14:30

I’m in the cell and I’m thinking about tomorrow – about leaving this place…..finally. And as I think about walking through that gate into freedom, my mind turns to the many times I have been the one left behind as friends have made this transition.

Rob left in April of 2004. The big galoot, weight-lifter, the maker-upper of words like flink (to replace flinch and jerk) and fringe (used as the combination of cringe and fear). The one of our group most plagued with Attention Deficit Disorder, but good as gold and willing to do whatever he could to help a friend.

Billy followed Rob through the gate a month later. If you read “A Life of Deception” through, you will be introduced to Billy more properly and completely, but he has been there for me during these years and, even as I write this, he is still helping and encouraging me.

Michael left. Brad left. Anthony left. Big Whitsey left. Dirty left. So many have left and I’ve had to stay.

And now it’s my turn and I think about those who will remain after I leave tomorrow.

Chris will stay for a while. He’s a good friend and one of the very best guitarists I’ve ever met. I know how he feels.

Wes was my cellmate for nine months and has become a real friend and encourager, even as he remains. Another twenty-four months and he’ll follow me, but for now he stays. I know how he feels.

Lane moved into my cell after Wes was transferred to Northeast. He was only there for three months before his custody level improved and he was able to move to a minimum security complex, but his friendship remains and though he is saddled with a life sentence, I pray for him that the Parole Board will allow him to leave the prison in another few years.

Charles. Mouse. Larry and Andre. They all remain and I feel for them.

And so another hour passes and the moment I’ve been waiting for is that much closer.

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September 4, 2002

This is the first of this sort of give and take.  I received another wonderful letter from my dad the very day after receiving the prior.  My response, included here, was to both of the letters.

Obviously, I wasn’t able to make a copy of this letter before I sent it from the jail.  I found this letter among my dad’s effects after his death last May.  What a shock to actually stumble across this box filled with my letters.

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September 4, 2002

Dear Son,

I hope all is well today… Oh, mercy!  I can’t bear thinking of you locked up like an animal in a cage….

I was thinking of St. Paul writing his many letters from prison that the world is reading today, including Romans 8:28.  I was thinking of the “all things” in that promise.

I think of those wonderful biscuits that your Mamaw used to make for the family.  Her children and Papaw would beg her to make them (along with tomato gravy).

I used to watch her making them.  I have thought how terrible it would have been to try to eat each ingredient by itself.  But she added all the parts and “worked them together”, then heated them at just the right temperature for just the right amount of time.  The result was amazing!!  Everyone scrambled for them (even the eggs…HA!) when she called, “Biscuits are ready – get them while they’re hot!”  I can just hear her!

If You Could See

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  Isaiah 55:9

 

How limited is our understanding of the forces that mold the character of others; how minute is our perception of the compulsions that mar or distinguish a human life … but

 

If You Could See

 

If you could see, like God can see,

                Beneath the strut and show of things,

Your eyes would weep for struggling souls,

                Who know not of Christ’s “Healing Wings.”

 

If you could see, like God can see

                The pressures that are daily borne

By those about–and yes, the pain

                That has become a bitter thorn ….

 

If you could see, like God can see,

                Beneath the artificial smile,

The heart that hungers for His peace

                But falsely searches mile on mile ….

 

If you could see like God can see,

                The motive back of every deed,

You would be slower to condemn

                That one whose ways you cannot read ….

 

You would not criticize or judge

                The faults you wish you could erase;

But plead the Blood to your own heart–

                And Christ’s forgiving grace!

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For more of the poetry of my grandmother, visit the “Uplifted Eyes” page.

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Dad – Part III

The next several years were spent wandering; moving from one treatment center to the next; one hospital to the next; borrowing money from family and friends with no ability to repay.

 

At one point he was sleeping under a bridge in Nashville.  Desperate, he called one of his few remaining friends—the pastor of the small Nazarene church in Danville, Virginia, we had attended during my high school days.  Rick drove all night, picked up my father and took him back to Danville.  He housed him, fed him, gave him work, and got him help.

 

His dark years were over.  He had finally reached the bottom and made the decision that nothing was worth going through that dark tunnel again.

 

As I write this, nineteen years later, my father has enjoyed those years; sober and helping others.  Now, all these years later, he is back in the ministry, preaching the gospel, exhorting people to turn to Christ and to let Him change their lives.

 

I hate the lost years.  I hate what I saw my mother go through trying to keep my brother and me clothed and fed.  I hate that I lost those years with my father.

The Master Weaver

The Master Weaver is at work in the world. He is actively weaving the tapestry of eternity. What looks disjointed and awkward from our side of the veil, will make perfect sense when we see it from the other side. We will see that indeed all things work together for good.  We will trace the connections made in situations that baffle and amaze  us here.

