Sunday, December 25, 2011
Merry Christmas!!!!
I want to tell you guys that JESUS saved me from me...it's not too sad waking up in prison on this wonderful morning that we celebrate the ONE and ONLY by which all might be saved....THE CHRIST....I love you guys...you know Luke 2..good tidings....good will toward men/women /children...the pets too!...later...dougie boy
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Hello out there...
...I have been out of pockets in sort of a peculiar fashion. In searching for reasons for my discontent I come back to me..."Surely after my turning, I repented; and after I was instructed, I struck myself on the thigh...(all about the head and shoulders in my case too!)...I was ashamed, yes, even humiliated, because I bore the reproach of my youth." Jeremiah 31:19 delivers such a stark realization of my plight..and fight. When sinners come to a right and sure knowledge they will find the right and sure way. Sinners could become saints if they would but show themselves men...Isaiah 46:8...if they would but support the dignity of their nature and use aright its powers and capacities. "But on this one will I look on: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word." Trust me here friends when I say to you that GOD brings fears by making our sins our punishments--beating us with our own rods when we at first hurried to ruin by wroughting out delusional behaviors which we should of been afraid of yet thought to escape via sinful shifts in carnal desire. You can tell where a man is going in the hereafter by what is going after here--my prison time and experience is the mentor of all this. Ponderibus librata suis- Poised by its own weight.
Praise HIS name though! "Fear thou not....neither be dismayed." GOD'S servants must not give way to disquieting fears and difficulties before them. They must not sorrow as those who have no hope for the troubles which they presently lie under. If you look to the world for help soon it will fail. Either through a societal boredom, death of such a one, or the advent of something more appealing than aiding the suffrage of any. (Who talks like this?..me!) Carnal confidences fail. Creatures created are physicians of no value. Be the disease ever so dangerous, the patient is safe if GOD undertakes the cure. JESUS is like that!
Lately I have been coming to the computer fully expecting a plethora of messages from all whom I stay in regular contact..but alas! To my dismay little have been the electronic missives from which I derive semblance of normalcy in this razorwire land. Not to fault those maintaining relations. After all they have families and bills and work..and just a general life to speak of. But me? I got this standstill existence--a groundhog day life from which even the littlest communique tossed my way will send me head over heels and agog with the thought that someone cares. And don't get me wrong, I have carved this nefarious niche to which I owe my prison stay, so I can say with much aplomb that gratefulness is my posture of need when I do get to hear from you all. I don't write these blogs to garner response (though that'd be neat if they did), the folks that do send me their e-mails are in my history book of learning, for it is they who visit me in my most dire downtime. A special thanks to Patti-Sue...Tara..Sophie the Six...Kim...all women....that's who JESUS appeared to first after HE was resurrected. "Quit ye like men be strong"...the Scriptures tell me...my son Dojo does this passage justice..a real man that I was not...way to go David..I pray for all you guys..I'm here willing to reach out and discourse on whatever crosses your beaten path...or just "Crosses....the one less chosen has taken me years to hack away the foliage fraught with a rectitude of self and not the reliance of CHRIST...it is there where I do find true comfort...it is there where HE sends me friends to talk to like this.
...thanks for listening.
...later...dougie boy
Praise HIS name though! "Fear thou not....neither be dismayed." GOD'S servants must not give way to disquieting fears and difficulties before them. They must not sorrow as those who have no hope for the troubles which they presently lie under. If you look to the world for help soon it will fail. Either through a societal boredom, death of such a one, or the advent of something more appealing than aiding the suffrage of any. (Who talks like this?..me!) Carnal confidences fail. Creatures created are physicians of no value. Be the disease ever so dangerous, the patient is safe if GOD undertakes the cure. JESUS is like that!
Lately I have been coming to the computer fully expecting a plethora of messages from all whom I stay in regular contact..but alas! To my dismay little have been the electronic missives from which I derive semblance of normalcy in this razorwire land. Not to fault those maintaining relations. After all they have families and bills and work..and just a general life to speak of. But me? I got this standstill existence--a groundhog day life from which even the littlest communique tossed my way will send me head over heels and agog with the thought that someone cares. And don't get me wrong, I have carved this nefarious niche to which I owe my prison stay, so I can say with much aplomb that gratefulness is my posture of need when I do get to hear from you all. I don't write these blogs to garner response (though that'd be neat if they did), the folks that do send me their e-mails are in my history book of learning, for it is they who visit me in my most dire downtime. A special thanks to Patti-Sue...Tara..Sophie the Six...Kim...all women....that's who JESUS appeared to first after HE was resurrected. "Quit ye like men be strong"...the Scriptures tell me...my son Dojo does this passage justice..a real man that I was not...way to go David..I pray for all you guys..I'm here willing to reach out and discourse on whatever crosses your beaten path...or just "Crosses....the one less chosen has taken me years to hack away the foliage fraught with a rectitude of self and not the reliance of CHRIST...it is there where I do find true comfort...it is there where HE sends me friends to talk to like this.
...thanks for listening.
...later...dougie boy
Monday, October 10, 2011
I pray for...
..an hegira from this place of prison. Over these years of incarceration I have been privy to all licentiousness that man can invent within the confines of a desperately wicked heart. Jeremiah tells of this at length in his prophecy. Even the example of Lot who/whom (you make the call) for not wanting the men to sodomize his guests, offered up his daughters as a stave to protect the men who were sent by GOD to direct him to safety. What a paradox we have here. Still though it bespeaks (who talks like this?) volumes about how bad company corrupts good manners. Homo Homini Lupus (no play on words intended) "Man is a wolf to man". To traduce further the company I have been keeping these years (to include myself at times) although the inculcation should extrapolate those infringed by such wanton hardship from that road of hard knocks, still we keep coming back..."as a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool to his folly"...so Proverbs own pedagogy lays out for those wanting to be exercised by it.
There are those who are so dastardly as I dare not come near..I can't say miles because proximity is the business that rules us prison folk, but I can run athwart of dirty deeds done dirt cheap by circumspect of a different ilk learned through diligence of study in HIS WORD. "Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?" Amos 3:3. Where there is no friendship there can be no fellowship; if two persons be at variance, they must accommodate the matters between them before there can be any interchanging of good offices. It's true being straightened out is painful, and often times lengthy, but being left crooked will ultimately hurt even more.
As I sit here writing this there are no less than 100 men not but a Buick's throw away...as I said "proximity" at its most perilous precaution. Tomorrow in retrospect of our last September's riot the gang responsible, which have been in protective custody since then, are going to be let back out on the compound. I can't wait! Agog I tell ya! For some strange reason the BOP believes either one of two things (both of which are bad): that the gang in question although entrenched (dare I say mired) in its belief system that all whom are not of their ilk, and display a proclivity of such ludicrous denouncement must suffer the brunt of like activity that got them hemmed up September last. They are assuming a "peace treaty" has been struck with the other rivals, and it'll be just peachy-keen when they release the "Cracken". Silly BOP! Violence is for inmates...tricks are for manipulation. It may not be right away--biding time is a pastime of all denizens in a prison proper. Hopefully I will a great distance from it when it does jump off. I've seen my share of murders, maimings, stabbings, and pummelings to last several lifetimes. They have already told us that we will be locked down for a least two days in order to properly assimilate the bangers back into population.
To me gangs of any fashion are mostly rife with cowards. Strength in numbers as the saying flies about here as if a locked up lottery bin will get an edge come fisticuffs. But in this place shanks prevail even though guards do their level best to discover all the nooks and crannies. But they just work here...we live it out day to day. So I dare to take up the CROSS of CHRIST and discharge my duty to HIM less I run with the desperation of malice into all manner of abominable wickedness. Mainly because I know the punishment for those unwilling to accept THE TRUTH...an eternity to always be dying. Thus the misery of the damned will illustrate the blessedness of the saved, and the blessedness of the saved will aggravate the misery of those that are damned. But my friends it is the charitable heart not the voluble tongue that is acceptable with GOD. Both ends of the spectrum, be they minions of gangland warfare, or saintly crusaders for the lost, have a tractableness that is assuaged by our alliance to what motors our boat in a sea of malfeasance. I can't help but see Scripture that beckons me to a Holy lifestyle. "Sure," my family and friends may say, "now he wants to do right!" It's true though...wisdom is learned through much grief and suffering. I want my holiness to not just be merely external and in outward fashion, so as to prevent blame from men (in some cases incur it), but I need it to be internal and real.
On one of Paul's epistles from prison some have observed that what this apostle wrote when he was a prisoner had the greatest relish and savour in it of the things of GOD. When tribulations abound, consolations and experiences did much more abound. So we may see that the afflictive exercises of GOD'S people, and particularly of HIS ministers, often tend to the advantage of others as well as to their own.
Okay my friends (I love to call all you guys that...even though the Red Sox didn't make it to the play-offs..haha) reaching to you all in this way lifts me in an unspeakable joy that CHRIST has reserved for me. Thanks for listening! Always here...if you write back and you don't hear from me for a minute, remember: the cracken thing could confine me in my cell, but my mind roams about in prayer for all...
James 5:16
...later...dougie boy
There are those who are so dastardly as I dare not come near..I can't say miles because proximity is the business that rules us prison folk, but I can run athwart of dirty deeds done dirt cheap by circumspect of a different ilk learned through diligence of study in HIS WORD. "Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?" Amos 3:3. Where there is no friendship there can be no fellowship; if two persons be at variance, they must accommodate the matters between them before there can be any interchanging of good offices. It's true being straightened out is painful, and often times lengthy, but being left crooked will ultimately hurt even more.
