Category Archives: Prison

Blood the Connecting Thread!

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Pestering, Ornery Issues and People

Went to prison Friday 1 PM. Needed to get skid steer in for maintenance, spent too much time at church on way where ornery old woman I know was working. Gave her a hug and told her so! Worked up a sweat on a hot day trying to start skid steer! Finally forced to give in and do what I planned to do at start of day! Thought – Oh I could skip – but sensed the spirit was pestering me! Gave in! Took shower – got dressed – presentable – clergy! Went to prison!

Divided – so what do we have that links us?

No one was there! What do you have in mind for me today Lord? No one in prison comes until the “count” is complete and every inmate is accounted for! Then they came! A Georgia Tech grad, a drug runner, a Mexican Father and a boot camp young man. We talked the many issues of our day and the division! So what do we all have in common even those most radical- so what is it? Everyone bleeds the same red blood – without which life ceases to exist! And it is the willingness to shed ones blood for others the secret and mystery of new life lives! The life blood of the water of life changed into the finest wine – the only medicine with the potential to wash away causes of division and bring healing to wounds buried deep in the bones where blood is created!
We changed to Friday in hopes the boot camp juveniles could attend. We got our first one to attend and as we parted he said – please make sure they announce your service so I can come again and some others!

So now I understand the persistence of the voice that spoke to me as I debated all I wanted to get done!

War – Hate – Cost – Blood – Healing:

Our nation is divided and broken by a language of Hate! We are in a war without bullets – a war against God’s design – attack & destroy anyone who disagrees with self declared design – who among us is willing to shed blood to heal the many self inflicted wounds human nature’s willingness to listen to the voice of the one who seeks our ruin ?

Awesome – Word for God!

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Awesome, Awesome, Awesome a word used again and again by young people for everything!!!! Do they know it is a word that should be reserved for God and spirit of God. Does anyone think the Devil knows it’s a word reserved for God? Humm would the Devil seek to temp people into elevating themselves to conclude without thinking they indeed can do the things of God. I can re-create myself and be what ever I want to be! I can define myself and I have no limitations.

Happiness is found the world says – all I have to do is redefine myself!

Anyone suppose this thinking process could be used to defeat God’s design and prevent humans from ever finding happiness?

Pretty sure God gave us who we are and didn’t make a mistake! Seems that I found happiness was hidden while I was being created in my mothers womb. Our birthday is the day we began the journey to discover the plan God designed for us before we were born! Could it be be part of God’s plan parents, a mom and dad might be designed to help young people find truth in the places the world doesn’t want them to look!

Oops!!! How did I get here? Socialism isn’t Self governance. Self-governance can only work when people recognize there is a higher design, law and moral authority than themselves which possesses the only spiritual power for people to find themselves and unite as a people. Whereas Socialism must seek to destroy and replace that higher authority.

Forgive me for the sermon – but self actualization is man’s word to explain God’s design as man seeks to describe the place where happiness is found. A place when one begins to use every God given gift and talent! That’s exactly what a real leader wants to help achieve in every human being! As for me –> Yes – we hold these words to be self evident!

Hidden in the Prison Story:

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I never know what I will encounter or learn when I visit the prison. 5:30 nobody shows, 6:30 nobody shows, Well Lord why am I here today? I guess I am here so you can teach me to wait and wonder why am I here? Some special am I with no one to share and fewer who care! So what is it you have for me today? 7:10 PM and arrive 2 inmates I have never seen before. One so nervous he couldn’t sit still! The other stumbled all over his words. Are you Catholic I asked? Maybe, said the stumbler, but I don’t remember much, I have done so many drugs! So I asked and listened! What are looking for? Words jumping out of a frying pan I began to discern he was looking and searching to find in a mixed up puzzle who the heck am I? So many gather in big groups in religion but are unable to get answers calling from within the scrambled mess life, drugs and people, especially those who profess faith yet unreachable from the whirlwind holding the mind captive! A fried brain cannot stop the spirit within from crying out – who am I, why am I here, and what am I searching for? The image of God, no matter the darkness surrounding cries out as it seeks to be reunited with the source of it’s creation! The nervous one could not stop wondering around as in a search for a place to rest! Lord Have Mercy – who am I to even hope somehow I penetrate a darkness consuming those who seek escape, freedom, and find a purpose formed while traveling through the fire which seeks to extinguish the flame of life more abundant! Hidden in this story is the hope hidden in your soul with the saving power of love as you wait for the opportunity to set love free to heal wounds unseen!

