Friday, October 29, 2010

And the subject is...

...major frustration! I am having to pull on all the resolve CHRIST has wrought in me in order to weather this most recent storm...but! HE is the storm driver....PRAISE HIM!

Prison life is all about routine. As a matter of fact there are a couple of men that are receiving this very message that have been well acquainted to such a thing and they are going strong...doing what is neccessary to stay out of these dastardly confines. I want to vent here so bear with me...not too much as I am low on the computer funds...not "poor-mouthing" either...just fact relating, so keep all your millions....haha). To the chase of my existence my friends...

"Go ye therefore, and teach(disciple) all nations." (Matthew 28:19) JESUS CHRIST did not say, 'Go and save souls' (the salvation of souls is the supernatural work of GOD). The great essential of the missionary is that he remains true to the call of GOD, and realizes that his one purpose is to disciple men and women to JESUS. There is a passion (as my sister will agree) that does not spring from GOD, but from the desire to make converts to our point of view. The challenge to the missionary does not come on the line that people are difficult to get saved, that backsliders are difficult to reclaim, that there is a wadge of callous indifference, but along the line of his/her own personal relationship to the MASTER.

"Believe ye that I am able to do this?" Do I know the RISEN LORD? Do I know the power of HIS INDWELLING SPIRIT? If I take up any other method I depart altogether from the methods laid down by our LORD..."All power is given unto ME...., therefore go ye."...much love out there guys!

later...dougie boy

Monday, October 25, 2010

Hello my friends...

....That word is often chucked around in our society as a relational comfort for us seeking to increase our social networking that identifies as up and coming. But for real denizens of this endearing appellate, it is way beyond that superficial reach. JESUS said (there he goes again with that JESUS stuff! Ain't it cool?), "Greater love hath no man than this but to lay his life down for his friend." You have got to be kidding me..die for somebody that I have conveniently chummed around with...buddied up to in the office gossip...played a round of golf with...(How I didn't want to go there!). This thing called friendship is serious.

I have been in prison for quite sometime now, and the facts are these: some stay on with a man for a few years, some ditch him immediately, some wait until he is close to getting out...and (trust me here I have seen this strange anomaly take place often enough to tell on it)...women. I'm only able to testify as to where I've been--an old saying: You can't teach what you don't know, you can't preach what you don't show, and you can't lead where you don't go... Anyways these gals will desert a guy initially, and then (we're talking years now, and even for some cases, a decade or two) will pick up on communicating back to a guy that they at once referred to as a friend. It's weird. But at times I think it's okay to do. I mean what's a girl to do? Well if she is married to said offender then her vows should make it clear. Now of course if this guy was an abuser of her (or as I know from these men's rap sheets) her children, then he deserves every bit of alienation coming his way as if Ray Bradbury were his next of kin. But if not then sticking it out through the worse side of where better left off is the standard.

Unfortunately all the societal pangs that encroach upon one braving the storm virtually mate-free prove too much for the woman...and off she'll go to unhinged pastures. Which is her decision to make. I certainly can't fill up those shoes with my reckoning. But still, I must say...stay away! Don't come calling when release is imminent because now hopefully this man is cleaned up...prayed up...sobered up..and in the best cases, educated up. You want the guy who truly loved you but lost his way. And you left him swinging. Sex they say is overrated, and some think if a man hasn't "had any" in so long a time that he'll be putty in your hands, well take heed that I am here to say that Joseph had it going on when he fled from the likes of Potiphar's wife who wanted to sex him up for her own good pleasure. I can hope that I, too, will have in me the intestinal fortitude to have learned two important lessons while languishing here..and these are to have learned to walk truthfully to those whom I regard as friends (be they family or foreign) and to walk away from those who are not.

later...dougie boy

Saturday, October 23, 2010

I can't PRAISE HIM enough!

It's true! HE has given me this incredible opportunity here in prison to do the one thing I won't be able to do in heaven...witness!

