On Saturday, 26 September 2026, The Correctional Institutions Chaplaincy (CIC) trained about 150 new and continuing jail volunteers at an event hosted by Foothill Covenant Church (Los Altos, California). We chaplains gave talks, answered questions, and supported our beloved jail volunteers. The Devotion was offered by Brother Mohammad Shabbir, CIC’s Muslim Chaplain. He spoke on the theme, Seasons of Creation. My husband John Plocher was part of the technical team that recorded the event – including Brother Shabbir’s talk. It was so inspiring, John and I have been using Brother Shabbir’s words as a meditation in our twice a week jail classes. Here is an excerpt from the whole Devotion,
“I serve alongside many of you behind the walls of the county jails. And I have learned something there that I could not have learned anywhere else.
I have learned that creation does not only happen in gardens and forests.
Creation happens in concrete rooms. It happens when a person the world has given up on decides to begin again. It happens when someone plants patience where there was rage… hope where there was only a judgment… dignity where a number had replaced a name.
I have watched human beings, in the most unlikely soil on earth, bloom.
And here is what I want you to hear this afternoon – every one of you in this room is a gardener. Every visit you make, every group you lead, every hour you give, you are kneeling in the dirt, planting trees whose shade you will never sit in.
You will not see most of what grows from your work. The seed you planted on a Tuesday evening in a jail classroom may not break the surface for ten years – at a kitchen table, when a father tells his daughter, ‘Someone came to see me… when no one else did.‘”
You will never hear that sentence. But it will be spoken because of you.
So as I close, I ask you to do one small thing, please –
Think of one seed you can plant this season – whether you are inside or outside the jail. One act whose fruit you will never see. A name to remember. A door to knock on. A person to refuse to give up on. Hold that seed in your mind.“
In 2022, I posted a similarly excellent training Devotion by Chaplain Angel Hernandez – called, “Choosing to Incarcerate Yourself.” I have been a CIC volunteer since 2015 and a staff member since 2022, attending trainings at least twice a year. CIC trainings are an inspiring opportunity for inter-religious understanding, connections, learning, and worship. Here is the CIC newsletter with full details. Check out the CIC volunteers webpage it you want to learn more.
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