As I sit here writing this there are no less than 100 men not but a Buick's throw away...as I said "proximity" at its most perilous precaution. Tomorrow in retrospect of our last September's riot the gang responsible, which have been in protective custody since then, are going to be let back out on the compound. I can't wait! Agog I tell ya! For some strange reason the BOP believes either one of two things (both of which are bad): that the gang in question although entrenched (dare I say mired) in its belief system that all whom are not of their ilk, and display a proclivity of such ludicrous denouncement must suffer the brunt of like activity that got them hemmed up September last. They are assuming a "peace treaty" has been struck with the other rivals, and it'll be just peachy-keen when they release the "Cracken". Silly BOP! Violence is for inmates...tricks are for manipulation. It may not be right away--biding time is a pastime of all denizens in a prison proper. Hopefully I will a great distance from it when it does jump off. I've seen my share of murders, maimings, stabbings, and pummelings to last several lifetimes. They have already told us that we will be locked down for a least two days in order to properly assimilate the bangers back into population.
To me gangs of any fashion are mostly rife with cowards. Strength in numbers as the saying flies about here as if a locked up lottery bin will get an edge come fisticuffs. But in this place shanks prevail even though guards do their level best to discover all the nooks and crannies. But they just work here...we live it out day to day. So I dare to take up the CROSS of CHRIST and discharge my duty to HIM less I run with the desperation of malice into all manner of abominable wickedness. Mainly because I know the punishment for those unwilling to accept THE TRUTH...an eternity to always be dying. Thus the misery of the damned will illustrate the blessedness of the saved, and the blessedness of the saved will aggravate the misery of those that are damned. But my friends it is the charitable heart not the voluble tongue that is acceptable with GOD. Both ends of the spectrum, be they minions of gangland warfare, or saintly crusaders for the lost, have a tractableness that is assuaged by our alliance to what motors our boat in a sea of malfeasance. I can't help but see Scripture that beckons me to a Holy lifestyle. "Sure," my family and friends may say, "now he wants to do right!" It's true though...wisdom is learned through much grief and suffering. I want my holiness to not just be merely external and in outward fashion, so as to prevent blame from men (in some cases incur it), but I need it to be internal and real.
On one of Paul's epistles from prison some have observed that what this apostle wrote when he was a prisoner had the greatest relish and savour in it of the things of GOD. When tribulations abound, consolations and experiences did much more abound. So we may see that the afflictive exercises of GOD'S people, and particularly of HIS ministers, often tend to the advantage of others as well as to their own.
Okay my friends (I love to call all you guys that...even though the Red Sox didn't make it to the play-offs..haha) reaching to you all in this way lifts me in an unspeakable joy that CHRIST has reserved for me. Thanks for listening! Always here...if you write back and you don't hear from me for a minute, remember: the cracken thing could confine me in my cell, but my mind roams about in prayer for all...
James 5:16
...later...dougie boy
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Thoughts on Things...
..yesterday I came back from the second game of the championship best two out of three series in softball here in prison. We were battling back from the loser's bracket..been there, got the shirt..and stripes...we won. Which leaves us to fight another day for the season's coveted convict appellate of being the best here where none of us has been that. So needless to say in an effort to make a name for yourself where the sea of anonymity washes about here with mordant lubricity, you really strive for some sports notoriety. The other stuff we're experts at being notorious for.
Well...Sam and I have been cellies (rooming together) for over three years now, and the journey has been fraught with enduring riots, standstill happenstances, and just your basic prison nomenclature from which some derive their knowledge from the media, magazines or the menace we caused. Cell changes are probably the worst thing one endures here after being ensconced for a decade...hate even being able to come close to comprehending that. As I walked up the unit steps the turnkey (guard of housing unit) tells me that we have a new cellie. He furthers this with a type of admonishment that will soon be fully felt as I enter the domicile from which I hale as a solitary Christian man fighting the good fight..
Sure you must think: Jail-house Billy Graham here (that's cool..it's a big boat), but the true Christian saint walks alone--JESUS preached it so, and I see it in here up close and personal...frequently. "If I say 'my foot slips,' YOUR mercy will hold me up. In the multitude of my anxieties within me, YOUR comforts delight my soul."(Psalm 94).
The guard tells me in that conspiratorial whisper reserved for those who want to tell of secrets others have, that Sam and I's new cellie is a scared one, and that I might need to show him the ropes--"hopefully," he says "the man isn't up there using these to hang himself," he retorts...expecting some witty repartee from me. Compassion is not lost here, it's just hiding out in the form of malice. As I enter the unit no less than 100 men turn my way to see it's me; and exactly how I'm going to handle the new cellie situation. Which of course gives me that pause convicts are known for that says something's going on to which I am fixing to find out about proper. They've been in here talking it up; some disguising their true feelings towards the likes of me and others whom aren't affiliated with the ilk of ill-reputed gangland garbage which is just a playground philandering of their little minds stuck on stupid (arrested development has got nothing on these Neanderthals). I immediately sense the waywardness of it. I too, have been stuck on imbecilic meanderings.
Walking in the direction of my cell. I contemplate a few things...one being that Sam always misses out on these initial deals. What does he know that I don't? His spidey sense must be more acute than mine. The other that perhaps it's a black man they put in our cell (Heaven forbid!)...or a sureno...or an ms13...or blood...or crip...or white supremacist...or, if worse comes to worse, another CHRISTian! How is Gonier gonna act? Let's lie in wait to see. "Our secret sins... in the light of YOUR countenance." Those which go no further than the heart, and which are at the bottom of all the overt acts.
See the folly of those who go about to cover their sins, for they cannot do so. "It is often the case that the paradoxes that so typified JESUS' teaching are expansive, complex, and nuanced...if you'll allow me that. It requires mulling and wrestling, it forces huge shifts in paradigm and eventually, practice." Culled from Carolyn Arends' "Wrestling with Angels". I mixed it up a bit...what else is new?
Okay back to the cell dilemma. As I walked into my cell shedding the chameleon eyes upon me, I see what all the kerfuffle is about. Standing before me after he had to use the toilet because he's been on a Bureau of Prison bus all day to get to this mountain top, was a man that fit perfectly into the pre-conceived appearance of the most hated of all prisoners...a child molester. A deep breath explodes out of me as a kind of gag reflex, which I immediately regret because here before me is a truly hurting soul, that may have committed heinous things beyond my understanding, and I'm okay with the hundreds of men outside my cell door that are robbers, murderers, gang-bangers...even extortionists. But this type of prisoner is what other types of prisoners are horrified at. So you take the dregs (that'd be me) of our look-orientated society and you pit them against you. There is no chance you can survive (literally) in this place with that jacket welded to your flesh. And all those men outside my cell want to see what I plan on doing about it.
Friggin' Sam! Always ducking these fun-filled adventures.
The status-quo of these ill-fated liaisons is vetted out by discovering if the man is in here for that crime. Just because he looks the part doesn't mean he's done the part. I've met men whom I've conversed with for quite sometime before discovering that they shot three people in a mall, killed a whole family, raped countless numbers of women, sold meth to grade schoolers, engaged in human slavery... all these things are okay though, but this guy here in front of me just won't do.
He reaches out his hand to me to introduce himself as if I am the keeper of the Holy Grail. He is desperate for acceptance...this in and of itself is not the clincher for labeling him with the umbrage of convicts everywhere, but it's a start, so they say. The psychology of inmates goes well beyond AA, into the confines of the mind where platitudes of glory are handed out for the gory. I feign dirty hands from the softball game (which is partially accurate, at least I want it to be that) in order not to familiarize myself too quickly. After all, 100 men are waiting... I'm in a state here now because I am a CHRISTian and a tortured and tormented soul is before me.
I spend about five minutes getting my shower stuff together. I put to him about his crime...usually most proffer this as rite of passage into the prison lore of badness. Most lie as much as this guy is fixing to do. He tells me he's here because of "drugs"--only it isn't so much a statement as it is a trying out period for him...on me. Kinda like "drugs?" I think I am the first person he's giving it a go on, given these instructions by his lawyer to lie (imagine that) because they too, know what treatment he is headed for in here...a meanness he wishes he could equate to those children he hurt, but it's a rougher go...strapped over a 55 gallon drum..hands tied to feet...you get the ugliness I'm sure.
His try fell on my deaf ears as I think for the quickened time when I wanted my sins washed away too. I leave him wallowing in that questionable state that strikes fear in him because as I exit the cell, the 200 eyes firmly affixed on Gonier, he beelines straight to the guard to ask for political asylum. The "proteco" of the inmate's social standing...protective custody. In the shower I am defeated in a way I can't quite explain. Ineffable to the max. Why couldn't I witness with some brief kindness about the love of CHRIST I so often tout about to the judgmental bastards herein? Was self-preservation that tantamount to my very existence here?
It was then (and maybe again) GOD gave me strength as I wept silently in the shower stall..spilling my tears with the water that was washing away the dirt from the hands I didn't want to welcome him with. "Out damn spot!" "For HE is coming to judge the earth....and the peoples with equity."(Psalm 98:9) It's even difficult for me to use Scripture right now...how convicting of a work is that by the HOLY GHOST?
As I exited the shower that man was being escorted out of the unit to protective custody. And the other men were giving me their stained looks of approval: Way to make him check in Gonier...Good job...No chomos (short for child molesters). Never have I felt so sleighted in my walk with my LORD. Because it wasn't a good job by a long shot..and so those who persist in a sinful life sufficiently demonstrate that they are not born of GOD. Is that me? The Scripture tells me to examine myself daily...and so I did...weighed in the balance and found wanting. Hind and quartered by that sanctimonious behavior that excels other sins well and far above what mine are all about. True CHRISTianity establishes that which is of common concern to all mankind, and is not built upon such narrow opinions and private interests as sects commonly owe their origin to. The regenerate person is happily disabled for sin. There is a restraint, an embargo, if you will, laid upon his sinning powers. It goes against him sedately and deliberately to sin. "You who love the LORD, hate evil"(Psalm 97:10)
Well my friends I had a go of it all here as of late. The victory on the softball field paled in comparison to my failing attempt at true agape as was, and is bestowed on me by JESUS. Hopefully if given another chance and I'm certain I will, perhaps I'll handle it differently. I love you guys...love me too...please...
later...dougie boy
...and pray I ask for that man. I didn't at first and the taste still resonating in my mouth the day after is sour.