True faith is having confidence in what HE has done for you. Often we will wallow about thinking..."But I find it hard to believe that a troubled, failing CHRISTian like me could be precious to GOD. HE has to be disgusted with me because my life is so up-and-down. I've got problems I can't seem to get through. I believe HE still loves me, but surely HE is disappointed in me." What is GOD'S  motivation for wanting to deliver you from whatever ails thee? (Sorry sometimes I get all King Jamesy!) Is it because you have done something to appease HIM? Have you increased your prayer time? Do you spend more hours reading Scripture? All this is good. But Isaiah had the TRUE revelation: "since thou wast precious in MY sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee...fear not..for I am with thee."

Yesterday I missed a medical "call-out" because I lost a bit of focus on the routine of this incarcerated life because of the recent riot. One man did die that we know of so far. His nickname was "Sleepy"...and as I witnessed to him over these years he seemed opened to what the WORD had to say, but the la vida loca that drew him in was too strong an influence...and it cost him his life. At least that is the info I have gottten so far as to the fall-out of that horrid event. I digress to pay homage to those trapped in that gangland garbage. I just hate it with a perfect hatred carved out of losing a friend to whom had a chance if perhaps given one more day... Tell someone today about JESUS will you? You may be the last ditch effort by GOD to reel them in...after all how did you find out about CHRIST?  It wasn't from the crib that's for sure. Someone told you!

Okay now back to the missed call-out from medical...around here there are 1800 men to deal with, so when they schedule you for medical or dental, you want to get there! But I was distracted since the riot and the moving to a new unit, and lost focus on the daily ritual of checking the sheet that has the call-outs. This is by far no excuse to the hierarchy here in prison management, so I got what is called "written up". Been in prison for 13 years of my life, and barring defending myself physically I have never had a write-up. (Oh sure now I want to abide by the rules! Where did we get this guy?) Anyhow I had to go to the Lt's office to get served. Take into consideration that many see you walking that dreaded lone stretch to the "bench" where you sit and wait for the Lt. to come at his whim to handle you up. Many chortles and cahoots followed to see the "preacher man" getting his due. Oh the stones! Still though I was undeterred because I serve a MIGHTY GOD from whence (gotta love that word!) the Lt. gets his empowerment.

So I sat there and the wind was kicking off the mountain side, biting and howling as I watched 2 others show up to answer with an excuse riddled alibi in order to stave off the always inevitable commissary restriction/ phone loss/ e-mail-ban. (oh no!) that comes from the bench participants--even loss of "good time"--the worse by far punishment for us aching to get out as soon as possible...and that'd be everybody. These guys plopped down to exhaling of breath and posture defeat even before speaking up to say what they were here for. Radios is what they had in their possession that did not have their prison number on them...what are you kidding me?...a black market in here? get outta town! No it's true...men lose in gambling (again in here?) and instead of losing something far more valuable...use your imagination...they give of personal possessions in order to keep their more personal possessions. So guys buy these already engraved things with another's number and end up inevitably getting caught...some just can't get enough of that...I was one likened unto this behavior, 'tis why I have a pocket full of stones.

I go off into my "old school" advice...it's free and these men are 23 and 25 years of age, so they partly are attentive. In here you must give sway to those of us that have done enough time to saddle up to Big Ben and give him a run for his money. I tell them to be truthful...tell the ugly truth instead of that already manufactured beautiful lie that you are in no way gonna get by with. At first they were in the bucking mode as if the rodeo was right up their alley, but soon as I discoursed on what could happen to them further (not farther...as it were in increment of severity), if they were to get nabbed (pun all day for sure) for lying as well the contraband radio. I also let them know that I could aid in their up-coming radio-free days (not to be confused with the Woody Allen story) with an extra of my own which I keep for times such as these. Then I asked them to join me in a little prayer to move things in a GODLY fashion...amazing how receptive folks are when in the straits that dire allows free reign. Then the Lt. finally got with us one at a time, letting both of my bench buddies go with radio in hand (a first I tell ya that I've seen) and then a brief encounter with me.

As I didn't feign any ignorance...just told him I'm guilty...he was left with nothing to question me on. Off I went...still write-up free...ain't GOD cool...

later...dougie boy

Thursday, October 21, 2010

"And these are they which are sown...

