Hi you guys!

Just a quick note to let you in on a little known fact....JESUS LIVES!! I am hoping for the best in all your endeavors in life. Even though here in prison, I am happier than most outside this razorwire. Tough to understand unless you know a thing or two about my SAVIOR. I love HIM and you all too! Please let me in on what's what in your lives as I am wanting to see after my friends as JESUS did for us...and died on this GOOD FRIDAY as well. HE lives forever more though so make no mistake about that and come and taste the LIVING WATER...Mark 15 will tell you all about it...

later..

dougie boy

Hi guys!

First I will say that I definitely love you all...

As the New Year approaches our present enjoyment of GOD'S GRACE is apt to be checked by the memory of yesterday's sins and blunders. But GOD is the GOD of our yesterdays, and HE allows the memory of them in order to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual culture for the future..."GOD requireth that which is past." At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that GOD has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise from remembering the yesterdays. Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return (don't I know this right well), but GOD can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of CHRIST. Leave the Irreparable Past in HIS hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with HIM.(Oswald Chambers) Please consider CHRIST this year for all the reasons that you may find yourselves considering so many other things without HIM.

As I truck along in this prison time I have discovered wonderful nuggets of truth that have me always in search of HIS standard for my life. I miss many things from the outside world, but mostly I miss the missed opportunities to be with loved ones...and hey that's a lot of misses in that sentence! Be free enough to laugh at yourself this year my friends because after all I'm locked up enough for all of us..and HE brings me daily joy...sometimes....often even...in hearty laughter at my own ridiculousness. Ain't HE cool like that for you?

Isaiah 30 will be a good read today if you will take the time to see what's in it for you from our LORD and SAVIOR..JESUS the CHRIST..

later...

dougie boy

Hi my friends...

..on Hebrews 9:23-28

CHRIST'S sacrifice, though offered upon earth, was by HIMSELF carried up into heaven, and is there presented in a way (THE WAY) of daily intercession-for HE appears in the presence of GOD for us. HE has gone to heaven not only to enjoy HIS first estate and receive the honor due HIM, but to appear in the presence of GOD for us, to present our persons and our performances, to answer and rebuke our adversary and accuser, to secure our interests...an indemnity if you will...acting as such because our sins with the sacrifices of bulls and rams were always inexpiable(I'm studying "i" words today) to the full extent or opposite that for which CHRIST, the TRUE oblation by virtue of the hypostatical union...the blood of GOD...carried our burden in such infinite value.

Working into this fact that we all must die once, or at least undergo a change equivalent to death. It is an awful thing to die we must confess..to have the vital knot loosed or cut asunder, all relations dropped at once, an end if you will to our probation  and preparation state..and we should get ready for it. For it is an indomitable (told you about the"i"s) fact the we are going to enter another world once leaving this. You all know this...deep inside where secular reason can't match GOD'S innateness that HE'S given us all.

It is appointed to men that after death they shall all come to judgment. It is the distinguishing character of true believers that they are looking for CHRIST...THE CAPTAIN of my soul..me dougie boy....we look to HIM in every duty, in every ordinance, in every providence now not later when we think we have time. We expect HIS SECOND COMING and are(I hope and pray) preparing for it...the parable of the ten virgins are good examples. And though it will be sudden destruction to the rest of the world, who scoff at the report of it...(i.e. this is one) it will be eternal salvation to those who look for it.

I love you all in ways from which my prayers are ordered. I know most I write to are saved..those who are not I implore with as much is in me in this reaching out to seek JESUS while HE may be found...PSALM 27...

later...dougie boy

Hello there my friends...

...again I must say that it's been a while for real this time.

Many things have transpired since I last blogged out to you all. A friend died in his cell...a horrible way to go. Alone fighting for breath as the machinations of prison took its toll by a life's ransom. But I did share JESUS with him as frequently as I could, yet maybe not as much as was possible.