Well...Sam and I have been cellies (rooming together) for over three years now, and the journey has been fraught with enduring riots, standstill happenstances, and just your basic prison nomenclature from which some derive their knowledge from the media, magazines or the menace we caused. Cell changes are probably the worst thing one endures here after being ensconced for a decade...hate even being able to come close to comprehending that. As I walked up the unit steps the turnkey (guard of housing unit) tells me that we have a new cellie. He furthers this with a type of admonishment that will soon be fully felt as I enter the domicile from which I hale as a solitary Christian man fighting the good fight..
Sure you must think: Jail-house Billy Graham here (that's cool..it's a big boat), but the true Christian saint walks alone--JESUS preached it so, and I see it in here up close and personal...frequently. "If I say 'my foot slips,' YOUR mercy will hold me up. In the multitude of my anxieties within me, YOUR comforts delight my soul."(Psalm 94).
The guard tells me in that conspiratorial whisper reserved for those who want to tell of secrets others have, that Sam and I's new cellie is a scared one, and that I might need to show him the ropes--"hopefully," he says "the man isn't up there using these to hang himself," he retorts...expecting some witty repartee from me. Compassion is not lost here, it's just hiding out in the form of malice. As I enter the unit no less than 100 men turn my way to see it's me; and exactly how I'm going to handle the new cellie situation. Which of course gives me that pause convicts are known for that says something's going on to which I am fixing to find out about proper. They've been in here talking it up; some disguising their true feelings towards the likes of me and others whom aren't affiliated with the ilk of ill-reputed gangland garbage which is just a playground philandering of their little minds stuck on stupid (arrested development has got nothing on these Neanderthals). I immediately sense the waywardness of it. I too, have been stuck on imbecilic meanderings.
Walking in the direction of my cell. I contemplate a few things...one being that Sam always misses out on these initial deals. What does he know that I don't? His spidey sense must be more acute than mine. The other that perhaps it's a black man they put in our cell (Heaven forbid!)...or a sureno...or an ms13...or blood...or crip...or white supremacist...or, if worse comes to worse, another CHRISTian! How is Gonier gonna act? Let's lie in wait to see. "Our secret sins... in the light of YOUR countenance." Those which go no further than the heart, and which are at the bottom of all the overt acts.
See the folly of those who go about to cover their sins, for they cannot do so. "It is often the case that the paradoxes that so typified JESUS' teaching are expansive, complex, and nuanced...if you'll allow me that. It requires mulling and wrestling, it forces huge shifts in paradigm and eventually, practice." Culled from Carolyn Arends' "Wrestling with Angels". I mixed it up a bit...what else is new?
Okay back to the cell dilemma. As I walked into my cell shedding the chameleon eyes upon me, I see what all the kerfuffle is about. Standing before me after he had to use the toilet because he's been on a Bureau of Prison bus all day to get to this mountain top, was a man that fit perfectly into the pre-conceived appearance of the most hated of all prisoners...a child molester. A deep breath explodes out of me as a kind of gag reflex, which I immediately regret because here before me is a truly hurting soul, that may have committed heinous things beyond my understanding, and I'm okay with the hundreds of men outside my cell door that are robbers, murderers, gang-bangers...even extortionists. But this type of prisoner is what other types of prisoners are horrified at. So you take the dregs (that'd be me) of our look-orientated society and you pit them against you. There is no chance you can survive (literally) in this place with that jacket welded to your flesh. And all those men outside my cell want to see what I plan on doing about it.
Friggin' Sam! Always ducking these fun-filled adventures.
The status-quo of these ill-fated liaisons is vetted out by discovering if the man is in here for that crime. Just because he looks the part doesn't mean he's done the part. I've met men whom I've conversed with for quite sometime before discovering that they shot three people in a mall, killed a whole family, raped countless numbers of women, sold meth to grade schoolers, engaged in human slavery... all these things are okay though, but this guy here in front of me just won't do.
He reaches out his hand to me to introduce himself as if I am the keeper of the Holy Grail. He is desperate for acceptance...this in and of itself is not the clincher for labeling him with the umbrage of convicts everywhere, but it's a start, so they say. The psychology of inmates goes well beyond AA, into the confines of the mind where platitudes of glory are handed out for the gory. I feign dirty hands from the softball game (which is partially accurate, at least I want it to be that) in order not to familiarize myself too quickly. After all, 100 men are waiting... I'm in a state here now because I am a CHRISTian and a tortured and tormented soul is before me.
I spend about five minutes getting my shower stuff together. I put to him about his crime...usually most proffer this as rite of passage into the prison lore of badness. Most lie as much as this guy is fixing to do. He tells me he's here because of "drugs"--only it isn't so much a statement as it is a trying out period for him...on me. Kinda like "drugs?" I think I am the first person he's giving it a go on, given these instructions by his lawyer to lie (imagine that) because they too, know what treatment he is headed for in here...a meanness he wishes he could equate to those children he hurt, but it's a rougher go...strapped over a 55 gallon drum..hands tied to feet...you get the ugliness I'm sure.
His try fell on my deaf ears as I think for the quickened time when I wanted my sins washed away too. I leave him wallowing in that questionable state that strikes fear in him because as I exit the cell, the 200 eyes firmly affixed on Gonier, he beelines straight to the guard to ask for political asylum. The "proteco" of the inmate's social standing...protective custody. In the shower I am defeated in a way I can't quite explain. Ineffable to the max. Why couldn't I witness with some brief kindness about the love of CHRIST I so often tout about to the judgmental bastards herein? Was self-preservation that tantamount to my very existence here?
It was then (and maybe again) GOD gave me strength as I wept silently in the shower stall..spilling my tears with the water that was washing away the dirt from the hands I didn't want to welcome him with. "Out damn spot!" "For HE is coming to judge the earth....and the peoples with equity."(Psalm 98:9) It's even difficult for me to use Scripture right now...how convicting of a work is that by the HOLY GHOST?
As I exited the shower that man was being escorted out of the unit to protective custody. And the other men were giving me their stained looks of approval: Way to make him check in Gonier...Good job...No chomos (short for child molesters). Never have I felt so sleighted in my walk with my LORD. Because it wasn't a good job by a long shot..and so those who persist in a sinful life sufficiently demonstrate that they are not born of GOD. Is that me? The Scripture tells me to examine myself daily...and so I did...weighed in the balance and found wanting. Hind and quartered by that sanctimonious behavior that excels other sins well and far above what mine are all about. True CHRISTianity establishes that which is of common concern to all mankind, and is not built upon such narrow opinions and private interests as sects commonly owe their origin to. The regenerate person is happily disabled for sin. There is a restraint, an embargo, if you will, laid upon his sinning powers. It goes against him sedately and deliberately to sin. "You who love the LORD, hate evil"(Psalm 97:10)
Well my friends I had a go of it all here as of late. The victory on the softball field paled in comparison to my failing attempt at true agape as was, and is bestowed on me by JESUS. Hopefully if given another chance and I'm certain I will, perhaps I'll handle it differently. I love you guys...love me too...please...
later...dougie boy
...and pray I ask for that man. I didn't at first and the taste still resonating in my mouth the day after is sour.
"Jiam nova progenies coelo demittitur alto, te duce, si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri, irrita perpetua formidine terras aspice, venturo laetentur ut omnia saeclo."
"A new race descends from the lofty sky, thy influence shall efface every stain of corruption, and free the world from alarm, see how this promised age makes all rejoice."
Sunday, May 22, 2011
It has been...
..a definite while since my last blog. I was wondering as in writer's block, if a type of "blogblock" exists. If so, then I've picked up the virtualness of such a thing recently.
Many things to write on my friends, and where to begin is the troubling spot. One of our APAP men was beat up pretty badly yesterday. He was involved in unsavory things (get out of town..in here?). Although I tried with desperation to warn him repeatedly of the lie down with dogs get fleas axiom of such predictable anathema in here, still, like me...(it's important to remember but for the grace of GOD go I) he has to find out where that school of hard knocks firmly holds counsel. And found out he did.
Gambling is a pernicious addiction that can create a whole new genre of rationalizing to those unsuspecting of its gambit. Laying the footwork within the foundation of lies. One never knows that the worst thing that besets a gambler is winning. Then illusions of grandeur build that mendacious house of cards from whence the wind will blow it down with such a gentle breeze..instead for me now.."A mighty fortress is our GOD". The most heinous of crimes I ever commited was in Las Vegas (just going there is a felony). I won't get into the machinations of it because I told my sister of it one day, and she didn't talk to me for six months.
Oftentimes men in here will go about purporting how "good" they were at being or doing bad. I now point out the oxymoronicness of such..well...moronness..many think I have gone the route of senility. You can never be good at doing something bad. Still I must say in efforts to thwart wrong doing in my life, the evidence that demands a verdict is thusly put in apropos which tells us that ...Lot was sorely vexed by the behaviors surrounding him..(paraphrasing the book of Peter)...when in the throes of besetting sinful actions on a daily basis, it is a tough call to remain faithful to one's walk with our SAVIOR JESUS. Impossible? No. But when pornography/gambling/violence/deceit, is not only thrust at you all over this place (including the myriad avenues it travels over the six flat screen televisions we got) then lusting, as well the accroutrements that follow suit to this, and all disrobing fleshly assault to the senses, it is a full-time battle. Should there be anything less though? I think not.."For in this world you will have tribulation." The warfare of spiritual fidelity is all in with its benefits giving sway to remaining in HIM at all costs.
