...I am writing this to you all in the midst of yet another CHRISTmas prison. Although not complaining of being punished for my sins,(Lamentations 3:39) I am, it seems more remorseful this particular time. Could be that I have 2 grandsons that I would so love to hug up and muffle up their little boy cheeks...could be that my son has been bereft of his father since he should've been loved up....could be that my sister Patti-Sue wants me out there shoveling snow....or that my bro Denniski could've used my help in that "Sherman House Debacle"...could be that Danny boy...my youngest bro...could've leaned on me as he battles his own addictive woes...or that Big Bro Dave could've used me as his playing partner in a myriad of golf tourneys that we might've either won or had him commit harry-carry on #'s 1thru 18 because of the soothing effect I always had on him. But my friends no matter how it is that I may see myself being in those capacities...fact is I'm not. In double digits for passing holidays, birthdays, weddings, and unfortunately funerals. I press on though because CHRIST whom dwells with me here in this CHRISTmas prison keeps me keeping on. I hope to one day do all those aforementioned things, as well visit the friends who have made this odyssey so much easier to bear: Chuck....Kim...Tara..Sophie the Six...Lisa. Even though it's been so many years since I last laid eyes on my beautiful bride..can't come to the ex part...my hope for Rosemary thrives on. Alyosha, Perseus, and Micaela also are reserved in that heart of hearts where only grandpas and father-in-laws dare tread. I love you all this CHRISTmas season and on through the rest of years diligently spent hoping to assuage grief with the one day seeing of your faces...Praise GOD for HIS WONDERFUL SON....JESUS THE CHRIST..."For unto us this day a CHILD is born...."
....later....dougie boy
Showing posts with label My Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My Life. Show all posts
Monday, December 30, 2013
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Hello there you guys..
..although not sending out a blog about my LORD and SAVIOR JESUS in quite sometime, I still honor HIM in all things good...and a few bad. Because it is GOD who is able to make something good out of the bad on a pretty regular basis. HE'S done so in my life and HE can certainly do it in yours if you only look out for it. It's all around you! I offer up a Happy Thanksgiving Day to you all in hopes that family will gather fro a nice hearty meal and good times for all. Often if I can remember holidays held a certain amount of stress as we tried our best to make them "rightly" celebrated with all the trimmings and fixings of lore. But the facts are these: Just being able to hug up the little ones, the old ones. the middle ones...heck even the inanimate ones..and our very own beloved pets are the right kind of celebratory things which make everyday a veritable gift. Take it from a man who wants to hug something today..but he can't..because prison is so tough that if I make an effort...which those truly knowing me know I will anyway...some might misconstrue it for an other than friendly thing. But boo to those who can't rise above their ideological format and embrace humanity for the very love of it all. So pray for me today and the rest of my languishing as I wend my way about this incarceration spreading the Good News and trying to love up these hardened men who might not realize that a tree needs a hug too...later..
Galatians 6..
dougie boy
HAPPY THANKSGIVING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Galatians 6..
dougie boy
HAPPY THANKSGIVING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Tragedy as part of us...
...it's not necessarily a staple of our lives, yet it occurs more often than we'd like. As I was reading the USA Today about the account of the Connecticut shooting it was, as I'm sure with most, a heart wrenching thing. Especially when I was able to see all the little faces, brief character traits, and their likes associated with names in what amounts to an attempt to paint gentleness where we already knew it existed, rambunctious youngsters and quiet ones, dancing and running the gamut of childhood dreams in playgrounds now so ethereal to the parents of slain tots. I grieve as do many other men here.Our prayer request box from which I get a third of to pray over weekly, were filled with almost exclusive petitions for those families affected. Although we reside with the brutal terror of prison life, some things are even unacceptable to us. We wouldn't mind spending time with the ilk that we do, but men who hurt children we've no stomach for. Still the CHRIST card will get pulled on me in my prayers and I am compelled to pray from places I don't yearn to see reconciliation take its honor upon. And then I ask as the song from Cast Casting Crowns tells me "Who Am I?"
A strong irony took up residency when I received a CHRISTmas card from Tara and her husband Paul with all their youngsters' vibrancy splayed across it so real and touching. As I was able to read what Honor, Conner, Arianna, and Samuel were up to as of late, it drove home how fragile this little family is. Because right next to me were the names of those other children...close to the exact age as these guys I was looking at....one in a ballet tutu and giving it her all...one holding a kitten...one a little chick...and Samuel was just smiling away as if their were no tomorrow....for those others there wasn't. A solemnity that reassures me the import of training our children well.(Proverbs 22:6) I can't thank Tara and Paul enough for helping me from the abysmal of sorrow that tanks me almost daily anyway after realizing double digits spent in CRISTmas prisons.
I was telling my cellie the other day that prison was really kicking my...you know the rest. I am thankful today for the grandchildren I've yet to see. My son wrote more of a compelling email the other day expressing his anger toward me not being in his life as well the lives of his endearing new family. He even went as far to say he has not been a good son to me because he forgot that I, too, have pain. Yet I could not for the life in me understand how he finds fault with himself. I own the onus of the bereftness there. Once again as he began letting me know that he is having a reawakening of CHRIST, then it began to clear up some what...only GOD can make that which is crooked straight...i.e...me..his dad...his children's granddada...his Mom's husband...(she says ex I say next...).I'm grateful today, a few days from CHRISTmas to be able to reach out to you guys. I was telling my son in response to his email that over the years I have wanted many folks to reach out to me...letters...phone calls...visits...emails...skywriting...smoke signals...yet when I got his message, the veracity of it was more welcomed than all the folks I could ever want to hear from. Especially the part of his reawakening to JESUS...I pray for all who read this to consider the same for yours and yours'.
I love you all with that agape from which as David, my son tells me, could not have written the words he did to me. Please pass on the TRUTH about JESUS to others while there is still breath upon, and in each of us. For it is GOD who deals us these measures of time. We know not when it may abruptly end.
...later...dougie boy...