It got me thinking on the crucifixion of my LORD and SAVIOR....and since Easter was coming at the time, clearing out the horizon of death's exacting revenge, I had to ponder on life eternal offered to all. Attendance upon WHOM was cast all our sins. It's funny in a strange way how what is deemed a work of time in our society at large, that JESUS was brought before the chief priests at the break of day (Luke 22:66), after that to Pilate, then to Herod, then to Pilate again; and here there seems to have been a long struggle between Pilate and the people about HIM. Are you too in that area, or domain of preponderance? HE was scourged, and crowned with thorns and contumeliously used, and all this was done in 4 or 5 hours..six at the most for HE was crucified between 9 and 12. Never anyone was chased out of the world as CHRIST. No stays in a due process carried forth with such vehemence and alacrity that it puts to port all embattled ships of justice that harbor ill will towards the cry of look how wrongly I've been treated.

In the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 19 it speaks to me of the validity behind when HE walked, what HE did, and how HE still lives...."If in this life only we have hope in CHRIST, we are of all men the most pitiable (miserable in some texts). So please, you must understand that even though imprisoned for quite sometime now I am not miserable, but joyful even to the point of my sister's profession that I am a goober...a happy goober for I possess what all can: life eternal because of JESUS' enduring love for us...for me...for you.

Hopefully I will embark on keeping better updates with you guys. Softball season has kicked off and the amount of material to write about is prolific to say the least. I was hit by a line drive the other day...it black and blued about 2 square feet on my lower torso. I had a glove, but I was pitching batting practice and I had three balls in it..dorky me...but I play on! Okay my friends..I love you all tremendously from afar with prayers and fastings for you and your families...oh gosh I almost sound like Paul...I can think of worse things to be...

Check out Amos 4:12 and Hebrews 9:27

...later...dougie boy

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

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

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

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

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

In the story of...

..the prodigal son we are to look into how JESUS is teaching these diverse groups.

Luke 15 tells us (ain't it neat how the Bible is the only book that can "tell" us rather than read to us?..anyway as I digress right from the jumping off street...) "Then all the tax collectors and the sinners..(Heavens to Betsy not them! Who is this Betsy anyway?)...drew near to HIM to hear HIM. And the Pharisees and scribes complained saying, 'This MAN receives sinners and eats with them.'"

Oh how I love JESUS! Do you see what eclectic a group HE always has at HIS disposal? Yet also in the Gospels HE is singularly with the woman at the well. No restraints on HIS contact with humanity at large...after all (you know it)  HE is the INCARNATION...and HE loves us for us--certainly not contingent on what we do. I'm thanking HIM daily for this astounding GRACE. For as some writer hath said (every once in a while I divert into old timey English) "The heathen have witnessed to the comfort of a good conscience: 'Be this thy brazen bulwark of defence, still to preserve thy conscious innocence.' And yet to the terror of a bad one: 'No lash is heard, and yet the guilty heart is tortured with a self-inflicted smart.'" GOD came in a bod to prove out  that sin is an insurmountable diversion to a relationship with HIM. Hence the CROSS. It is to be with HIM that HE desires of us. If it was to do for HIM, then we all would remain the most miserable of folk--"with" is a bigger deal than "do." 

On one hand in this parable we have the behavers and on the other side are ...well...me for one...and the other misbehavers. So I  get compelled to ask at various times: "Does GOD even like me?" Or as Andy Stanley, Charles Stanley's son, put it so succinctly: "What does GOD think about when GOD thinks about me?" Our behavior is not how GOD views us (so a big welcomed deep breath for those whom have fallen under this "works" perversion of the Gospel at large). After all if JESUS truly came to rescue me from what I cannot save myself from (although diligently trying until I am beyond blue knuckling) all my feigned piousness in the pigsty with the lost one and his big bro. I mean nobody wanted to come to the party that the DAD was throwing for his lost one except the servants. Strike a message here? The younger wayward son wanted his FATHER to give ear to his speech of "wasn't I wrong and hire me as one of your servants" spiel, yet when ABBA saw him "afar off," HE came running to meet him...not one bit concerned about the preparations he prepared for justifying his woes by telling all his "don'ts." True confession is good for us, because it brings us near to GOD like HE likes us to be. It's where HE does HIS "wet work" well.

