From jump street I need to say that we have had our share of troubles in prison recently. A few "mini-riots" that could only be called thus if you were no where near the violence. Lockdowns galore! But still I'm not deterred to spread the WORD of the GOSPEL of JESUS CHRIST.
In Brandon Heath's song "Give Me Your Eyes", he sings how he wants GOD'S eyes to see, feel, and have similar compassion as HE on the brokenhearted...arms to reach those who are out of his reach. A compelling telling of what the true "great commission" incurs upon us who do desire this. I sat at chow the other day with a man who had all his teeth knocked out with a lock in a sock..a preferred weapon amongst those wishing to inflict such damage as to permanently afflict. I want to buddy up to him so he can see my truth as a CHRISTian doesn't include those wanting to avoid him because he now looks bad. Since this guy was a co-worker of mine a few years ago it isn't hard to actually have an interest in his troubles. I'm no Dietrich Bonhoeffer who within the tyranny of the Nazi rule gave up his life to go back to his fellow peoples to spread the "WORD". "When CHRIST calls a man, he bids him come and die". Garnered from his awesome book "The Cost of Discipleship".
As we start to communicate (remember he just recently lost all his teeth....not two or three..all of them. So he can't quite form certain sounds due to this newly found speech impediment.), frustration set in early for him...then me. In the back of my mind I made a mental note to make sure I either: 1)Come up with conversations that won't include him having to form these particular tough words....2)Avoid him....cuz how on earth can I figure out what sounds may or may not be needed for him to express himself!
Of course there comes the third and very unpopular idea to just endure...mmm. WWJD? Would it be sin to capitulate to my proclivity of having those around me that are like me...viz..communicate with a robust mouthful? The grand mischief that sin does to man is this: It wars against the soul; it destroys the moral liberty of the soul; it weakens and debilitates the soul by impairing its faculties; it robs the soul of its comfort and peace; it debases and destroys the dignity of the soul, hinders its present prosperity, and plunges it into everlasting misery. "But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty"(Corinthians 4:2) Renounce it as soon as it springs up; renounce the whole thing until there is no hidden thing of dishonesty or craftiness about you. "Not walking in craftiness", that is, resorting to what will carry your point.
This a great snare. Others are doing things which to you would be walking in craftiness, but it may not be so with them: GOD has given you another standpoint. Many have gone back because they are afraid of looking at things from GOD'S standpoint. The great crisis comes spiritually when a man has to emerge a bit farther on than the creed he has accepted. In his book "Radical," David Platt professes how America is missing the true GOSPEL by settling into a type of complacency that doesn't really preach JESUS. "The gospel demands and enables us to turn from our sin, and to take up our cross, to die to ourselves, and to follow JESUS. These are the terms and phrases we see in the BIBLE. And salvation now consists of a deep wrestling in our souls with the sinfulness of our hearts, the depth of our depravity, and the desperation of our need for HIS GRACE. JESUS is no longer one to be accepted or invited in but one who is infinitely worthy of our immediate and total surrender". That ought to sum up what most of us are missing...total surrender is not something we Americans are geared up for.
Better discover this now than later though. Because many who are religious with only their Sunday quota fill will find themselves cast out..that insufferable weeping and all that gnashing. I implore you whom call yourselves CHRISTians..search now and truly believe in what is the calling in your life. Then act on it as if there is no tomorrow...because there may not be for this earth as we know it.
I love you all with prayers in an intensity that HE knows is from my heart ...
later...
dougie boy
Showing posts with label Prison. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prison. Show all posts
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Thursday, March 3, 2011
My friends...
We just got off a lockdown...6 days in a cell with two other men. Fortunately the 2 others have done a lot of hard time as well, so it wasn't as difficult as it could be in here. You get into 85 square feet with bundles of humanity within (well within) the comfort space that gets even the best of us claustrophobic. Between the three of us we have 35 years of prison done, and close to 20 more left to do. Not woebegoneing it for sure...but weathering this storm can only be wrought in me by the STORM DRIVER. When in the past I have strayed from JESUS, HE checks me in the most uncomfortable and mostly harsh manner.