Luke 2 for you...for me
A strong irony took up residency when I received a CHRISTmas card from Tara and her husband Paul with all their youngsters' vibrancy splayed across it so real and touching. As I was able to read what Honor, Conner, Arianna, and Samuel were up to as of late, it drove home how fragile this little family is. Because right next to me were the names of those other children...close to the exact age as these guys I was looking at....one in a ballet tutu and giving it her all...one holding a kitten...one a little chick...and Samuel was just smiling away as if their were no tomorrow....for those others there wasn't. A solemnity that reassures me the import of training our children well.(Proverbs 22:6) I can't thank Tara and Paul enough for helping me from the abysmal of sorrow that tanks me almost daily anyway after realizing double digits spent in CRISTmas prisons.
I was telling my cellie the other day that prison was really kicking my...you know the rest. I am thankful today for the grandchildren I've yet to see. My son wrote more of a compelling email the other day expressing his anger toward me not being in his life as well the lives of his endearing new family. He even went as far to say he has not been a good son to me because he forgot that I, too, have pain. Yet I could not for the life in me understand how he finds fault with himself. I own the onus of the bereftness there. Once again as he began letting me know that he is having a reawakening of CHRIST, then it began to clear up some what...only GOD can make that which is crooked straight...i.e...me..his dad...his children's granddada...his Mom's husband...(she says ex I say next...).I'm grateful today, a few days from CHRISTmas to be able to reach out to you guys. I was telling my son in response to his email that over the years I have wanted many folks to reach out to me...letters...phone calls...visits...emails...skywriting...smoke signals...yet when I got his message, the veracity of it was more welcomed than all the folks I could ever want to hear from. Especially the part of his reawakening to JESUS...I pray for all who read this to consider the same for yours and yours'.
I love you all with that agape from which as David, my son tells me, could not have written the words he did to me. Please pass on the TRUTH about JESUS to others while there is still breath upon, and in each of us. For it is GOD who deals us these measures of time. We know not when it may abruptly end.
...later...dougie boy...
Luke 2 for you...for me
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Prayers From Prison...
Hello my friends-
I'm sitting in my prison cell thinking and praying for you guys-not to sound sanctimonious-mainly because sin can accompany me frequently most days. As a matter of fact thanks to my lovely sister (Pattie Sue) I do get some magazines: Golf Digest/Sports Illustrated/ESPN: The Magazine/Nate Geo/TIME and thank to my little bro (Denniski) I was able to procure a running special on the USA today. Needless to say the advert of the zines coming my way makes me popular to men whom believe me to be an anathema because I ain't got no gang affiliations, tattoos, drinks hooch or engage in the sex porno slave trade market going on in the this camp. Which can easily enrapture one's thoughts, actions and daily rituals.
Yesterday I got ESPN'S the Magazine's "THE BODY ISSUE." As soon as I had it in my grubby hands-Out Damn Spot! I couldn't wait to see all the naked women athletes-especially under the guise: "Well I certainly can look and "appreciate" how these women take care of them fine, trim, curvaceous, sexy, beautiful...about 42 seconds into the first gaze, (Job 31: "I have made a covenant with my eyes: why then should I look upon a young woman?") I wanted to hide in my cell and join the crowd of those involved with the perversion of masturbation. Now of course you may think: How disgusting! Yeah, me too. After witnessing for a decade now against dastardly acts such as this, it still can rise up (not punny) and encroach on my walk-mostly because Jesus taught that "the eyes are the windows to the soul," and again as Proverbs instructs me in the matriculation of my Christianity that the "...eyes of man are never satisfied," so it is when I fully engage pornography-which although arguments of such a "beautiful display" of athleticism will lend full assurance to how duped secular society has become inured to the gelid fact that we've like sheep have gone astray within the freezing cold that warms us none.
You know I belong to a small group of men -(there are 4 of us)- we gather each Sunday after church to go through the prayer box which sits out in full access to all prisoners. I want to share with you all some of these incredibly heart wrenching and sometimes selfish, selfless petitions; which further aids me to know that help is needed via strong Christ-like men here-out there-everywhere. I'll keep them anonymous-most of them are-God knows because for most of these guys God calls them his own-"and I trade treasure, I trade fame, just to hear you call my name-I've been touched by you and I will never be the same." Here are some of them:
"Father I pray for your help-I don't want to go on without seeing my kids."
"Jesus please keep my from hurting people"
"A hedge of protection over the judge and jury that sentenced me to life-I forgive them."
"Help me escape."
"Save my cellie, whose Muslim but a good dude."
"I pray for salvation for my parents who are Pagan."
"Teach my hands to war Lord if there is another riot-I don't want to get raped again."
"When I get out, keep me from vengeance on those who snitched on me."
"Give me a way to sneak tobacco in here through visitation-I'm dying for a smoke!"
"For my two children that I've not seen or heard from in 15 years."
"Keep my anger from killing again."
"I pray that the FBI doesn't find out about those "other" things."
"I hope the Steelers win the Super Bowl."
"I want my bother safe over in Afghanistan."
"For early release-like today."
"I'm tired Father- 27 years in here-can You help me?"
"All my family has deserted me-who else but You? Thank you Lord."
"My boy was shot and killed by a man who snitched on me to stay on the streets-how do I cope Lord?"
And even more compelling:
"Father, the man who raped my wife just came to this compound. I'm planning bad things-forgive me.
Okay my fried this outta fill some prayer time for you if inclined to stand in the gap as Ezekiel 22:30 asks of us. The Rolling Stones have a song: "Beast of Burden" it laments that..."I'll never be your beast of burden." Yet that's what we're called to do. That prayer list aforementioned in some of it's wicked intent I am capable of carrying out-from the worst of it to the praise form it. And so I put away my measuring rod that I have for many that are not of my ilk...of my religiosity...of my "churchianity"...and offer up the petitions of the prisoner. I need help here for it all- so I ask you to pray that the Lord of the Harvest give the heart away to seek God's favor, mercy, and above all forgiveness and love for each of us.