On the other hand we have the older sib that wanted his FATHER to know all about his "do's"--don't much care for those either I can attest to--thumping my chest on the regular around in this camp of ill-repute. Still HE is looking for us to love HIM as HE loves us...without fear of reprisal for wrongs that are surely gonna come, and without begging for the attaboys/girls that we so desperately seek after. No not there do we find the solace of our SAVIOR. Only in "seeking ye first the KINGDOM of GOD" do we locate the perfect LOVE that cast out all that worldly love that besets us so.

If you are looking to see if GOD holds sway to those who seemingly are better folk than yourself, then check out that parable in Luke and decide for yourself if the CREATOR of the universe is in a fit over your misdeeds. HE wants you to love HIM back for the gift of life that HE gave when HIS SON (and here I go with that NAME) JESUS CHRIST died for my/yours/and et al sins. HE wants to give you that ring, put that robe upon your shoulders, kill the fatted calf...for at once my son was lost but now he is found.

...

I have been at odds lately my friends..suffering from the worst of sins...self-pity. The profundity of my loneliness after Patti-Sue's visit has tried to wretch away my joy. Fortunately I don't generate this joy from the world...it's an other worldly thing that I got going on (Nehemiah 8:10), but still this darkness can almost be like one that can be felt. But PRAISE HIM! I have you guys to write to, and that is an uplifting moment of respite that I can dwell upon at this very crux...thanks for listening...I'm alive and kicking!

later...dougie boy

"If the SON therefore shall...

...make you free, ye shall be free indeed". Personality never says "I can't," but simply absorbs and absorbs. Personality wants more and more. It is the way we are built. We are designed with a great capacity for GOD; and sin and our individuality are the things that keep us from getting at GOD. Do not say- O LORD, I suffer from wandering thoughts--DON'T suffer from wandering thoughts. Stop listening to the tyranny of your individuality and get emancipated out into personality. (Galatians 2:20)

     I am sitting here in prison dealing with any number of strange behaviors. Just yesterday I was earring into NPR (Patti-Sue's favorite as she drives about doing her goodly duties as wife/mother/caregiver/..and most excellent sister...and not because she sends me things..to include money...but this is definitely a high ranker!) anyway..I hear of this pastor from a big old church down in Georgia who finally came to the individual conclusion that GOD created him to be a homosexual. I was livid. The color of red all over me because this man whom they were interviewing was telling..I'll say..his church body about this "secret" he's been cuckolding (definitely no pun) for decades. Not a last week epiphany mind you where his unbridled lust may have overwhelmed him at the spur, but calculated choices that galloped all over the very WORD he has to professed to follow. The requirements of a Bishop are plain and clear...."a man is to be the husband of one wife..."(1Timothy 3:2)..there are countless others within the confines of the freedom GOD bestows on those wanting the accountability of Church overseers, but I picked this one not because CHRISTians the world over are notorious for lambasting folks with rocket theology, or some estranged pet doctrine, (we can be in ignorance to this malady..and we shouldn't because then our witness can be of no effect) but because the fact remains: One wife...a woman...a glorious creation of GOD'S for the purpose of HIS LOVE towards us men. And trust me here folks the hardness of this place begs for the softness of her femininity...certainly not her counterpart.

