Ninety Readings in Ninety Days 

Thank God, I am a grateful alcoholic: Bo is the writer, not me.  But before you begin to love him and his gift for writing, let me first share with you one of the many reasons I love him as I do.  Today is Wednesday March 5, 2003, the deadline for the Governor to sign Bo’s pardon … the Governor has until Midnight.  This is the second time Bo has been “unanimously” approved for parole by the parole board.  The Governor did not approve his parole three years ago. 

This evening during our regular Wednesday night 12-step program behind prison walls, Bo talked about his feelings … five hours before the signing deadline.  Many times I have heard Bo tell how grateful he is for being in prison … “if I hadn’t been in prison, I never would have met my wife Debb”.  Many times I have heard Bo say, “I am a grateful alcoholic”.  Now I know what they mean by “a grateful alcoholic”.

Tonight, Bo talked about his fear, his anxieties, and every other negative feeling we all know and shrink from.  This is serious business.  Bo is waiting to hear if he has been paroled from a life sentence.  But, most of all, Bo talked about when not wearing his self-centered hat, he’s “OK with what happens” as long as I “just let go of what I want” … maybe “God’s got me stationed here for more duty”.  Thank God I am a recovering alcoholic and I am blessed with knowing Bo, and many of his fellow prisoners.  It is now two hours before midnight!  
–Jim Russell, Founder, Spirit of Recovery
TO THE READER:

(In the world of recovery, many of us have heard “ninety meetings in ninety days”.  Published by Forward Movement Publications, the Forward Day By Day presented daily meditations by Bo Cox for the months of May, June and July 2002.  We thank Forward Movement Publications and Bo Cox for allowing us to share these meditations with you.)

Open unto us the gate of Everlasting Life. This is a message of Easter, the message of the unfolding life of every one of us, who has glimpsed the promise and glory of new life in Christ that is Easter.

     A good and old friend of Forward Day by Day writes the meditations that follow. He has written meditations a number of times throughout the past seven years, years spent serving a life sentence in
an Oklahoma prison. His life is a daily regimen of prayer, exercise, work, reading, writing, and prayer. From this perspective he asks us to reflect with him on the meaning of the lessons appointed each day by the Book of Common Prayer.

     This author and I correspond with one another almost weekly between my visits to his prison. While he was writing these meditations he wrote: “Sometimes I think I should just write over and over again, ninety-two times, ‘I don’t know. You figure it out.’”

     He didn’t do that. Instead he has written from
the depths of the wisdom and honesty of his own captivity, where he has been met by the Lord Jesus, who opens the gate of Everlasting Life.

     Each one of us is a captive, sometimes thanks to ways of our own choosing. But in our captivity Jesus Christ visits and redeems us, opening unto us the gate of Everlasting Life. —E. S. G.

DAY ONE

2 Corinthians 4:1-6. For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness.”

My dad sent me a picture. It was 1974 and I had won the 4-H dress review. Not long after, I began to raise hogs to show in the county fair. Later, I was inducted into the Honor Society. When I grew up, I wanted to be a forest ranger. My world was anything but dark.

     Then, something happened. My life bottomed out. Fast. Really fast. Light turned into darkness and then it was night for a long time. Finally, after doing the very worst thing a person could do, I was sent to live in a place where darkness is the norm. The only light I saw in here for the first years was artificial light from the bright halogen lamps that are significant of man’s pitiful attempt to overcome darkness.

     Again, something happened. In the midst of the darkest dark I’d ever known, a real light began to shine. Inside me, it seemed. For those of you who’ve joined me on these pages before, you know the story. If this is your first time, please bear with me and try not to shut me out because I’m writing from prison.

     Don’t be afraid of the dark. It’s where the light will come to us. For the next three months we’ll get to spend some time together and I’ll try and describe how the light came—and continues to come—to me. I’m sure I’ll come up short but in a way, that’s understandable. After all, how does one describe a miracle?

Ps 119:33-40; Isaiah 30:18-21; John 14:6-14

DAY TWO

2 Thessalonians 1:1-12. When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

Let’s get something straight: I’m not like Paul. I don’t, I can’t, I won’t believe in this Apache heli-copter version of Jesus, complete with heat-seeking missiles. If you’re looking for some hellfire and brimstone, check elsewhere.

     It’s not that I know anything. Quite the contrary. But, if Jesus is like Paul is suggesting (I suggest Paul is describing Paul—not Jesus), then I don’t stand a chance. Not only have I tread upon the most profane act of taking a life, which I cannot replace, I continue to “not obey the gospel of [my] Lord Jesus.” Day in and day out, I fail, miserably, at following Jesus. Don’t get me wrong, I try. I do. But I’m like a kitten jumping at a string waved higher than she can jump: I come up short. Often.

     Is Jesus more a hall monitor looking to protect
the rights of the comfortable? Or, is Jesus a gentle shepherd, caring deeply for those of us who seldom, if ever, get it right?

     The Deacon George Day tells this story: A woman prisoner asked him one day if Jesus gave second chances. My friend, the deacon, told her, “No.”

     “Jesus gives us all the chances we need,” he replied.

Ps 71; Lev 19:26-37; Matt 6:25-34

DAY THREE

Leviticus 23:1-22. When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and for the alien.

It was the night of the Orange Bowl and the
Oklahoma Sooners were in the process of winning the 2000 National Championship. In Oklahoma,
not unlike some other states, football is religion. Those of us in prison were as devoted as anyone.
We were having a party.

     A bunch of us had chipped in and brought a spread worthy of praise, especially considering
prison limitations. By kickoff, we were settled in front of the T.V.

     One of our friends couldn’t make the gathering so we made him a plate and I carried it to his cell. On the way, a young man sitting in the prison day room noticed the pile of chips, meat, tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, refried beans, black olives, melted cheese and sour cream piled atop the plate in my hands.

     “Man, that sure looks good,” he said.

     “It is,” I replied and hurried on to deliver the tray and get back to the game.

     See? I get it wrong more often than I get it right. I should have invited the young man. The rules are plain: care more for others than I do for myself. I can’t follow them and, yet, the light shines on. How do I explain that? I don’t. I can’t. I am unworthy.

Ps 106:1-18; 2 Thess 2:1-17; Matt 7:1-12

DAY FOUR

Matthew 7:13-21. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my father in heaven.”

In 1968 a 17-year-old with a pistol crawled out of his friend’s car. He and the friend were high on gold paint. Gold paint was cheap, easy to get and it would get you high enough to hallucinate. Within minutes, a man lay dead and his wife, wounded. The two young men went to Oklahoma’s Death Row to await execution.

     1972. The Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional. All death sentences were commuted to life.

     1989. I was in my third year of prison and had just arrived at this yard when I met Mike. It was his 21st year of incarceration. The first thing we did together was shoot speed. During the next year we did that a lot.

     1990. The two of us entered a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program.

     Sometime today I’ll drop by his cell to play dominoes. Really, we’ll talk. He’s my mentor in the truest sense of the word. In fact, were it not for his presence in my life, I wouldn’t be writing these words today. He’s that much of an influence. He’s not a writer so you wouldn’t know this, but he’s the one who teaches me about Jesus.

     How? I watch how he lives his life.

Ps 75, 76; Lev 23:23-44; 2 Thess 3:1-18

DAY FIVE

John 15:1-8. “You did not choose me but I chose you.”

Was it my choice, to follow Jesus? It may seem that way but realistically, if it were a matter of me being in control, I’d probably still be out on the fringes, trying to find that elusive happiness in the bottom of Baggies and bottles.

     I’ve stumbled and bumbled and wobbled and bobbled my way to today. Today—where I’m
happier than I have ever been. Happier than I ever thought possible. I didn’t know life could be this good. I didn’t know I could get up every morning
(in prison, doing a life sentence, no less) and want
to fall on my knees and say, “Thank you,” and mean it. This level of existence was (and still is) beyond my comprehension.

     Don’t get me wrong, I like to try and take credit for the successes of today. If it weren’t for reality, maybe I could. What’s reality? I didn’t make the sun rise this morning. Neither have I had anything to do with the spring weather we’ve been enjoying, or the birds singing. In fact, I even have very little to do with the words on this page.

     And the light. It’s been there all along, but I didn’t start noticing it until about eleven years ago. I didn’t turn the light on then, and I don’t turn it on today. I can’t earn it and I don’t deserve it. Yet, there it is.

     How did I get here today? I don’t know, but “Thank you, Lord.”

Ps 148; Acts 17:22-31; 1 Peter 3:8-18

DAY SIX

Matthew 13:1-16. “The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’”

Despite the fact there is an almost-but-not-quite-visible proof of purchase seal on the presence of God in my life—in other words, I can’t prove it, but I know it’s real—I still have to confess that I don’t perceive, I don’t listen and I certainly don’t understand. Especially understand.

     In the East, the Japanese have a literary device called a koan. Koans are the same as parables. It would be correct to say some of Jesus’ recorded teachings are koans. Koans were told by enlightened masters to aspiring students; questions like: what is the sound of one hand clapping?

     It is generally understood in the East that there is no set answer. If it were a multiple-choice test, it wouldn’t be a, b, or c. The answer would be a, b, and c, along with the admonishment that, really, there is no answer. The question is where the goodies lie. Jesus understood, as it were, the power of koans.

     I don’t know the answer. Is it a? Maybe. No? Yes? I’m not sure?

     Jesus accepted and embraced the commas and even question marks in our midst. He understood how limiting words can be. If I were allowed to use punctuation marks to describe my understanding, I would choose a question mark (?). Or, maybe even a series of ellipses ( ... ). What’s yours?

Ps 80; Lev 25:33-55; Col 1:9-14

DAY SEVEN

Psalm 78:1-39. He commanded our ancestors to teach their children.

They’ll have a wild, rabbit-like look. Skittery. Feral. They look human too. You’ve got to look a little beneath the surface to see what I’m talking about. Or, maybe one has to have had that look themselves before they can identify it in another. All I know is that look starts somewhere in childhood. Most
often, it’s not the look of people with stable
upbringing. Most of them end up in prison.

     What do they do once they get here? Usually, nothing new. Change is scary, and if a person never knew any other way than drugs, violence, lying, stealing or (fill-in-the-blank) then that’s what they’ll generally stick with. Oh sure, the pain of living that way will usually drive a person to ask, “Isn’t there a better way?” But, sadly, once they try that better way at the age of twenty-four or thirty-two or forty, it’s so uncomfortable and so unknown it’s almost
impossible not to go back to what’s comfortable. Even when it’s killing you.

     Sure, there are exceptions. At the age of twenty-seven, when I finally decided to try a new way, it really wasn’t new. It was what I’d been taught. That, along with plenty of grace and light, got me to today. In fact, that upbringing is grace and light.

     I’ve seen, firsthand, how hard it is to teach children when they’re in their thirties. Let’s teach them before they get here. Please.

Lev 26:1-20; 1 Tim 2:1-6; Matt 13:18-23

DAY EIGHT

Psalm 119:97-120. Your hands have made and fashioned me.

“Man, all them guys are worthless.” He spit it out. Actually, he was more specific and colorful in his statement.

     We live next door to one another. We talk
frequently. Both know the other is as far from sainthood as...well, you know. He’s doing life
without parole, and I’m doing life. Both have
killed another man. On that basis alone we come crawling to God, never mind the million and one other shortcomings.

     “Do you think it’s possible for me to hate another group of people so much and still love God?” His frustration is still a tangible reality, partly because it took place less than twenty minutes ago and also because his feelings were trueborn.

     “Well, brother,” I was hesitant to step out there, “I know God made them, and I know God made us, so we’re all good. I don’t know exactly how I know that; it’s just one of those things I know.”

     At the moment, I didn’t know it was going to be today’s meditation. Only when I read the above line from Psalm 119 did I know what to write about. Have you ever heard that saying—I don’t remember

exactly what it says at first, but it ends with “God don’t make junk?” Well, God don’t. Besides, if God does make junk, I qualify. Likewise, if God makes miracles, I qualify as well.

Lev 26:27-42; Eph 1:1-10; Matt 22:41-46

DAY NINE

Acts 1:1-11. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

Heaven is up. Hell is down. Earth, where we live and move and have our being, is the pancake expanse in the middle. It’s a three-tiered level of existence we occupy, right? Such was our understanding of the universe in ancient times.

     Today, we understand it to be a little more complex than that. The universe is a mighty big thing and since the earth is constantly rotating and spinning, up is an unlimited combination of possible trajectories. And, at the risk of sounding sacrilegious, we know that if Jesus didn’t take off with enough gravity-defying power behind him he wouldn’t have been able to get past the earth’s gravitational pull and would be stuck up there with the moon and all that space junk, orbiting earth endlessly.

     But we know that’s not the case, don’t we? Going up, in the vernacular of Luke and his contemporaries, isn’t the same to us, is it? Our understanding deepens. God is not static. At the very least, the Bible says so. Sometimes, like it or not, things change.

     Meanwhile, if we stay stuck in ancient times and look to the sky for Jesus’ return, we miss him in our midst.

Ps 47; Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:49-53

DAY TEN

Psalm 87, 90. For all our days pass away under your wrath.

“My carburetor was messing up and my RV was sputtering and lurching all the way across the bridge. I had half of New Orleans held up on that highway.” I was listening to my brother last night on the phone as he relayed the rather colorful events of his day. “I promise you, it ain’t no fun trying to make it from Gonzalez, Florida to Westlake, Louisiana with a messed-up carburetor.”