...among thorns; such as hear the WORD. and the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the WORD, and it become unfruitful." (Mark 4:18-19)

You hear a lot of people able to quote certain passages of Scripture...even folks who never read the Bible are able to do so. Perhaps we can chalk this phenom up to the lore, or wives' tales, or even colloquialism of society. But the TRUTH of this matter lies in the fact that HIS WORD is alive and powerful; speaking through whomever HE chooses. Just ask somebody today to complete, shall we say, famously known Biblical sayings such as "you know what they say...(my old man use to tell me that there were two types of people in this world...those that said there were two types of people...and all the rest)...money is the root of...? Trust me here and know that "they" will complete it for you if you give time for the lead-in as if you were forgetting your lines in a stage play. Yet it is not money that is the root of all evil, it is the love of money that does you in. Check out 1 Timothy 6:10. It's a similar error if we can use such an easy application to something as all powerful as GOD'S Word that cuts to the quick all our foolishness. As well to purport to be  upright and stellar examples of our society at large, and see that people will about what the truth will do...it will...? Not set you free as so many try to speak it into existence. John 8:32 tells us that it is "..KNOWING the TRUTH that sets you free..." not just the TRUTH.

You know my Mom in her hey-day (which could put "The Fonz" from Happy Days out to pasture), had all these little axioms such as "the Cobbler's children got no shoes"...of course her grammar I have taken liberty with and for sure she would correct me if she knew...I have, over the years of studying the WORD here in prison, discovered the Spiritual TRUTH hiding (lurking for some), within the bounty of this old-timey maxim (I'm into words that have x's in 'em today..haha)...we can skirt around the Bible denying it's TRUTHS to fit our boxed-out existence--or just feign plain ignorance--but it will discover you..keep at it and see...

later ...dougie boy

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

"My Kingdom is not of this world" John 18:36

The great enemy to the LORD JESUS CHRIST in the present day is the conception of practical work that has not come from the New Testament, but from the systems of the world in which endless energy and activities are insisted upon, but no private life with GOD. We have to get rid of the plague of the spirit of the religious age in which we live. The central thing about the kingdom of JESUS CHRIST is a personal relationship to HIMSELF, not public usefulness to men. You have no idea of where GOD is going to engineer your circumstances...but if where you are just now is utilized for soaking up HIS word by being spent in getting rooted and grounded on the unpractical line, you will remain true to HIM whatever happens.

Mostly these teachings from me are culled out of the various devotions I read through in a day's energy wheeling about this prison compound. It's not the stoplight life that the majority have that's for sure, yet it is yielding up HIS marvelousness around me.

I had opportunity to witness in the "store" here yesterday evening after my Accounting 1 class from which I am struggling--could be since this class is taught by a banker professor that his idea of accounting and mine were vastly different as I relayed to him to the raucous laughter from he and the class (I love making folks use that awesome sense of humor bestowed upon us by the CREATOR) his being the lining up of debits on the right, and credits on the left...with a plethora of double accounting, adjustments, accruals, and an assortment of other technical journal ledgering that had me as confused as the day I was shot by a drug dealer whom I was convinced didn't have any bullets in the big old 357. I told him that my idea of accounting (especially after he relates how the bank virtually pillages most through interest bearing usury) was so much easier. He in the bank has the money which I wanted without all the hubbub of approval...my methods of withdrawal, although not unique, still cut through all the red tape. Of course, as always, the decisions to follow through with such outlandish felonious ideas does have its drawbacks. 'Tis why you could be at a stoplight and I am here. The reaping and sowing that Galations 6:7&8 speaks volumes to me now. I should've tried the paperwork route...

I love you guys and am being called to work as I finish this up. What a blessing it is for me to be able to write these blogs/bloggetes/ bloggites to you all. I'll explain later how I've come up with these little blogger things..gotta go!

later...dougie boy

Sunday, October 17, 2010

"And greater works...

...than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father."