To a chase of a different sort....softball season is in all its regalia here. I wish I could send off snippets of the antics that take place out on the field. Short stories abound! I hope to capture some of the hilarity, as well the heinous, of what can happen in a day's play on the diamond. Above and beyond I tell you of what is considered America's past time. Our team, The "A" leaguers, are in first place...5 and 1 so far and the talk of the compound is everyone wanting to take us down a peg. We are the "Rangers" (of Texas ilk) in honor of my son's Dojo's favorite squad...never the Yankees! Rosemary's fave....mine of course being the indomitable Red Sox..which is the name of my "B" leaguers...we're 2 and 2...struggling for sure because I got me some gangbangers on the team that are having a hard time understanding and accepting coaching from a guy who looks suspiciously like either the Judge that sentenced them, or the cops that arrested them...but I'm working on winning their favor..might take a hot minute..but it's always in my periphery that perhaps I could win some to JESUS. And so I press on...helping me along this pathway are a few good men who want change too...accountability is one of the toughest accepting endeavors a CHRISTian will always face if true change is gonna come.
Okay my friends..I am praying for all...including family ties (not the sitcom for those reaching back that far..haha) Me...I'm gonna keep on hitting the ball and touching 'em all until they wheelchair me...
Until then...agape...Psalm 27...
later..dougie boy
Many things to write on my friends, and where to begin is the troubling spot. One of our APAP men was beat up pretty badly yesterday. He was involved in unsavory things (get out of town..in here?). Although I tried with desperation to warn him repeatedly of the lie down with dogs get fleas axiom of such predictable anathema in here, still, like me...(it's important to remember but for the grace of GOD go I) he has to find out where that school of hard knocks firmly holds counsel. And found out he did.
Gambling is a pernicious addiction that can create a whole new genre of rationalizing to those unsuspecting of its gambit. Laying the footwork within the foundation of lies. One never knows that the worst thing that besets a gambler is winning. Then illusions of grandeur build that mendacious house of cards from whence the wind will blow it down with such a gentle breeze..instead for me now.."A mighty fortress is our GOD". The most heinous of crimes I ever commited was in Las Vegas (just going there is a felony). I won't get into the machinations of it because I told my sister of it one day, and she didn't talk to me for six months.
Oftentimes men in here will go about purporting how "good" they were at being or doing bad. I now point out the oxymoronicness of such..well...moronness..many think I have gone the route of senility. You can never be good at doing something bad. Still I must say in efforts to thwart wrong doing in my life, the evidence that demands a verdict is thusly put in apropos which tells us that ...Lot was sorely vexed by the behaviors surrounding him..(paraphrasing the book of Peter)...when in the throes of besetting sinful actions on a daily basis, it is a tough call to remain faithful to one's walk with our SAVIOR JESUS. Impossible? No. But when pornography/gambling/violence/deceit, is not only thrust at you all over this place (including the myriad avenues it travels over the six flat screen televisions we got) then lusting, as well the accroutrements that follow suit to this, and all disrobing fleshly assault to the senses, it is a full-time battle. Should there be anything less though? I think not.."For in this world you will have tribulation." The warfare of spiritual fidelity is all in with its benefits giving sway to remaining in HIM at all costs.
To a chase of a different sort....softball season is in all its regalia here. I wish I could send off snippets of the antics that take place out on the field. Short stories abound! I hope to capture some of the hilarity, as well the heinous, of what can happen in a day's play on the diamond. Above and beyond I tell you of what is considered America's past time. Our team, The "A" leaguers, are in first place...5 and 1 so far and the talk of the compound is everyone wanting to take us down a peg. We are the "Rangers" (of Texas ilk) in honor of my son's Dojo's favorite squad...never the Yankees! Rosemary's fave....mine of course being the indomitable Red Sox..which is the name of my "B" leaguers...we're 2 and 2...struggling for sure because I got me some gangbangers on the team that are having a hard time understanding and accepting coaching from a guy who looks suspiciously like either the Judge that sentenced them, or the cops that arrested them...but I'm working on winning their favor..might take a hot minute..but it's always in my periphery that perhaps I could win some to JESUS. And so I press on...helping me along this pathway are a few good men who want change too...accountability is one of the toughest accepting endeavors a CHRISTian will always face if true change is gonna come.
Okay my friends..I am praying for all...including family ties (not the sitcom for those reaching back that far..haha) Me...I'm gonna keep on hitting the ball and touching 'em all until they wheelchair me...
Until then...agape...Psalm 27...
later..dougie boy
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Happy Resurrection Sunday!
I would blog to you all a lengthy dougie boy type message, but low on funds will keep me at bay for now. Soon though I'll send out something. In the meanwhile...HE IS RISEN! Yeah!
GOD bless you guys!
I'm alive and kicking here in prison...can't keep a good man down...and when you all find one...haha...Psalm 27 has been a good read for me lately...love to all...
later..dougie boy
GOD bless you guys!
I'm alive and kicking here in prison...can't keep a good man down...and when you all find one...haha...Psalm 27 has been a good read for me lately...love to all...
later..dougie boy
Friday, March 25, 2011
The Painting...
I called my beloved sister, Patti-Sue, on Friday the 19th. She and her son Brett were over at Mom's house collecting up the stuff that still remained since her passing in December. Not wanting to talk due to...well just being amongst her Mom's stuff. Memories are a tough business in those circumstances. She talked briefly with me to let me know that the painting which was left to me in Mom's will was going over to her house to await my release from prison. At which time I can firmly affix it to my abode, wherever that may be. Couldn't say much more, I can tell when my sister is in her feelings about things..now if I can just corral that unique intuition when it comes to other women...well maybe I would be on to something.
Anyway we hung up, but not before (to his credit) my nephew Brett gets the phone and tells me he loves me and misses me. That is not said much to me so a special kudos to my man Brett.
I walk away from the phone thinking about the difficulties of what those situations I missed being a part of affect all the rest of the folks other than my self-centered universal on-going 'what about me?' thought processes that consume the best of us..and the worse. I decided to occupy the remainder of my ground hog day existence here in prison by diving into the softball field. We often escape to that which we feel most adept at in order to align the onus firmly laid upon the shoulder of an ill-fated destiny because of our choices.
I went out to the softball field on the rec move at 5 pm. Our field is a mess, but it's all we got. If we don't take care of it...and there's not a whole bunch of men in here wanting to honor what is given them in an American Federal prison. I tell guys who are chronic with their complaining, (and I can get there too..as a matter of fact I'm complaining about them complaining right now don't you think?) that if you were to get put in some third world country's prison system for about three hours, well your whole outlook about this place would change dramatically.
I grabbed a hard rake(it's got inch prongs to dig in to the field, which has been cut out of a mountain so mostly you're digging up shale and rocks) and proceeded to turn the whole infield over in my attempt to ease the pain of what my sister is dealing with, and what is going to be Mom's first posthumous birthday tomorrow the 20th. I went after it for 3 hours...only because "recall"...a term used to bring all the inmates back to the housing units at any given time...is always at 8:30. They want us in before the street lights come on. Sound familiar? Several inmates came up to the field to witness me (sure now they want to be a witness) toil away to the backbreaking labor of digging up this earth...so says our GOD in the book of Genesis (and Tara and Paul can attest to as well). I could've used some help, but they wanted to look and stare instead."Look at that idiot out there trying to do the whole field by himself..."
They didn't know what was happening as the wheels of that painting were etching its way across my mind. Once on the other side of the pitcher's mound I thought I could make it...my parents did a heck of a job in instilling a work ethic that'll never have a Gonier in the welfare line if he/she can put the deltoid to the grind. But time got the best of me (not punny) and I managed just a bit of...oh say...a 4 to 5 foot swath on the very back of the field undone. And I was too! As I lay in my bunk that night, nursing ye old sore back, the paradox of memory upon my conscious opened itself up to the pandora's box of recall, and try as I may I could not eradicate where that painting had come from.
I was eleven and we had just returned from a three year tour in Panama. All in the military will agree that when the head of the household goes out to the dutiful call of service, then the rest of the family comes along for the ride. We had the summer to spend in Massachusetts (all of our relatives live there). My uncle had a little league baseball team, and I tried out for the catcher's spot. Did a good enough job to make the all-star team, and since Dad had came back from wherever he was..Greenland, Panama, Grenada, Suez Canal...he sent for us all to come back to 'ole Virginny--Mommsy and Gumby(Dad) abdicated many years ago their New England roots. But the all-star game--which was a precursor to the Little League World Series if we won--was in a week. So everyone else went, but Mommsy and I stayed back to cater to...me. We ended up losing, but not after I hit a 4th inning homerun to tie the game. Mom was cheering as if I was her son or something.