We will see a level of grace given to the cancer patient so it becomes a ministry opportunity rather than a death sentence.

We will see that a job loss requiring the launch of a new & never-before-comtemplated career had the effect of moving a life across the highways of a nation and planting a testimony within the hearts of others.

We will see a military activation that has the potential to generate a spirit of fear but deepens the faith of a family instead.

We will see that it was our loving Heavenly Father taking the unexpected from the human point of view & turning them into those “all things” happenings of a life committed to Him into the good & beautiful.

I don’t know about you but I’m anxious to see His Tapestry.

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Scoundrels Accepted

Penned January 11, 2007

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Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”  Genesis 28:15

Conspiracy, fraud, deceit, manipulation.  Not the recipe you would expect for the custodian of God’s promise.

But God has His purpose and His plan in everything.  And here, to preserve Jacob’s life, Rebekah manipulated Isaac into sending Jacob to her family home to find a wife.  This far off country was where Jacob would become Israel and a great nation would come from his loins.

I don’t understand how and why God can use the scoundrels of the world to achieve His ends but this is certainly a common theme.

Thank God, because I’m one of those scoundrels.

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Dad – Part II

Years later, as a senior in high school, I was caught breaking the rules—at this point I don’t remember what I’d done—and was, as customary, sent to my room to await punishment.  On that day, however, my father turned the tables on me.  He lay across the bed and made me spank him.  I never forgot that and, for quite a few years after that, strictly adhered to the rules of the house.

 

More years passed.  Pastorates came and went.  The evangelistic field was entered and left.  My college days morphed into law school days.  Then the bomb detonated.  My father’s life of deception was exposed in an instant and nothing was ever the same again.

 

While in the midst of a revival in Kirkwood, Missouri, my father—not for the first time, I discovered later—stepped to the pulpit to preach completely intoxicated.  Feigning an illness, he excused himself and returned to his hotel room.  Unlike the other instances, however, several of those in attendance that night were physicians at and employees of a alcoholic treatment center located there.  They recognized the problem, confronted my father with their diagnosis, and graciously offered to provide treatment if he would only consent.

The Choice is Mine

Written January 10, 2007, from Cell 9B15 at West Tennessee State Penitentiary…..

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“…do not be afraid, for I am with you…” Genesis 26:24b

I’m surrounded.  Every minute of every day it bombards me.  It slaps me in the face as the guards shake the door in the morning for count time.  I endure it as I await the breakfast line.  As school begins the officers’ attitudes are fraught with it.  The other inmates are consumed with it.  And usually even those with whom I talk on the phone allow it to invade their thoughts about their life.

So what do I do?  I can allow myself to be sweep away by the tidal wave of negativity.  I can allow my mind to stagnate in this sewer of idleness and apathy.  Or I can choose to buck the trend – fight the tide.

And so I choose.  No more negativity.  It’s so easy to be dragged down into that pit, seeing everything from the pessimistic side, always complaining and whining.  But not only is that an incredibly unattractive personality trait serving to alienate even the most loyal and stalwart allies, it diminishes God Who cares for us and provides and protects.  It comes back to being thankful in all circumstances.  Content and joyful because we know beyond the shadow of any doubt whatsoever that He has our very best interest at heart and all things will work together for our ultimate good.

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If They Could Speak

“Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” I Corinthians 2:9

Surely we would sense afresh the wisdom of God, and see His rainbow through our tears …

    

If They Could Speak

If those dear ones we loved and lost

Could penetrate the veil,

And speak a word of comfort

To us they loved so well;

They would bid us dry our tears,

And eagerly await

Our turn to cross that river

That leads to Heaven’s gate.

They would tell us that the dreaded death

Is but an open door

That carries us from pain and toil

To rest forevermore…

They would tell us that, could they return

Upon an angel’s wing–

They would not, for ’tis rapture there

In the Presence of the King!

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For more of the poetry of my grandmother, visit the “Uplifted Eyes” page.

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Dad – Part I

SON.  BROTHER.  STUDENT.  MARINE.  PREACHER. 

 

HUSBAND.  FATHER.  DISCIPLINARIAN.  PASTOR. 

 

EVANGELIST.  ALCOHOLIC.  EX-HUSDAND.

 

 

My Father has been called many things in his life, but it wasn’t until five years ago—after years of estrangement and pain—that he really became my Dad.

 

I really do not know where to start his story—in its entirety, it would fill reams.  But some background is necessary to give you a feel for how dramatically his life has impacted mine in both negative and positive ways.

