Thoughts on Things...

..yesterday I came back from the second game of the championship best two out of three series in softball here in prison. We were battling back from the loser's bracket..been there, got the shirt..and stripes...we won. Which leaves us to fight another day for the season's coveted convict appellate of being the best here where none of us has been that. So needless to say in an effort to make a name for yourself where the sea of anonymity washes about here with mordant lubricity, you really strive for some sports notoriety. The other stuff we're experts at being notorious for.

Well...Sam and I have been cellies (rooming together) for over three years now, and the journey has been fraught with enduring riots, standstill happenstances, and just your basic prison nomenclature from which some derive their knowledge from the media, magazines or the menace we caused. Cell changes are probably the worst thing one endures here after being ensconced for a decade...hate even being able to come close to comprehending that. As I walked up the unit steps the turnkey (guard of housing unit) tells me that we have a new cellie. He furthers this with a type of admonishment that will soon be fully felt as I enter the domicile from which I hale as a solitary Christian man fighting the good fight..

Sure you must think: Jail-house Billy Graham here (that's cool..it's a big boat), but the true Christian saint walks alone--JESUS preached it so, and I see it in here up close and personal...frequently. "If I say 'my foot slips,' YOUR mercy will hold me up. In the multitude of my anxieties within me, YOUR comforts delight my soul."(Psalm 94).

The guard tells me in that conspiratorial whisper reserved for those who want to tell of secrets others have, that Sam and I's new cellie is a scared one, and that I might need to show him the ropes--"hopefully," he says "the man isn't up there using these to hang himself," he retorts...expecting some witty repartee from me. Compassion is not lost here, it's just hiding out in the form of malice. As I enter the unit no less than 100 men turn my way to see it's me; and exactly how I'm going to handle the new cellie situation. Which of course gives me that pause convicts are known for  that says something's going on to which I am fixing to find out about proper. They've been in here talking it up; some disguising their true feelings towards the likes of me and others whom aren't affiliated with the ilk of ill-reputed gangland garbage which is just a playground philandering of their little minds stuck on stupid (arrested development has got nothing on these Neanderthals). I immediately sense the waywardness of it. I too, have been stuck on imbecilic meanderings.

Walking in the direction of my cell. I contemplate a few things...one being that Sam always misses out on these initial deals. What does he know that I don't? His spidey sense must be more acute than mine. The other that perhaps it's a black man they put in our cell (Heaven forbid!)...or a sureno...or an ms13...or blood...or crip...or white supremacist...or, if worse comes to worse, another CHRISTian! How is Gonier gonna act? Let's lie in wait to see. "Our secret sins... in the light of YOUR countenance." Those which go no further than the heart, and which are at the bottom of all the overt acts.

See the folly of those who go about to cover their sins, for they cannot do so. "It is often the case that the paradoxes that so typified JESUS' teaching are expansive, complex, and nuanced...if you'll allow me that. It requires mulling and wrestling, it forces huge shifts in paradigm and eventually, practice." Culled from Carolyn Arends' "Wrestling with Angels". I mixed it up a bit...what else is new?

Okay back to the cell dilemma. As I walked into my cell shedding the chameleon eyes upon me, I see what all the kerfuffle is about. Standing before me after he had to use the toilet because he's been on a Bureau of Prison bus all day to get to this mountain top, was a man that fit perfectly into the pre-conceived appearance of the most hated of all prisoners...a child molester. A deep breath explodes out of me as a kind of gag reflex, which I immediately regret because here before me is a truly hurting soul, that may have committed heinous things beyond my understanding, and I'm okay with the hundreds of men outside my cell door that are robbers, murderers, gang-bangers...even extortionists. But this type of prisoner is what other types of prisoners are horrified at. So you take the dregs (that'd be me) of our look-orientated society and you pit them against you. There is no chance you can survive (literally) in this place with that jacket welded to your flesh. And all those men outside my cell want to see what I plan on doing about it.

Friggin' Sam! Always ducking these fun-filled adventures.