And it should be like that.
Ecclesiastes 5:4-5 tells me to "Learn hence to vow (I love that! Learn hence..sounds just right)and pay to the LORD our GOD, for HE has no pleasure in fools." How greatly would the Sanctuary of GOD be enriched and beautiful if all would in their places do their part towards it, by exemplary purity and devotion, extensive charity, and universal usefulness. In expounding of Scripture one passage must borrow light from another, reference if you will Matthew 5:15. The lights of the world, the lights of the Church, must shine as lights. Therefore we have light, that we may give light. Providence gains the same end in different ways, that we attend its motions with an implicit faith.
During this time I was engaged to study HIS WORD. I love being married to HIM. It is within the bounty of HIS LOVE that I find this patience to endure. I am grateful beyond measure for it.
We were lockdown because there's men in here wanting to stage a compound refusal to eat lunch in order to bring attention to purported injustices done to living men complaining about being punished for their sins. And it was on chicken patty day of all things! I love me some chicken patties! So (and I can't make this stuff up) they banded into what is now a defunct "Coalition for Concerned Convicts" (I say defunct even though they got what they wanted) literally over a thousand men did not go to the chow hall at lunch. And that's what they thought they wanted (big assumptions often get trounced around here). They thought they would move the hierarchy of a Federal prison to "c'mon we're dying here with the air conditioning, ice machines, microwaves, 7 flat screen televisions, enough rec equipment to open 4 community centers, education out the wazoo (sans tuition and text costs) and of course chicken patties (did I mention that they come with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes...enough fixings to shame a Big Mac?) Well only about a handful of men went to eat--that now have to endure all kinds of ridicule for bucking the CCC.
Mid-way through this staged event...say around 1145...the Warden put the word out to lock us up. And she didn't even need a coalition! Within 30 minutes we were tight in our cells...without the chicken patty. Good sense of humor she has though because they fed us the exact same thing six days in a row...and still we ate better than about 2 billion people the world over. It truly pisses me off. Not the lock down. If there were legitimate concerns (that can happen in a place rife with trouble from that infamous jump street we all leapt out from to land us here), but the CCC had its goose cooked--pardon the fowl pun (that's a double pun isn't?)--because we ain't got nothing to complain about in a Federal prison in America!
I must say with an ineluctable stand for JESUS, that GOD is able as ever to supply HIS people with good things, even in their greatest straits and in the utmost failure of second chances. ALMIGHTY POWER can bring water from a rock, has done it, and can again, for HIS arm is not shortened. Those that are of a fretful discontented spirit-- perhaps your way is rough and uneven, or foul and dirty--will always find something or other to make them uneasy. I shant do it my friends! The best have their infirmities, and far more sometimes in the exercise of that grace for which they are most eminent. But GOD...I love that passage all by itself..."But GOD!"...can overlook such heedless, nay I say purposeful passion, and therefore we must not be too severe..."for those that would improve in knowledge must be made sensible of their ignorance."
Okay...I've been to school and back (in more ways then you can imagine) English 102...gotta write a bunch of essays in this class...who knows that it's my favorite one so far?! We got an assignment to read 5 stories and do a cause and effect essay on one of them. "The Prodigal Son" in Luke 15 is one of them...can GOD map out a life or what? I was so excited when the Professor gave out that one. We have several Muslims in our class, as well as some pros at Dungeons and Dragons..the game and the actions. I hope and pray that somebody else takes up the mantle of the awesome Luke story...pray with me on that, won't you?
We do a lot of discussion in our classroom about what we write. Half the class thinks I'm plagiarizing everything...I can't even spell it! The other half has been around me long enough to let me make it. A guy asked me if I would write his class work for him--a Muslim fella. I was tempted, but a big nix to that form of learning. It's what did me in to begin with...cutting corners. In telling him no I had to be gentle and wise...the same thing said and done with meekness may be justifiable which when said and done in anger or spite may produce in me a culpableness I ain't prepared to handle. Authentic CHRISTianity leaves an unforgettable impression on those who encounter it. CHRISTians are responsible for the enduring impact they make. Believe that.