Prison and Waiting!!!

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Went to prison again! Waited, waited, waited! Wondered and asked am I here just to be all alone? Well a great benefit am I with no one but myself to talk to. Then when I finally gave up – well kinda went to sleep – they started coming! Why did you come said I. Why are you here? What are you looking for? What is your name? Are you catholic? Well 50% is not so bad!
Oh how long ago was that you last went to church? Oh you were ready for the ceiling to fall! What did you say drugs did to you? Say that again! The folk’s just aren’t paying any attention!
Say that again! Oh you got in serious trouble! Hummmmm!

Prison Visit – Who Shows Up?

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Well yesterday wasn’t finished with me! I mustered enough discipline to force myself to go to prison like I am actually committed to do!?! You just never know who you might encounter there? Two inmates – new to me show up!

Observation:

You Catholic – nope – just came to discover! Discover what? What you looking for? For some reason Jesus Christ and suffering came up and the possibility that talent and giftedness are discovered through suffering! One young man said he found he was gifted! After a couple questions he reveled he was an orphan – a foster child moved from family to family. He said he learned to carefully observe = pay close attention to the people around him! God gives us all a soul with automatic survival instincts. Many don’t recognize our nature – we just adjust – sometimes it’s healthy – sometimes not so much!

Modern man is so occupied with selfie stuff – observation is replaced by technology that distracts ones focus from reality to unreal imagery.
So how does one find oneself? Well this orphan moved again and again discovered his survival instincts and began to pay attention. The wounds of suffering penetrate the soul causing one to search for answers hidden deep in a valley of tears where suffering leads a soul! I learned to pay close attention said the young and it is a gift!

The story of the cross if only we have the wisdom to carry the gift hidden!

Modern Man as Non-Bianry:

But modern man seeks to eliminate suffering with a pursuit and promise of a image that only covers the surface of a soul! Observation – is our world being turned upside down with the pursuit of replacing God’s design with modern man’s non-binary image as in just who can now recreate himself into what?

Who has control of your world? Emotions or Logic?

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Completed Orientation Training so I can continue to enter prison and share the Gospel of Good News! Our modern day prison is full of throw away people! Hym – symbolic of our throw away society! They serve as keys with the potential to begin to open understanding of the brokenness of our modern day sophisticated, so called compassionate and politically correct culture has inflicted upon us as it continues to fails us all!

Most don’t want to see them or know the story of how they ended up there! A prison is full of emotions often on the edge of explosion. Last week I was not allowed in prison because it was in lock down. Emotions alone create unrest and danger! To hear the Good news one must venture beyond emotions to engage the mind and spirit so one can discover the gifts of logic that can lead one to faith and answers that save!

Which Prison has Stronger Bars – A Prison or the World?

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I have been visiting a State prison for ten years now. Anything I bring in I am required to carry in a clear plastic see through bag. I am searched at the guard gate. I can only carry in my ID, car key and clear bag which is also run through a scanner along with my shoes, belt and glasses. Then I must walk through a scanner, pull out my front and back pockets and pull up my pant legs. Only then can I put myself back together again. Even with all this – bad stuff happens in the prison. It is not uncommon for the prison to be in lock down and I would not be allowed in. If lock down happens while I am there I will not be allowed to leave.

Do we really want to model our schools after a prison? Do we still have the ability and courage to ask the deeper questions about the failure of those in authority whose primary task it is to protect and teach how to navigate the real world of emotions, feelings and balance them with the courage of wisdom willing to search for the cause of the human breakdown and failure so our children may come to understand the lessons taught by Cain and Abel?

Emotions run high in a prison and they are running high in our land! I wonder what we are teaching our children? Emotions are a gift and serve a vital purpose -> send us on a search for wisdom and understanding!

We have an awful lot of unanswered questions about leadership failures of adults in authority! How can a gun law work – when responsible adults knowingly do not report serious problems, if known could have prevented the problem in the first place. And why do we refuse to allow well trained brave people willing to sacrifice themselves defend themselves? When will we ask these questions with equal intensity?

I wonder if modern man has the capacity to use the gift of logic and wisdom or has our modern world of reality TV world of instant gratification and answers over ridden our capacity to search the depths of our soul?

I wonder if we are being manipulated by those who support an agenda to make a “Change we can believe in” without clearly defining the “Change”. Are we going to let our emotions trap us in a prison?