After it was all said and done we packed up soon to be Patti-Sue's 1972 Chevy Nova and lit out for the homestead in Woodbridge, Va. My Mom had a real affinity for paintings of seascapes and surf spray beating on the rocks of the shore. She bought one right before we left. Since we believed it couldn't ride in the car with us, we got a roof rack with those little not very good gripping hooks that let the painting fly on the Delaware Turnpike--bouncing all over the road as cars took their chances of pummeling it into an oil spill of a thing. We pulled over (not an easy feat on a turnpike I can tell you), but Mom really loved that painting. And since I want to defend her at all costs (not many have gotten away with those "your momma" comments) she went into a frenzied panicked sending me out to... "get the painting! get the painting!...be careful!!" This thing is looking like Alladin's Carpet! The frame skittering across the multi-lane highway and picking up its own speed as cars swerve and duck their way by it or through it. I'm readying myself for a mad dash into the speeding onslaught of metallic thunder. Fortunately some of the pieces started making their way towards me as I did the double dare ya's to Detroit's finest. And then all of a sudden as if a big vacuum sucked all the cars off the planet, there were none for as far as I could see. I ran for it! Scooping and grabbing as much as I could till I heard off in the distance but closing fast the horns from hell! I was through for Mommsy then, but I got a bunch of what was once P. Ellinshaw's "Surf Spray". As I made my way to the car which now had Mom screaming at me for being "such an idiot and what in tarnation was I thinking?! Running out in the middle of the freeway like a crazy person! Are you okay Dwouck?"...I'm like ...my parents are psycho.
I didn't know the depth of Mom's love to find the perfect waves crashing upon the rocks fetish, but soon discovered it as she took what I rescued from the macadam madness and had it reduced from what was once a 5 foot long ocean scape during a storm, and had it cut down to about 2 and a half feet..the name tag still bearing the scratches from its perilous journey of its own into my clutches on that memory filled afternoon.
So as I lay in my cell that night, I had all that to think on because Mommsy won't go gently into the night...not for me....not for Patti-Sue....not for Big Bro...Dennisky..or Danny Boy....more on what else happened on that fateful journey shared by mother and son....I love you guys as much as I can. You all pass that along....JESUS Saves...pass that along too!
later...dougie boy
Side Note: I apologize for the delay in getting this posted for Doug...I thought I posted it when I first got it and just realized that I hadn't. So, I apologize for this being a few days late ~Tara (the one who posts these for Doug)
Anyway we hung up, but not before (to his credit) my nephew Brett gets the phone and tells me he loves me and misses me. That is not said much to me so a special kudos to my man Brett.
I walk away from the phone thinking about the difficulties of what those situations I missed being a part of affect all the rest of the folks other than my self-centered universal on-going 'what about me?' thought processes that consume the best of us..and the worse. I decided to occupy the remainder of my ground hog day existence here in prison by diving into the softball field. We often escape to that which we feel most adept at in order to align the onus firmly laid upon the shoulder of an ill-fated destiny because of our choices.
I went out to the softball field on the rec move at 5 pm. Our field is a mess, but it's all we got. If we don't take care of it...and there's not a whole bunch of men in here wanting to honor what is given them in an American Federal prison. I tell guys who are chronic with their complaining, (and I can get there too..as a matter of fact I'm complaining about them complaining right now don't you think?) that if you were to get put in some third world country's prison system for about three hours, well your whole outlook about this place would change dramatically.
I grabbed a hard rake(it's got inch prongs to dig in to the field, which has been cut out of a mountain so mostly you're digging up shale and rocks) and proceeded to turn the whole infield over in my attempt to ease the pain of what my sister is dealing with, and what is going to be Mom's first posthumous birthday tomorrow the 20th. I went after it for 3 hours...only because "recall"...a term used to bring all the inmates back to the housing units at any given time...is always at 8:30. They want us in before the street lights come on. Sound familiar? Several inmates came up to the field to witness me (sure now they want to be a witness) toil away to the backbreaking labor of digging up this earth...so says our GOD in the book of Genesis (and Tara and Paul can attest to as well). I could've used some help, but they wanted to look and stare instead."Look at that idiot out there trying to do the whole field by himself..."
They didn't know what was happening as the wheels of that painting were etching its way across my mind. Once on the other side of the pitcher's mound I thought I could make it...my parents did a heck of a job in instilling a work ethic that'll never have a Gonier in the welfare line if he/she can put the deltoid to the grind. But time got the best of me (not punny) and I managed just a bit of...oh say...a 4 to 5 foot swath on the very back of the field undone. And I was too! As I lay in my bunk that night, nursing ye old sore back, the paradox of memory upon my conscious opened itself up to the pandora's box of recall, and try as I may I could not eradicate where that painting had come from.
I was eleven and we had just returned from a three year tour in Panama. All in the military will agree that when the head of the household goes out to the dutiful call of service, then the rest of the family comes along for the ride. We had the summer to spend in Massachusetts (all of our relatives live there). My uncle had a little league baseball team, and I tried out for the catcher's spot. Did a good enough job to make the all-star team, and since Dad had came back from wherever he was..Greenland, Panama, Grenada, Suez Canal...he sent for us all to come back to 'ole Virginny--Mommsy and Gumby(Dad) abdicated many years ago their New England roots. But the all-star game--which was a precursor to the Little League World Series if we won--was in a week. So everyone else went, but Mommsy and I stayed back to cater to...me. We ended up losing, but not after I hit a 4th inning homerun to tie the game. Mom was cheering as if I was her son or something.
After it was all said and done we packed up soon to be Patti-Sue's 1972 Chevy Nova and lit out for the homestead in Woodbridge, Va. My Mom had a real affinity for paintings of seascapes and surf spray beating on the rocks of the shore. She bought one right before we left. Since we believed it couldn't ride in the car with us, we got a roof rack with those little not very good gripping hooks that let the painting fly on the Delaware Turnpike--bouncing all over the road as cars took their chances of pummeling it into an oil spill of a thing. We pulled over (not an easy feat on a turnpike I can tell you), but Mom really loved that painting. And since I want to defend her at all costs (not many have gotten away with those "your momma" comments) she went into a frenzied panicked sending me out to... "get the painting! get the painting!...be careful!!" This thing is looking like Alladin's Carpet! The frame skittering across the multi-lane highway and picking up its own speed as cars swerve and duck their way by it or through it. I'm readying myself for a mad dash into the speeding onslaught of metallic thunder. Fortunately some of the pieces started making their way towards me as I did the double dare ya's to Detroit's finest. And then all of a sudden as if a big vacuum sucked all the cars off the planet, there were none for as far as I could see. I ran for it! Scooping and grabbing as much as I could till I heard off in the distance but closing fast the horns from hell! I was through for Mommsy then, but I got a bunch of what was once P. Ellinshaw's "Surf Spray". As I made my way to the car which now had Mom screaming at me for being "such an idiot and what in tarnation was I thinking?! Running out in the middle of the freeway like a crazy person! Are you okay Dwouck?"...I'm like ...my parents are psycho.
I didn't know the depth of Mom's love to find the perfect waves crashing upon the rocks fetish, but soon discovered it as she took what I rescued from the macadam madness and had it reduced from what was once a 5 foot long ocean scape during a storm, and had it cut down to about 2 and a half feet..the name tag still bearing the scratches from its perilous journey of its own into my clutches on that memory filled afternoon.
So as I lay in my cell that night, I had all that to think on because Mommsy won't go gently into the night...not for me....not for Patti-Sue....not for Big Bro...Dennisky..or Danny Boy....more on what else happened on that fateful journey shared by mother and son....I love you guys as much as I can. You all pass that along....JESUS Saves...pass that along too!
later...dougie boy
Side Note: I apologize for the delay in getting this posted for Doug...I thought I posted it when I first got it and just realized that I hadn't. So, I apologize for this being a few days late ~Tara (the one who posts these for Doug)
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Been locked down...
...again!
You would think we could get some act right in this camp--I think there is not enough plays on Broadway for this to happen. I would love to tell you the reasons why we were shut out further, to increment our social diffs, from all that is considered in this...this...prison environs. (Okay so I don't always turn a good phrase.)
As I have told you guys previously, I cell with two other men in 85 square feet. The man on top I call "the cicatrix dude"...translated "Scar"...way too many Al Pacino flicks, or real to his conviction of conspiracy to commit murder. He's on the last of a 20 year sentence. Be getting out shortly (hide the silver!). The other guy, "White Bred," so given this moniker because he's white and grew up in mostly black neighborhoods... "Wonder" must of been taken. We've been "cellies" for over three years now and know each other pretty good (you think?). The whole lock down thing has been wearing upon us like a steel welded jacket that can't be sloughed off no matter the soddened state of the acidic and acerbic amongst us (I'm back in the "A's" in my Spike Lee search for oneness).
Well...things got a little hot over a spades game of cut-throat that we were playing to pass the time. What was I thinking? I'm playing a game called cut-throat with...well...cut-throats. But in acknowledgement to my own claim to fame, I am a convicted armed bank robber so I fit right in don't you think? However, we need to take into account that I am a bought-by-the-blood, born-again believer in JESUS...still though...I don't ever forget what manner of man I not only once was (1Corinthians 13) and can easily segue into on a daily basis if my proclivity to do so overwhelms my walk with HIM.
Meanwhile...which is indeed a mean while in the instances brought about through the various big boy games playing about men's minds that want control of things out of control to begin with. Such was the case when I won three games in a row. Looking back I could've let one of those guys win one, but sometimes I got this wicked spirit of competition dwelling within my members that war against...well common sense. Things got heated up as if a large microwave was set on high and dropped over us in such palpable fashion that well done would've been rare to those ignorant fools whom believe that this wicked spirit of competition lurks only in those not saved by HIS wonderful grace.
I have yet to disclose to you guys that although my family right privy to this...you need to be as well given the nature of said blogpost heretofore (really...who talks like this?) I was out there where the stoplights are a professional magician...yessiree. "Doug's Magic" was the name and my ex-wife (which, I might add, I take umbrage to saying that cursed "ex" part as if it were not so) would say that my best trick was disappearing from society (sense of humor she) Unbeknownst to some felon folk that cards were my forte--could even spin the deck to such a setting so that I receive all the aces and most of the spades (get out of town!). You wouldn't do that, would you? If you could? Just for funnsys?