Well my friends I must be getting this off to you. Once we were let out to our first hot meal in 6 days, I was greeted at the chow hall with a reheated up old chicken sandwich (as I was saying our warden's got her a grand sense of irony..I wonder if she's a writer?) But I did enjoy it nonetheless!
I pray for you all..always..all my friends up on this trailer of a send-off, as well your families because some of you are mine for real...and some by the TRUE VINE..love in a way hardly able to constrain..shed abroad in my heart...Psalm 119:63.
later..dougie boy...alive and kicking
And it should be like that.
Ecclesiastes 5:4-5 tells me to "Learn hence to vow (I love that! Learn hence..sounds just right)and pay to the LORD our GOD, for HE has no pleasure in fools." How greatly would the Sanctuary of GOD be enriched and beautiful if all would in their places do their part towards it, by exemplary purity and devotion, extensive charity, and universal usefulness. In expounding of Scripture one passage must borrow light from another, reference if you will Matthew 5:15. The lights of the world, the lights of the Church, must shine as lights. Therefore we have light, that we may give light. Providence gains the same end in different ways, that we attend its motions with an implicit faith.
During this time I was engaged to study HIS WORD. I love being married to HIM. It is within the bounty of HIS LOVE that I find this patience to endure. I am grateful beyond measure for it.
We were lockdown because there's men in here wanting to stage a compound refusal to eat lunch in order to bring attention to purported injustices done to living men complaining about being punished for their sins. And it was on chicken patty day of all things! I love me some chicken patties! So (and I can't make this stuff up) they banded into what is now a defunct "Coalition for Concerned Convicts" (I say defunct even though they got what they wanted) literally over a thousand men did not go to the chow hall at lunch. And that's what they thought they wanted (big assumptions often get trounced around here). They thought they would move the hierarchy of a Federal prison to "c'mon we're dying here with the air conditioning, ice machines, microwaves, 7 flat screen televisions, enough rec equipment to open 4 community centers, education out the wazoo (sans tuition and text costs) and of course chicken patties (did I mention that they come with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes...enough fixings to shame a Big Mac?) Well only about a handful of men went to eat--that now have to endure all kinds of ridicule for bucking the CCC.
Mid-way through this staged event...say around 1145...the Warden put the word out to lock us up. And she didn't even need a coalition! Within 30 minutes we were tight in our cells...without the chicken patty. Good sense of humor she has though because they fed us the exact same thing six days in a row...and still we ate better than about 2 billion people the world over. It truly pisses me off. Not the lock down. If there were legitimate concerns (that can happen in a place rife with trouble from that infamous jump street we all leapt out from to land us here), but the CCC had its goose cooked--pardon the fowl pun (that's a double pun isn't?)--because we ain't got nothing to complain about in a Federal prison in America!
I must say with an ineluctable stand for JESUS, that GOD is able as ever to supply HIS people with good things, even in their greatest straits and in the utmost failure of second chances. ALMIGHTY POWER can bring water from a rock, has done it, and can again, for HIS arm is not shortened. Those that are of a fretful discontented spirit-- perhaps your way is rough and uneven, or foul and dirty--will always find something or other to make them uneasy. I shant do it my friends! The best have their infirmities, and far more sometimes in the exercise of that grace for which they are most eminent. But GOD...I love that passage all by itself..."But GOD!"...can overlook such heedless, nay I say purposeful passion, and therefore we must not be too severe..."for those that would improve in knowledge must be made sensible of their ignorance."
Okay...I've been to school and back (in more ways then you can imagine) English 102...gotta write a bunch of essays in this class...who knows that it's my favorite one so far?! We got an assignment to read 5 stories and do a cause and effect essay on one of them. "The Prodigal Son" in Luke 15 is one of them...can GOD map out a life or what? I was so excited when the Professor gave out that one. We have several Muslims in our class, as well as some pros at Dungeons and Dragons..the game and the actions. I hope and pray that somebody else takes up the mantle of the awesome Luke story...pray with me on that, won't you?