     As I listened, I thought about what our dad would say to Crockett if he were to tell him the same mishap-plagued story. Being a dad, he would have felt that need to have a solution and offered it. Regardless of how he offered it, gently or harshly, the argument would’ve been won. End of conversation.

     Being a brother, I don’t feel as responsible for the way my brother lives his life. I do, but not like Dad does. Yet, at the same time, I’d give my life to save Crockett’s. In a second. Without hesitation. Just like dad, my love for my brother is fierce.

     Between the two of us, my dad and I love my brother a lot better than either of us do alone. As that reality began to sink in, I realized I had gone a little farther into the wonderful and fathomless world of

Christianity. I saw the evolution of our belief in a whole new light; how we grew to see God was both as a dad and a brother. The light shines on.

Num 11:16-17, 24-29; Eph 2:11-22; Matt 7:28—8:4

DAY ELEVEN

Psalm 68:1-20. He leads out the prisoners to prosperity.

It’s tempting. I’d love to believe they’re talking about me when they use the word prisoner in the Bible. I’ve corresponded with quite a few people, and I’m always amazed at the number of comparisons between myself and Joseph or anyone who “did time” in the Bible.

     The main difference is that they were innocent, and I am as guilty as anyone who ever sat for a mug shot. I’m not being sold into slavery by a pack of corrupt brothers, and I’m not being prosecuted
because I’m a Christian.

     I’m in prison because I killed a very precious young man named Bart. I am guilty of taking a life I cannot replace. No matter how long I stay in, no matter if I were to die for my transgression against Bart, his family and God, no matter what, I cannot undo what I did. All I can do is try to live. And hope. Meanwhile, every time I see the word prisoner, I want to think I’m like Joseph or Paul. But I’m not. I’m guilty. It’s important we all remember that.

     Those people deserved to be out of prison. I don’t deserve it. It doesn’t mean I won’t get out someday but, should I ever, it’ll be undeserved, unadulterated grace. Mercy. Forgiveness. Light.

     It’s all I’ve got coming. And it’s so much more than I can describe, much less deserve.

Acts 1:8-14; 1 Peter 4:12-19; John 17:1-11

DAY TWELVE

Joshua 1:1-9. “I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

It was a sunny day in November 1986. I was close enough to the razor wire I could see my small, distorted reflection in the tiny barbs. Handcuffed and shackled, I was delivered to the care of the Department of Corrections.

     It’s a gross understatement to say I was scared.
I didn’t think I would make it. I certainly didn’t know God was with me. I was pretty sure God had abandoned me. So, what did I do? Did I find a friendly face and confide in them? “Whew, I’m glad to see you. I guess I don’t have to tell you how scared I am.” No. Did I cry? No.

     I puffed up my chest and acted like I wasn’t scared. It was pretty easy. I’d been hiding my fear, in one way or another—aggressive behavior, chemical abuse, laughter—for quite some time. Ever since I’d begun to self-destruct, pretending it was no big deal to have my life falling down around me had become second nature.

     Years later, afraid and lonely, and tired of hiding it, I tentatively voiced my vulnerability. Since then, I’ve learned a little about courage and strength. It doesn’t mean that I’m not ever frightened or dismayed; part of being strong and courageous is recognizing and admitting you’re anything but.
And, that you’re not alone.

Ps 89:1-18; Eph 3:1-13; Matt 8:5-17

DAY THIRTEEN

Matthew 8:18-27. A windstorm arose on the sea, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves.

Water. The Bible is pregnant with symbolism when it comes to water. Barbara Brown Taylor, a favorite preacher of mine, says the Bible was written by poets, not journalists. I like that. It is in that spirit that I invite you to take a brief look at water with me.

     When you’ve been hauling 70-pound bales of prairie hay all day long in the 103 degree Oklahoma summer, and the leaves hang lifeless on the distant scrub oaks because the wind won’t blow enough to even give them a stir, water brings life.

     When you’re bathing a baby, it’s shallow and safe, temperature mild. Reflective of the baby’s coos and giggles, it cleans.

     If you live on the coast of Newfoundland, it’s bone-numbing cold and deep. People can’t survive long in it.

     Folks along the Mississippi can tell you how the peaceful muddy flow can lull you to sleep with it’s hypnotic power, and that night comes over its banks and wipes out everything you own. It defies predictability.

     In a Native American Sweat Lodge, live steam hisses off the red-hot rocks, and you sweat your way back into the earth to which your body will one day return.

     Water. It can’t be described or understood. The poets of the Bible drew a parallel. Can we?

Ps 97, 99; 1 Sam 16:1-13a; Eph 3:14-21

DAY FOURTEEN

Matthew 8:28-34. Then the whole town came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their neighborhood.

I beg him to leave all the time. Today a guy stuck his laundry in the dryer ahead of mine when mine had been sitting there first. Once it was clear to me what happened, out came his laundry and in went mine. You just don’t do that, or put up with it, in prison. So, when I couldn’t learn who the line-jumper was I left a nasty note on the dryer, daring him to touch my clothes.

     Boy, that’s real Christ like, isn’t it? It’s a daily thing. My rights, my needs will supercede another’s and, wham, out of the neighborhood goes Jesus.

     It’s a scary proposition, following Jesus. Remember, this radical made his contemporaries so mad they killed him. I don’t know why his causing the hogs to jump off the cliff made everyone so mad, but apparently it did. Maybe they were planning something with the money that could be made from the hogs. Or maybe what they saw frightened them to the core.

     Jesus is cool when we’re loving people who don’t put their clothes ahead of us in the laundry. Thing is, Jesus asks us to love those who upset the status quo. Then, we ask him to leave the neighborhood.

Ps 101, 109:1-30; Isa 4:2-6; Eph 4:1-16

DAY FIFTEEN 

Matthew 9:1-8. “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”

Again, given my situation, I’m sure you can see how desperately I reach for scriptures like this one. I need forgiveness in a big way. God gives it to me, too. In big goblets, forgiveness spilling over the sides, they’re so full. I can’t drink it all because the goblets seem bottomless.

     Thing is, somehow I know God has forgiven me. Maybe it’s because of Jesus’ words; maybe it’s that I’ve met people who I felt had forgiven me. The point I’m making is this: I’m square with God. Sure, I come on my knees with my head bowed and my eyes downcast because I’m as far from worthy as a mortal can be. The kind of love I feel from my creator humbles me to the point of embarrassment. But, as far as being forgiven goes, I think I’m okay. When you remember what it is I did, that’s an indescribably huge thing.

     Not everyone forgives me. There is a woman who lost her son to my actions. A cousin who lost a cousin. A sister who lost a brother. The list goes on.

     How do I reconcile the two? On one hand, I’m forgiven; on the other hand, I’m scorned and hated. Does one cancel out the other? Some people think so but, if you’ve been where Bart’s family has, I bet you don’t figure that forgiveness erases what I did.

     And, do you know what? You’re right. It doesn’t.

Ps 105:1-22; Zech 4:1-14; Eph 4:17-32

DAY SIXTEEN

Jeremiah 31:27-34. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

I already had on my oil-stained state-issue jeans, torn blue shirt and muddy boots. I’d just finished breakfast, and was on my way to check in to work when I got the message: “Call your wife." You hate that message; it’s never good.

     “What is it, honey?”

     “Arlis died last night.” Arlis was my friend’s father and a very good friend to my wife and me.

     “Oh, man. No.”

     It fell on me to tell Richard, his son. Thing was, the news that I’d received a message to make an emergency call had already circulated. Richard was on his way to see me, to find out if I was okay. He was coming to help his friend.

     “What is it, brother?” His eyes searched mine.

     “Ah man, Rich, it’s your dad. Arlis died last night.”

     “No!” He shrieked. “God, no!”

     “Man, brother, I’m so sorry.” I grabbed hold of his shirt and pulled him to me and tried to hug him. I could feel his sobs. Then he broke away and ran into his cell. His noises are still with me.

     Sometime later he came to me and told me thanks. I told him he was welcome and that his dad was all right.

     He said he knew that now.

Ps 102; Eph 5:1-20; Matt 9:9-17

DAY SEVENTEEN

Matthew 9:18-26. A woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak.

In the caste system of Jesus’ day, this woman was as “untouchable” as they came. In that culture, it was all about being clean or unclean. One of the many reasons Jesus is my hero is that he stood against exclusive systems. The religious leaders—imperfect, clay-footed people themselves—decided who belonged, who was worthy, who could enter.

     Even though Jesus taught us otherwise, we
continually move contrary to the spirit of the
Gospel. We keep slapping Jesus in his face as
we continually fail to get the point.

     Words like, “heathens, pilgrims, savages and slaves,” litter our history, as do signs like, “We don’t serve Indians,” and water fountains with “White” and “Colored” over them.

     Have we moved beyond? As the blinding light of our own self-proclaimed enlightenment shines in our eyes, let’s not fail to see our cities are still segregated and we still judge people based on how similar they are to us. Religions still claim to be “the only way,” white women still clutch their purses a little tighter when black men walk by and homeless people are hard to look in the eye.

     I, too, am as dirty as they come and he let me touch his cloak.

Ps 107:33-43, 108:1-6; Ezekiel 36:22-27; Eph 6:10-24

DAY EIGHTEEN

John 20:19-23. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Resentment kills. Resenting another person is like taking poison and waiting for that person to die. Resentment is like acid; it eats up the container it’s in.

     Remember, we started these three months searching for the light. Resentment cannot thrive in the light.

     If your light is the street lamp that burns on your comfortable street, resentment is the vandal’s rock, thrown with meanness, that plunges your safe neighborhood into long scary shadows and eerie unknown noises.

     If your light is the sun on a perfect May day, resentment is the bruised blue steel thunderhead that comes rolling in from the southwest, bringing hail, strong winds and darkness at three in the afternoon.

     If your light is a crude tallow candle burning a hole in the pitch-black night, resentment is the pair of fingers that pinches out the flame with a “phhsst.”

If your light is the smile on your face, resentment is the dark scowl.

     If your light is Jesus, resentment is the pounding hammer that drove the nails into his hands, the agony of hanging like that and, finally, the darkness of blood running into his eyes.

     Resentment kills.

Ps 104:25-37; Acts 2:1-11; 1 Cor 12:4-13

DAY NINETEEN

Psalm 1, 2, 3. I am not afraid of ten thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.

As you read this, God willing, it will have been twelve years, one month and fifteen days since I last used drugs. The reason I mention that is that one of the first things I noticed when my head began to clear was that I was the one responsible for all the misery in my life. It wasn’t the teachers or cops, wasn’t my parents, unfair rules or any of the other excuses I’d cooked up to cover up my behavior.

     It is said drug use retards emotional development. My drug use covered over a decade of my life. One of the defects I developed was a tree-sized chip on my shoulder. I felt there were 10,000 people against me, every day of my life. There wasn’t, though. It was just me.

     Once I was able to accept that, my life began to get immeasurably better and it hasn’t slowed. Sure, there have been setbacks, but as they’ve happened I’ve learned to look inside for the solution instead of outside for the blame.

     It’s still tempting to point my finger. If everybody would just act like I think they should, my world would improve. But you know what? I can’t ever get all those people to act right. When I quit trying and worry only about myself, no matter what, the light returns.

Prov 3:11-20; 1 John 3:18—4:6; Matt 11:1-6

DAY TWENTY

Psalm 5, 6. You hate all evildoers.

I would like to think the psalmist is talking about some other evildoer, not me. Sometimes I can even ­convince myself I’m not an evildoer, that what I did was an accident.

     I write this in May 2001. I come up for parole next month. Fifteen years separate me from that night in 1986 when I killed Bart. Intentionally or not, what I did was take another person’s life, cause him not to live anymore, kill him.

     The parole board might ask, “Tell us why you think you deserve parole.”

     I’ve been tossing my answer around in my head for some time. I don’t have a definitive response. I do know that I don’t deserve parole. Or, if I do deserve it, I’m not the one to utter those words. Frankly, I don’t have a leg to stand on. I am unable to defend myself and what I did, as well as being completely helpless to undo my actions.

     People tell me all the time that God forgives me, but that until I learn to forgive myself, there’s little chance I’ll realize God’s gift. I don’t agree. God and I both can forgive me—even Bart’s family might someday forgive me—and that won’t bring Bart back.

     I stepped across a holy and sacred line, into God’s business. Life. I could understand if God hated me. Yet, God doesn’t. Crazy, huh?

Prov 4:1-27; 1 John 4:7-21; Matt 11:7-15

DAY TWENTY-ONE

1 John 5:1-12. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

I don’t know about you, but I’m not setting out to conquer the world. In fact, I’m simply trying to walk in the light. I’m not even doing that because I’m brave. (Which, I suppose, is what a conqueror should be.) No, I’m attempting to walk in the light because I’m afraid of the dark; the dark was killing me.

     I’m anything but a conqueror. Too much damage has been done to our world as people sought to conquer in Jesus’ name. The atrocities that have taken place in the name of the Son must make the carpenter from Nazareth drop his celestial head in shame.

     Jesus could’ve conquered the very same people that murdered him. He had a powerful and growing following. He could’ve incited them and led them into an uprising. Jesus knew the Torah and how, in it, God’s chosen people always won their battles. If Jesus was anything, he was one of God’s chosen. He didn’t conquer them. He let them kill him.