I love you guys....thanks...later...dougie boy
I'm sitting in my prison cell thinking and praying for you guys-not to sound sanctimonious-mainly because sin can accompany me frequently most days. As a matter of fact thanks to my lovely sister (Pattie Sue) I do get some magazines: Golf Digest/Sports Illustrated/ESPN: The Magazine/Nate Geo/TIME and thank to my little bro (Denniski) I was able to procure a running special on the USA today. Needless to say the advert of the zines coming my way makes me popular to men whom believe me to be an anathema because I ain't got no gang affiliations, tattoos, drinks hooch or engage in the sex porno slave trade market going on in the this camp. Which can easily enrapture one's thoughts, actions and daily rituals.
Yesterday I got ESPN'S the Magazine's "THE BODY ISSUE." As soon as I had it in my grubby hands-Out Damn Spot! I couldn't wait to see all the naked women athletes-especially under the guise: "Well I certainly can look and "appreciate" how these women take care of them fine, trim, curvaceous, sexy, beautiful...about 42 seconds into the first gaze, (Job 31: "I have made a covenant with my eyes: why then should I look upon a young woman?") I wanted to hide in my cell and join the crowd of those involved with the perversion of masturbation. Now of course you may think: How disgusting! Yeah, me too. After witnessing for a decade now against dastardly acts such as this, it still can rise up (not punny) and encroach on my walk-mostly because Jesus taught that "the eyes are the windows to the soul," and again as Proverbs instructs me in the matriculation of my Christianity that the "...eyes of man are never satisfied," so it is when I fully engage pornography-which although arguments of such a "beautiful display" of athleticism will lend full assurance to how duped secular society has become inured to the gelid fact that we've like sheep have gone astray within the freezing cold that warms us none.
You know I belong to a small group of men -(there are 4 of us)- we gather each Sunday after church to go through the prayer box which sits out in full access to all prisoners. I want to share with you all some of these incredibly heart wrenching and sometimes selfish, selfless petitions; which further aids me to know that help is needed via strong Christ-like men here-out there-everywhere. I'll keep them anonymous-most of them are-God knows because for most of these guys God calls them his own-"and I trade treasure, I trade fame, just to hear you call my name-I've been touched by you and I will never be the same." Here are some of them:
"Father I pray for your help-I don't want to go on without seeing my kids."
"Jesus please keep my from hurting people"
"A hedge of protection over the judge and jury that sentenced me to life-I forgive them."
"Help me escape."
"Save my cellie, whose Muslim but a good dude."
"I pray for salvation for my parents who are Pagan."
"Teach my hands to war Lord if there is another riot-I don't want to get raped again."
"When I get out, keep me from vengeance on those who snitched on me."
"Give me a way to sneak tobacco in here through visitation-I'm dying for a smoke!"
"For my two children that I've not seen or heard from in 15 years."
"Keep my anger from killing again."
"I pray that the FBI doesn't find out about those "other" things."
"I hope the Steelers win the Super Bowl."
"I want my bother safe over in Afghanistan."
"For early release-like today."
"I'm tired Father- 27 years in here-can You help me?"
"All my family has deserted me-who else but You? Thank you Lord."
"My boy was shot and killed by a man who snitched on me to stay on the streets-how do I cope Lord?"
And even more compelling:
"Father, the man who raped my wife just came to this compound. I'm planning bad things-forgive me.
Okay my fried this outta fill some prayer time for you if inclined to stand in the gap as Ezekiel 22:30 asks of us. The Rolling Stones have a song: "Beast of Burden" it laments that..."I'll never be your beast of burden." Yet that's what we're called to do. That prayer list aforementioned in some of it's wicked intent I am capable of carrying out-from the worst of it to the praise form it. And so I put away my measuring rod that I have for many that are not of my ilk...of my religiosity...of my "churchianity"...and offer up the petitions of the prisoner. I need help here for it all- so I ask you to pray that the Lord of the Harvest give the heart away to seek God's favor, mercy, and above all forgiveness and love for each of us.
I love you guys....thanks...later...dougie boy
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
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
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
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
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
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)
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
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Mommsy
My cellies-"White-Bred and "Scar" were laughing at some inane thing I'm sure..I'm going in too because Gumby told me it is a man's sense of humor that keeps him at times of intense solitude. I've certainly proved out this theory in my life in case he was only joking about it. At 85 square feet between us three hulking men either in stature of weight, size, or time in grade (to appease those military folk within earshot of this). The guard unlocks our cell door after the standard 1600 hrs stand-up count (they want you standing to ensure you're not all stabbed up, or dead in you bunk from something) like a disgruntled ex-postal worker whose had his share of that loneliness aforementioned. This time as he unlocks with the clanging kerchunk, he sticks his head in and tells me I gotta go to the Chapel on the "rec move". I thought I was going to the gym to play handball...GOD had other plans though as HE so often does. This prison vernacular is as commonplace to me as stoplights, facebook, and shopping lists are to you folks lending ear to this ode to Mommsy from her Hound of Baskerville's son.
When the guard shut the cell door, the laughter left with him as if some pall smothered it out so neatly that the laugh lines on our faces, in a nanosecond, went from mirth to mourn, creasing harshly the grim rictus of reality that is going to take place now twice in my career of incarceration. The cell suddenly grew oh so small, and my cellies beelined it out to give me some space where there is none. Sam and Arnoldo (their real names) have had their sufferage over the years. Offering up what little comfort and condolences afforded them to give in the coin of our consequences that due diligence to selfishness brings when we store up our wages of sin in bags with holes in them. They've known of Mommsy's condition for about the same amount of time as I. Not much can be hidden when sharing quarters that dimes would covet.
As I make my way around the cell (how long could this take?), I turn around to see what I'm looking for; and it is a vacant thing from my heart that I can't seem to find that fell out a few moments ago when the Chapel call came. Collecting my thoughts because you know that I'm scrunching up my eyes and courage to face the brunt of all my years spent to catering to meism's....I'm searching for my pictures...culling out the ones I got of Mom with an assortment of folk--mostly of her with Dad, but some with those who will never know her effervescence...great grandkids as too little still. It's an attempt to pull out of this stack of humanity, where all my faux visits put me, at proxy, to feign an osmosis catharsis by way of a polaroid fixation that camera phones can't touch. These photos are taking on a weight that makes them hard to lift on to the next. Surreality taking on a whole new dimension that at once is arresting...not punny mind you. Each one revealing that patented smiling glow that I'll never see again except in these photos. A thousand words can't tell the face that has launched a thousand ships. Shame on me all the day as repentance tries to make this wrong as pretty as Mom. Not waxing poetically, though one of the many gifts Mom possessed and passed along to her brood. The prose of the parentage prancing about our thoughts as if all of us are surely the next Hemingway.
