This is a true story from a Unity minister who served as an Army chaplain.

Five prisoners came to my chapel that sunny Monday morning. I glanced down the row of manacled soldiers—two males, three females—and nodded at the uniformed guard. “Thank you, Sergeant. I'll take good care of them. Please remove the shackles.”

“Uh, I can't do that, Captain.” The young NCO (noncommissioned officer) looked at the black cross on the collar of my green-and-black fatigue uniform. “I mean, Chaplain. They're in custody.”

“This is an Army chapel,” I reminded him. “They'll behave.”

… “I'll take full responsibility,” I assured him. “But inside this building, we're all God's children. Surely we can let that Truth set them free—just here, just for today, okay?”

“If you'll be responsible … ” He offered me a clipboard while fishing for his key ring.

“Don't worry. I've been in the Army long enough to know that if anything goes wrong, it's on the guy who signs the papers.” … I was serving as a U.S. Army chaplain assigned to the Fourth Mechanized Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colo. … I talked the powers-that-be into reopening a battered, World War II vintage, wood-frame chapel near the back gate.

… My enlisted chaplain assistant—a sharp-eyed woman—took one look at the mud-crusted floors, dirty pews and grimy, colored-glass windows and said, “Chaplain, we need some help here.”

That's when I called the stockade … and arranged for a cleaning detail to be assigned to us every day until further notice. This particular morning, I noticed one of the female soldiers loitering in the chapel near a rack of pamphlets. … As the rest of the work crew scuttled to their tasks at the urging of my assistant, this young woman lingered. She was about 20 and her nametag read Franklin.

“So, Private Franklin, how's it going today?” I said.

“Not so good, sir.” She put a pamphlet back in the rack.

“Anything I can help with?”

She told me her story. My best recollection is that Franklin was incarcerated for one of the typical minor offenses. To be honest, I don't remember exactly what she had done to land her in the post confinement facility, but that Monday morning she had another six months left on her sentence. At first I thought she was just feeling depressed about the idea of spending half a year of her young life in custody.

But that wasn't her problem. She explained that she had broken some minor rule of the confinement facility and was awaiting the determination as to what her punishment would be. … She suspected they were going to send her to Disciplinary Segregation, or D.S., and the thought terrified her.

… “I'll find out about my sentence tonight,” she said. I noticed a tear forming in her eye, but she looked away, trying not to show her feelings. Up to two weeks in Disciplinary Segregation—two weeks in a black room with a bed without a mattress, a toilet without a seat, and nothing to do but read the Bible. It was a scary proposition for a young person.

… I thought to myself, So, what do you do, Chaplain? … I reminded myself that I believe in the power of prayer to work wonders regardless of circumstances or appearances to the contrary. My eye caught a yellow booklet on the top row of the pamphlet rack: The Golden Key by Emmet Fox. Opening the booklet to page one, I glanced at the first line, an outrageously bold declaration which practically jumped off the page every time I read it: “Scientific prayer will enable you, sooner or later, to get yourself, or anyone else, out of any difficulty on the face of the earth. It is the golden key to harmony and happiness.”

Emmet Fox went on to explain that the golden key is simplicity itself: “All that you have to do is this: Stop thinking about the difficulty, whatever it is, and think about God instead. This is the complete rule, and if only you will do this, the trouble, whatever it is, will presently disappear.”

But could I tell this frightened young woman such an outrageous idea, when she might have to spend the next two weeks in a black cubicle thinking about her problem? True, the Golden Key had always worked for me, whenever I had the faith to try it. But it is such an audacious claim—all problems, regardless?

I looked at Franklin, took a deep breath, and said, “Here's a little essay which has helped me. Why don't you sit down and take a minute ... In fact, take as long as you need to pray and get your thoughts together.”

She thanked me and accepted the yellow pamphlet. I returned to my office, and she slid into a freshly dusted and polished pew. The sanctuary was quiet because my assistant had taken the work crew outside for some yard work.

A few minutes later, I noticed Franklin was still at prayer, but within an hour when I passed the sanctuary again she was gone. Checking outside to make sure she hadn't decided that a jailbreak was better than solitary, my fears were immediately alleviated. The Army has an old saying about how to beautify a military environment: “If it doesn't move, pick it up. If it's too big, paint it.” I was glad to see Private Franklin painting rocks along the front lawn, and I thought she actually smiled.

Later that afternoon my assistant said we needed to get this crew back, because they were the best workers we'd ever had. So ... I went to see the NCO in charge. … A fellow Vietnam veteran, he was standing ramrod straight and checking off the names of prisoners as they came back. … When I requested this same group tomorrow, he said no problem.

“Except for one.” He looked at his clipboard. “Can't let you have Franklin.”

I nodded. “I know. She's got Disciplinary Segregation.”

He chuckled. “No, that ain't the reason.”

“So, why then ... ” My frown must have betrayed the confusion, because the sergeant motioned for me to follow him a few paces into the stockade, away from the small knot of prisoners. He held up the clipboard and showed me a thin sheet of paper. “We just got this message. Franklin's sentence has been reduced to time served. She's getting out tomorrow.”

My voice was barely audible. “But she has six months left to serve ... ”

He laughed. “Not any more, Chaplain. Looks like God gave this one a ‘get out of jail early' card.”

As I write these words, more than a quarter of a century later, I still find my eyes filling with tears. How could I have doubted the power of Omnipotent God? Now you can argue that the message was already in the system, that she would have been released no matter what happened that day. But I am certain to the center of my being that God engineered and executed a miracle through the events of an ordinary day.

… I never found out what happened to Private Franklin, but that was okay. The lesson for that day was to quit personally trying to fix all the problems of the Cosmos and instead trust God in every circumstance. As the Golden Key reminded me, I learned to turn my attention away from the apparently insurmountable obstacle to the omnipresent power of Divine Love.
 

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This excerpted article by Rev. Thomas Shepherd is from a Unity booklet called Seasons of Change—Seasons of Hope.

 

 

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