..it's what compels me this morning.
I was reading the most current issue of Sports Illustrated yesterday...thanks to my lovely sister-Patti-Sue...
She came to visit me here in prison on Saturday by the way. We haven't seen each other in almost 9 years. Although we chucked around the compliments of how well one another looked, also what was not avoided was the missing teethes...her with the bridges and the dental work befitting good medical coverage..me with the gap in my choppers that has me still ejecting scraps of food meant for mastication while I went about gesticulating...great are we Goniers at this fine forgotten art form of getting our point across... And if you won't listen after I've thrown half a Mr.Goodbar at you, well, what can a guy do?
For sure though my sister turned heads to the point of guys telling me later on the yard that I had a great looking wife (and ain't it funny how our spouses come to resemble us after years of being together). It was my sister I tell 'em. And then they proceeded to pry into whether or not she's single. Does she cheat on her husband? (audacity has not a chance in this camp.) Finally after dislodging their wayward requests for her risque history they are convinced she must have, I get back to my cell for a nice evening of recuperation. Not only from the ridiculousness of fielding inquiries into Patti-Sue's sexual history (my gosh I tell this one guy she's been married for thirty years...to a cop! Ha! That did it! Off they scampered! Proving that once again these guys dress up with all this purported tough-guyness, and for real they're just boys...mostly alone, scared and scarred from life's reaping and sowing laws--GOD'S law is what it is though--Galatians 6:7-8.)
As I settled into the aftermath of PTVS (post traumatic visitation syndrome) I laid back to peruse the old Sports Illustrated...a reliable candidate that gets my vote for escaping (albeit temporary) the incessant droning of my prison sentence with all its acroutements. Then I happened upon "The Courage of Jill Costello". A 5' 4" buck ten of a woman that spun such a web of intestinal fortitude from which I shant untangle myself for years to come.
At the tender age of ..oh 10 or 11 I'd say from the article's view, she wanted to be the coxswain for Cal Berkeley. A dream she pursued with enough due diligence to put to pasture all laws that line up with physical endurance and mental perseverance, smashing down the ends which most could not fathom justified the means. She was to me (or should I properly say "is to me" for she lives on in my thoughts--as well the women who stood by her--teammates and rivals alike) "a light that shines in a dark place" (2 Peter 1:19). Here I was basking (if you'll allow me that, from my sister's visit), reading along when out of the blue (which in this case the blues did show themselves strong) the cancer hit her from nowhere--a stomach ache mestasizing into a brutal attack on her integrity as a leader and a go-getter.
These men in here I hear complaining about various wrongs done them by being punished for their own sins...what about her? As I thought on my GOOD GOD (the article weaving its way along the tracks of my tears as Smokey Robinson would lament from lost love), but this little woman...Oh man the strength! As she got her opportunity to "man" the coxswain spot at the PAC 10 Championships, and, as I knew the writer of the story was setting me up for her death--especially when in the last time she wielded that handsfree mic and cadenced her crew on through though her rebellious body not wanting it so--halfway through the race blood starting leaking out of her nose and as one of her faithful oarers was told to focus on "Jill's strength"...by her coach. She saw it alright--an indomitable spirit that that wretched disease could not shake--she took the back of her hand and, as the writer put it so, "wiped it away with disdain".
Man, did you catch that? With disdain she battled an all consuming cancer that wanted to rob her of a dream she was now sitting in the catbird's seat of. So take that you cancer you! I couldn't finish the article at first because I knew where it was heading...and when I read that line about the blood in the middle of the race, I was glad to be in my cell without my other two cellies to witness as I pulled the blankets and sheets over my head to weep uncontrollably for this woman I've never met and for her friends and family who cheered her on in the worst of times (but you just didn't know that by her...and I can't take a cold without telling 100 people how bad I feel...) I finished up the story later that night when we were locked in tight--a mistake of course because my crying wasn't done as I knew it would come when the writer stitched me up into her death. But I had to do the silent eye scrunched cry...hoping these big bad convicts don't see me as weak.