     Yet, here we are a couple of thousand years later, still talking about him and about His Way.

     Conquer may be more the Johannine writer’s word than Jesus’. Jesus could’ve fought back. He was in the right. Yet, in the end, by doing the opposite of what people who are in the right do, Jesus did survive. I want to be like Jesus.

Ps 119:1-24; Prov 6:1-19; Matt 11:16-24

DAY TWENTY-TWO

Matthew 11:25-30. Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.”

As I began to live a clean and sober life, I wanted to know why.  I wanted to know how. How is praying to a God I’m not even sure I believe in going to keep me sober? How is spending my time helping another person going to help me? I was very much like a child. Curious. Expectant. Open.

     Then I began to get a clue. I began to think I understood some of the spiritual principles by which I was learning to live my life. Oh, I’ve got it now, I’d think. No longer did I doubt God’s existence; now I was sure God was real. With that surety came what I mistakenly thought was maturity. I wasn’t curious anymore. Why be expectant when you think you know what’s going to happen? Open is for people who aren’t sure of themselves.

     Looking back, I laugh at myself, and remember not to get too sure today. It’s okay, maybe even preferable, to be a little confused about how this deal works.

     I have a friend who tells the following to new travelers when they think they understand God.  “Hey, you wanna know how this works?”

     “Yeah!” They always do.

     “It works just fine.”

Ps 18:1-20; Prov 7:1-27; 1 John 5:13-21

DAY TWENTY-THREE

2 John 1-13. Do not receive into the house or welcome anyone who comes to you and does not bring this teaching.

Some of my Christian literalist friends and I get into arguments about the Bible. Frequently. To me, the Bible is confusing. As far as I’m concerned, that’s not a bad thing to say. In fact, it comes closer to loving my God with all my heart, mind and soul than confessing that I believe something I don’t understand or don’t agree with; mainly because it’s the most honest statement I’m capable of making.

     When I say this to my strict friends, they claim that if one word of the Bible is not true then none of it is true, and they might as well throw it away. But, they really don’t want to throw it away because they’re very sure of what they know.

     When I was a child, I had a friend whose parents were wealthy. Every time a new toy came out, he had it. It was fun playing with him and all those new toys. Thing was, in the self-centered surety that came with his parents meeting all his materialistic needs, he was very sure of the rules of his sandbox. When I would challenge his authority, he would invariably threaten to take his toys and go in the house.

     Now people want to do that with the Bible. When Jesus said for us to become like children, I don’t think that’s what he meant.

Ps 16, 17; Prov 8:1-21; Matt 12:1-14

DAY TWENTY-FOUR

Proverbs 8:22-36. Rejoicing in his inhabited world.

You don’t have to live in Oklahoma to be aware of dangerous storms.

     Tiger is an alley cat that lives, appropriately, in the alley behind my wife’s apartment. Debb, my wife, has a hard time letting Tiger—or any other cats—be alley cats. Were it not for Debb’s pet and protector, Zuri, all her alley cats would be house cats. Tiger’s belly had been swollen for some time. Debb had been keeping an eye on her. Finally, Tiger had five pretty kittens. When I called Debb that
night she was ecstatic. “Honey, they’re gorgeous.  I held ’em in my hand, and it was just awesome, the miracle of creation. Some people might not understand, but that’s how I know God’s real.”

     She checked on Tiger a few more times that evening and left her some food and water before going to bed. Around three in the morning she jerked awake and sat straight up in bed. It was lightening and thundering. The wind was howling, and the rain fell sideways.

     Debb jumped out of bed, threw on some sweats, and found Tiger curled protectively around the kittens. With her body, she’d made a protective cocoon around the newborns. As Debb moved them to a dry spot, she noticed the kittens weren’t even wet.

     I thought about that momma cat and I thought about God.

Ps 20, 21:1-7; 3 John 1-15; Matt 12:15-21

DAY TWENTY-FIVE

Genesis 1:1—2:3. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.

Our collective face is pockmarked with thousands of years worth of wars, plagues and other ugly scars. Our own Bible is a voyage through rough seas. Murder, adultery, deceit, drunkenness and incest are but a few of the scandals we find in the saga of who we are and how we came to know God.

     I live in a medium security prison. All in all, it’s a pretty nice prison. Believe me, there are some that are lots worse. Even though it is relatively nice, it’s still prison. Predatory men still prey on weaker folks, and guards abuse their authority. There are two, 12-foot chain link fences, topped with and surrounded by miles of shiny, tightly coiled razor wire. The guards in the tower and around the perimeter carry rifles and shotguns and will kill us.

     I’m serving time for killing another human
being. So are many others. Some robbed people. Some stole money. Some simply possessed illegal drugs. Lots of guys at this particular prison are serving time for abusing children and women.

     Three things are clear:

1) Since creation, nothing has changed. 2) At the root of sin—whether it be the one that got us in here, the ones we continue to commit or the ones we read about in the Bible—lies the decision to put ourselves first. 3) Beneath that self-centeredness, there is still good.

Ps 150; 2 Cor 13:11-14; Matt 28:16-20

DAY TWENTY-SIX

1 Timothy 1:1-17. Even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor and a man of violence.

At the height of my drug-use, I would curse God. When I first came to prison, I would glare at men worshiping. The night I killed Bart was another in a string of drunken fights that had begun to become routine.

     Two out of three ain’t bad. I’m still a blasphemer and persecutor. Granted, I’m not as bad as I was once was but I’ve still got a way to go.

     Blasphemer. I get mad when things don’t go my way. Since I know from experience that sometimes I don’t know what’s best and I hardly ever understand God’s ways, it’s blasphemy not to trust Him. I might not get what I want but basing my relationship with God on what’s in it for me is what I need to grow out of.

     Persecutor. I don’t like fundamentalists or legalists. People who get caught up in what everyone believes about Jesus as opposed to whether they believe in him at all seem to miss the point. People so sure of what they believe are also too sure about what I should believe. I resent that. In doing so, I become like them and, suddenly, I know what’s best for them.

     Later in the reading from 1 Timothy it says that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

That’s good because I still need saving. From myself more than anything.

Ps 25; Prov 10:1-12; Matt 12:22-32

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN

Proverbs 15:16-33. Without counsel, plans go wrong, but with many advisors they succeed.

“Leave me alone!” I screamed. That was over twenty years ago. My mom had followed me to my friend’s house and taken the keys to my motorcycle. I was drunk, and when I snatched the keys back out of my mom’s hand, I broke her finger. At the time, I thought she was trying to ruin my life. Today, I know she was trying to save it.

     “I’ll be all right. I’m really not that drunk.” That was what I told my dad fifteen years ago on July 26th. He had seen me driving around drunk and tried to get me to come home with him. Later that night I got into a fight with a group of young men, which led to Bart and me fighting, which led to his death.

     Twice a month, I sit and listen to a Cheyenne man who leads the sweat lodge ceremonies. As the water turns to steam on the hot rocks and the sweat runs off our bodies, he counsels me and I listen.

     Two or three times a month, I attend Eucharist, where a Deacon who could very easily hate all lawless people loves me and teaches me about Jesus.

     About every day, I stop by two old convicts’ cell and talk. Between the two of them, they’ve got over fifty years in here. Between the two of them and their guidance, I’ve got a chance at life again.

     And, these days, I try to listen to my parents.

Ps 26, 28; 1 Tim. 1:18—2:8; Matt 12:33-42

DAY TWENTY-EIGHT

1 Timothy 3:1-16. Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is great.

This seemingly simple admission was right on time this morning. You see, it’s been a bit scary this time around, writing these meditations. I’ve been struggling. The words haven’t come easy. Maybe it’s a case of writer’s block. Or, maybe it’s that the more I try, the more I see how ill equipped I am to describing the Alpha and the omega.

     It’s like I’ve been commissioned to color a
picture. God hands me one of those jumbo-size box of crayons and says, “Here. Color this. I’m a sunrise.” So, I get out my oranges, purples and reds. Just when I think I’m done God says, “I’m also night.”

     The next day my assignment is a clear blue sky. I like the way crayons are arranged in progressive shades. I use every hue of blue there is, and I think I’ve done a magnificent job of capturing God as the sky. Then God says, “I’m going to cloud up and rain.”

     Next time, it’s a tree and I’m starting to catch on so I ask, “Is it summer or winter?” and God laughs at me and says, “fall.”

     I’ve got an admission to make. I’m not a very good artist. I feel like I’m running out of crayons while there are still so many pictures to go. Not only that, I think I’ve colored outside the lines on more than a few of my pictures.

     Then God says, “Color me human.”

Ps 38, Prov 17:1-20; Matt 12:43-50

DAY TWENTY-NINE                     

1 Timothy 4:1-16. Let no one despise your youth.  

While picking up trash along Interstate 35 I found a card with this on it: Let no one despise your youth. Curiosity got the best of me, and I opened it. It was easy to see it’d been through a few thunderstorms and even more sunny days. I felt a little guilty, reading it. After all, it was someone else’s.

     “Dear Princess,” it began, and the writer hoped the reader had enjoyed her week of summer Bible camp but, even more than that, hoped the recipient of the card would continue to learn more and more about Jesus and follow up on the beginning that had apparently been made that week. The writer told the reader he loved her, but that love was nothing compared to the love that Jesus had for her. He told her Jesus was his friend and promised her he would be hers, too. There was an intimacy between the two that left me thinking it was from a young boy to his first sweetheart, but at the end it was signed, “Daddy.”

     I don’t know how that most heartfelt note found its way to the side of the highway, and I don’t know why, out of all the paper I pick up, I stopped to read it. I do hope that someday, especially when life gets hard, as it’s sometimes bound to do, that little girl will remember the Jesus her daddy told her about.

     Then again, maybe that note was left for me.

Ps 37:1-18; Prov. 21:30—22:6; Matt 13:24-30

DAY THIRTY

Zephaniah 3:14-18a. He will renew you in his love.

This verse does something for me. Mainly, I suppose, because I need renewing so badly. It’s not that I don’t try. I do try pretty hard. Still, more often than not, I end up a smart aleck and judgmental jerk. (Ironically, when I find this type of person in my life I find myself thinking, “Man, I’m glad I’m not like that idiot!”)

     It doesn’t matter if it’s the men who insist on standing in front of my door as they yell at one another, or if it’s some guard who thinks because he has a badge he can treat people like dirt, I lose my cool. And, it’s not just my attitude that requires renewal.

     According to the Department of Corrections, I’m classified by the misnomer, “violent offender.” Yet, truth is, I haven’t raised a hand in aggression since the night I killed Bart. Sure, a small part of that has been a choice on my part but a larger part has been God renewing me in his love. The reason I know is that, daily, something happens and I think, “Oooh, I oughtta...” Thing is, and this is the miracle, I don’t. Despite myself, I am renewed. Over and over.

     In Hebrew, that sentence reads, “He will be silent in his love.” That does something for me, too; God silently watching over me. Grimacing, to be sure, but, hopefully, once and a while, nodding and smiling. Even if I can’t always hear it, I need it.

Ps 113; Col 3:12-17; Luke 1:39-49

DAY THIRTY-ONE

Matthew 13:36-43. “The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!”

C’mon, this is Jesus talking here. Does that concern anyone else? It sure does me. But what do I do? It’s Jesus, after all. Dare I question him?

     For a long time I didn’t. Consequently, for a long time, I didn’t have much of a relationship with him either. Slowly, I’m beginning to see that I can ask questions of my Lord and he will answer. Or not. Point is, I can ask.

     It bothers me that Jesus would send these “hit angels” out to kill the very same people he came to save. Yet that’s what the verse says. It also says the angels will round up all “causes of sin” and torture them in this extremely evil-sounding “furnace of fire.” Then it says that “the righteous” will shine like the sun. I’ve got a question: Since not one of us is without sin, who’s going to be left to shine like the sun?

     I don’t have a point to make, other than this: I’m not scared of Jesus. I’m in awe of him. I tremble in his presence. He makes me cry when we get too close. But, I’m not scared of him, and I really don’t think he wants me to be.

Ps 30, 32; Prov 25:15-28; 1 Tim 6:6-21

DAY THIRTY-TWO

Deuteronomy 11:18-21, 26-28. See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse.

“Obey God and you will be blessed; disobey God and you will be cursed.” This is the main theme of the Old Testament and it sounds so simple.

     It’s June 2001. I go up for parole this month. Now that the time is almost at hand, I’m scared. For some reason, just being in the same month brings it closer to home.

      I’ve got a lot of things going for me—lots of prayers, family support, job offers and hundreds of letters of recommendation. Internally, I’ve got a lot of things going for me—a relationship with God, sobriety, an ever-growing level of maturity and a sense of well being I’ve never had. I stand a good chance.

     That’s why I’m scared. I want it so bad, and I’m afraid, for one reason or another, it’s not going to happen. If it doesn’t happen, will it be because I failed to obey God in some way? Or, if I do make parole, will it be because I toed the line?

     I’m sure I think making parole will be a blessing and not making it a curse. Hopefully, I can remember I don’t necessarily know a blessing from a curse; what often seems like a curse can be, with God’s help, a blessing. Likewise, I can take blessings and turn them into curses.

     What’s set before me is life and I cannot do it alone. Period.