The snow is whipping hard and the biting howling wind is swirling about me as I take the dirgeful and purpose driven plunge toward the Chapel. This weather shooting me back in time to Billerica, Mass. 1970. I'm certain ole Dennisky can give us exactitude, to include longitude and latitude, as well the family's attitude to this winter of our discontent. But which of my siblings remember the April Fool's joke Mommsy laid on us? It was 0530 to keep it real for our military folk out there (there's quite a few for sure) when she came down to the basement where me and the three bros slept. Frantically rousting us up to the exclamation of: "Go check the car! The windows are all broken!! Hurry up! Hurry up! Save the day! Carpe Diem! Go Boys to Men!" All of us out the door in record time to the blizzard that had buried the car! How could this be happening on April the first? Only to hear the basement door slam shut as Mommsy danced around in her "got you again" jig, shouting out, "APRIL FOOLS! APRIL FOOLS!". We had to endure this from all the windows and doorways in the three-story house. My bros and I wondering how long is it gonna be before...1)Mommsy let's us back in...(and I'm out here wondering where the heck is Patti-Sue!)...2)How many times are we gonna fall prey to this ridiculous, predictable, and perennial crapola of Mom's?...and 3) Now...I sure could use it one more time.
Over the past few months as Patti-Sue and Big Bro, weathered with Bob, the eroding debilitating effects the various maladies have brutalized our cherished one with, I could only offer solace via phone from inside a Federal prison. By the way I own the hang-up avoidance tactic on this earth...the hat trick of phone dodging if you will. Certainly not casting dispersion...at times I don't want to talk to me! But my Mom owns the record of answering every time. Never too busy. Never too sleepy.. And at times weepy. No matter the shame I've put her through. Collect was never a problem I might add. I got into this habit of singing to her. Songs I wrote, or CHRISTian gospels she used to sing, or ones we sang and dance to together in her pre-Bob days. As her mental state drifted, I was ever being guided to just stay in the moment while on the phone. Never using the do you remember whens, or we just talked about that, or that's the third time you told me (trust me here she didn't have to be in that state to tell me things three times over as I'm certain my siblings will attest). I was better equipped to handle what was happening because I wasn't up close and personal to her daily struggles such as were Patti-Sue, Big Bro, Dennis, and Bob. I've been trying to reach Danny Boy, and have a talk with Dennisky, because their own pain is weighed in here as they suffer this passing of our Matriarch.
A few days ago, as I reached Patti-Sue in Mom's hospital room, she did something to me that was a bit unexpected. I heard Mom groaning in the background, a sound of such intensity as I leaned into the line, almost smelling the antiseptic rise in the mouthpiece of my little prison lifeline to Mom--and it's not a loud noise (only the battlefield could be as loud as a prison) --quite the opposite. It was so faint as to be the telltale heart that is fighting back this weeping I so want to do, but this stupid phone is in the middle of the day room in our unit (romper room is a more fitting name) and any weakness here may be misconstrued. I've been in three prison riots. The horrors of all that cacophony dwindle in decibel to the rasping struggles of Mom trying to make it. And then my sister tells me she wants me to sing a song to Mom as she puts me on speaker phone. I sing to her too when I get the chance. Big Bro is really missing out! And this could explain why folks dodge my calls! But now I finally have a chance to help! The sagacity of Patti-Sue's thought process here was clearly GOD ordained...not that I'm Perry Como....Tom Jones maybe..but still I have this chance..you know? And I give it my all. Starting with her Mom's favorite, Amazing Grace, and not making it much farther because as I'm going along I hear Mom's groaning stop...and then her semi-humming begin...singing along with me like she has done so many times before, and thus bringing this man to that place where I don't really care if my tough-guyness shows a chink or two because my FATHER in heaven with JESUS on HIS right is standing to see HIS servants praise HIM in the best way they can...given present circumstances. Me, in the prison proper physically, way free mentally and spiritually...Mommsy in her prison physically and mentally, but now way free spiritually. And ain't that cool beans?
Over the years I have tried to discover what are the things worse than being in a place like this. I've had at my disposal ample reading material (not to mention the tales and fables of epic renown spun out from these men in here) and through this HE has shown me, although not high up in the living chain of goodness, many are those whom are living it lowlier than I.
My Mom's vibrant elixir of elan which she poured out upon all who knew the chutzpah and fortitude of her spirit, will forever be the reasons why I survive a place like this. I make it day to day because of who it was that brought me to bear. One fine day as she would sing oft of it...in the sweet by and by...I'll see her again in GLORY. An incorruptible, immortal, and indestructible soul that combines with the most indomitable SPIRIT of all time. It will be on that shore across the Jordan where we'll sing once again. There's a shadow in the valley of death because there's a light needed to bring about the casting of darkness. That light has gotten stronger now my friends because Margaret Louisa Gonier has walked on through. PRAISE JESUS!
...later in all love mustered by Mommsy's for me and her children..dougie boy...Dwouck
When the guard shut the cell door, the laughter left with him as if some pall smothered it out so neatly that the laugh lines on our faces, in a nanosecond, went from mirth to mourn, creasing harshly the grim rictus of reality that is going to take place now twice in my career of incarceration. The cell suddenly grew oh so small, and my cellies beelined it out to give me some space where there is none. Sam and Arnoldo (their real names) have had their sufferage over the years. Offering up what little comfort and condolences afforded them to give in the coin of our consequences that due diligence to selfishness brings when we store up our wages of sin in bags with holes in them. They've known of Mommsy's condition for about the same amount of time as I. Not much can be hidden when sharing quarters that dimes would covet.
