The Truth will...

..set you free. Most folks can repeat that phrase with the aplomb of an accomplished Bible scholar. However, when you search out this passage..John 8:32...you will find that the essence of it is not the actual Truth that is doing the setting free of the prisoner in bondage to some wickedness replete in all of us, instead we must realize that GOD sent HIS SON to prove out the Truth. So no matter how much I can memorize this little axiom of both the worldly folk , and those of the religious ilk, it will remain an old wive's tale until I recognize it for its True worth.

What is that?

I'm glad you asked...GOD'S TRUTH has never changed and never will. We can spend a whole bunch of time skirting about it (see Hebrews 10:26-27) and still not seeing it. The facts are these: The TRUTH stands off by itself and will not set you free just because you see it, or recognize it from afar. It is only when we draw near enough to it that it'll eviscerate all what we believed it to be in the first place. Residing within the actual application of this TRUTH is the freeing up of what my restrictive senses has grounded me down in. Do you see? Until I accept to walk this WAY, then I stay incarcerated..no pun there folks...to my own whimsical notion of some purported nuance that I chuck around the feel good about me places that in truth have no good feeling at all.

The NFL has kicked off here in prison. The cacophony I am enduring right now to type this out is an enduring testament that if you can't do the time, then you won't hear that dime being dropped on you.

I was sitting next to a man in Church service today as we were getting ready to take The LORD'S SUPPER in..which we do once a month...and I leaned over to ask if he knew what we were getting ready to do. He professed no...which is a word used a lot in here (no I didn't do it...no I didn't know she was 16...no I didn't shoot those 45 people) I then went on to explain as the inmated ushers passed out the crackers to the crackers (which has been a running joke in here as well) and the grape juice (and yes once someone replaced it with hooch which made for quite the rollicking service)...anyway as I was telling him about JESUS (what me?  Get out of town!) He listens intently...I'm thinking..."got me one!" And then a most extraordinary thing happens... I stop my dissertation (what me? Get out of town!) on the likes of this HOLY COMMUNION..and ask if he has a study Bible. He says "No but I sure could use one." Since Ni River has as recently as last week told me to put an order in I am agog with it at this point and want to hug him and say "Yes I can do it!" But I remain in my seat...jumping up suddenly to grab another man around here is not such a good idea if ya know what I mean...and if ya don't then I can't help you there.

I pull out my pen and a scrap bit of paper from my Bible, and as I reach over to give it to him, I notice all the tattoos up and down his arm displaying out the colors from which are his gang affiliations--along with a few RIP's with the dates along side--and here I am probably resembling the white cop that busted him--or more along the lines of the white judge that sentenced him to all his years--and make no mistake he owns up to them in our short version of the digest that becomes what you know of each other behind the razor wire ...some embellished truths (well you know...lies...) which we tell each other to puff up our lowly life esteem that got steamrolled somewhere along the way when we thought manhood existed in who you had sex with or robbed or killed or swindled...go ahead and fill in the blank for whatever may push your little piece of construction equipment from the lofty perch of never being in here. That's okay we all must have a bit of that to face that man in the mirror.

So as I was saying..he writes down his name and number..not the cell type although we do have one, you just can't fit it in your pocket or purse..unless it's an 80 or so square foot one! As the service comes to a close and he hands me back my pen (which is cool beans because I've lost about 274 at last count by "lending out the little coveted Bic...and at 50 cent..not the rapper the cost...I am carefully monitoring not to break the record of 296 lost pens in a ten year "bit"..pronounced "bid" by most because it's cool like to slur off the t into a d. Practice it for a while with me...) I can't help but hear him as he thanks me (another record I'm setting only in the opposite direction...it's amazing the ingratitude dwelling here..get out of town!) And then that's when it happens...the extraordinary thing I was getting to before digression became my blogging lifestyle...maybe I am on this earth just to get this guy his study Bible so he can read about WHO saved me from the blood, guts, and the beer. That would be my family's long time assumption that maybe GOD wanted me in here for this man...in not giving them the satisfaction of that possible TRUTH working in my life, then perhaps I, too, am ducking and dodging the True freedom...only now it would be at the expense of another. I certainly can't go through the rest of my life with the responsibility of letting yet someone else down when it was in my power to help...no sir..not me..as for me and my house...

I hustled to my cell to fill out the Bible order for the gangster..and picked up a few more takers along the way..all it took was to ask if they wanted one. Imagine that!

It's been a good day...

later..dougie boy