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Tag Archives: Prison
Prison Bars – World in Chaos — Reaching beyond the Bars
Went to prison today – oh so hot- and – wheres the rain — ready for fall! Got there and sitting waiting patiently for some one to show up – the count is on – no one can come until the count is done! I lay my head in my arms on the table waiting! I go sound asleep! About 20 minutes later I wake up and wonder where am I? Can you believe it – behind bars and asleep. Something about being cradled in the arms of one who loves you! Can you pass that – like your own home?
So one might wonder why the nap of peace? Well the 1st inmate shows. We talk about me sleeping and what’s going on in the world where chaos reins! How anger in the world manifests wounds buried deep in ones soul that can not rest it’s head on a table! How to heal wounds unseen? So he tells me he has one. He talks to his wife every week and she talks about suicide due to the stress generated from the stress of inheriting the head of the family from many many relatives! Wounds hiding behind behavior unfriendly – stress! She has taken the role of head of family – what to do – what to do hiding the unspoken where are you!
The unspoken question – what can I do from prison? The 1st reading Sunday is a cry – how long Oh Lord must I endure this trial – have you abandoned and forgotten me Oh Lord! I am with you always and everywhere – trust in my promise and rest in my arms!
How do we do that? Every time you talk to your wife, pray with her – speak the words of distress, anxiety, uncertainty, frustration and hope overextended! Then thank the Lord for the gift of a willing spirit standing in the midst of chaos, anger, woundedness and ebbing hope with the knowledge that grace comes out of the light darkness seeks to extinguish! Though you can not be where she is when the crises comes your joining prayer reveals and makes present a spirit of unity sealed with blessings one never stands alone when darkness seeks to extinguish the light!
Consistency of prayer provide the building blocks to endure the trials and begin to penetrate the barriers carefully constructed and wrapped around the wounds unseen. Yes – we are one, yes I am with you, yes we will overcome, yes we are never alone, yes we are hope where Hope appears spent, yes I love you, am proud of you and know you are stretching to fill a void for which forgiveness holds the key that opens the door to healing wounds unseen and embracing the healing power hidden in tears joined together to form an unexpected living waters to quench the thirst of voyagers through a lifeless desert! We are one in spirit and life!
Awesome – Word for God!
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:
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!!!
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?
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?
HIV / AIDS / Prison / Orphan = Cries from the Soul:
There was a man who grew old only to discover the God he trusted and the
church he dedicated himself had turned him into an orphan. Funny, I
know, an old man becoming an orphan? Gosh, the good Lord sure finds
strange ways to teach lessons!
Well, when one grows old you would
think they would have things figured out! So how come this old man
studied Theology of the Body – St. John Paul’s teaching about marriage!
The old man was way way past prime time for making babies! We are
supposed to know male and female were created to become one flesh and
such – the source of new life = a child! The old man wouldn’t trade
anything for that privilege! Heck, the old man’s old man told him when
he was a young man – if God created anything better He kept it for
himself! Did my dad tell me that? Yep!
Now, in God’s design every
man has an instinct to protect and care for his family! Wanna find my
fighting side attack my wife and kids! It’s the nature and design of a
father.
Hmmmm! One flesh! God’s design! So what do you suppose
might happen when God’s design for a Father is outlawed? What happens
to the one flesh when the father’s design is over ridden and the father
In the creation of new life is declared nonexistent. The father has
been effectively murdered and the concept of one flesh over ridden by
man! Ever wonder what has happened to so many men in the world today?
The old man walked through the bowels of Atlanta in his mid life and
wondered why? HIV/Aids and God made me this way! The real threat of
death brings out great thirst for answers! But man’s cocktail silenced
the questioner!
The old man was a slow learner! So God sent an old
man to prison to discover the design of father had been radically
removed much like an abortion destroy’s a child. So many Young men full
of anger and rage bouncing off walls crying out that something was
amiss and having little idea how to articulate the outrage emerging from
the cries and no one seems to hear!