Prayer does not fit us for the grater works; prayer is the greater work. Never allow the thought- "I am of no use where I am"; because you certainly can be of no use where you are not. What an astonishment it will be to find, when the veil is lifted, the souls that have been reaped by you, simply because you had been in the habit of taking your orders from JESUS CHRIST.

There is no fog out this morning and I am looking forward to our first APAP (Accountability Partners Against Pornography) meeting in over five weeks. PRAISE HIS HOLY NAME!! I love getting together with men who are on the path of change wrought about by my SAVIOR. As our prison life has begun to resemble a more methodical and patterned cookie cutter way as its design was intended...standstill society as it were...I am pleased that we as CHRISTian folk are happy to see it! Even though a type of droning can set up as if bees were following us about, it allows for the "normal" movements to be done so we can meet and share our faith. Acts 2 is all about this WAY from which many get brought into the fold.

I was checking out "JESUS Manifesto", a book just out recently and found a most excellent help within its writer's bounty of discovery. It had to deal with all the mystery surrounding GOD'S behaviors as... well...GOD. Quoting Oxford scholar G. B. Caird..(nothing I like better than to quote big time known college grads..haha) "We must know GOD or perish. But unless we know GOD as ultimate mystery, we do not know GOD at all." To the person who walks in the Spirit, paradox, mystery, and uncertainty propel him forward instead of bogging him down. G. K. Chesterton (here I go again!) put it this way: "The riddles of GOD are more satisfying than the solutions of man."

-----------------------

Okay folks, I have just returned from the rec yard. It's funny how through the coolness of writing venues we can get up from the desktop, laptop, or tabletop, and be out of pocket from it for days, weeks and even months for those of us suffering from the perrenial "writer's block"...then pick up as if we never changed seats. But I'll let you know we had a most excellent group meeting this morning...men sharing how they weathered the 2 week lockdown. Some getting through it unscathed as far as physical damage was concerned, but most experiencing the impact of emotional, mental, and the big daddy of all...spiritual growth, which is always a neat thing when we are able to peep see the wonderment of how HE engineers our circumstances, testing the resolve HE places in us for a time such as this. Good men these APAP guys...I love them and ask the same from you all. Can you pray for this for us?..thanks

...later dougie boy

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Things are Trying...

..to return to normal. Although I'm not sure what one would call that in this environment.

The prison, in its effort to quell the continued uprisings of the particular gangs that perpetuated our last 2 riots, have put all into a modified type of segregation. Just yesterday we watched as the goon squad (not that I want to call the men and women who are basically here to protect those of us who are truly striving for change, that seemingly insulting phrase...but there you go...some parts of me are ingrained with the institutionalization that sets up house in its malicious effort to not rid me of all that is the bane of my existence in the rooms where CHRIST wants in to do the 360, and not the standard jailhouse 180 that has many contributing to the revolving door of retention. Okay you know about my digressing already so I won't ask for your patience...) the folks with the riot gear in tow...( see how quickly I learn!)...stormed over to our newly manufactured confinement...prison inside of prison...(look Ma aren't I the cat's meow) because the men in there were tearing apart the cells that were supplying them with the meagerness befitting their rebellion-- chomping off not only the hand, but gobbling up what little is left up to the shoulder.

Ripping off the sinks to cause flooding...they think anyway....shut-off valves obviously escaping (no pun) their understanding of how America builds and prepares itself for such childishness (1Corinthians 13:11). It is ingrained in our system of justice. Be it as flawed as one may think, we are the only sheriff this world has got to corral such demonized debauchery. And to think I am one decision away from landing in it with both feet firmly planted in that, or you name it, sin. CHRIST came for those men as well. So offer up those prayers my friends for the men and women who are entrenched in the very activities that are blinding the minds of the children of disobedience. Could be the next evangelist is bearing the brunt of change even as I write this in that cellblock where I'm certain the cacophony is ear-splitting and mind-boggling to comprehend...prison is loud as heck!

