Sept. 10
USA:
From Wall Street to death row: Lawyer finds a calling in ministry
When a prison chaplain first asked Dale Recinella to minister to the inmates at
Apalachee Correctional Institution, Recinella's first thought was, "Absolutely
not."
He never wanted to step foot inside a prison. Locked doors and small spaces
make him sweat.
But he had to consider: Was this God's will?
He convened a family meeting to ask his wife and five kids what they thought.
They all had their Bibles open to Matthew 25:26: "I was in prison and you came
to visit me."
"You always say that Jesus meant what He said," one daughter piped up. "Well,
he said this."
Still not convinced, Recinella sought the advice of his pastor and his
spiritual advisor.
They were unanimous. God was calling him to this work.
The former high-powered attorney, who was used to top-down decision-making,
surrendered. Into prison he would go.
Today, Recinella spends several days a week visiting death row inmates, getting
to all 400 by the end of the month. And he sweats. The cells have no air
conditioning and in the summer it feels like a furnace.
But the worst part is witnessing executions. He's seen 5 of them.
In his recently published book, "Now I Walk on death row," Recinella writes
about the spiritual journey that led him from a lucrative job as a finance
lawyer to his ministry with death row inmates. On Sunday, he'll discuss the
highlights of his book at 2 p.m. at the Co-Cathedral of St. Thomas More. His
talk is sponsored by Pax Christi, the Florida Catholic Conference and
Tallahassee Citizens Against the Death Penalty.
"The story line is really about what God can do with us if we let him,"
Recinella said during a phone interview. "I write about where he led us."
Shirley Poore, a personal friend and a member of Pax Christi, said many people
don't want to follow that inner voice.
"It will take you where you don't want to go," she said. "But Dale is one of
those people who listened. (The book) is the story about having the guts to do
that."
The Rev. Bernyce Clausell, pastor emeritus of Calvary Missionary Baptist
Church, said she couldn't put the book down.
"Every spare moment I got," she said, "I was reading it."
His images of the conditions in the prison still haunt her, especially the
description of one of the botched lethal injections he witnessed.
"He did what he could to make the conditions better," she said. "He kept
fighting the fight. I give him credit for telling the story."
Giving up control
Recinella said surrendering to God's will doesn't come naturally - that the
1st-generation Italian lawyer in him wants to do things his way. And in his
case, figuring out what to do in life isn't just about him, it's about his
whole family.
"I'm a married man with five children, so this has to be something the whole
family is called to," he said. "This is not a cowboy's journey."
Recinella grew up in Detroit, the oldest of eight children. When he was 9, he
experienced his 1st real tragedy - his younger sister, Jan, contracted
encephalitis and never walked or talked again. She spent most of her life in a
home for severely ill children.
He begged God to take the life out him and give it to her, but nothing
happened. As a teenager he entered a seminary, thinking if he became a priest,
God would heal his sister.
But seminary didn't work out. By his early 20s, he was married with 2 children
and finishing up his law degree. After graduation, his career took off and by
the early 1980s he was living in Miami and working as a public finance lawyer
representing state and local governments on Wall Street.
But his life was a mess. He drank. He smoked. In 1982, he got divorced. A year
later, a 2nd marriage bombed.
One day when he was drinking wine and vodka and smoking filterless Camels, his
brother, Gary, came over. Gary suggested he give his life to Jesus.
Recinella hardly could take it in. But his brother's sincerity impressed him.
In his book, Recinella described that moment: "Okay," I say with a nod,
sweeping my hand in a gesture that takes in the empty rooms of my empty house
and my empty soul. "What have I got to lose?"
It's the first of many such decisions that propel him on his spiritual path.
Finding their calling
2 years later, Recinella married his 3rd wife, Susan, and in 1986, they moved
to Tallahassee and bought a spacious home in Highgrove. They became involved
with Good News Ministries, Habitat for Humanity and Big Bend Cares.
Still, they began to question if they were being called to do something more.
They eventually downsized and moved to midtown where they could be closer to
the people they were ministering to. Recinella started working part time and
then quit altogether to become a stay-at-home dad. Later, the family sold all
their belongings and went to Rome to live in an intentional Christian
community.
In 1998 they were back in the states searching for what to do next. All roads
eventually lead to Macclenny. Susan, a psychologist, got a job at the Northwest
Florida State Hospital. Through a priest in town, Recinella began working with
death row inmates at Union Correctional Institution.
"Looking back, God had clearly been preparing us for this work for a long
time," Recinella said.
Susan soon began working with the families of death row inmates - a group of
people who often are overlooked. In addition to visiting inmates, Recinella
became the spiritual advisor to several of them - that's why he's witnessed
their executions.
Whenever he gives a talk, Recinella said, he doesn't encourage people to do
what he and his family have done. Instead, each person should try to discern
his or her own path.
"There's no shortage of things for people to do," he said. "God will tailor it
to each person."
And Recinella doesn't think his journey is over. Susan recently got a teaching
job at Florida State University and they'll be moving back to Tallahassee.
Recinella will continue to go to Macclenny several times a week to visit
prisoners - that is, unless God wants him to do something else.
"We have no ownership over our ministry," he said. "We've turned that over to
God."
(source: Wall Street Journal)
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