Ps 31; Romans 3:21-25a, 28; Matt 7:21-27

DAY THIRTY-THREE

Ecclesiastes 2:1-15. The wise have eyes in their head, but fools walk in darkness. Yet I perceived that the same fate befalls all of them.

Every morning, during summer months, a crew of fellow prisoners go out to the ball field to cut the grass and keep up the grounds. This crew, even though dressed in the same faded blue state-issue clothes, stand

part from the rest of us. Their shirts have stains all over the front and haven’t seen an iron in ages. Their haircuts are not as tidy, and their hair is usually dirty. Overall, their hygiene is considerably worse. These men are from the prison’s mental health unit.

     Most of the people I know look down on them. Had I not had the privilege of working on that unit some years ago, I would too. Granted, some of their behaviors are a bit out there, but they are people. And yet it’s easy to look at them and think, “other.”

     I was running this morning and noticed a young man with wild blonde hair, pushing a mower. He’d push it a few feet, stop, walk in front of the mower, bend over and pick something up before resuming mowing. Then he’d repeat the process.

     I thought, what a weirdo, until I saw that he was picking the flowers that sprinkled the grass. I guess he didn’t want to butcher them with the mower. Then, instead of a weirdo, I thought I might’ve seen Jesus.

     The light. It shines on, I’m telling you.

Ps 41, 52; Gal 1:1-17; Matt 13:44-52

DAY THIRTY-FOUR 

Matthew 13:53-58. “Is not this the carpenter’s son?”

In my wife’s apartment are several large boxes filled with about 2,000 letters from Forward Day by Day readers. They span from November 1995 to March 2001. The letters say the most wonderful things. Some people credit me (erroneously, I might add) with helping them understand God, forgiving someone they couldn’t forgive, even believing in God in the first place.

     Reading them was awesome and humbling. I felt unworthy, embarrassed, even guilty to a degree. I also felt a sense of overwhelming gratitude, at the way God had taken something so bad and turned it into something so good.

     But do you know that most people at this prison don’t even know I write, much less that I’ve been published? Of the ones who do, only a few of them have read any of it. My views aren’t accepted by the mainstream Christians in the prison chapel where conservative fundamentalism and stifling legalism rule. In fact, some of my most nourishing spiritual interaction comes from my relationships with people most proper Christians would consider heathens.

     Don’t worry, I’m not suffering from a messianic complex. It’s just nice to know that someone else, especially Jesus, knows what it feels like to have those who are around you every day not take you seriously.

Ps 45, Eccles  2:16-26; Gal 1:18—2:10

DAY THIRTY-FIVE

Ecclesiastes 3:1-15. For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to kill and a time to heal.

A few weeks ago, I received a letter from a high school classmate. Our 20-year reunion was coming up, and she wanted me to contribute something to a scrapbook they were compiling. I was overjoyed to be asked. Not because I had anything to contribute but simply because they thought of me. I didn’t hear from them at our ten-year reunion. In fact, I had only heard from one person out of the whole class over the last fifteen years.

     Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying they owed me anything. I’m just saying it hurts, being a social pariah. And, to add perspective, it must also hurt to lose a family member in a senseless drunken brawl.

     So, I wrote my classmates a letter. I don’t know what you would call it. An amends, maybe. An explanation, perhaps a straight-out plea for their forgiveness. I mailed it, not knowing if it would accomplish anything.

     Today I got a letter from the same classmate.
My heart skipped a beat as I read her words, telling me how she’d hated me after learning I’d killed
her cousin. (I had no idea she and Bart were kin.)
I was scared to read on. But I did. She said she had forgiven me and hoped I would make parole.

     Sometimes the light is too much.

Ps 119:49-72; Gal 2:11-21; Matt 14:1-12

DAY THIRTY-SIX

Ecclesiastes 3:16—4:3. I said in my heart with regard to human beings that God is testing them to show that they are but animals. For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and humans have no advantage over the animals, for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are from the dust and, and all turn to dust again.

This may or may not surprise you about me. A few times a month, I attend the purification (sweat lodge) ceremony with some of the Native American prisoners. In the complete absence of light, I am reminded how dependent I am. In the extreme heat, I am reminded how puny I am. Usually, in and out of Church, I pray on my knees. Sometimes, in the lodge, I pray on my belly, in the dirt.

     Before Europeans came and violated the wilderness in the name of progress (and, like it or not, sometimes Christianity) it was probably a lot easier to understand how alike the deer I am. Or the rabbit or the coyote. Occasionally in that lodge I come to a place in my spirit where I’m almost aware of just how One we all are.

     Before you dismiss me as a pagan or ignorant heathen, let me tell you this: In the pitch dark of that lodge, as I sat very still and looked with my heart, I saw the light. It shines on. Even, maybe especially, in places we don’t expect.

Ps 50; Gal 3:1-14; Matt 14:13-21

DAYI THIRTY-SEVEN

Matthew 14:22-36. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.

It is evening and there’s not a soul in the prison library—except for the workers, and they’re exceptionally quiet. It’s a rare thing. I usually wear earplugs in here because of all the chatter. The sad part is the library is the quietest place I can find in prison! Prison is loud. Everyone’s stress accumulates into an energy you gotta wade through like the air on a hot, humid day in New Orleans.

     I don’t have a monopoly on chaos, angst or misery. To be human is to feel and to feel is to sometimes say, “Sshhh.” You know all about noise and stress. Even if you’ve never set foot inside razor-wire fences, you probably have a working knowledge of prisons because you’ve constructed some of your own.

     What I’m getting at is this: I’m sure you can appreciate my delight at tonight’s unexpected
quietude. In fact, since this is your meditation
time, maybe you’re enjoying some quiet too. Nice, isn’t it? What do you hear when you find quiet? Anything? Nothing? Everything?

     Yeah, me too.

     Not much is written about what Jesus did when he was alone. I wonder what he heard when he found quiet? Maybe the same thing we hear? That’s almost too much, isn’t it?

Ps 40, 54; Eccles 5:1-7; Gal 3:15-22

DAY THIRTY-EIGHT

Matthew 15:1-20. “You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said: ‘This people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’”

A friend was going through a prison volunteer orientation process. The orientation was held at one of the largest prisons in the state. It houses a thousand prisoners. That prison’s chaplain led the orientation. Not only is he the prisoner’s chaplain, he was also the man responsible for teaching the volunteers about carrying the Gospel to some
prisoners.

     “Now, these men may look normal and seem nice but remember, they’re not in here for being normal or nice,” he began. I can live with that. It may be harsh but sometimes the truth is uncompromising.

     “If you follow a couple of general rules you’ll be okay. Always watch your back.” I can live with that. It’s normal to be scared of prison. I was when I came here.

     “And, finally, under no circumstances, do not make friends with these men.”

     In the late 80’s and early 90’s, before Oklahoma’s prisons began the “harsh is best” approach, there were record numbers of prison volunteers. Their presence helped me get my life together. A large number became my friends.

     My friends saved my life.

Ps 55; Eccles. 5:8-20; Gal. 3:23—4:11

DAY THIRTY-NINE

Matthew 9:9-13. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”

Big Ray liked to lift weights. When I met him, there were still weights in prison. Ray turned his life around with the discipline of a strict weight-lifting regimen. Sure, there were probably other ingredients in the healthy stew of his life but he was passionate about weights.

     Earlier this spring, my wife and I were strolling the outside section of the prison visiting room when we saw Ray down by the swing set with his daughter. It’s always touching, to see families mending their wounds, to see daddies pushing their children. In this case it was extra-special, not only because Ray’s daughter was grown but because I knew Ray was very sick. I knew they were trying to fit a lot into a six-hour visit; both a lifetime of lost opportunities and a future that had been diagnosed in months.

     “Who is that?” Debb asked.

     “That’s big Ray. He’s been battling a brain tumor for years, and they just told him the other day that it’s gonna kill him within a few months at the most. He’s a good man.” I couldn’t finish. I decided I would find a time and tell him how beautiful he and his daughter were.

     I never got the chance. They shipped him to another prison to die.

     He was sick and, yet, he healed me.

Ps 50; Hosea 5:15—6:6; Romans 4:13-18

DAY FORTY

Psalm 56, 57. O Most High, when I am afraid, I put my trust in you.

Fifteen years ago, when I received my first notice of parole and saw the date, “June 2001,” I thought, no way can I do 15 years in this place. Yet, here I am. In less than ten days, I’ll be going up for parole. Its a chance to: 1) go home sometime this fall; 2) stay in prison at least three more years.

     Yesterday I talked with a friend who is helping me prepare for my hearing. He asked what I’ll do if I don’t make it. His question stopped me cold in my tracks. To tell the truth, I haven’t been thinking about not making it. I’ve been wondering what it was going to be like making parole.

     “Well, I suppose I’ll pretty much do the same things I’ve been doing,” I answered after a minute. After all, the only reason I’ve got a chance at parole is because of the miracles that have taken place in my life. Trying to participate in those miracles makes up a significant portion of my life and is part of the ongoing miracle that is my life.

     I’m happy today. His question reminded me of how deep that truth is.  I want out so bad, especially for my family. But, do you know what? It doesn’t matter—my happiness is not contingent on this fence. The Most High’s not afraid of galvanized chain link and razor wire and guard towers and guns.

     When I trust the Most High, neither am I.

Eccles 7:1-14; Gal 4:12-20; Matt 15:21-28

DAY FORTY-ONE

Matthew 10:7-16. “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”

This is one of the ways I know I’m a Christian. The kingdom of heaven is not a carrot-on-a-stick reward. I don’t believe in, worship God and try to follow Jesus’ example because the kingdom of heaven is where I’ll go when I die. I believe in and worship God and try to follow Jesus’ example because, when I’m able to, the kingdom of heaven happens. Right here and right now.

     Knowing the kingdom of heaven has come near and knowing that if it can take root in me it can blossom in anyone, helps me to get glimpses of it. Last week, after a particularly hot, humid day on the work crew, I was given just such a gift. I’d been irritable all day—up to my neck in poison ivy—but also because, sometimes, I’m simply oversensitive and judgmental.

     I can’t tell you if it came in through my barred window and melted its way into my heart or if it was already there but, suddenly, the kingdom was near. It was inside me. Likewise, it was inside the armed

robbers in front of me and the drug smuggler beside. It was inside the men I liked and the ones that got on my nervds. It was even inside the armed guard who abuses his authority.

     The kingdom of heaven can show up and flourish anywhere; be on the lookout.

Ps 112; Isaiah 42:5-12; Acts 11:19-30, 13:1-3

DAY FORTY-TW0

Psalm 72. May he live while the sun endures, and as long as the moon, throughout all generations.

Some forty-odd days ago, we began this time
together more or less agreeing to look at the light. You’d try to understand it while I tried to describe
it and understand it as well. Earlier this week, I learned a little something along these lines.

     A woman asked me if I could look at the sky and tell the difference between stars and planets. I’ve forgotten what I learned in seventh grade science so she ended up telling me that stars twinkle while planets emit steady light. The reason, she said, was that stars generate their own light and planets reflect the light from the sun. (The one exception to the rule since the sun is a star.)

     Of course, the inference is obvious. On my own, my light is flickering at best. To be honest, it sometimes goes out for days at a time. Somehow, I’m able to remember that it’s not mine to begin with and return to the Source of Light. Then, when I open my heart and let that light in, I appear to shine. These meditations are indicative of this. Lots of days I think I’ve got something important to say. Consequently, I end up sitting at the keyboard for hours, staring at the monitor. Finally, I’ll think, “I can’t do this,” and, suddenly, something will come to me.

     The light. It’s not mine or yours. I’m sure thankful we get to borrow it.

Eccles 9:11-18; Gal 5:1-15; Matt 16:1-12

DAY FORTY-THREE

Ecclesiastes 11:1-8. Just as you do not know how the breath comes to the bones in the mother’s womb, so you do not know the work of God, who makes everything.

Timothy McVeigh, the infamous Oklahoma City bomber, was executed June 11, 2001. All the
networks broadcast live from the penitentiary in Terre Haute, where he was put to death. If you lived here, you probably saw more than others. It was wall-to-wall McVeigh from before daylight to way past lunch.

     Everyone was so sure, and that scares me. Those who had been waiting for this day ever since that terrible day in 1995 were sure that his death was called for. The people saying it’s insane to kill people to show that killing people is wrong were just as sure of their stance. Even McVeigh himself, according to the witnesses, seemed sure right up to the end.

     I’m not sure about anything. Nor is my friend, Mike. His death sentence was overturned to life in prison in 1972. As we were watching the debacle he looked sad and confused. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

     “I just don’t know,” he said. “You’d think I’d be sure about something like this but I’m anything but.”

     All the sure people had been using God’s name a lot. Mike never said anything about God. I know what he meant.

Ps 71; Gal 5:16-24; Matt 16:13-20

DAY FORTY-FOUR

Ecclesiastes 11:9—12:14. And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God, who gave it.

It might strike you as apropos that the writer from the “dustbowl” would choose this dusty scripture; just as it might strike you as ironic or even inappropriate that the one who took another’s breath would
approach this sacred text. Seeing the first in nature helps me to tentatively hold my hand out to the second.

     It’s mid-June in Oklahoma. That means we’re about to go a few months without rain. The color of the land is about to change. Psychedelic colors amid shades of green will give way to dead brown grass and dry red earth. That same grit will color the sky on windy days and soon will coat everything from picnics to vehicles. Animals will suffer and farmers will wonder about their crops. People will be afraid to work outside during midday and some will even die because of the harsh summers.

