Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 8, 1993 TAG: 9311080038
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Harris is known for doing lots of little extras for his flock - prisoners at the Roanoke and Roanoke County jails, and residents of Roanoke Nursing Home in Coyner Springs.
And for the last two months, he's done his job without getting a paycheck.
Harris' position is funded by the Roanoke Valley Ministers Conference, an ecumenical association whose membership and participation have been in decline in recent years.
It's not unusual, conference members say, for money to run low for the chaplaincy program near the end of the year, but no one remembers it being quite this bad before.
If Harris is worried about the pay, he doesn't show it.
"They usually catch up to it after a couple of months," he said last week.
In the ministers' conference newsletter this month, however, the chaplaincy committee put out an urgent plea for contributions.
Natalie Foster Lemon, the committee's chairwoman, said the shortfall is a reflection in part of the decline of the ecumenical movement in recent years - not only in the Roanoke Valley, but nationally.
The ecumenical movement gained strength in the 1960s and '70s as different denominations - even different religions - joined together in common causes and sought common bonds of faith.
There are other reasons for the lack of money. Some pastors and church members "think the city pays for the program, or the state," Harris said. "A lot of pastors try to defend their parishioners' wallets" from too many solicitations, he said, and "don't give them a chance to participate."
Harris is reluctant to talk about finances, and he admits not knowing where to turn for more consistent support. "I don't feel like I need to beg."
Many churches do include the chaplaincy program in their budgets, Harris said, but often wait until year's end to make their contributions.
David Wolfe, the ministers' conference president and staff chaplain at Lewis-Gale Hospital, says he sees a need to make contributions from churches "more systematic" to try to level out the erratic contribution pattern.
The system of late contributions means a surplus at the beginning of the year but being nearly broke in the fall.
That cycle may have contributed to some previous chaplains' feeling of not being supported in the job, which started 22 years ago.
Most lasted only a couple of years. Harris has been able to stick with it for 12 years.
Unlike ministerial work in which a pastor can draw solace and encouragement from working in a stable environment and seeing the results of his labors, "there is not a lot of support in the work [of a jail chaplain] itself," Harris said. If, on top of that, the chaplain is "not being supported financially, that can be pretty tough."
Many of the people who work most closely with Harris agree that he is a unique person who has an obvious talent for working with those in jails and nursing homes.
The program was started - before the ministers' conference included non-Christian faiths - as a way to fulfill what many see as Christ's command in Matthew 25:36 to take care of the sick and visit those in prison.
At the time the words were spoken, there were no nursing homes for the aged sick, and prisoners - many of them in jail for political and religious reasons - ate only if friends or family brought them food each day.
Although those conditions have changed, Harris and a small cadre of other volunteer chaplains work now primarily to fulfill spiritual rather than physical needs of the sick and prisoners.
Harris "provides an invaluable service to inmates . . . and to the staff" at the Roanoke County Jail, said Sheriff Gerald Holt.
Last week, Holt said he wasn't aware that Harris hadn't been paid recently. "I would certainly hope that the area religious community would be able to continue to operate the program," Holt said. "It's a desperately needed service within the corrections system."
That need has swelled in recent years along with the inmate population. The Roanoke County Jail - which has 104 beds - now sometimes has more than 200 inmates a night. The Roanoke Jail has as many as 500 a day in a facility built for about half that number.
The crowding means more stressful conditions, not only for inmates, but also for the jail staff, which hasn't expanded with the inmate population.
The higher the numbers, "the more problems we have, and the more stressful it is," said Roanoke Sheriff Alvin Hudson, who also praised Harris for his work.
Overcrowding has become so intense at the city jail that Harris no longer has the free access he once had in the cellblocks with inmates. Though inmates continue to be able to see the chaplain when he's there each day, security concerns led jail officials to limit the places where they can meet.
The numbers add up quickly over the course of a year, too, as thousands of people serve short sentences or are held briefly before moving to state prisons.
Harris once received a tongue-in-cheek introduction as "pastor of a 20,000-member Baptist church in the Roanoke Valley." The membership represents the number of people who move through the two jails in a year, and most of them - about 90 percent, Harris said - claim to be Baptists when asked their religious affiliation.
Harris, who is an ordained Lutheran minister, does a good job dealing with a variety of faith groups - including non-Christians - Holt said. He holds Bible studies and does individual counseling with inmates.
Harris holds occasional baptisms, but says, "I try to discourage that." He'd prefer that an inmate wait until release and join a congregation, although he admits there are many churches that are not particularly eager to welcome an "ex-con" into membership.
Much of the chaplain's job just involves being a good listener, Harris said. "Inmates have something to teach us" about humility, forgiveness and grace, he said.
by CNB