     Which brings me full circle to strangeness that I can do my best to explain, but won't have the impact as it did in real time because suspending disbelief here is often difficult..so many things just seem weird...Like standing in line to await my turn at the console at large to emit my musings. With 145 men and 3 keyboards it's kinda like the patience needed at your local DMV...I ain't been locked up that long! Next to me was a man that has been into hormone therapy out in the streets and has about a 34C cup working that keeps him not wanting for smokes or candy bars. I fall into my can't wait for the door of opportunity that GOD inevitable opens, and I might add often do not want to step through...I'm off to Tarshish like Jonah...but Nineveh is always on the waterfront...and sure enough the handle turns and in steps a man thinking he's a woman. He looks my way and says my name (rather coyly; a learned behavior of purported coquettishness that is supposed to be enticing) but I know he has testicles, so he cannot convince me otherwise..after all showers are here...and as much as he may want to think himself a gal his guyness is exposed. He continues in that fake flirting that, trust me here, brings some in. The saying in prison is "one lies down two get up". Ya gotta love how the coinage of double entendres get slaughtered in this camp. Anyway as I was saying (the digression as those whom know me...is whom correct?..I don't know for real!) This man asks me if I know  his name. All I know of him is "Valentino" (I can't make this stuff up). Surprisingly enough it is his real middle name. He tells me that his full name is "Rudolpho Valentino Pena"...and adds "doesn't that sound too macho?" At which point GOD has fully swung open the portal of truth for me to disclose up close and personal as our sinning gets what this man's dilemma seems to be...and make no mistake I got a pocket full of stones..I am after all typing this to you guys...and gals from prison.  I know the diff though...it's in the way you girls truly are...that wonderfulness I miss like a second skin. I say to Valentino, "well your parents had you being this type of man, and it seems that this butch roll you are divvying up for those of us who have pretended to forget that it was Adam and Eve, has you in derision as to your true identity." He's ruffled now for sure...because frankly a lot of men in here play his game...hetero and homosexual alike. And I'm not sure whom...(is this right..whom-who?) is the sicker of the two. We are parents...most of us anyway... and the WORD (yes here I go again!) warns us to "Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it" Proverbs 22:6. Needless to say the conversation was not going as he had planned so I had the sudden urgency to press on...got that gene down pat! I told him that no amount of laws passed, societal acceptance, or hormonal therapy is going to eradicate your very maleness that GOD decided to grant you with. It's your choice to go that way...HE did give us that...limiting HIMSELF to our decision making processes...be they of the worldly intent, or of the JESUS Manifesto inspired teachings. We all go astray of these tenets laid out in HIS WORD...'tis why HE came for us..'tis why HE died for us...'tis why HE Loves after us...to win HIM...to know HIM...to be found in HIM. As Valentino cruised away, ( he had enough of my crap), I couldn't help silently praying for him...it's what compels us as CHRISTians....to come to the THRONE of GRACE for others who are hurting, confused, and alone..it is the locus of SCRIPTURE that begs our obedience...we ask of this from our own children to keep them from the wayward way..yet they will still choose wrongly...here I am to proof out that anomaly. But it is in the bounty of CHRIST'S LOVE for me that I have discovered HIM to be all that the SCRIPTURES say HE is.

        My sister is coming to visit me next week....I haven't seen her in 8 years. I want so desperately to win her over to JESUS because she has the epitome of benevolence coursing through her as if the CROSS was her WAY too. I can pray that I won't be too brash...not that she would allow me that...or that I will be effective enough to persuade her to relook at JESUS as my LORD and SAVIOR...or I can just soak up the trueness of fellowship that will reek of HIM through us both no matter my efforts...and that my friends is the GOSPEL spelt about in the renascence of the GLORY of HIS MAJESTY! If you are gonna preach, teach or reach for the GOSPEL, then be the GOSPEL. I love you guys!

later...dougie boy

And the subject is...

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

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

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

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

later...dougie boy

"And these are they which are sown...

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

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

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

later ...dougie boy

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

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

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

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

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

later...dougie boy

"And greater works...

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

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

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

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

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

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

...later dougie boy

The Truth will...

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

What is that?

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's been a good day...

later..dougie boy