The status-quo of these ill-fated liaisons is vetted out by discovering if the man is in here for that crime. Just because he looks the part doesn't mean he's done the part. I've met men whom I've conversed with for quite sometime before discovering that they shot three people in a mall, killed a whole family, raped countless numbers of women, sold meth to grade schoolers, engaged in human slavery... all these things are okay though, but this guy here in front of me just won't do.

He reaches out his hand to me to introduce himself as if I am the keeper of the Holy Grail. He is desperate for acceptance...this in and of itself is not the clincher for labeling him with the umbrage of convicts everywhere, but it's a start, so they say. The psychology of inmates goes well beyond AA, into the confines of the mind where platitudes of glory are handed out for the gory. I feign dirty hands from the softball game (which is partially accurate, at least I want it to be that) in order not to familiarize myself too quickly. After all, 100 men are waiting... I'm in a state here now because I am a CHRISTian and a tortured and tormented soul is before me.

I spend about five minutes getting my shower stuff together. I put to him about his crime...usually most proffer this as rite of passage into the prison lore of badness. Most lie as much as this guy is fixing to do. He tells me he's here because of "drugs"--only it isn't so much a statement as it is a trying out period for him...on me. Kinda like "drugs?" I think I am the first person he's giving it a go on, given these instructions by his lawyer to lie (imagine that) because they too, know what treatment he is headed for in here...a meanness he wishes he could equate to those children he hurt, but it's a rougher go...strapped over a 55 gallon drum..hands tied to feet...you get the ugliness I'm sure.

His try fell on my deaf ears as I think for the quickened time when I wanted my sins washed away too. I leave him wallowing in that questionable state that strikes fear in him because as I exit the cell, the 200 eyes firmly affixed on Gonier, he beelines straight to the guard to ask for political asylum. The "proteco" of the inmate's social standing...protective custody. In the shower I am defeated in a way I can't quite explain. Ineffable to the max. Why couldn't I witness with some brief kindness about the love of CHRIST I so often tout about to the judgmental bastards herein? Was self-preservation that tantamount to my very existence here?

It was then (and maybe again) GOD gave me strength as I wept silently in the shower stall..spilling my tears with the water that was washing away the dirt from the hands I didn't want to welcome him with. "Out damn spot!" "For HE is coming to judge the earth....and the peoples with equity."(Psalm 98:9) It's even difficult for me to use Scripture right now...how convicting of a work is that by the HOLY GHOST? 

As I exited the shower that man was being escorted out of the unit to protective custody. And the other men were giving me their stained looks of approval: Way to make him check in Gonier...Good job...No chomos (short for child molesters). Never have I felt so sleighted in my walk with my LORD. Because it wasn't a good job by a long shot..and so those who persist in a sinful life sufficiently demonstrate that they are not born of GOD. Is that me? The Scripture tells me to examine myself daily...and so I did...weighed in the balance and found wanting. Hind and quartered by that sanctimonious behavior that excels other sins well and far above what mine are all about. True CHRISTianity establishes that which is of common concern to all mankind, and is not built upon such narrow opinions and private interests as sects commonly owe their origin to. The regenerate person is happily disabled for sin. There is a restraint, an embargo, if you will, laid upon his sinning powers. It goes against him sedately and deliberately to sin. "You who love the LORD, hate evil"(Psalm 97:10)

Well my friends I had a go of it all here as of late. The victory on the softball field paled in comparison to my failing attempt at true agape as was, and is bestowed on me by JESUS. Hopefully if given another chance and I'm certain I will, perhaps I'll handle it differently. I love you guys...love me too...please...

later...dougie boy

...and pray I ask for that man. I didn't at first and the taste still resonating in my mouth the day after is sour.

"Jiam nova progenies coelo demittitur alto, te duce, si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri, irrita perpetua formidine terras aspice, venturo laetentur ut omnia saeclo."

"A new race descends from the lofty sky, thy influence shall efface every stain of corruption, and free the world from alarm, see how this promised age makes all rejoice."

