..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