We do a lot of discussion in our classroom about what we write. Half the class thinks I'm plagiarizing everything...I can't even spell it! The other half has been around me long enough to let me make it. A guy asked me if I would write his class work for him--a Muslim fella. I was tempted, but a big nix to that form of learning. It's what did me in to begin with...cutting corners. In telling him no I had to be gentle and wise...the same thing said and done with meekness may be justifiable which when said and done in anger or spite may produce in me a culpableness I ain't prepared to handle. Authentic CHRISTianity leaves an unforgettable impression on those who encounter it. CHRISTians are responsible for the enduring impact they make. Believe that.
Well my friends I must be getting this off to you. Once we were let out to our first hot meal in 6 days, I was greeted at the chow hall with a reheated up old chicken sandwich (as I was saying our warden's got her a grand sense of irony..I wonder if she's a writer?) But I did enjoy it nonetheless!
I pray for you all..always..all my friends up on this trailer of a send-off, as well your families because some of you are mine for real...and some by the TRUE VINE..love in a way hardly able to constrain..shed abroad in my heart...Psalm 119:63.
later..dougie boy...alive and kicking
Thursday, November 18, 2010
"If the SON therefore shall...
...make you free, ye shall be free indeed". Personality never says "I can't," but simply absorbs and absorbs. Personality wants more and more. It is the way we are built. We are designed with a great capacity for GOD; and sin and our individuality are the things that keep us from getting at GOD. Do not say- O LORD, I suffer from wandering thoughts--DON'T suffer from wandering thoughts. Stop listening to the tyranny of your individuality and get emancipated out into personality. (Galatians 2:20)
I am sitting here in prison dealing with any number of strange behaviors. Just yesterday I was earring into NPR (Patti-Sue's favorite as she drives about doing her goodly duties as wife/mother/caregiver/..and most excellent sister...and not because she sends me things..to include money...but this is definitely a high ranker!) anyway..I hear of this pastor from a big old church down in Georgia who finally came to the individual conclusion that GOD created him to be a homosexual. I was livid. The color of red all over me because this man whom they were interviewing was telling..I'll say..his church body about this "secret" he's been cuckolding (definitely no pun) for decades. Not a last week epiphany mind you where his unbridled lust may have overwhelmed him at the spur, but calculated choices that galloped all over the very WORD he has to professed to follow. The requirements of a Bishop are plain and clear...."a man is to be the husband of one wife..."(1Timothy 3:2)..there are countless others within the confines of the freedom GOD bestows on those wanting the accountability of Church overseers, but I picked this one not because CHRISTians the world over are notorious for lambasting folks with rocket theology, or some estranged pet doctrine, (we can be in ignorance to this malady..and we shouldn't because then our witness can be of no effect) but because the fact remains: One wife...a woman...a glorious creation of GOD'S for the purpose of HIS LOVE towards us men. And trust me here folks the hardness of this place begs for the softness of her femininity...certainly not her counterpart.