Lock up those locked up and they are given over to the proclivity to believe all has been stripped from them so the worst is being done...why not kick it up to the high gear of resistance? Soon though, the weaker of the sort...there's always that, will give in and either rat out those perpetuating (i.e.leaders) these atrocities, (a broken wooden broom was used to gouge out eyes during that last foray into prison rioting) or try to rid themselves of the moniker they got tattooed all over their bodies...'gee how do they know I'm in a gang?'  So much is going on around here that it is a constant to keep vigil of your religion less you start tearing it up in the same fashion. GOD grant me the serenity...as it goes for some.

On a more lighter note..if such occurrence were possible in this camp of miscreants...( I've been one it's true)...I was able to go to work and carry out a few regular details for the Safety Department from whence (I love using that word!) I work. Checking on the fire extinguishers we got on this compound...168 of 'em (I know because I was able to develop a program to check them all once a month). Anyway I was walking around...quite the privilege at this juncture I might add...doing my thing when all of a sudden I looked up to the "hills from whence (two times in one blog...gotta love it) cometh my help"and the trees are in grand splender exposing GOD'S palette from...(I can't do the threepeat)...where artists over eons have tried failingly to emulate HIS broad strokes of color never quite getting it the shade or hue that would positively identify it with HIS signature. But giving their all as some could say gazing upon Monet's "Waterlilies"...I'm guessing that it was he..surely I know Warhol's Campbell's's soup can though so give a convict some credit. After the grandeur of the Fall foliage, I was contemplating the great scheme of things, sure now I want to think on my actions and where they may take me...I was overwhelmed with the emotional impact that perhaps GOD will keep me here to witness. With a little over 13 years left I was kinda hoping for HIM to get me freed up a bit ahead of time..by say 13 years, three months, and sixteen days worth... (but who's counting?)

I got a friend recently released who is struggling because he has started to engage in sex outside of marriage. I know this trap all too well. The spirit of harlotry inundates our society at large, and it is just the ticket used to trip up many a strong man in CHRIST. The old saying of "liquor, ladies, and lucre" comes straight from 1 John 2. I will attest that it is a man's stubbornness in recognizing fornication as the numero uno lead in to these other vices that put more work in then an anvil in a steel shop.

Do I want out of prison? You betcha! Does GOD want me here as a light in such dark confines? Sometimes I pray it isn't so. But in the casting of our crowns at HIS feet one GLORIOUS day, if I could have a few convicted felons along for the ride...perhaps one of whom was converted on the last of my remaining sentence, then as the CHRISTian rock group that sports the name, leave me here LORD for "Who am I" to determine where it is best fitting for me to serve but YOU. All my glory, all my honor, all my praise to you JESUS for you love me ...the Bible tells me so...and how awesome is that?

...later..dougie boy

Monday, October 11, 2010

There is a blog that will change me...

On September 23rd I was out on the rec yard here in prison playing handball. It's close to 1800 hrs (6:00pm for non-military types). I'm playing with"Peanut"...aptly named for knocking off (robbing) the Planters factory that he was employed many years ago. No matter how long ago the things you did out there, in here they seem to attach monikers as if a jacket welded to you was easier to slough off. Our opponents are two Hispanic men...good-natured fellows that have a wicked game of handball. "Kiwi" for smuggling birds and "Coffee Bean" for sticking up Starbucks all over California. Me? I got a whole bunch of 'em..."Preacher boy"(my love of witnessing for CHRIST), "Magic man"(previous adeptness with being a magician on the streets..my ex-wife telling all who'll listen that my best trick was disappearing), true dat, "Coach"(a persistent fervor for all that is softball), "Dougie Fresh"(not a rapper, but I do sing...certainly not well), "Safety Man"(it's where I work here)...there's a few more that we'll get to later...this digressing is quite a habit of mine please bear with me.

These guys are beating Peanut and I pretty handily as we go into the fourth round. Out of the corner of my eye I catch some men huddling up over at a corner of the fence. This is not too unusual if it were not for the fact all were wearing the steel-toed government issued boots, and we're in the rec yard where sneakers are the norm. Several were being a shield from the eye in the sky for a few which were digging up, like a chicken scratching out corn, something catching sun in that all too familiar glinting promising itself to be soon imbedded in a man's side, eye to a hope that he would die...shanks. Since we have a move on (an activity where if you want to go somewhere in prison now's the time) in about 5 minutes; I plan on taking leave from the rec yard...if I can get out of here.