     However, around September the temperature will begin to drop and October will bring showers.
Before long, it’ll be fall and everyone will be noticing the autumn bite in the air and wondering how cold it’ll be this winter. Then it’ll be spring again and new life before we start all over again.

     Being able to begin to see God’s hand in the seasons causes me to tremble at the shadow of God’s hand upon my breath.

Ps 69:1-23, 31-38; Gal 5:25—6:10; Matt 16:21-28

DAY FORTY-FIVE

Psalm 75-76. Who can stand before you when once your anger is aroused?

God’s anger, just like God, is way too big a concept for me to wrap my teeny human brain around. To let it go at overwhelming is enough. Besides, my anger is what I need to focus on and try to understand.

     Fifteen years ago, next month, I did something in a moment of anger that ended one person’s life and forever changed mine and other’s. Although it had become a habit of mine, acting in anger, this particular tragedy only took a moment.

     And, thing is, I just thought I was angry. Truth is, what I know as anger is really nothing more than fear. It was then, and it still is today. When I am scared, I react in anger. If I were to practice honesty in all my affairs I wouldn’t get angry anymore. Instead, I’d say, “Hey, this is scaring me. I’m afraid of (fill-in-the-blank).”

     It’s so difficult for me to admit I’m scared. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a man and somewhere along the way I picked up the erroneous idea that men aren’t scared or if it’s because I’m in prison and it’s certainly an unwritten rule in here: don’t show fear. Maybe it’s simply because I’m still immature and insecure and don’t want anyone to think I’m as imperfect as God and I both know I am.

     Whatever the reason, it is time I learned to live without fear. Without fear, I don’t need anger. Without anger, God is love.

Num 3:1-13; Gal 6:11-18; Matt 17:1-13

DAY FORTY-SIX

Exodus 19:2-8a. “Everything that the Lord has spoken we will do.”

It was seventh grade, I think. My girlfriend had invited me to a weeklong revival at the high school gym. I don’t know how hungry I was for God, but I sure thought I was in love with Patty. Sometime during the night, a woman took the microphone and walked out to the middle of the gym floor and begin to sing. The words were projected on an overhead projector and she urged us to stand and sing with her.

     At first, being a cool 12-year-old, I lip-synced the words as I cast furtive glances to see if any of my contemporaries were around. When I saw that I wasn’t being spied on by any members of the cool teenage boys club, I opened up a little and, before I knew it, I was singing along with everyone else.

     I don’t remember the words but I remember what happened. I started crying. That’s right; smack dab in the middle of the song, I got so overwhelmed with this cool, rushing wind of overwhelmingly good feelings that my eyes were leaking tears before I even knew it. It took me a moment to get my senses back and, when I did, I quickly shut off the tears and looked around to make sure no one had seen me.

     That was the first time. Since then, the Lord has spoken to me many times in many ways. As often as not, I’ve handled it just as awkwardly. And those are just the times I’ve recognized who is speaking to me.

Ps 100; Romans 5:6-11; Matt 9:35—10:8

DAY FORTY-SEVEN

Matthew 17:14-21. “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”

In two days I will begin a lengthy parole process. I can be passed to stage two which will take place next month where they’ll vote again before sending it on to the Governor. At any of these junctions, if they vote ‘no,’ it’ll be three years before I see the board again. I look at the above scripture and I want to make it into a mathematical variable where all I’ve got to do is plug in parole board where it says mountain and things will go my way. If I have faith.

     So, in light of that, what is my definition of faith? A surety that, regardless of whether I get my way, if I continue to try and care more about others than I do myself and try and follow God’s will when I can discern it, everything will be okay. No, better than I ever dreamed. I believe that.

     I believe that, regardless of what happens in two days, next month or three years, if I continue to try and turn my will and my life over to God, life will be good. It won’t matter what side of the fence I’m sitting on. It won’t be dependent on whether I get my way.

     If I let God in my life, it will be good. More than a mountain has already been moved if I’ve come to know that.

Ps 80; Num 9:15-23; 10:29-36; Romans 1:1-15

DAY FORTY-EIGHT

Psalm 78:1-39. Yet he, being compassionate, forgave their iniquity, and did not destroy them.

It’s been months since I have heard any new rock songs. This spring I gave up my favorite radio station. It wasn’t an easy choice. However, when I heard the disc jockeys laughing one day about living in the state that leads the nation in executing people and then saying they were proud to live in “the death machine state,” I had to take a stand.

     Last week, on another radio station, the hosts were talking about Oklahoma leading the nation in incarcerating women and making jokes about them. I could overlook their ignorance until they said, “On a more serious note, on Wall Street, stock prices continue to fall.”  That was too much. Prices more important than people?

     I suppose it’s easy taking pot shots at people in prison. I am as guilty as the next person when it comes to making jokes when I am uncomfortable or scared. If our prison problem doesn’t scare you or make you uncomfortable, then you’re not paying attention.

     However, I know, firsthand how much the people in our prisons are children of the very same God as everyone else. I know God wants them to receive compassion, forgiveness and life, even though they may not deserve it. How do I know? Because that’s the way you’ve treated me.

Num 11:1-23; Rom 1:16-25; Matt 17:22-27

DAY FORTY-NINE

Romans 1:28—2:11. They know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them.

My friend, Tom, had only been sober a few years when his long-time fiancé left. One of his old friends came by and offered him a shot of heroin. I was furious. What kind of friend was that? I was tempted to go tell the guy off when Tom stopped me. “It was the best gesture he knows how to make,” he said. “That’s all he knows to do.” At the time, I had some difficulty accepting that bit of wisdom.

     Yet, when I’m able to look at my own past with honest eyes I see a young man who was convinced he had found “the way,” despite his boyhood convictions on drugs and drinking. No way—laws and consequences included—were you going to convince me that getting high was wrong.

     That’s why the war on drugs and all punitive responses to addictions are a waste of time and money. Given time, the negativities of addiction will pile up faster than we can toke, drink, shoot or snort them away. Then, and only then, are we able to see the light. It’s crazy—disturbing even—and it makes no sense to people who’ve never experienced such madness.

     People with drug problems are not bad, just spiritually sick. Jails aren’t the answer.

Ps 119:97-120; Num 11:24-33; Matt 18:1-9

DAY FIFTY

Matthew 18:10-20. “If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?”

This is one of those special times where I feel Jesus is talking to me. I know what it feels like to not be a part of the in-crowd. My classmate, the one who brought me forgiveness, sent me some pictures from our class reunion. I laughed. I cried. I even looked on with envy at my classmates who seem to have “gotten it.” For reasons mostly of my doing, I had become separated from the flock. It was plain as day; they were dressed in nice clothes, eating at a nice restaurant and going home when the evening was over. I wear poor fitting, state-issue clothes with “INMATE” stenciled across the back, eat in a place known as a “chow hall,” and can’t live in my home.

     Yet, as it often is with Jesus and the light, it’s not as simple as that. In fact, it’s often backwards. Jesus and the light come to us in ways that don’t make sense, at least not in conventional ways. Because, as good as my classmates’ lives might be and as much as I wanted to be in those pictures instead of on my bunk, my life is really okay.

     You see, he left those in the pictures to come get me.

Ps 34; Num 12:1-16; Rom 2:12-24

DAY FIFTY-ONE

Matthew 18:21-35. “How often should I forgive?”

The prison visiting room is a crowded and often hectic place. Broken families desperately try to piece the sometimes jagged and ill-fitting pieces back together in their allotted six hours per week. Families create makeshift living rooms out of small, ragged circles gathered around card tables. But, then, there are the miracles.

     Another prisoner brought his small son to my cell-partner’s table. “Excuse me, my son has something to say to you.” Jason looked at the small boy who was looking down at the ground, shuffling his feet. His father’s hands were planted squarely on both shoulders. It was clear they were the only thing keeping the boy in that spot.

     “Tell him, son,” he said. The kid only looked up.

     “Son, tell him.” Still, nothing. Finally the father told Jason. “He stole a bag of chips off your table. I’ve already spanked him, and now he’s going to apologize.”

     “Look,” Jason grabbed some spare change. “It’s okay. He doesn’t have to apologize. In fact, here, let me get him some more chips”

     Before the father could protest, the child broke from his grasp and bolted into Jason’s arms. After a brief moment, he stepped back and looked up at my cell-partner and said, “thank you.”

     Hours later, back in our cell, Jason told the story to anyone who would listen.

Ps 88; Num 13:1-3, 21-30; Rom 2:25—3:8

DAY FIFTY-TWO

Romans 3:9-20. What then? Are we any better off? No, not at all; for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin.

Our prisons are full of men and women who have been told they were bad for as long as they can remember. The implication is alarming. You don’t have to be in prison to know someone who can tell you how, all their life, someone, maybe everyone, told them they’d never amount to anything, they were worthless, miserable, stupid, ugly, dirty.

     What do they call it? Original sin? Why not just Born Bad? What good can come out of a belief in an inherent dirtiness? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for admitting our powerlessness and limitations, even our darkness. Believe me, I know that, without God, I am nothing. I understand the thinking behind this doctrine and I agree with the part of it that says we need God. We do. Badly.

     However, there is another doctrine, not so widely circulated. Its Latin name is Imago Dei. It focuses on

our being made in the image of God. What about that? We like to say, “I’m only human,” as a means of excusing our mistakes. What if, instead, we picked ourselves up, dusted off the seat of our pants and tried again? We could say, “I’ll get this right, after all, I’m part divine.”

     Most of us already know how bad we are. We’re in dire need of the knowledge of our goodness.

Ps 87, 90; Num 13:31—14:25; Matt 19:1-12

DAY FIFTY-THREE

Matthew 10:(16-23)24-33. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.”

The building I live in is almost a hermetically sealed environment. The windows don’t open and the one door leading outside stays shut most of the time. Outside, even though this is a better prison, aesthetically speaking, than many, wildlife doesn’t exactly flourish. Yet, once you get outside that door, there are always sparrows. It doesn’t matter if there is ice hanging from the razor wire or heat mirages floating up from the hot concrete, the sparrows are here.

     In the spring they mate and search for nest
material. They forage for food. They hop around and they fly in clouds that darken the sky sometimes.

     Sometimes they lose a feather, and I’ll pick it up and put it in a letter to my wife to remind her that the One who made that feather made us. They’re not majestic like an eagle or a hawk and they’re not colorful like a peacock or a macaw. They’re just little plain brown birds that live and move and have their being in our God.

     I don’t know if Jesus knew the technological advances our world would make. I don’t know if he saw surveillance cameras and twelve-gauge shotguns in my future; or the world’s future but I do know he saw sparrows and in those sparrows, he said, can lie my salvation.

Ps 69:1-18; Jer 20:7-13; Romans 5:15b-19

DAY FIFTY-FOUR

Isaiah 40:1-11.  A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.”

Before the department of corrections took them away, I had a laptop. Back then I could find quiet times to write: early morning, late at night, mid-afternoons when lots of people were napping or at work. Now I have to line up and run across the prison yard in order to use one of the three computers available for 1,200 inmates. Sometimes I don’t make it in time. When I do, I’ve got two hours.

     So my time can be spent writing, I try and read the assigned scripture beforehand, making notes of what I may try and write about. This isn’t always easy.

     This morning started out okay. I woke before my cell partner and was making progress. I prayed, read and was enjoying today’s assigned readings. Then Jason woke up and on came the T.V. So, I moved outside my cell door and tried to read. There I was met by a couple of my neighbors.

     “Whatcha doin’?”

     “Think that Bible’s gonna getcha outta here?”

     “You really think they’re gonna give you parole? Get real.”

     I kept my head down and tried to ignore them
but concentration was impossible. My eyes were moving but I couldn’t tell you what I was reading.

     Until I read the above scripture and then I knew I was exactly in the right place today.

Ps 85; Acts 13:146-2b; Luke 1:57-80

DAY FIFTY-FIVE

Romans 4:1-12. “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the one against whom the Lord will not reckon sin.”

Having my iniquities forgiven and my sins covered is appealing to me. If you say it real fast, it sounds simple. In reality, it’s anything but. Consider what it must feel like to be Bart’s mom. How do you tell her the slate’s been wiped clean? I want to know.

     It’s my opinion that you can’t. That’s where trying to think Hebrew helps me. Maybe covering one’s sins meant something different back then. I know they did a lot of sacrifices and offerings in order to atone for their shortcomings. I also know that, during the same times, if you killed a person you could have your whole family wiped out in retaliation. Or, you could flee to another city and live under a sort of immunity for a set number of years.

     We really don’t have any idea what it was like to be a Jew over 2000 years ago. Yet we try to take their words and plug them in to fit our lives. Don’t get me wrong, I guess we’re supposed to. At the same time, however, it’s not as simple as some people would have us believe.

     I think God has forgiven me; even under my western understanding of forgiveness. Here on earth, though, the best I can hope for is to have my sins swept under the rug; we can’t see them, maybe, but they’re still there.

Ps 97, 99; Num 16:20-35; Matt 19:23-30

DAY FIFTY-SIX

Matthew 20:1-16. For the kingdom of heaven is like...

The emerald sea of vegetation was gorgeous in its thickness. The lush green was alive. When I see life so abundant I can’t help but acknowledge the One who makes it possible and so I often have spiritual experiences when I encounter nature. This morning was no different.