Oh we're weak alright by Jill Costello's standard--gangs and the like trying for macho. No sir, that don't cut it. What's unbelievably macho is what came forth from this little woman. I hope this will serves as a wake-up for those of us think we got it so bad. We don't. Do you see? Love always...
later..dougie boy
Monday, November 29, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
I have found a key...
...to witnessing: helping others! When we do this with no ulterior motive, GOD opens way for the WAY.
It's really awesome to have seen this at work in my life since I've been in prison where ulterior motives is the norm (what!..get out of town!). No, for real my friends...just yesterday I was showing some men (if you must know.... a murderer and a drug dealer) the way to make a more excellent presentation for their college business class, and then wham! I was able to segue into CHRIST...the indeed and extreme of most EXCELLENT! So get on out there and do some good!...Psalm 103
later in love for all...dougie boy
It's really awesome to have seen this at work in my life since I've been in prison where ulterior motives is the norm (what!..get out of town!). No, for real my friends...just yesterday I was showing some men (if you must know.... a murderer and a drug dealer) the way to make a more excellent presentation for their college business class, and then wham! I was able to segue into CHRIST...the indeed and extreme of most EXCELLENT! So get on out there and do some good!...Psalm 103
later in love for all...dougie boy
"If the SON therefore shall...
...make you free, ye shall be free indeed". Personality never says "I can't," but simply absorbs and absorbs. Personality wants more and more. It is the way we are built. We are designed with a great capacity for GOD; and sin and our individuality are the things that keep us from getting at GOD. Do not say- O LORD, I suffer from wandering thoughts--DON'T suffer from wandering thoughts. Stop listening to the tyranny of your individuality and get emancipated out into personality. (Galatians 2:20)
I am sitting here in prison dealing with any number of strange behaviors. Just yesterday I was earring into NPR (Patti-Sue's favorite as she drives about doing her goodly duties as wife/mother/caregiver/..and most excellent sister...and not because she sends me things..to include money...but this is definitely a high ranker!) anyway..I hear of this pastor from a big old church down in Georgia who finally came to the individual conclusion that GOD created him to be a homosexual. I was livid. The color of red all over me because this man whom they were interviewing was telling..I'll say..his church body about this "secret" he's been cuckolding (definitely no pun) for decades. Not a last week epiphany mind you where his unbridled lust may have overwhelmed him at the spur, but calculated choices that galloped all over the very WORD he has to professed to follow. The requirements of a Bishop are plain and clear...."a man is to be the husband of one wife..."(1Timothy 3:2)..there are countless others within the confines of the freedom GOD bestows on those wanting the accountability of Church overseers, but I picked this one not because CHRISTians the world over are notorious for lambasting folks with rocket theology, or some estranged pet doctrine, (we can be in ignorance to this malady..and we shouldn't because then our witness can be of no effect) but because the fact remains: One wife...a woman...a glorious creation of GOD'S for the purpose of HIS LOVE towards us men. And trust me here folks the hardness of this place begs for the softness of her femininity...certainly not her counterpart.