How to speak truth to a world
in a race pursuing me happiness without a clue where happiness is hidden
in the first place! Everybody is happy right? No suicide among the
young right? An orphan by nature begins the journey seeking to find the
unknown something that lies securely hidden from the me emotions of the
moment!
When the orphan finally surrenders to the spirit of one
called Father, the designer of nature, one begins to become an orphan on
a journey toward home though a soul can seldom see the purpose of the
steps taken long long ago or now!
An orphan you see has a hole in
his soul and forever longs to fill that hole! The question is what will
the orphan choose to fill the hole —> ME?
Every child Long’s for the unity and completeness of the one flesh – three in one! Mom and dad and who?
There was this other man, stripped of every earthly thing, abandoned by
all his best friends forever, rejected by those called to be his
church, lead to a place of abandonment, cursed, spit upon, crushed with
weight, whipped, humiliated with a crown, given sour wine as his body
cried out in thirst all because he spoke the truth on how to fill the
hole!
But he didn’t stop – He sent the spirit who calls – come
follow me, I know the way to the Father who created the one flesh gift
you Are in yours mothers womb! No mistake was made in the beginning
before the journey began! What lies ahead is finding the key to the
doorway hidden within drawing one to search to find the creator of all!
Mirror Mirror on The Wall – Stop Talking!
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!
Symptoms of a Generational Attack on the American Culture
Completed my annual prison update orientation today. We are being told the new inmates coming into the system are different from previous generations. The one word summary used = “they are unchurched”!
Reflection – and you won’t hear this in church, where happy talk is the model of this modern era — translation the secular progressive movement in our nation has been highly successful in dismantling the cornerstone fortress’s (family and church) which historically protected not only children but civilization.
Seems so many have forgotten our nation really was founded upon a christian/judeo philosophy – freedom of religion and liberty grounded in personal responsibility. Is that taught in school anymore?: For the new age folks – this is a very old story being repeated under our noses lead by the ever sophisticated Hollywood glamor class with values one can find in a septic tank! Oh – if it feels good do as much as you can with as many as you can — there are no consequences and it doesn’t matter who you do it with.
Shut my mouth, should I speak in terms of a philosophy passed on as ages old wisdom and knowledge of “right or wrong” or heaven forbid I use the words “virtue or sin”. The progressives and the young will either try to shut me up or run for the nearest safe zone.
Folks are just misunderstood is the progressive answer! They better watch out – cause the gangs have no respect for safe zones either.
Be My Valentine
Be my Valentine
Heard this song this morning — Made me reflect!
Do you want to know what loves it?
I want to know what love is!
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-and-friends/index.html
Gotta take, a little time to think things over
I better read between the lines, in case I need it when I’m older
Now this mountain I must climb, feels like the world upon my shoulders
Through the clouds I see love shine, it keeps me warm as life grows colder
In my life there’s been heartache and pain
I don’t know if I can face it again
Can’t stop now, I’ve traveled so far, to change this lonely life.
Been to the bowels of Atlanta and stood among those with HIV/AIDS. Watched so many dying, felt their trembling and fear. Watched love being birthed in the darkness, loneliness and depths of distress of facing premature death. And the silent voice crying!
I want to know what love is, I want someone to show me
I want to feel what love is, I know there is someone who can show me
I’m gonna take a little time, a little time to look around me
I’ve got nowhere left to hide, it looks like love has finally found me
Been sent to prison and walked among so many young men filled with anger and fear, some abandoned by father and mother bouncing off the walls searching the depths of the anger and pain seeking to find a glimpse of hope (love) to grasp onto in the darkness.
I’m gonna take a little time, a little time to look around me
I’ve got nowhere left to hide, it looks like love has finally found me
Let’s talk about love, I want to know what love is
The love that you feel inside, I want you to show me
And I’m feeling so much love, I want to feel what love is
No, you just can’t hide, I know you can show me
I want to know what love is (let’s talk about love), I know you can show me
I want to feel it too, I want to feel what love is
I want to feel it too, and I know and I know, I know you can show me
Show me love is real, yeah, I want to know what love is
Every human wants to know — Do you Love me?