     As we got off the prison work bus and made our way down the hill into the growth, I found myself chest-deep in a near-impenetrable patch of briars, poison oak and ivy, stinging nettles and wild plum bushes. What had happened to my Eden? It looked so good from a few hundred yards away. It was going to be a painful and difficult day’s work but, when we were finished, the end result would be some cleared land next to a school. With a little more work, it would find itself host to summers of laughter and well-worn paths in its fresh-mown grass.

     That’s nice. Until I picture all the animals that will lose their natural habitat. Rabbits, squirrels, birds and mice will be homeless. Ladybugs and butterflies need thickets, too. Even snakes and
spiders. They’ll all have to move or die.

     The kingdom of heaven may be like that patch of land. I can’t even tell what it looks like when I’m within walking distance of it. And, once I see, I really don’t.

Ps 101, 109; Num 16:36-50; Romans 4:13-25

DAY FIFTY-SEVEN

Romans 5:1-11. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God...

Do you remember the scene from Forest Gump, where Lieutenant Dan lashed himself to the mast of the shrimp boat during a hurricane and shook his fist at God while he cursed him? There have been days—especially back during my drug use when things seemed to fall down around me faster than I could lower my values—where I cursed God and challenged him to show me something. “C’mon,” I’d scream, “give me your best shot.”  Nothing would happen and I’d be left wondering if that was all he had. Actually, what I ended up thinking was God probably didn’t care enough, to even send a lightening bolt.

     I was angry enough to view God as an enemy.
But God has never viewed me as an enemy. When
I got finished throwing all my temper tantrums, when my life’s problems finally piled up enough that I was willing to admit that what I was doing wasn’t working, when I finally decided to grow up, God welcomed me so readily and so completely that there is no way I could’ve been viewed as an enemy. Even taking a life I can’t replace didn’t separate me from God’s love.

     While I’ve thought God was my enemy, I’ve never been God’s. I don’t understand it. I can’t explain it. I won’t defend it. The best I can do is try to accept it.

Ps 105:1-22; Num 17:1-11; Matt 20:17-28

DAY FIFTY-EIGHT

Psalm 102. I am like an owl of the wilderness, like a little owl of the waste places.

We walk along the side of the interstate, picking up trash in the right of way. We form a straggling line from the edge of the four-lane blacktop to the barbed wire fences that separate state property from private. I usually try to walk as close to the barbed wire fence as possible because it puts me closer to nature. Sometimes the mowers from the highway department don’t reach where I walk and I’ll find myself trekking through waist high weeds and grass. That was where I found the owl.

     I almost stepped on it, and when it flapped its way out from beneath my boots, I jumped three feet straight up. I saw that it was hurt and I squatted down and began to talk to it in a calm voice, telling it I wasn’t going to hurt it and going, “Shh.” It took a minute for the others to realize I’d found something and, in the meantime, the owl and I stared at one another. Its moon yellow eyes were bottomless. Looking into them, I couldn’t shake the feeling that owl could see right through me and read my every thought. I’ve never felt so naked in all my life. Never. That owl knew. Everything. And do you know what? It was okay.

     Later, after we gently captured it and transported it to a wildlife recovery center, I found out the people at the center didn’t know what kind of owl it was. That was okay. I knew. It was a God owl.

Num 20:1-13; Rom 5:12-21; Matt 20:29-34

DAY FIFTY-NINE

John 21:15-19. Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”

Prison is full of codes of conduct. One of the unwritten rules is you don’t let people run over you. It doesn’t matter how convincing they are, how pitiful, if someone bums you for cigarettes or even food, you’ve got to be firm and say no. Otherwise, they’ll take your kindness for weakness and the next thing you know they’ll be at your door every night. I vacillate between this code and Jesus’ commandment. Sometimes I lie and say we don’t have any soup or coffee or stamps.

     Deborah, my wife, spends up to twenty dollars per visiting day feeding other prisoners that work in the visiting room and don’t have money to buy food from the vending machines. It’s not like she can afford it. She lives paycheck to paycheck and sometimes does without. I’m touched by her giving nature and think she must be an angel but, still, every time the car breaks down or there is a doctor’s bill to pay, I tell her she needs to quit spending money on those guys in the visiting room and put it aside for emergencies.

     She wonders that if feeding God’s children isn’t an emergency, then what is?

     Deborah doesn’t write meditations and hasn’t been published. And yet...

Ps 87; Ezek 34:11-16; 2 Tim 4:1-8

DAY SIXTY

Matthew 10:34-42. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

I was born in 1963. My earliest memories, culturally, are of peace signs, bell-bottoms, long hair, flowers and psychedelic VW vans. Hippies were among my earliest heroes. I don’t know why, I just know they were. Consequently, when I began to try and put a face on Jesus, it was a dirt-smudged, scraggly bearded exterior with a somewhat spaced- out look that I pasted on my savior. Maybe even a hint of a smile. Today, even though I know he wasn’t a Robert Redford look-alike, I attach the same characteristics to my Lord. This time, however, I simply add a little eastern Mediterranean coloring.

     I attached these physical traits to Jesus because I saw the peace and love of the hippy movement as synonymous with Jesus. Even at an early age, I was able to correlate the radical attitude against social injustices, the spirit of brotherly and sisterly acceptance and complete freedom from oppressive dogma. Obviously, there are some issues associated with hippies that I’m not sure Jesus would endorse. At the same time, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where the prostitutes and other social outcasts were more likely to be found.

     To say, “Jesus was a hippy,” makes a lot of people want to pull their swords.

Ps 89:1-18; Isa 2:10-17; Romans 6:3-11

DAY SIXTY-ONE

Matthew 21:12-22. “Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.”

Two weeks ago, I was granted the first stage of parole. I’ve still got a ways to go before I walk out the door. In fact, there are at least two more phases between me and physical freedom. I’ve still got to pass stage two and get the governor’s signature before the prison experience is over.

     During my drug-using years, I didn’t pray.
Fifteen years ago, when I was in the county jail awaiting trial, I begged God to get me out of this. The above scripture was shown to me as a guarantee of answered prayer. When I was found guilty and sentenced to life, I told God, “Thanks a lot, for nothing,” and went back to drugs and not praying. Some years later I sobered up and tentatively stuck my toe into the water again.

     This time, I tried not to base my relationship with God on what I could get out of it. I tried not to even pray for myself, except when to do so would enable me to help someone else. As I grew in my walk with the Creator, I began to trust that God loves me more than I can ever imagine and I also grew to understand that, no matter what, in God’s world, everything is okay. Oftentimes I don’t ask for anything—for me or for anyone else—trusting that the One who made everything doesn’t need me as a backseat driver.

     Still, a few days before this last parole hearing, I asked God for help.

Ps 106:1-18; Num 22:1-21; Romans 6:12-23

DAY SIXTY-TWO 

Numbers 22:41—23:12. “Perhaps the Lord will come to meet me. Whatever he shows me I will tell you.” And he went to a bare height.

Is that what we’re doing here today? Is my scratching my head at the scripture, scribbling a few notes, staring at a blank screen, tapping my foot going to my “bare height”? Am I waiting for the Lord to meet me? Do you trust me to tell you what he said, assuming we do meet up?

     Sixty-some days into this and I’m still wondering what it is I’m doing here at the keyboard. Shouldn’t it be someone else? Someone more learned? At the very least, someone less clay-footed?

     I ask, “Who am I to gaze upon these scriptures and offer my words concerning them?” Then, I answer, “No one, that’s who.” Still, I sit here. I read these words other people wrote concerning their experience with someone or something they couldn’t see, explain or even fully understand; and I write down words—that’s it, words—concerning the mind-boggling foreverness of all there is and all there ever shall be. 

     I’m completely unworthy of and unqualified for the task. But since I’m attempting the impossible, maybe it’s okay. I know this: I hope someday someone doesn’t come along and take my pitiful literary attempts literally.

Ps 119:145-176; Rom 7:13-25; Matt 21:33-46

DAY SIXTY-THREE

Matthew 5:43-48. But I say to you, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”

Ever since my small writing career began, I’ve run into some petty contempt from a significant number of the guards. It’s not that they’re necessarily
jealous. I believe the issue is they don’t think a lowly convict ought to be receiving so much attention.                           There is a word from a shameful time of our history that was used to describe those who tried to rise above their place in the prescribed social order: Uppity. I’ve been described as such. If you know me, you know I’m anything but. In fact, my closest friends can tell you how insecure and unsure of myself I am. Still, to them, I’m uppity.

     Consequently, it’s not rare for them to try and put me in my place, remind me where I am. The issues are usually petty, and I’m able to smile most of the time and see their behavior for what it is. However, sometimes I get angry. When I do, I invariably hurt myself. Sure, it feels good to say what’s on my mind—for about as long as it takes for it to roll off my tongue. Then I find myself busy, putting out the fires.

     Today is supposed to be about freedom. I know that when I react in anger to people—even the ones who try to hurt me—my freedom is limited, and I’m not talking about razor-wire and gun tower freedom.

Ps 145; Deut 10:17-21; Hebrews 11:8-16

DAY SIXTY-FOUR

Psalm 140, 142. Do not turn my heart to any evil.

It’s important to me that you know exactly who you’re dealing with. Of course you know I’ve killed another man. In spite of my efforts to keep Bart
from becoming a nameless, statistically labeled
“victim,” the bottom line is that he’s gone and I did that. That in itself is enough. There’s more.

     When I was a young teenager I would force my even younger brother to smoke weed with me and my friends so he wouldn’t tell on me. It was more than 20 years before he was able to write and tell me he’d just celebrated his first year completely drug-free.

     That’s not the only time I got someone started using drugs. One time, during one of my unsuccessful attempts at college, I got a young man started using a needle. Five years later, I saw him in prison.

     I’ve sold drugs to people whom I knew needed to be spending their money on food for their kids. I’ve stolen money from my mom and my brother and embezzled money from my aunts. I’m embarrassed and humbled to say they still send me money today.

     These are but a few of the Cliff notes from a troubled and tumultuous past. There’s more.

     If you know me today, you’re likely to say, “He’s got a good heart.” In fact, some people do. I can’t help but remember it’s the same heart I’ve always had. It’s capable of atrocities. And, it’s capable of participating in miracles.

Num 24:1-13; Rom 8:12-17; Matt 22:15-22

DAY SIXTY-FIVE

Psalm 137:1-6(7-9), 144. By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.

I saw him at the end of our Fourth of July visit. He was probably six or seven. This fourth, however, wasn’t spent playing baseball or swimming with friends. This Fourth was spent visiting his dad in prison. From the size of the tears running down his face, it looked like this might’ve been the first Fourth of July he’d had to leave his dad in a place like this. In fact, given the way he was hanging on, it might’ve been the first time he’d ever had to walk out those electronic doors and leave him behind.

     I don’t know what his dad did or if he was even guilty. (Earlier this year, a man named Jeffery Pierce made national headlines by walking out of this very same Oklahoma prison after fifteen years when DNA tests proved he was innocent.) I don’t like to stare, but I couldn’t quit looking. Watching that kid clutch his dad and beg him to come home left me touched in a place beyond concepts such as guilt or innocence.

Debb noticed my eyes tearing up and asked me, “What’s wrong?”

“Look, baby. That boy doesn’t want to leave his daddy. Oh, man...” I couldn’t finish.

I saw the dad fight a tremble or two in his lip.
I know he didn’t want his boy to see him cry.
I understood that and so I cried for him.

Num 24:12-25; Rom 8:18-25; Matt 22:23-40

DAY SIXTY-SIX 

Matthew 11:25-30. “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart.”

After about an hour of working out, doing push-ups and pull-ups, my muscles were still trembling and my senses high. The air smelled cleaner and the green of the trees on the hillside beyond the fences seemed to vibrate with energy. I enjoyed drugs because they seemed to make the world a better place; but the perception I was enjoying last night was way beyond any chemical reality. That’s part of why I continue to make exercise a part of my recovery. Another is that it always leaves me feeling grateful.

     I was immersed in that gratitude when I walked around the corner and saw a friend.

     “Hey, boy, whatcha doin’?” I noticed him duck his head and realized he probably hadn’t wanted to bump into me. Not right then anyhow.

     “Man, brother, I’m gonna tell you the truth. I’m out chasin’ some weed, tryin’ to get high. I ain’t gonna lie.” He dropped his gaze like he’d let me down. We’ve had a few talks lately and I know he’s getting tired of the load that addiction carries. Thing is, maybe not tired enough. At least not yet.

     I could’ve preached at him, chastised him, guilted him. But I didn’t. “I know how hard it is, bubba,” I told him. I want him to come back.

Ps 145; Zech 9:9-12; Romans 7:21—8:6

DAY SIXTY-SEVEN

Matthew 23:1-12. “Do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.”

I used to participate in a speak-out program for kids and adults. I was talking to a group of young professionals who were a part of a state Chamber of Commerce tour. I was telling the tragic story of the night I killed Bart. I’d just gotten through telling how I’d run out in the middle of the street and hit him with a bat when a well-dressed woman raised her hand and interrupted me.

     “Excuse me, but did you say whether or not he had a weapon,” she asked.

     I hesitated. In my trial, I had lied and said that I’d seen a knife in Bart’s hand. Not only was I afraid to come to prison but lying was commonplace for me back then. I’d been sober for years now and was trying to live my life differently, trying to be honest.

