me to come “the more the merrier” (Vigil).
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So, on October 4th at 10:15, I left my house heading for San Jose. After arriving late, and parking across the street from the big building, I jaywalked across the road and walked through the parking lot. The room they had everyone in was rather boring. To the left of the door, there was a table with assorted muffins and a bowl of Nature Valley granola bars against the wall, and coffee to the right. They had speakers and a podium set up for people to talk, and about 10 circular tables with chairs set up around the room. I saw two lonely chairs against the wall to my right and sat down and waited for Evelyn to arrive. When she entered, someone quickly asked her a question, about whether the podium was in the right place, and she placed a bag with various items next to the podium. She was the first person to speak, she introduced a
woman named Rebecca who later spoke about how to integrate the inmates into their new communities after they get out. As other people talked, Evelyn listened from her chair in the first row, she was attentive, nodding her head, looking at the speaker. Captain Heilman of the San Jose Sheriff’s Department spoke about various statistics of inmates in jail, stating that female prisons are getting more violent. He made it very clear, and said outright that his primary responsibility is to keep everyone safe. Evelyn had to get something out of the bag she left at the podium, so while the captain talked, she walked up next to the podium, and rummaged around in her bag for something, then she returned to her seat. Nobody thought anything of it; there was no denying that Evelyn was definitely a leader here: when a
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question went unanswered, Evelyn would answer it. If someone was unsure about anything, they could ask Evelyn and she would clear things up, whether it’s about how long Bible studies should last, or what to do in an emergency situation. The first time I met with Evelyn for this project, she talked about her future plans for writing a book called “Grace Behind Bars” which is to be about jail chaplaincy and how we can welcome inmates into the community safely. She is also planning to get into a doctor of ministry program at the Pacific School of Religion. Supporting the hopes that these men have takes a truly wonderful person. If the inmates are willing to hold on, she is willing to stay with them for support and stability. “All people need to know sometimes is to know that someone’s walkin’ with them” (Vigil).
“The inmates inspire me a lot, because they try so hard and the deck is stacked against them.� ~ Evelyn Vigil
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