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

Happy Resurrection Sunday!

I would blog to you all a lengthy dougie boy type message, but low on funds will keep me at bay for now. Soon though I'll send out something. In the meanwhile...HE IS RISEN! Yeah!

GOD bless you guys!

I'm alive and kicking here in prison...can't keep a good man down...and when you all find one...haha...Psalm 27 has been a good read for me lately...love to all...

later..dougie boy

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) 

Been locked down...

...again!

You would think we could get some act right in this camp--I think there is not enough plays on Broadway for this to happen. I would love to tell you the reasons why we were shut out further, to increment our social diffs, from all that is considered in this...this...prison environs. (Okay so I don't always turn a good phrase.)

As I have told you guys previously, I cell with two other men in 85 square feet. The man on top I call "the cicatrix dude"...translated "Scar"...way too many Al Pacino flicks, or real to his conviction of conspiracy to commit murder. He's on the last of a 20 year sentence. Be getting out shortly (hide the silver!). The other guy, "White Bred," so given this moniker because he's white and grew up in mostly black neighborhoods... "Wonder" must of been taken. We've been "cellies" for over three years now and know each other pretty good (you think?).  The whole lock down thing has been wearing upon us like a steel welded jacket that can't be sloughed off no matter the soddened state of the acidic and acerbic amongst us (I'm back in the "A's" in my Spike Lee search for oneness).

Well...things got a little hot over a spades game of cut-throat that we were playing to pass the time. What was I thinking? I'm playing a game called cut-throat with...well...cut-throats. But in acknowledgement to my own claim to fame, I am a convicted armed bank robber so I fit right in don't you think? However, we need to take into account that I am a bought-by-the-blood, born-again believer in JESUS...still though...I don't ever forget what manner of man I not only once was (1Corinthians 13) and can easily segue into on a daily basis if my proclivity to do so overwhelms my walk with HIM.

Meanwhile...which is indeed a mean while in the instances brought about through the various big boy games playing about men's minds that want control of things out of control to begin with. Such was the case when I won three games in a row. Looking back I could've let one of those guys win one, but sometimes I got this wicked spirit of competition dwelling within my members that war against...well common sense. Things got heated up as if a large microwave was set on high and dropped over us in such palpable fashion that well done would've been rare to those ignorant fools whom believe that this wicked spirit of competition lurks only in those not saved by HIS wonderful grace.

I have yet to disclose to you guys that although my family right privy to this...you need to be as well given the nature of said blogpost heretofore (really...who talks like this?) I was out there where the stoplights are a professional magician...yessiree. "Doug's Magic" was the name and my ex-wife (which, I might add, I take umbrage to saying that cursed "ex" part as if it were not so) would say that my best trick was disappearing from society (sense of humor she) Unbeknownst to some felon folk that cards were my forte--could even spin the deck to such a setting so that I receive all the aces and most of the spades (get out of town!). You wouldn't do that, would you? If you could? Just for funnsys?

So as I was saying, my three trumped up victories (pun intended for days on locked up days) were not well received within the 85 square footage where us mean folk can get...well...mean. Tell me if you can how to diffuse the conspiring  to murder and the dealing of danger wrought about over a silly card game. I've seen men get nixed for less. So I was kinda in a quandary of sorts. I had in my favor 230 pounds of wrestling behind me, but I am 52 so it is pretty far behind me. I have the old school appellate firmly and ineluctably tattooed on my head, and I had (I hoped anyway) White Bred in my court if it came to Scar and I tossing about the cell, but he lost too! SO it came down to the only alternative left..."LORD teach my hands to war"...a Psalm recited of that great warrior King David. I've drawn upon its canvas for strength I ain't got many times over and, as is the case most times, GOD steps in and handles it...if I really let HIM do so. I opted for it this time because (for real) I've seen enough violence in this life to avoid it at all costs. And so HE gave me HIS instructions to lie down and say nothing. Oh yeah...and quit playing cards during lockdowns. A simply effective remedy for me...for my cellies. And fortunately we were let out of the cell the very next day. That always brings about reconciliation of some ilk to those of us trying to add more time to our lengthy sentences by cracking each other's skulls on the concrete and steel.