     “Uh, no ma’am, I didn’t say.”

     “Well, did he?”

     “No ma’am, he didn’t.” There, I’d said it.

     “Do you know who I am?” She asked. I didn’t. Turns out she was a lawyer for Bart’s mom. They had a large lawsuit against me. My heart sank. Maybe telling the truth wasn’t always the right thing. In this case it was subject to cost a half million dollars on top of however many years in prison.

     “Young man, I’m going to go back and tell them that I’m not going to be a part of that lawsuit. You keep telling your story, okay?”

Ps 1, 2, 3; Num 32:1-6, 16-27; Rom 8:26-30

DAY SIXTY-EIGHT

Numbers 35:1-3, 9-15, 30-34. A murderer must be put to death.

Maybe you can say the above scripture real fast, and it’ll seem less condemning. You may be able to relegate it to some category reserved for antiquated sayings, adages along the lines of “early to bed and early to rise.”

     However, I can tell you that from this side of the fence, standing in my footprints, you can’t say it fast enough. No matter how it rolls off my tongue, it’s a rock hurled straight at my head. I’d like to duck, believe me.

     Fancying myself a wordsmith, I am aware of the ambiguities of words. For instance, “the kingdom is at hand,” means, to literalists, that Jesus has left the building but will be returning from the clouds any minute now so everyone better be ready. If you’re among those who tend to look a little beneath the surface, you may believe that it means with a simple opening of one’s heart one can find Jesus never left, he’s standing right beside you, smack dab in the middle of the most incredible existence available to mortals.

     The Numbers text needs no interpretation. Its candor makes me wince. Here I am pleading for my physical freedom. Right now, it seems I ought to be begging for my breath, my heartbeat, as opposed to a change of address.

     Please, God.

Ps 5, 6; Rom 8:31-39; Matt 23:13-26

DAY SIXTY-NINE

Romans 9:1-18. I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying.

Something incredible happened to me about eleven years ago. Maybe I should say something incredible began to happen to me then. Something changed, and is changing still today, in my life. Unlike Paul, I’m not about to tell you exactly what it is, mostly because I don’t know exactly.

     As limiting as light is, it’s still a fair metaphor. This morning I got up early to run so I got to see the sun come up out of the tree line. The illumination, the long shadows rapidly shrinking, the warmth—they’re all facets of God that I recognize. Jesus, as well, brings that same luminescence to life. And then some.

     Beyond that, I don’t know a whole lot. I’m not an authority like Paul. In fact, I don’t even want to be sure like that. Look up the word, sure, in the Thesaurus and you’ll find words like expected and predictable. They work fine when you’re describing the sunrise, but I think they fail miserably in trying to contain the One that created that sunrise.

     Paul always seems so sure. Over the years lots of people have been sure. Pol Pot and Idi Amin, to name a couple. The Christian Crusaders were sure as were the Europeans that spread smallpox-infected blankets to the Native Americans.

     I’m sure God’s real. I’m also sure I can’t describe that reality. I’m not lying.

Ps 119:1-24; Deut 1:1-18; Matt 23:27-39

DAY SEVENTY

Romans 9:19-33. But who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God?

Paul, Paul, ease up. God doesn’t need your protection. Quit acting like God’s press agent. God’s big enough to field a few questions without you running interference. If you’ll read the Old Testament you’ll see there were more than a few foot-stomping arguments as well. In fact, you’re fond of using the Father/children metaphor. Do you personally know any children who don’t argue with their parents?

     We’re trying to forge a relationship with the One who made us. We’re trying to understand. What kind of class is it that doesn’t allow questions? That sounds more like prison. I guess that’s fine if you’re simply looking for control over a group of people. Our relationship with our Creator is more than that, isn’t it? Is God nothing but a Warden?

     Ease up, Paul, and let people find their own way to God. Don’t ram God down their throats. Let them swallow God a little at a time; after all, that’s a whole lot to swallow if you stop and think about it.

     Look at the miracle that happened to you as Saul; wasn’t that a personal experience between you and God? No human, however well intentioned, stopped you on the road to Damascus. In fact, had a mortal tried, you may very well have killed them. Give the rest of us the same consideration please.

     I know you mean well. I hope you don’t mind me arguing with you.

Ps 18:1-20; Deut 3:18-28; Matt 24:1-14

DAY SEVENTY-ONE

Romans 10:1-13. Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.

“Are you saved?”  I absolutely detest it when someone asks me that. I don’t know what Paul meant by it but, today, it seems to have come to mean, “Do you believe like I do?” It’s not so much, “Do you believe in God or even Jesus?” But, rather, “Do you believe a certain set of precepts about them or?” And, “if you don’t believe what I believe,” at least according to the ones who always end up asking me this inane question, then you’re obviously not saved.

     To the early Christians, “Jesus is Lord,” seemed to suffice. However, as with any institution, growth brought with it committees, councils, mission statements and creeds. Bureaucracy reared its ugly head, and here we are today confusing what, exactly, we believe about Jesus with whether we believe in Jesus. And, believing in him, as opposed to about him, brings me closer to imitating him—which is what being a Christian is. It is, no more, no less, being Christ-like.

     I’m saved, not by anything I believe but, rather, because I reached out and touched his robe. No belief system, no manifesto, no dogma can contain that unlimited truth. Likewise, they’re not needed to capture the simplicity of my salvation.

     I am saved. Over and over.

Ps 16, 17; Deut 31:7-13, 24—32:4; Matt 24:15-31

DAY SEVENTY-TWO

Romans 10:14-21.“I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.”

Do you think I asked for this relationship with God? I didn’t. I did everything possible to keep this from happening. I drank myself dumb and smoked myself silly. When that quit working, I turned to injectable escape, until I was as distorted as my reflection in the bottom of a spoon. If it wasn’t drugs, it was me; every time my life would start to take a turn for the good, I would self-destruct and sabotage any hope of a chance. Maybe all that was some sort of Freudian way of asking for help without really asking. I don’t know. I do know that I was looking for something.

     Finally, the light came on; in spite of my mixed-up methods and me. Even when I did have my head on straight enough to know I needed help, I didn’t know what to ask for. Eleven years ago, if I would’ve written down what I’d like to see happen in my life—a wish list, if you will—I would’ve sold myself way short. No, I would’ve sold God way short. If I had to ask or seek for what it is I need, you wouldn’t be reading this today because I had no idea any of this was possible.

     Thankfully, God wasn’t waiting on my permission to love me.

Ps 20, 21:1-7; Deut 34:1-12; Matt 24:32-51

DAY SEVENTY-THREE

Isaiah 55:1-5, 10-13. So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty.

My first day of school was terrifying. I can’t remember the details I can still feel the fear that came with being dropped off at a building full of strangers. My mom gave me a pep talk and I can still recall the trust I felt in her words. I don’t remember what she said but it ended with, “I love you.”

     In spite of the fact I was too slow and didn’t have a very strong arm, I wanted to play baseball. My friends, it seemed, could run so much faster, hit the ball so much farther and throw it twice as hard as I. In a compassionate twist of fate, my dad was my first little league coach. Don’t get me wrong; he was extra hard on me, but he also encouraged me every day: “You can do it.”

     During my tumultuous years, those words faded away.

     Then, in what I like to call my second childhood, I began to face the world again. It was still scary. After all, this time it was in prison. Not only that, it looked even scarier than it had when I was a kid because, as a young adult, I’d spent so much time hiding from it. My parent’s words were still there, waiting to pick me up again and help me live life.

     You know, I’ve come to realize they had been there all along.

Ps 65; Romans 8:9-17; Matt 13:1-9, 18-23

DAY SEVENTY-FOUR

Romans 11:1-12. I ask, then, has God rejected his people?

Other prisoners are always looking at Jerry and saying they wish they had what he has. He’s doing a life sentence and has been in twenty years. He’s been turned down for parole two or three times. He can fit all his personal belongings in a cardboard box and a duffle bag. His knee is going out on him and he has a chronic neck problem.

     I’ve been his friend long enough to know he wants to go home. The times he’s been denied parole have knocked the wind out of him. I’ve wondered if maybe it wasn’t the life that was knocked out of him.  I’ve watched his health problems rob him of many of the activities he used to enjoy.

     Has God rejected Jerry? If you’re looking to get your way in life then I suppose it may seem to you that God has rejected Jerry.

     But, if you’re looking for a belief that being is not only enough but is more than we’ll ever be able to grasp; if you’re looking for freedom, happiness and peace under any circumstances, then you’ll be like the people who say they want what Jerry has—and you’ll see that wanting that has nothing to do with what you can hold in your hand.

     That’s not where to look when you’re checking to see if God has rejected you.

Ps 25; Joshua 2:1-14; Matt 25:1-13

DAY SEVENTY-FIVE

Romans 11:13-24. So do not become proud but stand in awe.

Soon, I go before the parole board for stage II. Hyperbole aside, this is my one shot at getting out of prison. The way the pendulum of public opinion and politics is swinging, there’s no telling what could happen to prisons or the people in them in the next decade. It’s difficult not to look at this as my only chance.

     Desperation and fear make me want to say, “I deserve...”

     Debb, my wife, reminds me that at least my family has a son to worry about. She told me not to become proud and to remember why I was standing before the board to begin with. That is a sobering reality I tend to dismiss when I get caught up in the outcome of parole.

     When I let go of the outcome, humility and awe make me want to say, “Thank you, God.” They make me more willing to simply be myself, no matter what, and able to see God in any and all places.

     Life is good. It’s better than I ever dreamt it could be. I can’t describe my Creator—but I know God
is real. I also know that to the extent I let God in my life, the better it gets. All the good in my life today is from that relationship.

     In or out, that won’t change.

Ps 26, 28; Joshua 2:15-24; Matt 25:14-30

DAY SEVENTY-SIX

Joshua 3:1-13. “Among you is the living God who without fail will drive out from before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites....”

My friend was eighteen when he came in. Then, it was more like what you see on T.V., especially McAlester, Oklahoma’s infamous maximum-security prison. “The Walls” was the worst Oklahoma’s criminal justice system had to throw at prisoners. When my friend arrived there, he was young and small with long blond hair.

     When I met him, almost twenty years later, he was out of the closet. It was who he was. Growing up in this religiously conservative part of the country, I was as homophobic as any. In her book, Bird-by-Bird, Anne Lamott says a priest friend told her, “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out he hates all the same people you do.”

     My friend taught me as much about God as did my Muslim friends. My Native American friends helped expand my relationship with and understanding of God, too. Nor can I leave out friends who don’t fall under any category except as believers.

     These days, me and Jesus, we’re not trying to drive anyone out.

Ps 38; Rom 11:25-36; Matt 25:31-46

DAY SEVENTY-SEVEN

Psalm 37:1-18. For the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous.

I gotta tell you; I fully expected to be denied today. In spite of all my hopes and wishes, I figured the board would say, “Well, we’re glad you’ve gotten your life together. We encourage you to continue in your walk. However, none of this erases the fact you took a life. Your parole is therefore denied.”

     They didn’t. They voted unanimously to pass me to my next sentence. The bottom line is that within three years, maybe less, I could actually be out of prison. Home. Of course, all this hinges on the signature of the Governor. If he doesn’t approve it, it is three years before I even come up for parole again.

     All day, people have been saying, “I bet you’re happy.” When I hesitate, they wrinkle up their brows and walk away thinking I’m crazy. Maybe I am. I feel a lot of things; I’m not sure happiness is one.

     I don’t understand it. I walked in that room expecting to have my arms broken for my sin. Instead, I received mercy. I truly felt God had represented me in some way that influenced the hearing. I can’t find the words to tell you what it felt like. When I received the news, my knees buckled and I cried.

     The light. It’s all I’ve got and more than I can stand.

Joshua 3:14—4:7; Rom 12:1-8; Matt 26:1-16

DAY SEVENTY-EIGHT

Romans 12:9-21. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

I’m a gentle being. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m also sensitive and somewhat empathetic. There’s nothing wrong with that either. But, sometimes, I let what I think other people will think put both hands firmly on the steering wheel of my life and I’m no longer driving. Sometimes, my need to please can suffocate other worthwhile needs—like the need to be honest or the need to be disciplined. When that happens, it is I who can’t breath. Furthermore, if I’m truly made in God’s image, I’m suffocating God with my inability or unwillingness to listen to what’s inside rather than what’s outside.

     I do it when I write. For instance, I’m not convinced God is a man. Yet, I constantly use the masculine pronoun he when I refer to the One who is beyond gender. Why? I’m afraid of offending someone. Sometimes I just want to sit down in a sandbox full of words and reach down with both hands and throw sand everywhere, in no proper order, and letting a lot land outside the box. Then, when I’m through, admitting I don’t have a clue as to what I’m doing. I’m just playing in the sandbox and I don’t know the rules.

     Somewhere in the middle—between my need to be me and my need to fit in peaceably—lies the space I wobble in.

Ps 31; Joshua 4:19—5:1, 10-15; Matt 26:17-25

DAY SEVENTY-NINE

Matthew 26:26-35. While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to his disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.”

Debb, my wife, wasn’t raised in a church where sacraments were common. The dos and don’ts of worship leave her a bit uncomfortable. I tell her Communion is simply this or simply that—except it’s really not simple.