Which brings me full circle to strangeness that I can do my best to explain, but won't have the impact as it did in real time because suspending disbelief here is often difficult..so many things just seem weird...Like standing in line to await my turn at the console at large to emit my musings. With 145 men and 3 keyboards it's kinda like the patience needed at your local DMV...I ain't been locked up that long! Next to me was a man that has been into hormone therapy out in the streets and has about a 34C cup working that keeps him not wanting for smokes or candy bars. I fall into my can't wait for the door of opportunity that GOD inevitable opens, and I might add often do not want to step through...I'm off to Tarshish like Jonah...but Nineveh is always on the waterfront...and sure enough the handle turns and in steps a man thinking he's a woman. He looks my way and says my name (rather coyly; a learned behavior of purported coquettishness that is supposed to be enticing) but I know he has testicles, so he cannot convince me otherwise..after all showers are here...and as much as he may want to think himself a gal his guyness is exposed. He continues in that fake flirting that, trust me here, brings some in. The saying in prison is "one lies down two get up". Ya gotta love how the coinage of double entendres get slaughtered in this camp. Anyway as I was saying (the digression as those whom know me...is whom correct?..I don't know for real!) This man asks me if I know his name. All I know of him is "Valentino" (I can't make this stuff up). Surprisingly enough it is his real middle name. He tells me that his full name is "Rudolpho Valentino Pena"...and adds "doesn't that sound too macho?" At which point GOD has fully swung open the portal of truth for me to disclose up close and personal as our sinning gets what this man's dilemma seems to be...and make no mistake I got a pocket full of stones..I am after all typing this to you guys...and gals from prison. I know the diff though...it's in the way you girls truly are...that wonderfulness I miss like a second skin. I say to Valentino, "well your parents had you being this type of man, and it seems that this butch roll you are divvying up for those of us who have pretended to forget that it was Adam and Eve, has you in derision as to your true identity." He's ruffled now for sure...because frankly a lot of men in here play his game...hetero and homosexual alike. And I'm not sure whom...(is this right..whom-who?) is the sicker of the two. We are parents...most of us anyway... and the WORD (yes here I go again!) warns us to "Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it" Proverbs 22:6. Needless to say the conversation was not going as he had planned so I had the sudden urgency to press on...got that gene down pat! I told him that no amount of laws passed, societal acceptance, or hormonal therapy is going to eradicate your very maleness that GOD decided to grant you with. It's your choice to go that way...HE did give us that...limiting HIMSELF to our decision making processes...be they of the worldly intent, or of the JESUS Manifesto inspired teachings. We all go astray of these tenets laid out in HIS WORD...'tis why HE came for us..'tis why HE died for us...'tis why HE Loves after us...to win HIM...to know HIM...to be found in HIM. As Valentino cruised away, ( he had enough of my crap), I couldn't help silently praying for him...it's what compels us as CHRISTians....to come to the THRONE of GRACE for others who are hurting, confused, and alone..it is the locus of SCRIPTURE that begs our obedience...we ask of this from our own children to keep them from the wayward way..yet they will still choose wrongly...here I am to proof out that anomaly. But it is in the bounty of CHRIST'S LOVE for me that I have discovered HIM to be all that the SCRIPTURES say HE is.
My sister is coming to visit me next week....I haven't seen her in 8 years. I want so desperately to win her over to JESUS because she has the epitome of benevolence coursing through her as if the CROSS was her WAY too. I can pray that I won't be too brash...not that she would allow me that...or that I will be effective enough to persuade her to relook at JESUS as my LORD and SAVIOR...or I can just soak up the trueness of fellowship that will reek of HIM through us both no matter my efforts...and that my friends is the GOSPEL spelt about in the renascence of the GLORY of HIS MAJESTY! If you are gonna preach, teach or reach for the GOSPEL, then be the GOSPEL. I love you guys!
later...dougie boy
I am sitting here in prison dealing with any number of strange behaviors. Just yesterday I was earring into NPR (Patti-Sue's favorite as she drives about doing her goodly duties as wife/mother/caregiver/..and most excellent sister...and not because she sends me things..to include money...but this is definitely a high ranker!) anyway..I hear of this pastor from a big old church down in Georgia who finally came to the individual conclusion that GOD created him to be a homosexual. I was livid. The color of red all over me because this man whom they were interviewing was telling..I'll say..his church body about this "secret" he's been cuckolding (definitely no pun) for decades. Not a last week epiphany mind you where his unbridled lust may have overwhelmed him at the spur, but calculated choices that galloped all over the very WORD he has to professed to follow. The requirements of a Bishop are plain and clear...."a man is to be the husband of one wife..."(1Timothy 3:2)..there are countless others within the confines of the freedom GOD bestows on those wanting the accountability of Church overseers, but I picked this one not because CHRISTians the world over are notorious for lambasting folks with rocket theology, or some estranged pet doctrine, (we can be in ignorance to this malady..and we shouldn't because then our witness can be of no effect) but because the fact remains: One wife...a woman...a glorious creation of GOD'S for the purpose of HIS LOVE towards us men. And trust me here folks the hardness of this place begs for the softness of her femininity...certainly not her counterpart.