Satan desires to sift you like wheat the Scripture tells Peter and he crouches at the door ready to pounce upon the unenlightened. He was trying that old crap on  me yesterday...and I was a step away from inviting that destruction on in. We all can do it..maybe not as severe as physical stuff like the aforementioned, but still we, as CHRISTians, will face off against this foe as if the NHL were our mainstay. Keep in mind however that the book of James warns us .."That every man is tempted when he is lead away by his own desire..."....that means more of me is responsible for my actions than Satan ever could be.

I love you guys! Keep pressing....Psalm 61...

later...dougie boy

My friends...

We just got off a lockdown...6 days in a cell with two other men. Fortunately the 2 others have done a lot of hard time as well, so it wasn't as difficult as it could be in here. You get into 85 square feet with bundles of humanity within (well within) the comfort space that gets even the best of us claustrophobic. Between the three of us we have 35 years of prison done, and close to 20 more left to do. Not woebegoneing it for sure...but weathering this storm can only be wrought in me by the STORM DRIVER. When in the past I have strayed from JESUS, HE checks me in the most uncomfortable and mostly harsh manner.

And it should be like that.

Ecclesiastes 5:4-5 tells me to "Learn hence to vow (I love that! Learn hence..sounds just right)and pay to the LORD our GOD, for HE has no pleasure in fools." How greatly would the Sanctuary of GOD be enriched and beautiful if all would in their places do their part towards it, by exemplary purity and devotion, extensive charity, and universal usefulness. In expounding of Scripture one passage must borrow light from another, reference if you will Matthew 5:15. The lights of the world, the lights of the Church, must shine as lights. Therefore we have light, that we may give light. Providence gains the same end in different ways, that we attend its motions with an implicit faith.

During this time I was engaged to study HIS WORD. I love being married to HIM.  It is within the bounty of HIS LOVE that I find this patience to endure. I am grateful beyond measure for it.

We were lockdown because there's men in here wanting to stage a compound refusal to eat lunch in order to bring attention to purported injustices done to living men complaining about being punished for their sins. And it was on chicken patty day of all things! I love me some chicken patties! So (and I can't make this stuff up) they banded into what is now a defunct "Coalition for Concerned Convicts" (I say defunct even though they got what they wanted) literally over a thousand men did not go to the chow hall at lunch. And that's what they thought they wanted (big assumptions often get trounced around here). They thought they would move the hierarchy of a Federal prison to "c'mon we're dying here with the air conditioning, ice machines, microwaves, 7 flat screen televisions, enough rec equipment to open 4 community centers, education out the wazoo (sans tuition and text costs) and of course chicken patties (did I mention that they come with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes...enough fixings to shame a Big Mac?) Well only about a handful of men went to eat--that now have to endure all kinds of ridicule for bucking the CCC.

Mid-way through this staged event...say around 1145...the Warden put the word out to lock us up. And she didn't even need a coalition! Within 30 minutes we were tight in our cells...without the chicken patty. Good sense of humor she has though because they fed us the exact same thing six days in a row...and still we ate better than about 2 billion people the world over. It truly pisses me off. Not the lock down. If there were legitimate concerns (that can happen in a place rife with trouble from that infamous jump street we all leapt out from to land us here), but the CCC had its goose cooked--pardon the fowl pun (that's a double pun isn't?)--because we ain't got nothing to complain about in a Federal prison in America!

I must say with an ineluctable stand for JESUS, that GOD is able as ever to supply HIS people with good things, even in their greatest straits and in the utmost failure of second chances. ALMIGHTY POWER can bring water from a rock, has done it, and can again, for HIS arm is not shortened. Those that are of a fretful discontented spirit-- perhaps your way is rough and uneven, or foul and dirty--will always find something or other to make them uneasy. I shant do it my friends! The best have their infirmities, and far more sometimes in the exercise of that grace for which they are most eminent. But GOD...I love that passage all by itself..."But GOD!"...can overlook such heedless, nay I say purposeful passion, and therefore we must not be too severe..."for those that would improve in knowledge must be made sensible of their ignorance."