As I make my way around the cell (how long could this take?), I turn around to see what I'm looking for; and it is a vacant thing from my heart that I can't seem to find that fell out a few moments ago when the Chapel call came. Collecting my thoughts because you know that I'm scrunching up my eyes and courage to face the brunt of all my years spent to catering to meism's....I'm searching for my pictures...culling out the ones I got of Mom with an assortment of folk--mostly of her with Dad, but some with those who will never know her effervescence...great grandkids as too little still. It's an attempt to pull out of this stack of humanity, where all my faux visits put me, at proxy, to feign an osmosis catharsis by way of a polaroid fixation that camera phones can't touch. These photos are taking on a weight that makes them hard to lift on to the next. Surreality taking on a whole new dimension that at once is arresting...not punny mind you. Each one revealing that patented smiling glow that I'll never see again except in these photos. A thousand words can't tell the face that has launched a thousand ships. Shame on me all the day as repentance tries to make this wrong as pretty as Mom. Not waxing poetically, though one of the many gifts Mom possessed and passed along to her brood. The prose of the parentage prancing about our thoughts as if all of us are surely the next Hemingway.
The snow is whipping hard and the biting howling wind is swirling about me as I take the dirgeful and purpose driven plunge toward the Chapel. This weather shooting me back in time to Billerica, Mass. 1970. I'm certain ole Dennisky can give us exactitude, to include longitude and latitude, as well the family's attitude to this winter of our discontent. But which of my siblings remember the April Fool's joke Mommsy laid on us? It was 0530 to keep it real for our military folk out there (there's quite a few for sure) when she came down to the basement where me and the three bros slept. Frantically rousting us up to the exclamation of: "Go check the car! The windows are all broken!! Hurry up! Hurry up! Save the day! Carpe Diem! Go Boys to Men!" All of us out the door in record time to the blizzard that had buried the car! How could this be happening on April the first? Only to hear the basement door slam shut as Mommsy danced around in her "got you again" jig, shouting out, "APRIL FOOLS! APRIL FOOLS!". We had to endure this from all the windows and doorways in the three-story house. My bros and I wondering how long is it gonna be before...1)Mommsy let's us back in...(and I'm out here wondering where the heck is Patti-Sue!)...2)How many times are we gonna fall prey to this ridiculous, predictable, and perennial crapola of Mom's?...and 3) Now...I sure could use it one more time.
Over the past few months as Patti-Sue and Big Bro, weathered with Bob, the eroding debilitating effects the various maladies have brutalized our cherished one with, I could only offer solace via phone from inside a Federal prison. By the way I own the hang-up avoidance tactic on this earth...the hat trick of phone dodging if you will. Certainly not casting dispersion...at times I don't want to talk to me! But my Mom owns the record of answering every time. Never too busy. Never too sleepy.. And at times weepy. No matter the shame I've put her through. Collect was never a problem I might add. I got into this habit of singing to her. Songs I wrote, or CHRISTian gospels she used to sing, or ones we sang and dance to together in her pre-Bob days. As her mental state drifted, I was ever being guided to just stay in the moment while on the phone. Never using the do you remember whens, or we just talked about that, or that's the third time you told me (trust me here she didn't have to be in that state to tell me things three times over as I'm certain my siblings will attest). I was better equipped to handle what was happening because I wasn't up close and personal to her daily struggles such as were Patti-Sue, Big Bro, Dennis, and Bob. I've been trying to reach Danny Boy, and have a talk with Dennisky, because their own pain is weighed in here as they suffer this passing of our Matriarch.
A few days ago, as I reached Patti-Sue in Mom's hospital room, she did something to me that was a bit unexpected. I heard Mom groaning in the background, a sound of such intensity as I leaned into the line, almost smelling the antiseptic rise in the mouthpiece of my little prison lifeline to Mom--and it's not a loud noise (only the battlefield could be as loud as a prison) --quite the opposite. It was so faint as to be the telltale heart that is fighting back this weeping I so want to do, but this stupid phone is in the middle of the day room in our unit (romper room is a more fitting name) and any weakness here may be misconstrued. I've been in three prison riots. The horrors of all that cacophony dwindle in decibel to the rasping struggles of Mom trying to make it. And then my sister tells me she wants me to sing a song to Mom as she puts me on speaker phone. I sing to her too when I get the chance. Big Bro is really missing out! And this could explain why folks dodge my calls! But now I finally have a chance to help! The sagacity of Patti-Sue's thought process here was clearly GOD ordained...not that I'm Perry Como....Tom Jones maybe..but still I have this chance..you know? And I give it my all. Starting with her Mom's favorite, Amazing Grace, and not making it much farther because as I'm going along I hear Mom's groaning stop...and then her semi-humming begin...singing along with me like she has done so many times before, and thus bringing this man to that place where I don't really care if my tough-guyness shows a chink or two because my FATHER in heaven with JESUS on HIS right is standing to see HIS servants praise HIM in the best way they can...given present circumstances. Me, in the prison proper physically, way free mentally and spiritually...Mommsy in her prison physically and mentally, but now way free spiritually. And ain't that cool beans?
Over the years I have tried to discover what are the things worse than being in a place like this. I've had at my disposal ample reading material (not to mention the tales and fables of epic renown spun out from these men in here) and through this HE has shown me, although not high up in the living chain of goodness, many are those whom are living it lowlier than I.
My Mom's vibrant elixir of elan which she poured out upon all who knew the chutzpah and fortitude of her spirit, will forever be the reasons why I survive a place like this. I make it day to day because of who it was that brought me to bear. One fine day as she would sing oft of it...in the sweet by and by...I'll see her again in GLORY. An incorruptible, immortal, and indestructible soul that combines with the most indomitable SPIRIT of all time. It will be on that shore across the Jordan where we'll sing once again. There's a shadow in the valley of death because there's a light needed to bring about the casting of darkness. That light has gotten stronger now my friends because Margaret Louisa Gonier has walked on through. PRAISE JESUS!
...later in all love mustered by Mommsy's for me and her children..dougie boy...Dwouck
Monday, October 25, 2010
Hello my friends...
....That word is often chucked around in our society as a relational comfort for us seeking to increase our social networking that identifies as up and coming. But for real denizens of this endearing appellate, it is way beyond that superficial reach. JESUS said (there he goes again with that JESUS stuff! Ain't it cool?), "Greater love hath no man than this but to lay his life down for his friend." You have got to be kidding me..die for somebody that I have conveniently chummed around with...buddied up to in the office gossip...played a round of golf with...(How I didn't want to go there!). This thing called friendship is serious.