     We talked yesterday. On her cell phone. As she sat on the porch of my aunt and uncle’s cabin, a hummingbird flirted with her. “Oh, honey, it’s so tiny! Its little wings are just a beatin’.” I could hear the ecstasy over the phone. Before she made it back to her home we talked again. She was driving down a country highway. “Whoa,” she said, “I gotta stop.”

     “What are you doing?” I asked.

     “Turtle. There’s a turtle in the highway. I gotta get it before someone kills it.” Not only does she stop for live animals, she’ll stop and move dead ones off the highway so they won’t get pummeled. For the record, she treats humans almost as nice.

     She thinks she doesn’t understand sacraments.

Ps 30, 32; Joshua 6:1-14; Romans 13:1-7

DAY EIGHTY

Romans 8:18-25. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.

I’m not much on “end times” theology—I prefer to focus on the kingdom being at hand and trying to follow the lead of the savior who said it had something to do with the very last people I would expect. At the same time, I find myself embracing suffering. I’m not scared of suffering and I’m not looking to escape it. In fact, it is there that I often find myself comforted by the Shepherd.

     Right now it’s 96­ degrees. At three o’clock, the forecast says it will be 103º. That’s when I’m going to run. It’ll be difficult. A few days ago, I ran
when it was in the mid-nineties and ended up
over-exerting myself. It’s grueling, running in this kind of heat.

     As I’m circling the half-mile track, I’ll question myself. I’ll forget that, oftentimes, when I’m in the middle of something difficult, I can’t discern the truth. I’ll make one-sided deals with God. I’ll begin to look for an easier way and try to convince myself that quitting before I reach my goal is okay. Somehow, though, I won’t. Somehow, I’ll remember how good it feels to follow through on something. Even when I can’t remember all these things, I’ll run anyway because I’ll remember that I’ve done this before and that, somehow, when I’m through I’ll understand.

Ps 86; Wisdom 13:13, 16-19; Matt 13:24-30, 36-43

DAY EIGHTY-ONE

John 20:11-18. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

Mary wasn’t looking to be the first witness of the Resurrection. She was simply looking for closure. It was the end of a betrayal, chaos and murder. The one guy that had seemed to hold a little hope in his hand had been systematically snuffed out. As far as she and the rest of the disciples—all fools who had believed in the carpenter and his upside-down ways—were concerned, it was back to life, as they’d known it. As well intentioned as Jesus may have been,
his ways were too far-fetched. All of them, Jesus included, should have known better than to think they could change the world with their radical, inclusive love—especially when it was in direct conflict with the powerful ruling class.

     All she wanted to do was bury the beloved dreamer. It was the least she could do after all he’d done for her.  After that, it’d be over. Sure, he’d be fondly remembered but, with time, he’d fade to memory.

     She wasn’t looking to start something, just do the next right thing. Get her hands dirty. Sometimes, that can be momentous.

   Ps 42:1-7; Judith 9:1, 11-14; 2 Cor 5:14-18

DAY EIGHTY-TWO

Matthew 26:47-56. Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”

Fifteen years in this place where might makes right and the strong definitely dominate the weak. There have been a few occasions where swords were drawn—literally and figuratively.

     I love basketball and am a rabid competitor. In the middle of a game I may come close to resembling a mad dog. My game is centered in intensity and hustle and those things are hard to turn off once they’re on. Throw in the fact I hate to lose and you can see why I have to be careful when I play in a place where perceived slights are met with fists.

     We were arguing over a call. I had the ball and wouldn’t give it up. He hit me. Time stood still. Everyone waited to see what I’d do. He was squared off. Ready. I knew the rules. If someone hits you, you gotta fight back. If you don’t, they’ll all be on you within a week.

     “I ain’t fightin’ ya,” I said.

     It wasn’t my doing. Every bone in my body said to stand up and fight. Those same bones said I had to fight the night I killed Bart. Somehow, I was able to look at the bigger picture and make a decision based on that as opposed to what I thought everyone else expected.

     Was I weak or strong?

Ps 45; Joshua 8:1-22; Rom 14:1-12

DAY EIGHTY-THREE

Matthew 26:57-68. Then they spat in his face and struck him; and some slapped him, saying, “Prophesy to us, you Messiah! Who is it that struck you?”

He was as bloody as anyone I’d ever seen. His long hair was matted with the red, clumpy, sticky goo that ran from the gashes that showed white in his skull. He was sitting on a bench where his attackers had surrounded him, finally forcing him off his feet. He looked up through all that carnage and his eyes caught mine.

     I didn’t want to get involved. In prison, when the guards roll up on a scene like that, they’ll round everyone up and people who had nothing to do with the disturbance can spend days, even weeks, in lock-up. Not only did I not want to be involved in that respect, I didn’t know the guy or the situation. Maybe he’d started it. Maybe...oh, bull, bottom line was I was scared to do what was right and step in and say, “Hey, don’t y’all think he’s had enough?”

     I like to think I would’ve stood up for Jesus had I seen someone treating him like the passage from Matthew says they did. I would’ve rushed to his side and done like the president’s Secret Service men, throwing my body between him and harm. I wouldn’t let anyone beat up Jesus.

     If they would’ve asked Jesus who it was that struck him he would’ve pointed a bloody finger at me.

     He would’ve been right.

Ps 119:49-72; Joshua 8:30-35; Romans 14:13-23

DAY EIGHTY-FOUR

Acts 11:27—12:3. About that time King Herod laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church.

I’m not persecuted for my beliefs. In fact, no one cares who or what I believe in. It’s relatively easy, going about my quiet way, worshiping God ­privately and keeping to myself. Being a follower of Jesus doesn’t get me in trouble. That’s because I’m a lousy follower of Jesus.

     As much as anything else, Jesus stood against having “in” and “out” crowds. Jesus hung out with the “have-nots” and told the “haves” there wasn’t even such a distinction. That made the “haves” mad and so they killed him. I assume the early followers were just as upsetting to “haves” like Herod.

     Despite the fact we’re all “have-nots,” we still segregate ourselves into preferred groups. Different characteristics dictate the distinctions. It could be skin color, religion, gender, or education level that decides which crowd a person belongs to. Perhaps athletic prowess will place a woman in the “in” crowd while an overweight man with remedial
social skills will automatically settle into the “out” crowd without so much a grunt of protest.

     Anytime I don’t stand against these exclusive class systems, I fail, miserably, at following Jesus. Then again, I won’t upset anyone so badly they’ll kill me.

     I’m not persecuted for my beliefs when they’re watered down to nothing.

Ps 7:1-10; Jer 45:1-5; Matt 20:20-28

DAY EIGHTY-FIVE

Psalm 40, 54. Do not, O Lord, withhold your mercy from me.

It’s been over a week since I experienced that magical and yet oh-so-real taste of forgiveness. It’s been over a month since Bart’s cousin wrote and bathed me in that same light. There have been other times, contemplating the grass or watching a sparrow hop around, that God has told me I’m forgiven. Still, I struggle with that unfathomable truth.

     A few weeks ago, I got to see some pictures of Bart’s grave. A person I knew was going down there to visit it and leave some flowers and asked if I’d like a picture. They know how I struggle with finding the place between forgiveness and forgetfulness and thought this may help. I’ve seen lots of tombstones, but never one that I was directly responsible for.

     As I stared at the picture, the granite reminder of my actions, I tried to remember what it felt like to be forgiven. The best I could come up with was a personal oath not to forget this picture. As far as my life may go, I can’t leave that behind. It wouldn’t be right. It’s a part of who I am. As much as people need to hear about forgiveness, they also need to hear about real life. And death.

     Hidden between that tombstone’s granite face and the light’s illumination and shadows, lies the balance.

Joshua 9:22—10:15; Rom 15:14-24; Matt 27:1-10

DAY EIGHTY-SIX

Psalm 55. But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend, with whom I kept pleasant company; we walked in the house of God with the throng.

Gosh it felt so good. So good I forgot I’d sworn I’d never do them. I forgot all the way through high school, out of a college education and numerous jobs, finally to prison and even in prison. That was where I remembered.

     In the back seat of someone’s car, throwing up because I’d drunk too much, and all I could think about was how could I stop puking so I could drink some more. That’s how good it felt to drink.

     Straighten up or get kicked off the basketball team. For as long as I could remember, sports had been my life. I lived to compete. That night, smoking my way to oblivion, I laughed at how good it felt not to have to worry about basketball anymore.

      Despite my need for chemical companionship, using a needle had always been out of the question. In my new hazy and numb reality, I forgot that was just another “I’ll never” littering the side of my dark descent.

     Not everyone will have or has had a problem with them. Still, our society is enough of a hedonistic, me-first, state of existence that, chances are, if you’re not intimate with them, you know someone who is.

     Drugs and alcohol: Just because they feel good doesn’t mean they are.

Joshua 23:1-16; Rom 15:25-33; Matt 27:11-23

DAY EIGHTY-SEVEN

I Kings 3:5-12. God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself...”

Gary is nineteen years older. We’ve been running together for a decade. He’s taught me a lot about God. If it’s not walking his 90-something year-old mother around the visiting room, or dancing with nursing home residents at a regular cookout some of the prisoner’s host for an area nursing home, then it’s his refusal to talk bad about anyone and the way he encourages every single runner I’ve ever seen him run by. If it’s none of these, it’s the way he feeds the sparrows.

     A few days ago, we were preparing to run, when a sparrow came hopping up to Gary. Not to within a few feet, I mean it came right up to him.

     “Hey, little fella,” he said. “You better get off the track, someone’s liable to run over you. C’mon.” He began to shoo the friendly bird off the track. Every time he’d get it out of the way and return to the track, it’d follow him, hopping right up under his feet.

     “C’mon, little fella. You can’t hop around out here. Someone will hurt you.” He tried to herd it to the grass again.

     “Gary, I think that little bird recognizes you from a time you’ve fed it,” I said.

     “Nah, it’s just friendly.”

     My friend refuses to take credit for a lot. He puts himself last a lot. I learn a lot.

Ps 119:121-136; Rom 8:26-34; Matt 13:31-33, 44-49a

DAYEIGHTY-EIGHT

Psalm 56, 57. You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle.

A woman was standing in line at the post office, her arms neatly and tightly wrapped around the small package. Even though it was only some papers, she felt connected to it and felt she was mailing a part of herself. She also wondered if people could tell, just by looking, that she was married to a man in prison. She consciously loosened her hold on the parcel right before she noticed the feet of the man behind her. He was wearing sandals.

     Suddenly, hot tears were flowing down her face and she was fighting to keep from sobbing out loud. Looking at that man’s sandaled feet, she had realized with a profound sadness that she’d never seen her husband’s bare feet. It was an intimacy not allowed in prison visiting rooms and, since she’d not known him before, she’d never seen his feet.

     That night, on the phone, she felt silly as she told him about it. She knew he was in prison for killing another man in a fight. Even though it’d been years ago and they’d both been young and drinking to boot, she’d always felt a responsibility to the dead man’s mother and her pain. Every time she and her husband felt like life was unfair, she tried to understand what that young man’s family must have felt fifteen years ago and even today.

     Somehow, some way, she understood. Everyone’s tears were in God’s bottle.

Josh 24:16-33; Rom 16:1-16; Matt 27:24-31

DAY EIGHTY-NINE

Romans 16:17-27. The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

When did Jesus crush anything? Except all sorts of fear-based and oppressive schools of thought and social mores with his all-inclusive radical love?

     Paul’s language makes me wonder if he went back and read what he wrote. I know that sometimes it’s easy to get carried away. I’ve changed lots of words, sentences, even paragraphs as I’ve done second and third drafts of pieces I originally thought were finished products the minute the page rolled out of the printer.

     God of Peace crushing something? Isn’t that a bit incongruent? Peace/crush? Even the most elementary student of the language can see this a matter of oil and water—it just doesn’t mix. Besides, can we afford to reduce God to a boot and evil to an aluminum can?

     Don’t get me wrong; it is enticing to have an avenger, right out of the comic books. Especially when life not only seems to be stacked against you, it seems to be a personal attack on top of that. God as Captain America or Aquaman. Thing is, God doesn’t live in the Hall of Justice, in your T.V., or on the pages of any book.

     God lives in us. That’s Jesus. I don’t know if that’ll crush Satan but it will certainly take the
sting out.

Ps 61, 62; Judges 2:1-5, 11-23; Matt 27:32-44

DAY NINETY

Psalm 72. May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy...

July is over. August is tomorrow. The nights are clear and the moon is big as the sky. The days will get shorter and the temperature will gradually drop until the end of August barely resembles July.

     Except for the manner in which we treat one another. Hopefully, we’ll love one another at least as well next month as we tried to this month. And, hopefully, we’ll do our best to act as agents of our Creator, extensions of our Master, and flesh and bone incarnations of the wind, the breath, the Spirit. Hopefully, we’ll comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

     If you’ve been at this point before with me, you’ll know that I get emotional when it’s time to say so long. Spending these moments together, whether it be for thirty, sixty or ninety-two days, is beyond words. It is as holy as it gets, at least for me, and I’m always left with the certainty that I’m not alone. Whether that be because you’ve been with me or God’s been here is not important because, you see, I’ve come to believe that there is no distinction between the two—not at this level. That’s a part of Jesus’ significance. The kingdom, it is at hand.

     And, so, with the same lump in my throat and wetness in my eye, I leave you with the psalmist’s words: may peace abound, until the moon is no more.

Judges 3:12-30; Acts 1:1-14; Matt 27:45-54