So as I was saying, my three trumped up victories (pun intended for days on locked up days) were not well received within the 85 square footage where us mean folk can get...well...mean. Tell me if you can how to diffuse the conspiring to murder and the dealing of danger wrought about over a silly card game. I've seen men get nixed for less. So I was kinda in a quandary of sorts. I had in my favor 230 pounds of wrestling behind me, but I am 52 so it is pretty far behind me. I have the old school appellate firmly and ineluctably tattooed on my head, and I had (I hoped anyway) White Bred in my court if it came to Scar and I tossing about the cell, but he lost too! SO it came down to the only alternative left..."LORD teach my hands to war"...a Psalm recited of that great warrior King David. I've drawn upon its canvas for strength I ain't got many times over and, as is the case most times, GOD steps in and handles it...if I really let HIM do so. I opted for it this time because (for real) I've seen enough violence in this life to avoid it at all costs. And so HE gave me HIS instructions to lie down and say nothing. Oh yeah...and quit playing cards during lockdowns. A simply effective remedy for me...for my cellies. And fortunately we were let out of the cell the very next day. That always brings about reconciliation of some ilk to those of us trying to add more time to our lengthy sentences by cracking each other's skulls on the concrete and steel.
Satan desires to sift you like wheat the Scripture tells Peter and he crouches at the door ready to pounce upon the unenlightened. He was trying that old crap on me yesterday...and I was a step away from inviting that destruction on in. We all can do it..maybe not as severe as physical stuff like the aforementioned, but still we, as CHRISTians, will face off against this foe as if the NHL were our mainstay. Keep in mind however that the book of James warns us .."That every man is tempted when he is lead away by his own desire..."....that means more of me is responsible for my actions than Satan ever could be.
I love you guys! Keep pressing....Psalm 61...
later...dougie boy
You would think we could get some act right in this camp--I think there is not enough plays on Broadway for this to happen. I would love to tell you the reasons why we were shut out further, to increment our social diffs, from all that is considered in this...this...prison environs. (Okay so I don't always turn a good phrase.)
As I have told you guys previously, I cell with two other men in 85 square feet. The man on top I call "the cicatrix dude"...translated "Scar"...way too many Al Pacino flicks, or real to his conviction of conspiracy to commit murder. He's on the last of a 20 year sentence. Be getting out shortly (hide the silver!). The other guy, "White Bred," so given this moniker because he's white and grew up in mostly black neighborhoods... "Wonder" must of been taken. We've been "cellies" for over three years now and know each other pretty good (you think?). The whole lock down thing has been wearing upon us like a steel welded jacket that can't be sloughed off no matter the soddened state of the acidic and acerbic amongst us (I'm back in the "A's" in my Spike Lee search for oneness).
Well...things got a little hot over a spades game of cut-throat that we were playing to pass the time. What was I thinking? I'm playing a game called cut-throat with...well...cut-throats. But in acknowledgement to my own claim to fame, I am a convicted armed bank robber so I fit right in don't you think? However, we need to take into account that I am a bought-by-the-blood, born-again believer in JESUS...still though...I don't ever forget what manner of man I not only once was (1Corinthians 13) and can easily segue into on a daily basis if my proclivity to do so overwhelms my walk with HIM.
Meanwhile...which is indeed a mean while in the instances brought about through the various big boy games playing about men's minds that want control of things out of control to begin with. Such was the case when I won three games in a row. Looking back I could've let one of those guys win one, but sometimes I got this wicked spirit of competition dwelling within my members that war against...well common sense. Things got heated up as if a large microwave was set on high and dropped over us in such palpable fashion that well done would've been rare to those ignorant fools whom believe that this wicked spirit of competition lurks only in those not saved by HIS wonderful grace.
I have yet to disclose to you guys that although my family right privy to this...you need to be as well given the nature of said blogpost heretofore (really...who talks like this?) I was out there where the stoplights are a professional magician...yessiree. "Doug's Magic" was the name and my ex-wife (which, I might add, I take umbrage to saying that cursed "ex" part as if it were not so) would say that my best trick was disappearing from society (sense of humor she) Unbeknownst to some felon folk that cards were my forte--could even spin the deck to such a setting so that I receive all the aces and most of the spades (get out of town!). You wouldn't do that, would you? If you could? Just for funnsys?
So as I was saying, my three trumped up victories (pun intended for days on locked up days) were not well received within the 85 square footage where us mean folk can get...well...mean. Tell me if you can how to diffuse the conspiring to murder and the dealing of danger wrought about over a silly card game. I've seen men get nixed for less. So I was kinda in a quandary of sorts. I had in my favor 230 pounds of wrestling behind me, but I am 52 so it is pretty far behind me. I have the old school appellate firmly and ineluctably tattooed on my head, and I had (I hoped anyway) White Bred in my court if it came to Scar and I tossing about the cell, but he lost too! SO it came down to the only alternative left..."LORD teach my hands to war"...a Psalm recited of that great warrior King David. I've drawn upon its canvas for strength I ain't got many times over and, as is the case most times, GOD steps in and handles it...if I really let HIM do so. I opted for it this time because (for real) I've seen enough violence in this life to avoid it at all costs. And so HE gave me HIS instructions to lie down and say nothing. Oh yeah...and quit playing cards during lockdowns. A simply effective remedy for me...for my cellies. And fortunately we were let out of the cell the very next day. That always brings about reconciliation of some ilk to those of us trying to add more time to our lengthy sentences by cracking each other's skulls on the concrete and steel.
Satan desires to sift you like wheat the Scripture tells Peter and he crouches at the door ready to pounce upon the unenlightened. He was trying that old crap on me yesterday...and I was a step away from inviting that destruction on in. We all can do it..maybe not as severe as physical stuff like the aforementioned, but still we, as CHRISTians, will face off against this foe as if the NHL were our mainstay. Keep in mind however that the book of James warns us .."That every man is tempted when he is lead away by his own desire..."....that means more of me is responsible for my actions than Satan ever could be.
I love you guys! Keep pressing....Psalm 61...
later...dougie boy
Thursday, March 3, 2011
My friends...
We just got off a lockdown...6 days in a cell with two other men. Fortunately the 2 others have done a lot of hard time as well, so it wasn't as difficult as it could be in here. You get into 85 square feet with bundles of humanity within (well within) the comfort space that gets even the best of us claustrophobic. Between the three of us we have 35 years of prison done, and close to 20 more left to do. Not woebegoneing it for sure...but weathering this storm can only be wrought in me by the STORM DRIVER. When in the past I have strayed from JESUS, HE checks me in the most uncomfortable and mostly harsh manner.
And it should be like that.
Ecclesiastes 5:4-5 tells me to "Learn hence to vow (I love that! Learn hence..sounds just right)and pay to the LORD our GOD, for HE has no pleasure in fools." How greatly would the Sanctuary of GOD be enriched and beautiful if all would in their places do their part towards it, by exemplary purity and devotion, extensive charity, and universal usefulness. In expounding of Scripture one passage must borrow light from another, reference if you will Matthew 5:15. The lights of the world, the lights of the Church, must shine as lights. Therefore we have light, that we may give light. Providence gains the same end in different ways, that we attend its motions with an implicit faith.
During this time I was engaged to study HIS WORD. I love being married to HIM. It is within the bounty of HIS LOVE that I find this patience to endure. I am grateful beyond measure for it.
We were lockdown because there's men in here wanting to stage a compound refusal to eat lunch in order to bring attention to purported injustices done to living men complaining about being punished for their sins. And it was on chicken patty day of all things! I love me some chicken patties! So (and I can't make this stuff up) they banded into what is now a defunct "Coalition for Concerned Convicts" (I say defunct even though they got what they wanted) literally over a thousand men did not go to the chow hall at lunch. And that's what they thought they wanted (big assumptions often get trounced around here). They thought they would move the hierarchy of a Federal prison to "c'mon we're dying here with the air conditioning, ice machines, microwaves, 7 flat screen televisions, enough rec equipment to open 4 community centers, education out the wazoo (sans tuition and text costs) and of course chicken patties (did I mention that they come with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes...enough fixings to shame a Big Mac?) Well only about a handful of men went to eat--that now have to endure all kinds of ridicule for bucking the CCC.
Mid-way through this staged event...say around 1145...the Warden put the word out to lock us up. And she didn't even need a coalition! Within 30 minutes we were tight in our cells...without the chicken patty. Good sense of humor she has though because they fed us the exact same thing six days in a row...and still we ate better than about 2 billion people the world over. It truly pisses me off. Not the lock down. If there were legitimate concerns (that can happen in a place rife with trouble from that infamous jump street we all leapt out from to land us here), but the CCC had its goose cooked--pardon the fowl pun (that's a double pun isn't?)--because we ain't got nothing to complain about in a Federal prison in America!
I must say with an ineluctable stand for JESUS, that GOD is able as ever to supply HIS people with good things, even in their greatest straits and in the utmost failure of second chances. ALMIGHTY POWER can bring water from a rock, has done it, and can again, for HIS arm is not shortened. Those that are of a fretful discontented spirit-- perhaps your way is rough and uneven, or foul and dirty--will always find something or other to make them uneasy. I shant do it my friends! The best have their infirmities, and far more sometimes in the exercise of that grace for which they are most eminent. But GOD...I love that passage all by itself..."But GOD!"...can overlook such heedless, nay I say purposeful passion, and therefore we must not be too severe..."for those that would improve in knowledge must be made sensible of their ignorance."
Okay...I've been to school and back (in more ways then you can imagine) English 102...gotta write a bunch of essays in this class...who knows that it's my favorite one so far?! We got an assignment to read 5 stories and do a cause and effect essay on one of them. "The Prodigal Son" in Luke 15 is one of them...can GOD map out a life or what? I was so excited when the Professor gave out that one. We have several Muslims in our class, as well as some pros at Dungeons and Dragons..the game and the actions. I hope and pray that somebody else takes up the mantle of the awesome Luke story...pray with me on that, won't you?