Which brings me full circle to strangeness that I can do my best to explain, but won't have the impact as it did in real time because suspending disbelief here is often difficult..so many things just seem weird...Like standing in line to await my turn at the console at large to emit my musings. With 145 men and 3 keyboards it's kinda like the patience needed at your local DMV...I ain't been locked up that long! Next to me was a man that has been into hormone therapy out in the streets and has about a 34C cup working that keeps him not wanting for smokes or candy bars. I fall into my can't wait for the door of opportunity that GOD inevitable opens, and I might add often do not want to step through...I'm off to Tarshish like Jonah...but Nineveh is always on the waterfront...and sure enough the handle turns and in steps a man thinking he's a woman. He looks my way and says my name (rather coyly; a learned behavior of purported coquettishness that is supposed to be enticing) but I know he has testicles, so he cannot convince me otherwise..after all showers are here...and as much as he may want to think himself a gal his guyness is exposed. He continues in that fake flirting that, trust me here, brings some in. The saying in prison is "one lies down two get up". Ya gotta love how the coinage of double entendres get slaughtered in this camp. Anyway as I was saying (the digression as those whom know me...is whom correct?..I don't know for real!) This man asks me if I know his name. All I know of him is "Valentino" (I can't make this stuff up). Surprisingly enough it is his real middle name. He tells me that his full name is "Rudolpho Valentino Pena"...and adds "doesn't that sound too macho?" At which point GOD has fully swung open the portal of truth for me to disclose up close and personal as our sinning gets what this man's dilemma seems to be...and make no mistake I got a pocket full of stones..I am after all typing this to you guys...and gals from prison. I know the diff though...it's in the way you girls truly are...that wonderfulness I miss like a second skin. I say to Valentino, "well your parents had you being this type of man, and it seems that this butch roll you are divvying up for those of us who have pretended to forget that it was Adam and Eve, has you in derision as to your true identity." He's ruffled now for sure...because frankly a lot of men in here play his game...hetero and homosexual alike. And I'm not sure whom...(is this right..whom-who?) is the sicker of the two. We are parents...most of us anyway... and the WORD (yes here I go again!) warns us to "Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it" Proverbs 22:6. Needless to say the conversation was not going as he had planned so I had the sudden urgency to press on...got that gene down pat! I told him that no amount of laws passed, societal acceptance, or hormonal therapy is going to eradicate your very maleness that GOD decided to grant you with. It's your choice to go that way...HE did give us that...limiting HIMSELF to our decision making processes...be they of the worldly intent, or of the JESUS Manifesto inspired teachings. We all go astray of these tenets laid out in HIS WORD...'tis why HE came for us..'tis why HE died for us...'tis why HE Loves after us...to win HIM...to know HIM...to be found in HIM. As Valentino cruised away, ( he had enough of my crap), I couldn't help silently praying for him...it's what compels us as CHRISTians....to come to the THRONE of GRACE for others who are hurting, confused, and alone..it is the locus of SCRIPTURE that begs our obedience...we ask of this from our own children to keep them from the wayward way..yet they will still choose wrongly...here I am to proof out that anomaly. But it is in the bounty of CHRIST'S LOVE for me that I have discovered HIM to be all that the SCRIPTURES say HE is.
My sister is coming to visit me next week....I haven't seen her in 8 years. I want so desperately to win her over to JESUS because she has the epitome of benevolence coursing through her as if the CROSS was her WAY too. I can pray that I won't be too brash...not that she would allow me that...or that I will be effective enough to persuade her to relook at JESUS as my LORD and SAVIOR...or I can just soak up the trueness of fellowship that will reek of HIM through us both no matter my efforts...and that my friends is the GOSPEL spelt about in the renascence of the GLORY of HIS MAJESTY! If you are gonna preach, teach or reach for the GOSPEL, then be the GOSPEL. I love you guys!
later...dougie boy
I am sitting here in prison dealing with any number of strange behaviors. Just yesterday I was earring into NPR (Patti-Sue's favorite as she drives about doing her goodly duties as wife/mother/caregiver/..and most excellent sister...and not because she sends me things..to include money...but this is definitely a high ranker!) anyway..I hear of this pastor from a big old church down in Georgia who finally came to the individual conclusion that GOD created him to be a homosexual. I was livid. The color of red all over me because this man whom they were interviewing was telling..I'll say..his church body about this "secret" he's been cuckolding (definitely no pun) for decades. Not a last week epiphany mind you where his unbridled lust may have overwhelmed him at the spur, but calculated choices that galloped all over the very WORD he has to professed to follow. The requirements of a Bishop are plain and clear...."a man is to be the husband of one wife..."(1Timothy 3:2)..there are countless others within the confines of the freedom GOD bestows on those wanting the accountability of Church overseers, but I picked this one not because CHRISTians the world over are notorious for lambasting folks with rocket theology, or some estranged pet doctrine, (we can be in ignorance to this malady..and we shouldn't because then our witness can be of no effect) but because the fact remains: One wife...a woman...a glorious creation of GOD'S for the purpose of HIS LOVE towards us men. And trust me here folks the hardness of this place begs for the softness of her femininity...certainly not her counterpart.