Okay...I've been to school and back (in more ways then you can imagine) English 102...gotta write a bunch of essays in this class...who knows that it's my favorite one so far?! We got an assignment to read 5 stories and do a cause and effect essay on one of them. "The Prodigal Son" in Luke 15 is one of them...can GOD map out a life or what? I was so excited when the Professor gave out that one. We have several Muslims in our class, as well as some pros at Dungeons and Dragons..the game and the actions. I hope and pray that somebody else takes up the mantle of the awesome Luke story...pray with me on that, won't you?

We do a lot of discussion in our classroom about what we write. Half the class thinks I'm plagiarizing everything...I can't even spell it! The other half has been around me long enough to let me make it. A guy asked me if I would write his class work for him--a Muslim fella. I was tempted, but a big nix to that form of learning. It's what did me in to begin with...cutting corners. In telling him no I had to be gentle and wise...the same thing said and done with meekness may be justifiable which when said and done in anger or spite may produce in me a culpableness I ain't prepared to handle. Authentic CHRISTianity leaves an unforgettable impression on those who encounter it. CHRISTians are responsible for the enduring impact they make. Believe that.

Well my friends I must be getting this off to you. Once we were let out to our first hot meal in 6 days, I was greeted at the chow hall with a reheated up old chicken sandwich (as I was saying our warden's got her a grand sense of irony..I wonder if she's a writer?) But I did enjoy it nonetheless!

I pray for you all..always..all my friends up on this trailer of a send-off, as well your families because some of you are mine for real...and some by the TRUE VINE..love in a way hardly able to constrain..shed abroad in my heart...Psalm 119:63.

later..dougie boy...alive and kicking

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.

"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

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

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

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

In the story of...

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

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

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

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

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

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

...

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

later...dougie boy

Courage I've only read about...

..it's what compels me this morning.

I was reading the most current issue of Sports Illustrated yesterday...thanks to my lovely sister-Patti-Sue...

She came to visit me here in prison on Saturday by the way. We haven't seen each other in almost 9 years. Although we chucked around the compliments of how well one another looked, also what was not avoided was the missing teethes...her with the bridges and the dental work befitting good medical coverage..me with the gap in my choppers that has me still ejecting scraps of food meant for mastication while I went about gesticulating...great are we Goniers at this fine forgotten art form of getting our point across... And if you won't listen after I've thrown half a Mr.Goodbar at you, well, what can a guy do?

For sure though my sister turned heads to the point of guys telling me later on the yard that I had a great looking wife (and ain't it funny how our spouses come to resemble us after years of being together). It was my sister I tell 'em. And then they proceeded to pry into whether or not she's single. Does she cheat on her husband? (audacity has not a chance in this camp.) Finally after dislodging their wayward requests for her risque history they are convinced she must have, I get back to my cell for a nice evening of recuperation. Not only from the ridiculousness of fielding inquiries into Patti-Sue's sexual history (my gosh I tell this one guy she's been married for thirty years...to a cop! Ha! That did it! Off they scampered! Proving that once again these guys dress up with all this purported tough-guyness, and for real they're just boys...mostly alone, scared and scarred from life's reaping and sowing laws--GOD'S law is what it is though--Galatians 6:7-8.)

As I settled into the aftermath of PTVS (post traumatic visitation syndrome) I laid back to peruse the old Sports Illustrated...a reliable candidate that gets my vote for escaping (albeit temporary) the incessant droning of my prison sentence with all its acroutements. Then I happened upon "The Courage of Jill Costello". A 5' 4" buck ten of a woman that spun such a web of intestinal fortitude from which I shant untangle myself for years to come.