I have been in prison for quite sometime now, and the facts are these: some stay on with a man for a few years, some ditch him immediately, some wait until he is close to getting out...and (trust me here I have seen this strange anomaly take place often enough to tell on it)...women. I'm only able to testify as to where I've been--an old saying: You can't teach what you don't know, you can't preach what you don't show, and you can't lead where you don't go... Anyways these gals will desert a guy initially, and then (we're talking years now, and even for some cases, a decade or two) will pick up on communicating back to a guy that they at once referred to as a friend. It's weird. But at times I think it's okay to do. I mean what's a girl to do? Well if she is married to said offender then her vows should make it clear. Now of course if this guy was an abuser of her (or as I know from these men's rap sheets) her children, then he deserves every bit of alienation coming his way as if Ray Bradbury were his next of kin. But if not then sticking it out through the worse side of where better left off is the standard.
Unfortunately all the societal pangs that encroach upon one braving the storm virtually mate-free prove too much for the woman...and off she'll go to unhinged pastures. Which is her decision to make. I certainly can't fill up those shoes with my reckoning. But still, I must say...stay away! Don't come calling when release is imminent because now hopefully this man is cleaned up...prayed up...sobered up..and in the best cases, educated up. You want the guy who truly loved you but lost his way. And you left him swinging. Sex they say is overrated, and some think if a man hasn't "had any" in so long a time that he'll be putty in your hands, well take heed that I am here to say that Joseph had it going on when he fled from the likes of Potiphar's wife who wanted to sex him up for her own good pleasure. I can hope that I, too, will have in me the intestinal fortitude to have learned two important lessons while languishing here..and these are to have learned to walk truthfully to those whom I regard as friends (be they family or foreign) and to walk away from those who are not.
later...dougie boy
I have been in prison for quite sometime now, and the facts are these: some stay on with a man for a few years, some ditch him immediately, some wait until he is close to getting out...and (trust me here I have seen this strange anomaly take place often enough to tell on it)...women. I'm only able to testify as to where I've been--an old saying: You can't teach what you don't know, you can't preach what you don't show, and you can't lead where you don't go... Anyways these gals will desert a guy initially, and then (we're talking years now, and even for some cases, a decade or two) will pick up on communicating back to a guy that they at once referred to as a friend. It's weird. But at times I think it's okay to do. I mean what's a girl to do? Well if she is married to said offender then her vows should make it clear. Now of course if this guy was an abuser of her (or as I know from these men's rap sheets) her children, then he deserves every bit of alienation coming his way as if Ray Bradbury were his next of kin. But if not then sticking it out through the worse side of where better left off is the standard.
Unfortunately all the societal pangs that encroach upon one braving the storm virtually mate-free prove too much for the woman...and off she'll go to unhinged pastures. Which is her decision to make. I certainly can't fill up those shoes with my reckoning. But still, I must say...stay away! Don't come calling when release is imminent because now hopefully this man is cleaned up...prayed up...sobered up..and in the best cases, educated up. You want the guy who truly loved you but lost his way. And you left him swinging. Sex they say is overrated, and some think if a man hasn't "had any" in so long a time that he'll be putty in your hands, well take heed that I am here to say that Joseph had it going on when he fled from the likes of Potiphar's wife who wanted to sex him up for her own good pleasure. I can hope that I, too, will have in me the intestinal fortitude to have learned two important lessons while languishing here..and these are to have learned to walk truthfully to those whom I regard as friends (be they family or foreign) and to walk away from those who are not.
later...dougie boy
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
"My Kingdom is not of this world" John 18:36
The great enemy to the LORD JESUS CHRIST in the present day is the conception of practical work that has not come from the New Testament, but from the systems of the world in which endless energy and activities are insisted upon, but no private life with GOD. We have to get rid of the plague of the spirit of the religious age in which we live. The central thing about the kingdom of JESUS CHRIST is a personal relationship to HIMSELF, not public usefulness to men. You have no idea of where GOD is going to engineer your circumstances...but if where you are just now is utilized for soaking up HIS word by being spent in getting rooted and grounded on the unpractical line, you will remain true to HIM whatever happens.
Mostly these teachings from me are culled out of the various devotions I read through in a day's energy wheeling about this prison compound. It's not the stoplight life that the majority have that's for sure, yet it is yielding up HIS marvelousness around me.
I had opportunity to witness in the "store" here yesterday evening after my Accounting 1 class from which I am struggling--could be since this class is taught by a banker professor that his idea of accounting and mine were vastly different as I relayed to him to the raucous laughter from he and the class (I love making folks use that awesome sense of humor bestowed upon us by the CREATOR) his being the lining up of debits on the right, and credits on the left...with a plethora of double accounting, adjustments, accruals, and an assortment of other technical journal ledgering that had me as confused as the day I was shot by a drug dealer whom I was convinced didn't have any bullets in the big old 357. I told him that my idea of accounting (especially after he relates how the bank virtually pillages most through interest bearing usury) was so much easier. He in the bank has the money which I wanted without all the hubbub of approval...my methods of withdrawal, although not unique, still cut through all the red tape. Of course, as always, the decisions to follow through with such outlandish felonious ideas does have its drawbacks. 'Tis why you could be at a stoplight and I am here. The reaping and sowing that Galations 6:7&8 speaks volumes to me now. I should've tried the paperwork route...
I love you guys and am being called to work as I finish this up. What a blessing it is for me to be able to write these blogs/bloggetes/ bloggites to you all. I'll explain later how I've come up with these little blogger things..gotta go!
later...dougie boy
Mostly these teachings from me are culled out of the various devotions I read through in a day's energy wheeling about this prison compound. It's not the stoplight life that the majority have that's for sure, yet it is yielding up HIS marvelousness around me.