Then all of a sudden as if called for a long awaited visit, Kiwi and Coffee Bean walk off from our match and head over to where other steel-toed men are gathering like those ominous clouds scudding about and dropping out the fang of a tornado funnel. Peanut and I look at each other with the sudden realization of what we know is fixing to happen. Snatching up our stuff we make a beeline to the exit gate...and I don't mean a slight jog...full out sprint less we get caught behind enemy lines. The Sword of Damocles is just as tenuous in here as it ever was back in the medieval times.

Our main objective is to get back to the unit, into the shower, visit the "storeman"...so named because he stocks up on things that one runs out of before making the once a week trek to commissary...usury has got nothing on these guys! But you know that if things are going to get to  "jumping off"..(I'm using these quotes because I'm not sure how prison savvy some may be from the faux vernacular that tv land brings your way)...then a lockdown is imminent. Plus along the way to the unit you do your convict duty by letting many know that things are heading to the south quickly (denoting that the Mexican rivals are at it...again) giving heads up to those in the know. When a seasoned veteran of this tattooed landscape makes an effort to give you a privy look into that hindsight you'll be regretting once ensconced in that 80 square feet..with no coffee...no "zoozoo and wham whams"...(sweets)...then you should take heed to the utmost...we usually have a feel for these types of things.

I was able to get my shower, pick up an extra bag of coffee...thank GOD...oatmeal pies, honey buns, a couple bags of M&M's--it was all he had left or I would've bought 'em all!--and then word started coming in droves through our officer's walkie talkie..."secure the compound! secure the compound! all inmates get down on the ground now!...get on the ground now!"...followed by the loud explosion of flash grenades.

Now the inmates are frantically searching for a safe haven. A prison riot is one scary scene let me tell ya...so many variables from which you can get hurt in a bad way--from convicts and guards alike. After all the guards are outnumbered and just as freaked out as...or even more so...I'll go with more so--especially those that are absolutely bereft of compassion for the prisoner's plight...and some prisoners deserve it it's true...but picking and choosing should be taught from the perspective of training prison personnel. That way if something of this magnitude comes your way as a guard, and you find yourself cornered by...say 150 men that you have made it a point of making it more miserable for all along, then the sphincter muscle will get more of a workout than you would've thought possible...and that picture is rather ugly. Some institutions are well prepared to handle these outbursts of gangland strife..hence the exploding of grenades...but to the credit of fighting men everywhere some men are just hard to put down.. and we got our share I can tell you that much. Once I witnessed a man getting stabbed repeatedly...and I'm into double digits here...but he kept coming, dying in the arms of medical staff only after choking out his assailant. Such is the eye beholden to things once looked upon can never take away from memory.

Soon we were in our cells, with the men stranded out on the rec yard whether part of the gang war or not....hence the sprinting by Mr. Planters and I...my cellie didn't make it back...I almost feel a bit responsible because in my effort for self preservation...so contrary to CHRIST in my life but there you go...meism overriding Himism...I missed seeing if he were in earshot. It's a little before 1900 hrs and I am wondering after seeing (my cell faces the rec yard and although a ways off)  all the flashes of the crowd controlling grenades--as well the whole population of the guards running to the rec yard--that  this will probably be a good clue that this was a doosey. One to ensure a lengthy stay inside our 80 square feet. At about 2230 (10:30pm) they started bringing the men back...at least those whom were ambulatory. It was being done according to ethnicity..see Matthew 24:7...it says, (because the Bible is alive don't you know)"that nation will rise against nation..." and this word "nation" is where "ethnos" or the more common appellate: ethnicity derives its meaning.