Which brings me full circle to strangeness that I can do my best to explain, but won't have the impact as it did in real time because suspending disbelief here is often difficult..so many things just seem weird...Like standing in line to await my turn at the console at large to emit my musings. With 145 men and 3 keyboards it's kinda like the patience needed at your local DMV...I ain't been locked up that long! Next to me was a man that has been into hormone therapy out in the streets and has about a 34C cup working that keeps him not wanting for smokes or candy bars. I fall into my can't wait for the door of opportunity that GOD inevitable opens, and I might add often do not want to step through...I'm off to Tarshish like Jonah...but Nineveh is always on the waterfront...and sure enough the handle turns and in steps a man thinking he's a woman. He looks my way and says my name (rather coyly; a learned behavior of purported coquettishness that is supposed to be enticing) but I know he has testicles, so he cannot convince me otherwise..after all showers are here...and as much as he may want to think himself a gal his guyness is exposed. He continues in that fake flirting that, trust me here, brings some in. The saying in prison is "one lies down two get up". Ya gotta love how the coinage of double entendres get slaughtered in this camp. Anyway as I was saying (the digression as those whom know me...is whom correct?..I don't know for real!) This man asks me if I know his name. All I know of him is "Valentino" (I can't make this stuff up). Surprisingly enough it is his real middle name. He tells me that his full name is "Rudolpho Valentino Pena"...and adds "doesn't that sound too macho?" At which point GOD has fully swung open the portal of truth for me to disclose up close and personal as our sinning gets what this man's dilemma seems to be...and make no mistake I got a pocket full of stones..I am after all typing this to you guys...and gals from prison. I know the diff though...it's in the way you girls truly are...that wonderfulness I miss like a second skin. I say to Valentino, "well your parents had you being this type of man, and it seems that this butch roll you are divvying up for those of us who have pretended to forget that it was Adam and Eve, has you in derision as to your true identity." He's ruffled now for sure...because frankly a lot of men in here play his game...hetero and homosexual alike. And I'm not sure whom...(is this right..whom-who?) is the sicker of the two. We are parents...most of us anyway... and the WORD (yes here I go again!) warns us to "Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it" Proverbs 22:6. Needless to say the conversation was not going as he had planned so I had the sudden urgency to press on...got that gene down pat! I told him that no amount of laws passed, societal acceptance, or hormonal therapy is going to eradicate your very maleness that GOD decided to grant you with. It's your choice to go that way...HE did give us that...limiting HIMSELF to our decision making processes...be they of the worldly intent, or of the JESUS Manifesto inspired teachings. We all go astray of these tenets laid out in HIS WORD...'tis why HE came for us..'tis why HE died for us...'tis why HE Loves after us...to win HIM...to know HIM...to be found in HIM. As Valentino cruised away, ( he had enough of my crap), I couldn't help silently praying for him...it's what compels us as CHRISTians....to come to the THRONE of GRACE for others who are hurting, confused, and alone..it is the locus of SCRIPTURE that begs our obedience...we ask of this from our own children to keep them from the wayward way..yet they will still choose wrongly...here I am to proof out that anomaly. But it is in the bounty of CHRIST'S LOVE for me that I have discovered HIM to be all that the SCRIPTURES say HE is.
My sister is coming to visit me next week....I haven't seen her in 8 years. I want so desperately to win her over to JESUS because she has the epitome of benevolence coursing through her as if the CROSS was her WAY too. I can pray that I won't be too brash...not that she would allow me that...or that I will be effective enough to persuade her to relook at JESUS as my LORD and SAVIOR...or I can just soak up the trueness of fellowship that will reek of HIM through us both no matter my efforts...and that my friends is the GOSPEL spelt about in the renascence of the GLORY of HIS MAJESTY! If you are gonna preach, teach or reach for the GOSPEL, then be the GOSPEL. I love you guys!
later...dougie boy
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
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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