I had opportunity to witness in the "store" here yesterday evening after my Accounting 1 class from which I am struggling--could be since this class is taught by a banker professor that his idea of accounting and mine were vastly different as I relayed to him to the raucous laughter from he and the class (I love making folks use that awesome sense of humor bestowed upon us by the CREATOR) his being the lining up of debits on the right, and credits on the left...with a plethora of double accounting, adjustments, accruals, and an assortment of other technical journal ledgering that had me as confused as the day I was shot by a drug dealer whom I was convinced didn't have any bullets in the big old 357. I told him that my idea of accounting (especially after he relates how the bank virtually pillages most through interest bearing usury) was so much easier. He in the bank has the money which I wanted without all the hubbub of approval...my methods of withdrawal, although not unique, still cut through all the red tape. Of course, as always, the decisions to follow through with such outlandish felonious ideas does have its drawbacks. 'Tis why you could be at a stoplight and I am here. The reaping and sowing that Galations 6:7&8 speaks volumes to me now. I should've tried the paperwork route...
I love you guys and am being called to work as I finish this up. What a blessing it is for me to be able to write these blogs/bloggetes/ bloggites to you all. I'll explain later how I've come up with these little blogger things..gotta go!
later...dougie boy
Sunday, October 17, 2010
"And greater works...
...than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father."
Prayer does not fit us for the grater works; prayer is the greater work. Never allow the thought- "I am of no use where I am"; because you certainly can be of no use where you are not. What an astonishment it will be to find, when the veil is lifted, the souls that have been reaped by you, simply because you had been in the habit of taking your orders from JESUS CHRIST.
There is no fog out this morning and I am looking forward to our first APAP (Accountability Partners Against Pornography) meeting in over five weeks. PRAISE HIS HOLY NAME!! I love getting together with men who are on the path of change wrought about by my SAVIOR. As our prison life has begun to resemble a more methodical and patterned cookie cutter way as its design was intended...standstill society as it were...I am pleased that we as CHRISTian folk are happy to see it! Even though a type of droning can set up as if bees were following us about, it allows for the "normal" movements to be done so we can meet and share our faith. Acts 2 is all about this WAY from which many get brought into the fold.
I was checking out "JESUS Manifesto", a book just out recently and found a most excellent help within its writer's bounty of discovery. It had to deal with all the mystery surrounding GOD'S behaviors as... well...GOD. Quoting Oxford scholar G. B. Caird..(nothing I like better than to quote big time known college grads..haha) "We must know GOD or perish. But unless we know GOD as ultimate mystery, we do not know GOD at all." To the person who walks in the Spirit, paradox, mystery, and uncertainty propel him forward instead of bogging him down. G. K. Chesterton (here I go again!) put it this way: "The riddles of GOD are more satisfying than the solutions of man."
-----------------------
Okay folks, I have just returned from the rec yard. It's funny how through the coolness of writing venues we can get up from the desktop, laptop, or tabletop, and be out of pocket from it for days, weeks and even months for those of us suffering from the perrenial "writer's block"...then pick up as if we never changed seats. But I'll let you know we had a most excellent group meeting this morning...men sharing how they weathered the 2 week lockdown. Some getting through it unscathed as far as physical damage was concerned, but most experiencing the impact of emotional, mental, and the big daddy of all...spiritual growth, which is always a neat thing when we are able to peep see the wonderment of how HE engineers our circumstances, testing the resolve HE places in us for a time such as this. Good men these APAP guys...I love them and ask the same from you all. Can you pray for this for us?..thanks
...later dougie boy
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
Sunday, September 19, 2010
This Whole "About Me" Thing...
....although only GOD knows me better, I'll try to do it up for the blogites.
First I want to compose a type of pro/con...let's not be punny with the appellate.."con"...I felt this would be a unique way of seeing what was what, what has been, what could be...
PROS CONS
-little boy -thief
-brother -manipulator/abuser of little bros
-son -dishonorer of parents
-athlete -bully
-entrepreneur at 11 -used skills as magician to steal
-played sports -got addicted
like nobody's business... like nobody's business...
-football/baseball/soccer/ -stealing/pornography/sex/
-basketball/hockey/wrestled/ -skipping school/marijuana/alcohol/
-volleyball/swimming/diving -drugs/cocaine/crack/gambling
-postal worker(imagine that) -armed bank robber
-painter/carpenter/ -inmate/felon/convict
small business owner -non-believer...
...and now as for those not knowing who delivered me from such derision I stand before you (well actually sitting) as a born again believer in the LORDSHIP of JESUS CHRIST. I mean look at all my crap! Who could deliver me from such shame, humiliation, and lostness? HE has taken time out to get to work on me when I called upon HIM...jail housing some could purport...that's okay to do...I've been in that true...but now after almost a decade behind bars I have seen HIM do marvelous things through me...around me...within me...without me. I know full well that a person is not what they do for a job, yet it is how we act on that job...how we act with our loved ones..how we treat the stranger..the dark ones..the light ones..the little ones...the big ones..this is what makes us who we ultimately become. And CHRIST taught me in a mighty WAY where these interactions of ours on the daily grind prove whom we believe in.
So "about me" is this and much more..I hope to peak your interest to look see what the TRUE SAVIOR of this world is all about ...HE'S the one for me.
later in agape love..dougie boy...aka...prisoner unchained
First I want to compose a type of pro/con...let's not be punny with the appellate.."con"...I felt this would be a unique way of seeing what was what, what has been, what could be...
PROS CONS
-little boy -thief
-brother -manipulator/abuser of little bros
-son -dishonorer of parents
-athlete -bully
-entrepreneur at 11 -used skills as magician to steal
-played sports -got addicted
like nobody's business... like nobody's business...
-football/baseball/soccer/ -stealing/pornography/sex/
-basketball/hockey/wrestled/ -skipping school/marijuana/alcohol/
-volleyball/swimming/diving -drugs/cocaine/crack/gambling
-postal worker(imagine that) -armed bank robber
-painter/carpenter/ -inmate/felon/convict
small business owner -non-believer...
thus ends what I used to be...