We do a lot of discussion in our classroom about what we write. Half the class thinks I'm plagiarizing everything...I can't even spell it! The other half has been around me long enough to let me make it. A guy asked me if I would write his class work for him--a Muslim fella. I was tempted, but a big nix to that form of learning. It's what did me in to begin with...cutting corners. In telling him no I had to be gentle and wise...the same thing said and done with meekness may be justifiable which when said and done in anger or spite may produce in me a culpableness I ain't prepared to handle. Authentic CHRISTianity leaves an unforgettable impression on those who encounter it. CHRISTians are responsible for the enduring impact they make. Believe that.
Well my friends I must be getting this off to you. Once we were let out to our first hot meal in 6 days, I was greeted at the chow hall with a reheated up old chicken sandwich (as I was saying our warden's got her a grand sense of irony..I wonder if she's a writer?) But I did enjoy it nonetheless!
I pray for you all..always..all my friends up on this trailer of a send-off, as well your families because some of you are mine for real...and some by the TRUE VINE..love in a way hardly able to constrain..shed abroad in my heart...Psalm 119:63.
later..dougie boy...alive and kicking
And it should be like that.
Ecclesiastes 5:4-5 tells me to "Learn hence to vow (I love that! Learn hence..sounds just right)and pay to the LORD our GOD, for HE has no pleasure in fools." How greatly would the Sanctuary of GOD be enriched and beautiful if all would in their places do their part towards it, by exemplary purity and devotion, extensive charity, and universal usefulness. In expounding of Scripture one passage must borrow light from another, reference if you will Matthew 5:15. The lights of the world, the lights of the Church, must shine as lights. Therefore we have light, that we may give light. Providence gains the same end in different ways, that we attend its motions with an implicit faith.
During this time I was engaged to study HIS WORD. I love being married to HIM. It is within the bounty of HIS LOVE that I find this patience to endure. I am grateful beyond measure for it.
We were lockdown because there's men in here wanting to stage a compound refusal to eat lunch in order to bring attention to purported injustices done to living men complaining about being punished for their sins. And it was on chicken patty day of all things! I love me some chicken patties! So (and I can't make this stuff up) they banded into what is now a defunct "Coalition for Concerned Convicts" (I say defunct even though they got what they wanted) literally over a thousand men did not go to the chow hall at lunch. And that's what they thought they wanted (big assumptions often get trounced around here). They thought they would move the hierarchy of a Federal prison to "c'mon we're dying here with the air conditioning, ice machines, microwaves, 7 flat screen televisions, enough rec equipment to open 4 community centers, education out the wazoo (sans tuition and text costs) and of course chicken patties (did I mention that they come with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes...enough fixings to shame a Big Mac?) Well only about a handful of men went to eat--that now have to endure all kinds of ridicule for bucking the CCC.
Mid-way through this staged event...say around 1145...the Warden put the word out to lock us up. And she didn't even need a coalition! Within 30 minutes we were tight in our cells...without the chicken patty. Good sense of humor she has though because they fed us the exact same thing six days in a row...and still we ate better than about 2 billion people the world over. It truly pisses me off. Not the lock down. If there were legitimate concerns (that can happen in a place rife with trouble from that infamous jump street we all leapt out from to land us here), but the CCC had its goose cooked--pardon the fowl pun (that's a double pun isn't?)--because we ain't got nothing to complain about in a Federal prison in America!
I must say with an ineluctable stand for JESUS, that GOD is able as ever to supply HIS people with good things, even in their greatest straits and in the utmost failure of second chances. ALMIGHTY POWER can bring water from a rock, has done it, and can again, for HIS arm is not shortened. Those that are of a fretful discontented spirit-- perhaps your way is rough and uneven, or foul and dirty--will always find something or other to make them uneasy. I shant do it my friends! The best have their infirmities, and far more sometimes in the exercise of that grace for which they are most eminent. But GOD...I love that passage all by itself..."But GOD!"...can overlook such heedless, nay I say purposeful passion, and therefore we must not be too severe..."for those that would improve in knowledge must be made sensible of their ignorance."
Okay...I've been to school and back (in more ways then you can imagine) English 102...gotta write a bunch of essays in this class...who knows that it's my favorite one so far?! We got an assignment to read 5 stories and do a cause and effect essay on one of them. "The Prodigal Son" in Luke 15 is one of them...can GOD map out a life or what? I was so excited when the Professor gave out that one. We have several Muslims in our class, as well as some pros at Dungeons and Dragons..the game and the actions. I hope and pray that somebody else takes up the mantle of the awesome Luke story...pray with me on that, won't you?
We do a lot of discussion in our classroom about what we write. Half the class thinks I'm plagiarizing everything...I can't even spell it! The other half has been around me long enough to let me make it. A guy asked me if I would write his class work for him--a Muslim fella. I was tempted, but a big nix to that form of learning. It's what did me in to begin with...cutting corners. In telling him no I had to be gentle and wise...the same thing said and done with meekness may be justifiable which when said and done in anger or spite may produce in me a culpableness I ain't prepared to handle. Authentic CHRISTianity leaves an unforgettable impression on those who encounter it. CHRISTians are responsible for the enduring impact they make. Believe that.
Well my friends I must be getting this off to you. Once we were let out to our first hot meal in 6 days, I was greeted at the chow hall with a reheated up old chicken sandwich (as I was saying our warden's got her a grand sense of irony..I wonder if she's a writer?) But I did enjoy it nonetheless!
I pray for you all..always..all my friends up on this trailer of a send-off, as well your families because some of you are mine for real...and some by the TRUE VINE..love in a way hardly able to constrain..shed abroad in my heart...Psalm 119:63.
later..dougie boy...alive and kicking
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Everyone is looking for JESUS
Sometimes in prison deep funks can overcome oneself and then you get kind of withdrawn away from everyone and thing. My Mom's passing put that to work recently and I wondered around here for a hot minute trying to remember her best attributes. That's why it's been so long since I last wrote--she has so many of them that I have went back in time to my little boyness all the way up until our last conversation. Interesting thing when you try hard to recall everything that was said. Was I kind? Did I tell her that I love her? Did I ask her about her instead of about me? Did I listen to her woes as she so often took mine in? And finally...did I learn all that she has been trying to teach me these 52 years? It's not that I'm racking my brain, or myself for wrongs committed in the name of Doug (heavens no..retribution would hold no quarter then) it's just that I could've done better had I made different choices along the way in my life when it concerned how went my relationship with the one whom reared me.
...obviously from whence I write this (gotta love that old English) my life's pick and choose methodology has well... sucked. But hopefully as I seek a more excellent lifestyle, the choices I make in the present will be forthcoming of my SAVIOR in my life.
This morning on the rec yard we had a good APAP(Accountability Partners Against Pornography for those not in the know) meeting. A few men braved the howling biting wind and cold--that's 35 degrees Tara (that's my editor who lives in Phoenix where she said 50 was killing her...a desert rat from Iowa no less)--we shared our falling downs and rising-ups. Most of us want, nay desire, to give a good report of our weekly actions. Still though what men deem as recreational activities in here would jaundice the eye of community centers everywhere. Just picture your wildest imagination of what men can do to each other, and then give it free range to enter into the insane zone.
I have been hot on preparing myself for the up coming softball season. Actually I have been gearing a lifestyle change as aforementioned. Dropped 8 pounds to date, and it's true..a lot harder to get it off later in life. As you may remember I am dedicating this season to Mommsy and Christina (the little second baseman from Tucson that was killed in that shooting). I hope to do them both justice on the field...and off.
It all has to do with being a good witness for JESUS. Every Christian knows he or she should witness for CHRIST, but most are reluctant to speak HIS NAME very often....fear of ridicule, or loss of prestige or position. One of the saddest rebukes that could come to a CHRISTian is the indictment lodged against those believers who, because of their high position refused to take an open stand for CHRIST. Philippians 2:5-8 sums up what should be going on in us 24/7..."Let the same mind be in you that was in CHRIST JESUS...read it out to get some of that on you! Check out Mark 1 while you're at it...right around verses 35-38...JESUS went to a solitary place to pray, and then HIS disciples searched for HIM. When they found HIM they told HIM that "everyone was looking for HIM." This is our posture of need in HIM--to be searching for communion with HIM, because no matter what the seductive lies Satan is telling you, everyone is looking for JESUS.
I love you guys! Pray for all during most days...Psalm 103...
Later..dougie boy
"In any given situation, we have a whole continuum of choices...ranging from really rotten choices, to the mediocrity of average choices, to choices that are good, and then to those that are excellent. GOD wants us to move across the continuum, past our natural impulses, all the way to excellent choices. Often it is challenging to make the most excellent choices..." (Daily Bread Feb. 18, 2011)
...obviously from whence I write this (gotta love that old English) my life's pick and choose methodology has well... sucked. But hopefully as I seek a more excellent lifestyle, the choices I make in the present will be forthcoming of my SAVIOR in my life.
This morning on the rec yard we had a good APAP(Accountability Partners Against Pornography for those not in the know) meeting. A few men braved the howling biting wind and cold--that's 35 degrees Tara (that's my editor who lives in Phoenix where she said 50 was killing her...a desert rat from Iowa no less)--we shared our falling downs and rising-ups. Most of us want, nay desire, to give a good report of our weekly actions. Still though what men deem as recreational activities in here would jaundice the eye of community centers everywhere. Just picture your wildest imagination of what men can do to each other, and then give it free range to enter into the insane zone.