My cellie...Sam...made it back at 0103 in the am of course. I was watching for him because he's shared these years of incarceration inside this cell, and you learn to look out for one another as much as possible...except of course if you are running for your life to get off the rec yard (still a stigma of my selfishness in retrospection). In he comes with all the info about what went down, further confirming what is fixing to happen to us over the ensuing weeks. He was glad for the extra bag of coffee..my handball opponent "Coffee Bean" won't be that ever again...  Sam tells me as he was involved in the thick of things...like espresso so one said later.

The weeks I speak of are over now as I sit here in another unit because they had to make an entire unit a lockdown community due to lack of space for all the malefactors involved...stretchers aplenty needed to clear away the human fall-out of little minds in big boy bodies...the malevolence meteing out its revenge as was its intention. Lost a few folks...not to death, but to maiming and transferring of these men to other places where the Bureau of Prisons hope to quell their thirst for violence by relocation. But their bedfellows of badness are wherever they send them--until change comes individually, there will be no salve in Gilead. I am now (as well as Sam) in a three man cell...5 extra square feet to accommodate another man.

The area is claustrophobic at best, but the reaping and sowing of GOD'S laws will not be denied. My poor decision making, which muddled about my mind as to what bank to rob back in the day, is the mainstay of my current living arrangements. I never want to eat another bologna sandwich for the rest of my life! They kept shoving  them in our little "beanshoot"..the slot cut out of our cell door. Oscar Meyer..I hate you!

One of the castles in this particular lockdown, (I always look for where they are due to the clouds that so often are brought into my periphery, begging the epic storms that were the rec yard as of late) was the opportunity to witness to Sam and I's new cellie..."Scar"...you could guess I'm sure once meeting him face to boxcutter from his ear to the corner of his mouth face as where his particular moniker originates. But it doesn't stop there, I can attest to, as removing his shirt to climb topside, he looked as if a gaggle of pixie sticks were strewn across his torso...both front to back. He's done 17 "calenders" and is gonna go back to the streets in 6 months.

Many things have changed since the now 35 year-old man was the then 18-year-old boy. Guess what he didn't quite have a grasp of as he no longer wants to deal in the atrocities that brought him here for so long, and that have ran the map-filled welts and trenches etched into his body? He has little knowledge of the saving grace of JESUS. Am I here for him in that capacity? Did GOD in HIS omniscient put him where at the last leg of a boatload of incarceration could give him the cure from what ailed him for years. I can hope so because he is very receptive to listening to all that the MASTER has taught me and is still bringing it ten-fold. Sam helps too as he has cast aside the hip-hop culture he was trapped in and, is himself a startling example of transformation done CHRIST style.

On a more somber note to wrap this incredibly long blog up...One of the men who was transferred over here with us has been struggling with a mental disorder that the lockdown wreaked havoc upon. Since we lived with him, as I'm sure all can testify to the quirks of a family's blacksheep...we got 'em in flocks..we were able to help him stay out of trouble in our unit. But once they let us out after two weeks, he was really in a mess and I dropped the ball as the men who were not aware of how bad off he was, starting laughing and making jokes at him (as I said earlier some men in here deserve it a whole lot more than others). I was so caught up in trying to not only get to the phone, laundry, shower (and of course I had to blog you all) that I saw what he was dealing with, ignored it, and soon they called in the goon squad to take him out. I should've done the thing that was anti-Doug and pro-Jamie...cuz now I won't get to witness to him again...perhaps ever. It was a lesson twice plucked that will forever be in the reels of me as I look around at what I am striving to be and what I used to be..as the projector life rolls on.

Okay folks this is quite a bit I know, and I sure appreciate those who take time out to pray for those men hurt, those who did the hurting, and those of us who could've done a little better during this crisis other than the all about mine mindset which is overtaking this society by storm, hook and crook...literally in some aspects. There, as always, remains a plethora of things, be it oddities or just a stretch of normalcy  that I leave out only to remember it as I lay in my cell...having to weep more quietly into the night as I have another soul in there that might take it wrongly that I have this love for all. Last night it was for Jamie because I didn't go to him when I should've...perhaps tonight will be free from that ...it's hard to say..still early enough for things to get rocking and rolling. I pray it stays as calm as possible.

agape furnished love fashioned from above...

later...dougie boy