At the tender age of ..oh 10 or 11 I'd say from the article's view, she wanted to be the coxswain for Cal Berkeley. A dream she pursued with enough due diligence to put to pasture all laws that line up with physical endurance and mental perseverance, smashing down the ends which most could not fathom justified the means. She was to me (or should I properly say "is to me" for she lives on in my thoughts--as well the women who stood by her--teammates and rivals alike) "a light that shines in a dark place" (2 Peter 1:19). Here I was basking (if you'll allow me that, from my sister's visit), reading along when out of the blue (which in this case the blues did show themselves strong) the cancer hit her from nowhere--a stomach ache mestasizing into a brutal attack on her integrity as a leader and a go-getter.

These men in here I hear complaining about various wrongs done them by being punished for their own sins...what about her? As I thought on my GOOD GOD (the article weaving its way along the tracks of my tears as Smokey Robinson would lament from lost love), but this little woman...Oh man the strength! As she got her opportunity to "man" the coxswain spot at the PAC 10 Championships, and, as I knew the writer of the story was setting me up for her death--especially when in the last time she wielded that handsfree mic and cadenced her crew on through though her rebellious body not wanting it so--halfway through the race blood starting leaking out of her nose and as one of her faithful oarers was told to focus on "Jill's strength"...by her coach. She saw it alright--an indomitable spirit that that wretched disease could not shake--she took the back of her hand and, as the writer put it so, "wiped it away with disdain".

Man, did you catch that? With disdain she battled an all consuming cancer that wanted to rob her of a dream she was now sitting in the catbird's seat of. So take that you cancer you! I couldn't finish the article at first because I knew where it was heading...and when I read that line about the blood in the middle of the race, I was glad to be in my cell without my other two cellies to witness as I pulled the blankets and sheets over my head to weep uncontrollably for this woman I've never met and for her friends and family who cheered her on in the worst of times (but you just didn't know that by her...and I can't take a cold without telling 100 people how bad I feel...) I finished up the story later that night when we were locked in tight--a mistake of course because my crying wasn't done as I knew it would come when the writer stitched me up into her death. But I had to do the silent eye scrunched cry...hoping these big bad convicts don't see me as weak.

Oh we're weak alright by Jill Costello's standard--gangs and the like trying for macho. No sir, that don't cut it. What's unbelievably macho is what came forth from this little woman. I hope this will serves as a wake-up for those of us think we got it so bad. We don't. Do you see? Love always...

later..dougie boy

I have found a key...

...to witnessing: helping others! When we do this with no ulterior motive, GOD opens way for the WAY.

It's really awesome to have seen this at work in my life since I've been in prison where ulterior motives is the norm (what!..get out of town!). No, for real my friends...just yesterday I was showing some men (if you must know.... a murderer and a drug dealer) the way to make a more excellent presentation for their college business class, and then wham! I was able to segue into CHRIST...the indeed and extreme of most EXCELLENT! So get on out there and do some good!...Psalm 103

later in love for all...dougie boy

"If the SON therefore shall...

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

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

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

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

later...dougie boy

One of the signs of aging...

....(at least in here..out there you have options).

If you have a wayward tooth, then one of the only solutions here is for you is to have it pulled. Especially if it is borderline abscessed. Today I was granted the thrill of being in the thrall of this activity, truly, madly and deeply..and love was not coming to town. As the dentist initially started giving the anesthesia (which I see as an oxymoron now--why should something that numbs hurt so bad?) I was remissed about a part of me that has been hanging in there for so long (at least on through Panama and the years of the military) the fights!...the flights!...the wrongs and the rights! The situ in here is such that once slated to see this elusive dental person, you better go lest you find yourself in a serious world of hurt and months from relief, yet an hour from tying the old floss around the cell door (they weigh in at 300lbs) and having your cellie slam it because you just can't muster up the courage to look it straight in the face (no pun mind you but I did say a mouthful).