I have been hot on preparing myself for the up coming softball season. Actually I have been gearing a lifestyle change as aforementioned. Dropped 8 pounds to date, and it's true..a lot harder to get it off later in life. As you may remember I am dedicating this season to Mommsy and Christina (the little second baseman from Tucson that was killed in that shooting). I hope to do them both justice on the field...and off.
It all has to do with being a good witness for JESUS. Every Christian knows he or she should witness for CHRIST, but most are reluctant to speak HIS NAME very often....fear of ridicule, or loss of prestige or position. One of the saddest rebukes that could come to a CHRISTian is the indictment lodged against those believers who, because of their high position refused to take an open stand for CHRIST. Philippians 2:5-8 sums up what should be going on in us 24/7..."Let the same mind be in you that was in CHRIST JESUS...read it out to get some of that on you! Check out Mark 1 while you're at it...right around verses 35-38...JESUS went to a solitary place to pray, and then HIS disciples searched for HIM. When they found HIM they told HIM that "everyone was looking for HIM." This is our posture of need in HIM--to be searching for communion with HIM, because no matter what the seductive lies Satan is telling you, everyone is looking for JESUS.
I love you guys! Pray for all during most days...Psalm 103...
Later..dougie boy
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Hello my friends...
..as the song goes..."and it's been a while"...
I have been in the midst of storms--both inwardly and in the outwardly parts as well. But PRAISE be to my GOD who always delivers me even if it means hard times. Since the GOSPEL requires an urgent and radical response then I must come with the same zeal I first rallied when learning of HIS saving GRACE. Relying on not any strummed up secular concept, but rather submitting to spiritual reality. When GOD discovers to us what is amiss in our lives we must give all diligence to amend it speedily and particularly return to the duties we have neglected...'tis why I am penning (can you say penning when clacking?...you make the call!) The putting away of our sins is indispensably necessary to the removal of GOD'S judgements. This is the voice of every rod, it calls to us to return to HIM that smites us. When we return to GOD in a way of duty HE will return to us in a WAY of mercy; thus taking away the cause and effect of our disobedience. HE'S cool like that! When the disease of sin has become epidemical, it is fatal to any place. (Isaiah 1: 5-7, Romans 1:26-28) I live amongst men who are thoroughly convinced there is no GOD save themselves. Often I have felt a failure when witnessing because I don't see some of the fruit I'd like to see, but it's an inside job. I usually won't see the preparing of how the LORD breaks the spirit to get to HIM...that all important posture of need many run from instead of to.
Okay off to Church...
...and back....
I plan on dedicating this upcoming softball season to two people (GOD willing it gets here): my Mommsy, of course, who had a love for the game, and as most of you know passed along to the slice of heaven we are yearning for this past December; and a second baseman that was also into ballet and all sorts of girly things--because she was this precious girl swiped from us at the hands of evil. I've read countless articles about her little life and the impact she left in her wake is as big as a rip tide that could drown the very best of all our well-thought out intentions to do some good--Christina Taylor Green. I can only hope that I am able to do her justice as I give up the coveted shortstop spot to move over to where she played at last (since I coach in here I can play anywhere I darn well want to!). And I started out as a second baseman because Big Bro was the catcher...and man did we throw out some guys trying to steal! So hopefully this season will be a winning one. Even if not, I will PRAISE HIM.
On my way back from Church just a few minutes ago a young gangbanger came up to me to thank me for letting him read "The Shack"--a book Patti-Sue sent me, and I completely forgot what happened to (forgive me sis)--but here was this young black man telling me how much it helped him understand the HOLY TRINITY. And I was all down on my sucky witnessing efforts...that GOD...HE can really put you in check in good and bad ways. I love HIM. Won't you guys love HIM too?
...later...Psalm102...all day...agape...dougie boy
I have been in the midst of storms--both inwardly and in the outwardly parts as well. But PRAISE be to my GOD who always delivers me even if it means hard times. Since the GOSPEL requires an urgent and radical response then I must come with the same zeal I first rallied when learning of HIS saving GRACE. Relying on not any strummed up secular concept, but rather submitting to spiritual reality. When GOD discovers to us what is amiss in our lives we must give all diligence to amend it speedily and particularly return to the duties we have neglected...'tis why I am penning (can you say penning when clacking?...you make the call!) The putting away of our sins is indispensably necessary to the removal of GOD'S judgements. This is the voice of every rod, it calls to us to return to HIM that smites us. When we return to GOD in a way of duty HE will return to us in a WAY of mercy; thus taking away the cause and effect of our disobedience. HE'S cool like that! When the disease of sin has become epidemical, it is fatal to any place. (Isaiah 1: 5-7, Romans 1:26-28) I live amongst men who are thoroughly convinced there is no GOD save themselves. Often I have felt a failure when witnessing because I don't see some of the fruit I'd like to see, but it's an inside job. I usually won't see the preparing of how the LORD breaks the spirit to get to HIM...that all important posture of need many run from instead of to.
Okay off to Church...
...and back....
I plan on dedicating this upcoming softball season to two people (GOD willing it gets here): my Mommsy, of course, who had a love for the game, and as most of you know passed along to the slice of heaven we are yearning for this past December; and a second baseman that was also into ballet and all sorts of girly things--because she was this precious girl swiped from us at the hands of evil. I've read countless articles about her little life and the impact she left in her wake is as big as a rip tide that could drown the very best of all our well-thought out intentions to do some good--Christina Taylor Green. I can only hope that I am able to do her justice as I give up the coveted shortstop spot to move over to where she played at last (since I coach in here I can play anywhere I darn well want to!). And I started out as a second baseman because Big Bro was the catcher...and man did we throw out some guys trying to steal! So hopefully this season will be a winning one. Even if not, I will PRAISE HIM.
On my way back from Church just a few minutes ago a young gangbanger came up to me to thank me for letting him read "The Shack"--a book Patti-Sue sent me, and I completely forgot what happened to (forgive me sis)--but here was this young black man telling me how much it helped him understand the HOLY TRINITY. And I was all down on my sucky witnessing efforts...that GOD...HE can really put you in check in good and bad ways. I love HIM. Won't you guys love HIM too?
...later...Psalm102...all day...agape...dougie boy
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Those were...
..the good old days. As some are in the habit of pronouncing to whomever will give ear. 2 Corinthians 6:2 tells us that ..."Behold now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." Even though the past may very well be better off in the rearview for some of us, still the future for CHRISTians is a far more exceeding benefit of the eternal glory type that we press towards in the unprecedented hope that lies in store for those that love the LORD.
Believest thou this?
Some read the Bible and really don't accept all that is written in it...professing the quirky secularism that man wrote it for real (well, for real man did write it), but it was through the guidance and unction of the Holy Ghost that he did so. Since Mommsy's passing it is not that I have become more attached to the Scriptures to help me through this devastating period, on the contrary, I continue on just as before because my belief is not founded in this old world system that is passing away. If it were why every circumstance that came along that held in its outcome in adversity, then shakeable would I be in the facts of JESUS. But I'm not my friends. I'm firmly grounded! PRAISE HIM! Don't get me wrong...I ain't jumping for joy right now due to the first holiday experience without the perenial Motherly assurance that came with...my Mom. But she could bring that earthly guidance for only so long, even though certain goodly teachings (for which she had many) will live on in her children and be passed on, but finite they were regardless of how we revere those whom we cherish so. Not the case with CHRIST. Timeless. Faultless. Relentless. HE constantly draws me to HIM with cords of love that are everlasting.
In these downtrodden prison holidays (trust me here in that old axiom where depression reigns for those with the proclivity given into self-pity) men will take their lives. Can't say I haven't thought on it, but it was way before I had CHRIST. Now I keep on encouraging those who might do that very thing because they are not able to see through the haze of incarceration how clearly HE saves us from ourselves.
Okay my friends and always loved ones in my prayers. I am heading out to work in this dark place where I must be a light (have to be exhuding the very ONE that keeps me in hopes that I can show others who can't but see darkly), but I also keep in mind the manner of man I once was lest my witness becomes in need of protection. My next message will come soon...until then...Psalm 30.
later..dougie boy
Believest thou this?
Some read the Bible and really don't accept all that is written in it...professing the quirky secularism that man wrote it for real (well, for real man did write it), but it was through the guidance and unction of the Holy Ghost that he did so. Since Mommsy's passing it is not that I have become more attached to the Scriptures to help me through this devastating period, on the contrary, I continue on just as before because my belief is not founded in this old world system that is passing away. If it were why every circumstance that came along that held in its outcome in adversity, then shakeable would I be in the facts of JESUS. But I'm not my friends. I'm firmly grounded! PRAISE HIM! Don't get me wrong...I ain't jumping for joy right now due to the first holiday experience without the perenial Motherly assurance that came with...my Mom. But she could bring that earthly guidance for only so long, even though certain goodly teachings (for which she had many) will live on in her children and be passed on, but finite they were regardless of how we revere those whom we cherish so. Not the case with CHRIST. Timeless. Faultless. Relentless. HE constantly draws me to HIM with cords of love that are everlasting.
In these downtrodden prison holidays (trust me here in that old axiom where depression reigns for those with the proclivity given into self-pity) men will take their lives. Can't say I haven't thought on it, but it was way before I had CHRIST. Now I keep on encouraging those who might do that very thing because they are not able to see through the haze of incarceration how clearly HE saves us from ourselves.
Okay my friends and always loved ones in my prayers. I am heading out to work in this dark place where I must be a light (have to be exhuding the very ONE that keeps me in hopes that I can show others who can't but see darkly), but I also keep in mind the manner of man I once was lest my witness becomes in need of protection. My next message will come soon...until then...Psalm 30.
later..dougie boy
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