...

Shvat 5781 My fellow Chaplains:I hope this finds you and your loved ones safe and healthy. Extrapolated from the Talmud is the expression, “we don’t see things the way they are. Rather we see them the way we are!” What a year this has been! While there have been many challenges to contend with...

Act Like A Chaplain- Many people imagine this command to be a gender specific command directed exclusively toward males. However, that would not at all be how the Corinthians would have understood what the Apostle was saying. The word he used was Christ Like. Apostle Paul the word is a figurative ex...

ACCSS Newsletter December 2019 “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” For some. Dearest Brothers & Sisters in State Service We live in a day and age where we all need to hear the message of “glad tidings of comfort and joy”. If we’re willing to open our eyes to see the desperate ...

My dear brothers and sisters in state service: It has thus far been an exciting and uplifting tenure as President of ACCSS. When I was elected President of ACCSS, my main goal was to find ways of ensuring our concerns and issues affecting the Chaplaincy continued to be addressed. Additional goals we...

On a clear day, you can see forever… The greatest thing a human being does in this world is to see something…… To see clearly, poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one. - John Ruskin Although sight is a miraculous gift, we barely scratch the surface of really seeing this vast universe and how...

What is spirituality? My understanding is that everything has a spirit to it. The two-legged human beings, the four-legged animals, the ones that crawl and the ones that fly, the plants, our water, our ancestors, the wind as well as everything above and below us -- has a spirit to it. It's said that...

Dear Brothers and Sisters, I pray this newsletter finds you in good spirits. Briefly, I would like to share something on faith. By “faith” I mean having complete trust or confidence in someone or something. I believe we can all say that throughout our lives at some point we’ve been let down by...

As we approach the 2019 tax season, I thought it would be a good idea to provide everyone with some information on Parsonage/housing allowance. Per California State law AB 243 all State Chaplains qualify for applying up to half their salary for clergy housing allowance. Please note that there are sp...

Chaplain Sam Smolinisky is the Catholic Chaplain Pelican Bay State Prison. For Catholics, we are currently in the time of Lent, a communitarian journey of conversion towards Holy Week and Easter. Chaplain Sam reflects on that journey, the challenges of starting his ministry at the time of the Inmate...