...and now as for those not knowing who delivered me from such derision I stand before you (well actually sitting) as a born again believer in the LORDSHIP of JESUS CHRIST. I mean look at all my crap! Who could deliver me from such shame, humiliation, and lostness? HE has taken time out to get to work on me when I called upon HIM...jail housing some could purport...that's okay to do...I've been in that true...but now after almost a decade behind bars I have seen HIM do marvelous things through me...around me...within me...without me. I know full well that a person is not what they do for a job, yet it is how we act on that job...how we act with our loved ones..how we treat the stranger..the dark ones..the light ones..the little ones...the big ones..this is what makes us who we ultimately become. And CHRIST taught me in a mighty WAY where these interactions of ours on the daily grind prove whom we believe in.
So "about me" is this and much more..I hope to peak your interest to look see what the TRUE SAVIOR of this world is all about ...HE'S the one for me.
later in agape love..dougie boy...aka...prisoner unchained
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
My Story
That smell. There is no mistaking its strange concoctions, the unique elixir of paint, blood, sweat, and tears. Its aroma is a familiar scent to convicts, cops, lawyers, and those soon to be amongst their ranks. It smacks full force as you step into the corridors of the neighborhood jailhouse, assaulting one's senses like a broken sewer pipe in the backyard. I inhale it for the umpteenth time in my mucked-up life. Shackled and fettered.
The hardest time you do for a crime is done in the little city or county jails—waiting to get to the "big house." You just sit and wait! You wait for court. You wait for mail. You wait for visits. You wait to get out of the claustrophobic den of thieves. It is a collection of all the wickedness in society, concentrated in a very small area. There is a lot to be said for the adage, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime."
Of course, a lot of first-time offenders don't know about prison's proximity of violence, the realization of ready rape, the brutality of isolation. Perhaps if they did, then they just might relinquish their crime-ridden thoughts. Unfortunately, it is impossible to grasp the fact that surviving your first sentence makes one impervious to the shock that is slammed into life at one's first step into the halls of justice. So I am writing this to forewarn all that there is no life in here. Prison is simply a game of survival, meted out daily with various forms of viciousness wrought out by users and abusers of our corrupt society.
Mine is the story of a petty thief crack-smoker turned bank robber. The ugliness replete throughout is told because I do not want to decorate my sins—I am through hiding from my past. I dare my Christian brethren to delve further into my story despite its harsh realities. Life is full of cursing, sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll; as was my past. The veracity of my story is needful, for without the unvarnished truth I could not hope to help others beginning my sorrowful adventure.
I have spent over 25 years battling addictions. I allowed them to corner me: sex, drugs, alcohol, pornography, and finally gambling. We all danced together in a ballroom of deception, where instructions for steps were checked at the door—especially that elusive 12 that so many of us addicts have tried "cutting a rug" to. Perhaps through my story, some of you might learn how to avoid the ballroom altogether.
I do desire to perhaps make you laugh. You may empathize, sympathize or demoralize. The sardonic ways you may see or read in your perspective are a product of my sense of humor, which has been my greatest friend throughout times of intense solitude.
My story is also a story of Jesus Christ revisited in a life that ran from Him. That sweet smelling savor is joy unspeakable. It is a story of the race I truly want to run, not the one that crippled me, strapping me to Satan's gurney and wheeling me about to do his bidding. It's a story living out what someone once said, "Sin always takes you farther than you want to go and keeps you longer than you want to stay." And it is a story of how God turned me around on the tail end of a bank-robbing spree that spanned four states.
My prison stay is still going on for a lot longer than I want, but I chose to give up a life that was death. I chose to quit running from God and turned myself in to dance to that music of courtroom cadences, judges' jingles, and prison blues. I am free now, even behind bars. That is priceless. I now count the cost of convincing others to not go the way of this addict; instead, I reach out to the only Way, the only Truth, the only Life, Jesus Christ.
The hardest time you do for a crime is done in the little city or county jails—waiting to get to the "big house." You just sit and wait! You wait for court. You wait for mail. You wait for visits. You wait to get out of the claustrophobic den of thieves. It is a collection of all the wickedness in society, concentrated in a very small area. There is a lot to be said for the adage, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime."
Of course, a lot of first-time offenders don't know about prison's proximity of violence, the realization of ready rape, the brutality of isolation. Perhaps if they did, then they just might relinquish their crime-ridden thoughts. Unfortunately, it is impossible to grasp the fact that surviving your first sentence makes one impervious to the shock that is slammed into life at one's first step into the halls of justice. So I am writing this to forewarn all that there is no life in here. Prison is simply a game of survival, meted out daily with various forms of viciousness wrought out by users and abusers of our corrupt society.
Mine is the story of a petty thief crack-smoker turned bank robber. The ugliness replete throughout is told because I do not want to decorate my sins—I am through hiding from my past. I dare my Christian brethren to delve further into my story despite its harsh realities. Life is full of cursing, sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll; as was my past. The veracity of my story is needful, for without the unvarnished truth I could not hope to help others beginning my sorrowful adventure.
I have spent over 25 years battling addictions. I allowed them to corner me: sex, drugs, alcohol, pornography, and finally gambling. We all danced together in a ballroom of deception, where instructions for steps were checked at the door—especially that elusive 12 that so many of us addicts have tried "cutting a rug" to. Perhaps through my story, some of you might learn how to avoid the ballroom altogether.
I do desire to perhaps make you laugh. You may empathize, sympathize or demoralize. The sardonic ways you may see or read in your perspective are a product of my sense of humor, which has been my greatest friend throughout times of intense solitude.
My story is also a story of Jesus Christ revisited in a life that ran from Him. That sweet smelling savor is joy unspeakable. It is a story of the race I truly want to run, not the one that crippled me, strapping me to Satan's gurney and wheeling me about to do his bidding. It's a story living out what someone once said, "Sin always takes you farther than you want to go and keeps you longer than you want to stay." And it is a story of how God turned me around on the tail end of a bank-robbing spree that spanned four states.
My prison stay is still going on for a lot longer than I want, but I chose to give up a life that was death. I chose to quit running from God and turned myself in to dance to that music of courtroom cadences, judges' jingles, and prison blues. I am free now, even behind bars. That is priceless. I now count the cost of convincing others to not go the way of this addict; instead, I reach out to the only Way, the only Truth, the only Life, Jesus Christ.
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