So off I went this morning at 0630 hrs to pay the pied piper's wage of the prosaic prison price that can cost one much in the collection plate of pity. He's wrenching and I'm trying to act the big boy. I'm praying fervently, I might add, because this big boy stuff is a load of crap--especially when he stops yanking and twisting. I look at him and sweat is forming at his brow right above his nice trim teeth (yeah I can see all 32). I gander to the right and there with all her choppers is the diligent hygienist using that face shield now splattered with you know who's blood. I decide on a witty remark (what, me?..get out of town). Actually I quote Hemingway (I think...after all I was under a bit of duress) "What's wrong? Will it not gently into the night?"...coming out like whoommwmomweinnmskea? Still though the hygienist looks at me like, 'unbelievable! A convict quoting a classic'...as if we all are morons. I am--for being in this chair--at least the cell door would've been a one hitter quitter. This debacle is closer to loosing my bowels then all those banks I robbed.

The dentist takes leave to beeline to "the other room"...I'm hoping he didn't hate old Papa's line because he comes back with what looks like a pair of lineman's pliers...as a matter of fact it looks like the pair I took to the pawnshop 15 years ago! Oh the irony! That's like a double irony don't you think? Back to work and after another..say 17.45 minutes...I'm getting drenched now by his prolific water shedding running down the edges of his face shield and into my ..well mouth probably , but shirtfront for sure. My legs are doing their own thing now...that terrible tango of repressed pain while reclining in the chair of torture. Soon he withdraws his weapon of periodontal destruction and I go for Shakespeare. I stammer (everything is that now), "out damn spot, eh doc?" He gives me the withering look, that certainly says that I have done a goodly job in flossing and caring for my formidable little teethes. Still though it is only the hygienist that queries across her face the recognition that I have now moved on to Lady Macbeth in my terror packed stupor of tooth removal. Believe it or not it is only another 25 minutes before I hear the break...and I ain't talking 'bout coffee either...crack! What a horrible feeling! The tear leaking down my cheek is not for the pain--although deserving of it for sure--it is because a part of me is gone now...that is after he has to do some drilling ...splitting it into threes he says in order to facilitate a more easier removal. I'm thinking about putting his head in the cell door location by the way, but my violent days are behind me, and mostly I am grateful as he plucks out the remaining pieces of an otherwise salvageable tooth had I been in a dental chair out there where you guys are.

As I sit up to wipe away the blood from my face, there is an inmate whose been lying in the chair next to me all the while with a look of abject terror on his face because he's next. Perhaps though he didn't listen to his father... he told me you don't have to floss your teeth, just the ones you want to keep...an adage that went through the best of times and the worst of times in a very short time span today. I got up and asked the dentist if he ever saw "The Marathon Man" with Dustin Hoffman and the Angel of Death Josef Mengali as a deranged German Gestapo dentist...he replied  with a pretty good impersonation of a sinisterly implication that yes he remembered that movie...So there you go..from Hemingway to Shakespeare to Hollywood.

As I hobbled from medical, GOD reminded me that losing that tooth, albeit tragic on its own merit, can't compete with those whom are losing limbs in wars, minds to disease, loved ones to divorce...and so in HIS infinite compassion pointed me up to think on HIM, and all I have to look forward to once rid of such corruptibleness as this old flesh. PRAISE HIM for that always. Beside he says if that foot offend thee cut it off, better to enter in halt and lame....

later..dougie boy

Softly and gently...

...JESUS is calling...calling to carry you home...won't you all come with?

love as always...dougie boy...it's getting late

And the subject is...

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

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

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

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

later...dougie boy

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 can't PRAISE HIM enough!

It's true! HE has given me this incredible opportunity here in prison to do the one thing I won't be able to do in heaven...witness!