Which brings me full circle to strangeness that I can do my best to explain, but won't have the impact as it did in real time because suspending disbelief here is often difficult..so many things just seem weird...Like standing in line to await my turn at the console at large to emit my musings. With 145 men and 3 keyboards it's kinda like the patience needed at your local DMV...I ain't been locked up that long! Next to me was a man that has been into hormone therapy out in the streets and has about a 34C cup working that keeps him not wanting for smokes or candy bars. I fall into my can't wait for the door of opportunity that GOD inevitable opens, and I might add often do not want to step through...I'm off to Tarshish like Jonah...but Nineveh is always on the waterfront...and sure enough the handle turns and in steps a man thinking he's a woman. He looks my way and says my name (rather coyly; a learned behavior of purported coquettishness that is supposed to be enticing) but I know he has testicles, so he cannot convince me otherwise..after all showers are here...and as much as he may want to think himself a gal his guyness is exposed. He continues in that fake flirting that, trust me here, brings some in. The saying in prison is "one lies down two get up". Ya gotta love how the coinage of double entendres get slaughtered in this camp. Anyway as I was saying (the digression as those whom know me...is whom correct?..I don't know for real!) This man asks me if I know his name. All I know of him is "Valentino" (I can't make this stuff up). Surprisingly enough it is his real middle name. He tells me that his full name is "Rudolpho Valentino Pena"...and adds "doesn't that sound too macho?" At which point GOD has fully swung open the portal of truth for me to disclose up close and personal as our sinning gets what this man's dilemma seems to be...and make no mistake I got a pocket full of stones..I am after all typing this to you guys...and gals from prison. I know the diff though...it's in the way you girls truly are...that wonderfulness I miss like a second skin. I say to Valentino, "well your parents had you being this type of man, and it seems that this butch roll you are divvying up for those of us who have pretended to forget that it was Adam and Eve, has you in derision as to your true identity." He's ruffled now for sure...because frankly a lot of men in here play his game...hetero and homosexual alike. And I'm not sure whom...(is this right..whom-who?) is the sicker of the two. We are parents...most of us anyway... and the WORD (yes here I go again!) warns us to "Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it" Proverbs 22:6. Needless to say the conversation was not going as he had planned so I had the sudden urgency to press on...got that gene down pat! I told him that no amount of laws passed, societal acceptance, or hormonal therapy is going to eradicate your very maleness that GOD decided to grant you with. It's your choice to go that way...HE did give us that...limiting HIMSELF to our decision making processes...be they of the worldly intent, or of the JESUS Manifesto inspired teachings. We all go astray of these tenets laid out in HIS WORD...'tis why HE came for us..'tis why HE died for us...'tis why HE Loves after us...to win HIM...to know HIM...to be found in HIM. As Valentino cruised away, ( he had enough of my crap), I couldn't help silently praying for him...it's what compels us as CHRISTians....to come to the THRONE of GRACE for others who are hurting, confused, and alone..it is the locus of SCRIPTURE that begs our obedience...we ask of this from our own children to keep them from the wayward way..yet they will still choose wrongly...here I am to proof out that anomaly. But it is in the bounty of CHRIST'S LOVE for me that I have discovered HIM to be all that the SCRIPTURES say HE is.
My sister is coming to visit me next week....I haven't seen her in 8 years. I want so desperately to win her over to JESUS because she has the epitome of benevolence coursing through her as if the CROSS was her WAY too. I can pray that I won't be too brash...not that she would allow me that...or that I will be effective enough to persuade her to relook at JESUS as my LORD and SAVIOR...or I can just soak up the trueness of fellowship that will reek of HIM through us both no matter my efforts...and that my friends is the GOSPEL spelt about in the renascence of the GLORY of HIS MAJESTY! If you are gonna preach, teach or reach for the GOSPEL, then be the GOSPEL. I love you guys!
later...dougie boy
Friday, November 5, 2010
One of the signs of aging...
....(at least in here..out there you have options).
