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Serving time The Rev. Alan Urasaki changed jobs last month after spending the last six years with a neighborhood temple. Service to his Aiea Hongwanji Mission congregation of 200 was the predictable calendar of weekly services and dharma classes, memorials for the dead, night meetings and involvement as a friend to members.
2 ministers from different faiths
offer spiritual paths to prisonersBy Mary Adamski
madamski@starbulletin.comHis new pastorate is the Federal Detention Center near Honolulu Airport. His efforts to teach, counsel and console people are now performed within the constraints of bureaucracy and security restrictions.
The Hilo-born minister is the first Buddhist chaplain within the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
He joined the Rev. Hensworth Weaver, a Seventh-day Adventist minister with 10 years' service in the federal prison chaplaincy who came here last year with other professionals to start up the new federal prison.
"His presence is greatly valued," said Weaver. "He complements the department with his extensive local knowledge and understanding of the dynamics here." While Urasaki is learning the new job, "there are things I may learn from him about the local culture," said the veteran chaplain, who ministered in the Florida state prison system before joining federal service.
Urasaki said his Buddhist training lets him see the prisoners as "fellow travelers" on the path to enlightenment that all humans travel.
Their parish precincts are the separated modules of the $63 million jail that opened July 1. Six of the eight modules are in use, each with a specific population -- pretrial inmates, Immigration and Naturalization Service detainees, a women's unit, state inmates housed because of overcrowded state facilities, people awaiting transport to the mainland and men serving federal prison sentences. The prison population at a recent count was 425, and the staff numbered about 250.
The ministers will never have that "cathedral" experience of preaching to their massed constituents. They move from one module to another for individual meetings with inmates and separate weekly services in the eight "chaplets."
"I find it can be bittersweet," said Weaver about ministering in the prison setting. "You deal with what's ugly. Some inmates can come across as incorrigible, and you try to show them that they have other choices. The good news is that you watch some of them coming out of that cloud and being responsible with their lives."
Weaver grew up and was educated in Antigua. As a young minister, he inherited a job the pastor didn't like, visiting people in hospitals. It led to three years as a hospital chaplain with a goal to do similar service in prison and in the military. He's given up on the latter in favor of more than 20 years in prison chaplaincy.
Urasaki earned bachelor and master's degrees from the University of Hawaii and graduated from the Institute of Buddhist Studies at Berkeley. After ordination in Japan, he worked four years at Honpa Hongwanji Betsuin Hawaii before taking the Aiea assignment. He served as a chaplain to the Honolulu Police Department for seven years.
Being missionaries for their own sects is not the chaplains' role, Weaver said. They are recruiting a corps of volunteers from different churches to conduct regular services and provide classes and resources for inmates. The population is about 40 percent Catholic, 40 percent Protestant, with small numbers from other faiths or who identify with no religion.
"We are implementing the First Amendment; we are facilitating that process," Weaver said, because the constitutional right to practice a religion of choice applies even to people who are not free to drop by their church.
Discussion of that First Amendment right is covered by the chaplains in the continuing training of prison staff. "We talk about religious freedom; we talk about religious groups and their particular holy days and feast days," Weaver says. "We help them deal with the grief process so staff is aware of how to respond to inmates. Religious issues are always emerging.
"We are here to provide pastoral care regardless of the inmate's faith or our own faith. We encourage inmates to practice their faith. Studies show that those who do, survive this environment better. The undergirding of faith can nurture and support them to deal with obstacles they encounter. For instance, you are forced to be in close proximity with other people you wouldn't choose to live with; any faith encourages people to have tolerance for each other.
"Beyond religious activities, part of our role is to foster spiritual development in inmates, foster moral values," said the Christian minister. "Not only do studies show it has a positive role in (avoiding) recidivism, but the values and insights they develop will assist the person on the outside.
"A major part of our job is one on one," he said. "Often it is people just needing to vent, just needing encouragement for a moment or a need.
"We are also here to be available for the staff," said Weaver. Urasaki already has found mainland employees seeking him out for advice on the local scene, from being a walking encyclopedia about pidgin to being a support system for people who have moved far from their network of family and friends.
Now a familiar face on the premises, the local man -- not totally at ease in a dress suit -- gets a kick out of being hailed as "Padre" or "Father" or "Rev."
"My own philosophy is that every individual has an aspiration or a hope that they have the ability to be happy," said Urasaki. "In Buddhist terms we call it Buddha nature. We have the ability to become enlightened. In Jodo Shinshu (Buddhist sect), we say we have to become aware of our having this enlightenment already, and it is for us to take off layers of our own greed, ignorance and desire.
"Each human being has this quality as a fellow traveler along this path," and the minister's role is to "help people come to their own understanding. We don't fix people's problems; we help them to build that awareness," Urasaki said. "In Buddhism, if you take responsibility for a mistake, then you don't do it again.
"I'm not 'holier' than them," Urasaki said.
"I realize that on a spiritual level, we are equal, and that is what the Buddha said. My only offering is to share the teachings to those who would want to listen."
He has not yet conducted a Buddhist service, but he has tapped the resources of a local Buddhist information organization led by retired Bishop Yoshiaki Fujitani to get leaflets on Buddhism in Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese languages to meet requests from immigration services detainees.
Meanwhile, his veteran partner is covering familiar ground in his weekly Christian services, Paul's letter to the Romans. "Romans ... lays out God's plan for mankind. It focuses on two dimensions of relationships ... with God and with mankind. I find it appealing," said Weaver. "We focus a lot on the current situation. I always found it to be a starting point to make a systematic reflection of those things. I usually start from Scripture and apply it to their setting."
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