I am a Father and a Grand Father. It is my God given duty and responsibility to protect and defend my children. Our founding Fathers were wise men who understood the lessons of Cain and Abel.

Gut Level Reactions – The Spirit is Talking to the Brain!

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Gut level reactions! They are a gift from God. It is God’s way for the spirit that lives within to speak to the body – to tell the body a treasured value has been violated. Some conclude the treasured value must be correct and can not be challenged. However, God gave us the story of salvation history to teach us the truth.

Our values are set while we are children. Just how mature are we as children? God understands our humanity and knows we can not examine our values again unless a gut level reaction takes place that sets us on a serious journey for the cause of the upset!

Jesus Christ came to testify to the truth and told us the truth would set us free (from the constraints of our humanity). Jesus traveled about preaching, teaching and healing. Ask yourself!!!!!!!!!! What was the reaction of the people of his day??? When they came to understand the Good News message he was spreading what did they do???

They plotted to shut him up! They plotted to trick him! They plotted to use the laws of their day to have him shut up by destroying him! We know the gut level reaction of many in his day was to crucify him in a way to shut anyone else up who might dare to speak the Good News he was sent to testify.

And what did his best buddies do? They abandoned him and hide. But hidden in the story is the gut level reaction that took place even in those who failed as a result of his faithfulness. The gifts of the spirit hidden within his friends ultimately worked it’s way to the surface and transformed them! The Spirit touched them and they immediately embarked upon a journey to spread the good news in the midst of a culture that thought it had shut him up!

We are living in a culture that is the midst of an upheaval of gut level reactions. It might just be wisdom to reflect upon the story which communicates cost and price of true freedom brought by one willing to die that we might have the hope true freedom and life everlasting!

P.S. last night in prison, one of the inmates was informed just before he came to the Catholic service, he was unexpectedly going to be set free the end of August 2018. Now I have to tell you that triggers the spirit hidden in the words “Lord Have Mercy”!!!

Pray for our Nation and our people, especially those so caught up in a gut level reaction that the spirit of wisdom and healing is tied up so tight the ability heal the brokenness of humanity is blocked. Remember the words – forgive them father they know not what they do! Lord have Mercy!

Turf Protection Unseen – It’s my Turf -er- Sin Hiding behind Authority:

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Working on Sermon for Spanish Class. Write it in English first then translate and later deliver in Spanish. I chose Gospel of Mark 9: 38 – 50 – Story of Jesus disciples complaining someone outside the inner group was healing folks in his name. Tell them to stop – human nature’s jealousy reaction! If they are not against me – hummm thinking as smoke comes out my ears!

So in 2018 we know some in the elite group we call clergy have been very naughty!
Did I tell you I plan to use this reflection in prison to those found guilty and locked away in a prison?  Could a real prisoner one day play a part in healing souls buried in a kind of authority prison where few clergyman are willing to enter?

I wonder just how many of you would seek to silence the voice of one willing to step into the darkness carrying only a light of hope hidden from eyes blinded by bars created to suggest only the inner group posses the grace to set others free?

Do we believe what Jesus taught? Could be time for those outside the inner authority circle who follow Christ’s lead to begin to find the voice that has been encouraged to be locked away waiting for a sign it’s time to speak and act!

Perhap’s we need someone rejected and imprisoned to show us the pathway to freedom?

Mirror Mirror on The Wall – Stop Talking!

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Got an unexpected text from an inmate who has been working out of the govenors mansion for the last three years. I helped him become Catholic about 5 or 6 years ago. After he was baptized he asked me why his cell mate began to criticize his every move. I told him when one begins to follow Jesus magic happens and they turn into a mirror. Folks look into that magic mirror and they don’t like what they see. It can take awhile before they realize their unhappiness lives inside and not in the one who serves as the mirror!
Long journey for this man. Brought up in a family involved in crime. That’s just the way it was.
Good good good news can take a long time and the cost often comes at a price of folks trying to drag one down in the mud. It’s I gotta drag you down to act bad like you used to so I don’t Feel bad about being bad!
Envey and jealousy can cause some folks to tear another person to schreds.
A lifer has plenty of experience listening to that negative voice. When the truth finally sets one free it is time to celebrate and pray the chains of sin will be cast into the never ending fire.
Me – I am gonna plan on attending Mass with this man and his God Father when the Day of Liberation opens the gates of prison and we can walk in the light of freedom!