If you have a wayward tooth, then one of the only solutions here is for you is to have it pulled. Especially if it is borderline abscessed. Today I was granted the thrill of being in the thrall of this activity, truly, madly and deeply..and love was not coming to town. As the dentist initially started giving the anesthesia (which I see as an oxymoron now--why should something that numbs hurt so bad?) I was remissed about a part of me that has been hanging in there for so long (at least on through Panama and the years of the military) the fights!...the flights!...the wrongs and the rights! The situ in here is such that once slated to see this elusive dental person, you better go lest you find yourself in a serious world of hurt and months from relief, yet an hour from tying the old floss around the cell door (they weigh in at 300lbs) and having your cellie slam it because you just can't muster up the courage to look it straight in the face (no pun mind you but I did say a mouthful).
So off I went this morning at 0630 hrs to pay the pied piper's wage of the prosaic prison price that can cost one much in the collection plate of pity. He's wrenching and I'm trying to act the big boy. I'm praying fervently, I might add, because this big boy stuff is a load of crap--especially when he stops yanking and twisting. I look at him and sweat is forming at his brow right above his nice trim teeth (yeah I can see all 32). I gander to the right and there with all her choppers is the diligent hygienist using that face shield now splattered with you know who's blood. I decide on a witty remark (what, me?..get out of town). Actually I quote Hemingway (I think...after all I was under a bit of duress) "What's wrong? Will it not gently into the night?"...coming out like whoommwmomweinnmskea? Still though the hygienist looks at me like, 'unbelievable! A convict quoting a classic'...as if we all are morons. I am--for being in this chair--at least the cell door would've been a one hitter quitter. This debacle is closer to loosing my bowels then all those banks I robbed.
The dentist takes leave to beeline to "the other room"...I'm hoping he didn't hate old Papa's line because he comes back with what looks like a pair of lineman's pliers...as a matter of fact it looks like the pair I took to the pawnshop 15 years ago! Oh the irony! That's like a double irony don't you think? Back to work and after another..say 17.45 minutes...I'm getting drenched now by his prolific water shedding running down the edges of his face shield and into my ..well mouth probably , but shirtfront for sure. My legs are doing their own thing now...that terrible tango of repressed pain while reclining in the chair of torture. Soon he withdraws his weapon of periodontal destruction and I go for Shakespeare. I stammer (everything is that now), "out damn spot, eh doc?" He gives me the withering look, that certainly says that I have done a goodly job in flossing and caring for my formidable little teethes. Still though it is only the hygienist that queries across her face the recognition that I have now moved on to Lady Macbeth in my terror packed stupor of tooth removal. Believe it or not it is only another 25 minutes before I hear the break...and I ain't talking 'bout coffee either...crack! What a horrible feeling! The tear leaking down my cheek is not for the pain--although deserving of it for sure--it is because a part of me is gone now...that is after he has to do some drilling ...splitting it into threes he says in order to facilitate a more easier removal. I'm thinking about putting his head in the cell door location by the way, but my violent days are behind me, and mostly I am grateful as he plucks out the remaining pieces of an otherwise salvageable tooth had I been in a dental chair out there where you guys are.
As I sit up to wipe away the blood from my face, there is an inmate whose been lying in the chair next to me all the while with a look of abject terror on his face because he's next. Perhaps though he didn't listen to his father... he told me you don't have to floss your teeth, just the ones you want to keep...an adage that went through the best of times and the worst of times in a very short time span today. I got up and asked the dentist if he ever saw "The Marathon Man" with Dustin Hoffman and the Angel of Death Josef Mengali as a deranged German Gestapo dentist...he replied with a pretty good impersonation of a sinisterly implication that yes he remembered that movie...So there you go..from Hemingway to Shakespeare to Hollywood.
As I hobbled from medical, GOD reminded me that losing that tooth, albeit tragic on its own merit, can't compete with those whom are losing limbs in wars, minds to disease, loved ones to divorce...and so in HIS infinite compassion pointed me up to think on HIM, and all I have to look forward to once rid of such corruptibleness as this old flesh. PRAISE HIM for that always. Beside he says if that foot offend thee cut it off, better to enter in halt and lame....
later..dougie boy
If you have a wayward tooth, then one of the only solutions here is for you is to have it pulled. Especially if it is borderline abscessed. Today I was granted the thrill of being in the thrall of this activity, truly, madly and deeply..and love was not coming to town. As the dentist initially started giving the anesthesia (which I see as an oxymoron now--why should something that numbs hurt so bad?) I was remissed about a part of me that has been hanging in there for so long (at least on through Panama and the years of the military) the fights!...the flights!...the wrongs and the rights! The situ in here is such that once slated to see this elusive dental person, you better go lest you find yourself in a serious world of hurt and months from relief, yet an hour from tying the old floss around the cell door (they weigh in at 300lbs) and having your cellie slam it because you just can't muster up the courage to look it straight in the face (no pun mind you but I did say a mouthful).