True faith is having confidence in what HE has done for you. Often we will wallow about thinking..."But I find it hard to believe that a troubled, failing CHRISTian like me could be precious to GOD. HE has to be disgusted with me because my life is so up-and-down. I've got problems I can't seem to get through. I believe HE still loves me, but surely HE is disappointed in me." What is GOD'S  motivation for wanting to deliver you from whatever ails thee? (Sorry sometimes I get all King Jamesy!) Is it because you have done something to appease HIM? Have you increased your prayer time? Do you spend more hours reading Scripture? All this is good. But Isaiah had the TRUE revelation: "since thou wast precious in MY sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee...fear not..for I am with thee."

Yesterday I missed a medical "call-out" because I lost a bit of focus on the routine of this incarcerated life because of the recent riot. One man did die that we know of so far. His nickname was "Sleepy"...and as I witnessed to him over these years he seemed opened to what the WORD had to say, but the la vida loca that drew him in was too strong an influence...and it cost him his life. At least that is the info I have gottten so far as to the fall-out of that horrid event. I digress to pay homage to those trapped in that gangland garbage. I just hate it with a perfect hatred carved out of losing a friend to whom had a chance if perhaps given one more day... Tell someone today about JESUS will you? You may be the last ditch effort by GOD to reel them in...after all how did you find out about CHRIST?  It wasn't from the crib that's for sure. Someone told you!

Okay now back to the missed call-out from medical...around here there are 1800 men to deal with, so when they schedule you for medical or dental, you want to get there! But I was distracted since the riot and the moving to a new unit, and lost focus on the daily ritual of checking the sheet that has the call-outs. This is by far no excuse to the hierarchy here in prison management, so I got what is called "written up". Been in prison for 13 years of my life, and barring defending myself physically I have never had a write-up. (Oh sure now I want to abide by the rules! Where did we get this guy?) Anyhow I had to go to the Lt's office to get served. Take into consideration that many see you walking that dreaded lone stretch to the "bench" where you sit and wait for the Lt. to come at his whim to handle you up. Many chortles and cahoots followed to see the "preacher man" getting his due. Oh the stones! Still though I was undeterred because I serve a MIGHTY GOD from whence (gotta love that word!) the Lt. gets his empowerment.

So I sat there and the wind was kicking off the mountain side, biting and howling as I watched 2 others show up to answer with an excuse riddled alibi in order to stave off the always inevitable commissary restriction/ phone loss/ e-mail-ban. (oh no!) that comes from the bench participants--even loss of "good time"--the worse by far punishment for us aching to get out as soon as possible...and that'd be everybody. These guys plopped down to exhaling of breath and posture defeat even before speaking up to say what they were here for. Radios is what they had in their possession that did not have their prison number on them...what are you kidding me?...a black market in here? get outta town! No it's true...men lose in gambling (again in here?) and instead of losing something far more valuable...use your imagination...they give of personal possessions in order to keep their more personal possessions. So guys buy these already engraved things with another's number and end up inevitably getting caught...some just can't get enough of that...I was one likened unto this behavior, 'tis why I have a pocket full of stones.

I go off into my "old school" advice...it's free and these men are 23 and 25 years of age, so they partly are attentive. In here you must give sway to those of us that have done enough time to saddle up to Big Ben and give him a run for his money. I tell them to be truthful...tell the ugly truth instead of that already manufactured beautiful lie that you are in no way gonna get by with. At first they were in the bucking mode as if the rodeo was right up their alley, but soon as I discoursed on what could happen to them further (not farther...as it were in increment of severity), if they were to get nabbed (pun all day for sure) for lying as well the contraband radio. I also let them know that I could aid in their up-coming radio-free days (not to be confused with the Woody Allen story) with an extra of my own which I keep for times such as these. Then I asked them to join me in a little prayer to move things in a GODLY fashion...amazing how receptive folks are when in the straits that dire allows free reign. Then the Lt. finally got with us one at a time, letting both of my bench buddies go with radio in hand (a first I tell ya that I've seen) and then a brief encounter with me.

As I didn't feign any ignorance...just told him I'm guilty...he was left with nothing to question me on. Off I went...still write-up free...ain't GOD cool...

later...dougie boy

"And these are they which are sown...

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

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

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

later ...dougie boy