So off I went this morning at 0630 hrs to pay the pied piper's wage of the prosaic prison price that can cost one much in the collection plate of pity. He's wrenching and I'm trying to act the big boy. I'm praying fervently, I might add, because this big boy stuff is a load of crap--especially when he stops yanking and twisting. I look at him and sweat is forming at his brow right above his nice trim teeth (yeah I can see all 32). I gander to the right and there with all her choppers is the diligent hygienist using that face shield now splattered with you know who's blood. I decide on a witty remark (what, me?..get out of town). Actually I quote Hemingway (I think...after all I was under a bit of duress) "What's wrong? Will it not gently into the night?"...coming out like whoommwmomweinnmskea? Still though the hygienist looks at me like, 'unbelievable! A convict quoting a classic'...as if we all are morons. I am--for being in this chair--at least the cell door would've been a one hitter quitter. This debacle is closer to loosing my bowels then all those banks I robbed.
The dentist takes leave to beeline to "the other room"...I'm hoping he didn't hate old Papa's line because he comes back with what looks like a pair of lineman's pliers...as a matter of fact it looks like the pair I took to the pawnshop 15 years ago! Oh the irony! That's like a double irony don't you think? Back to work and after another..say 17.45 minutes...I'm getting drenched now by his prolific water shedding running down the edges of his face shield and into my ..well mouth probably , but shirtfront for sure. My legs are doing their own thing now...that terrible tango of repressed pain while reclining in the chair of torture. Soon he withdraws his weapon of periodontal destruction and I go for Shakespeare. I stammer (everything is that now), "out damn spot, eh doc?" He gives me the withering look, that certainly says that I have done a goodly job in flossing and caring for my formidable little teethes. Still though it is only the hygienist that queries across her face the recognition that I have now moved on to Lady Macbeth in my terror packed stupor of tooth removal. Believe it or not it is only another 25 minutes before I hear the break...and I ain't talking 'bout coffee either...crack! What a horrible feeling! The tear leaking down my cheek is not for the pain--although deserving of it for sure--it is because a part of me is gone now...that is after he has to do some drilling ...splitting it into threes he says in order to facilitate a more easier removal. I'm thinking about putting his head in the cell door location by the way, but my violent days are behind me, and mostly I am grateful as he plucks out the remaining pieces of an otherwise salvageable tooth had I been in a dental chair out there where you guys are.
As I sit up to wipe away the blood from my face, there is an inmate whose been lying in the chair next to me all the while with a look of abject terror on his face because he's next. Perhaps though he didn't listen to his father... he told me you don't have to floss your teeth, just the ones you want to keep...an adage that went through the best of times and the worst of times in a very short time span today. I got up and asked the dentist if he ever saw "The Marathon Man" with Dustin Hoffman and the Angel of Death Josef Mengali as a deranged German Gestapo dentist...he replied with a pretty good impersonation of a sinisterly implication that yes he remembered that movie...So there you go..from Hemingway to Shakespeare to Hollywood.
As I hobbled from medical, GOD reminded me that losing that tooth, albeit tragic on its own merit, can't compete with those whom are losing limbs in wars, minds to disease, loved ones to divorce...and so in HIS infinite compassion pointed me up to think on HIM, and all I have to look forward to once rid of such corruptibleness as this old flesh. PRAISE HIM for that always. Beside he says if that foot offend thee cut it off, better to enter in halt and lame....
later..dougie boy
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Softly and gently...
...JESUS is calling...calling to carry you home...won't you all come with?
love as always...dougie boy...it's getting late
love as always...dougie boy...it's getting late
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