 

I always idolized my father.  He was a man’s man.  Big and strong—not the strength built up in a gym, but a natural strength.  He was born with it.  It was genetic.  I always admired that about him and wished that I had taken after him in that regard.  I, instead, inherited my body type from my mother—slender with very little natural muscle mass.  I inherited something far darker from my father—a finely honed ability to deceive.

September 3, 2002

I had only been at the jail for a week.  On August 30th, I appeared in court and began my sentence.  This was the first letter I received.  My father wrote the first of what would turn out to be a long string of letters.  And this one, just like all the ones that were to follow encouraged and calmed.  He, more than any other person in my life at that time, knew what it was like to be away from those he loved and confined to a facility.

To know that he knew, understood and cared was therapeutic.

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September 3, 2002

My Dearest Son-

     Your brother gave me the details of your lock-up. Glad you at least have a private cell. This is an answer to prayer.

I have put off writing for a day or so – just don’t know what to say – and that’s unusual for me. Ha!

13:30

Movement stops. It happens every day around this time and serves to keep us off the yard – from moving around at all really – during shift change. (Remember what Paul Harvey said about showing up at a prison around shift change?  We’ll just let that one lay where it is for now.)

Anyway, some days I remain at work through this time, not that there is ever any work to do, but it keeps me out of the pod for another few minutes, but today I returned to the unit before movement stopped so I could retreat to the relative quietness of my cell and think of what is waiting tomorrow.

Everything I can think of has been done in preparation of the grand exodus.  Everyone has been contacted and all is arranged.  Andy and my boys will be here in the morning.  A change of clothes will be available to get me out of these State-issued things as quickly as possible.  A little cash will be in an envelope with my Drivers’ License.  Everything else will have to wait.  Right now I just lay here in this little cell, listen to the commotion on the other side of the door and think about the life that awaits.

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The Unchangeable

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the people of Israel, saying: You shall eat no fat of ox or sheep or goat. The fat of an animal that died or was torn by wild animals may be put to any other use, but you must not eat it. If any one of you eats the fat from an animal of which an offering by fire may be made to the LORD, you who eat it shall be cut off from your kin. You must not eat any blood whatever, either of bird or of animal, in any of your settlements. Any one of you who eats any blood shall be cut off from your kin.  Leviticus 7:22-27

There are some things you just don’t do.  Don’t ever wear your sandles in front of the burning bush – just ask Moses.  Don’t stretch out your hand to steady the Ark of the Covenant – consult with Uzzah.  Don’t beat the Miracle Mule – talk to Balak.  Don’t do it the way you think best, follow God’s instructions – try to find Nadab and Abihu, they will testify to that.

We’ve gotten a bit too relaxed when it comes to things of God.  I remember when my Dad would turn down invitations to Sunday lunch if the meal was to be in a restaurant.  There were certain clothes you just didn’t wear in the church and eating or drinking in the sanctuary was a bad thing.

12:30

Count cleared on time – around quarter to twelve – and, as usual for a weekday, I have already eaten the poor excuse for cuisine and am back at work.  Actually the chicken and dumplings the food service serves on every fourth Monday is not that bad of a dish by prison standards.  Served with cornbread and a couple of glasses of cold milk, it is a meal I relish and even look forward to since the normal, everyday fare in so substandard.

But even as I ate that meal today, my mind was not really on the food as much as the knowledge that it would be the last meal I would ever eat in this place.  The last tray of either undercooked or burned food; the last line I would wait in for food in quite a while – sorry Morrison’s and Piccadilly, I will eat where I can be waited upon by a paid employee, in the home of family or friends, or absolutely alone in wherever I happen to be living; the last meal wondering if I’m sitting in the seat to which someone else has secretly laid claim and who may suddenly appear and decide to make an issue of the matter. 

The last time.  Still a bit difficult to wrap my poor little befuddled brain around that one.

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Go on to 13:30

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If

 

“No manner of hurt was found upon him, because he believed in His God.” Daniel 6:23

 

 God “tries” us to prove us – - that we might prove Him. Only thus can we understand that inexplicable….

 

  

If

If you never were faced with the wild sea’s embrace,

And the enemy’s shout in your ears,

Would you ever “stand still” to behold with a thrill

 God’s pathway that saves from your fears?

 

  

If you never were out in the dark den of doubt,

With the lions tossing their manes,

How then could you guess God’s angel could bless

 By using miraculous chains?

    

If you never were caught in that furnace white-hot

Of suffering beyond strength to bear,

Could you quite understand how real is the Hand

And the Presence that comforts you there?

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For more of the poetry of my grandmother, visit the “Uplifted Eyes” page.

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Amanda Clarke

I have great confidence in you; I take great pride in you.  I am greatly encouraged; in all our troubles my joy knows no bounds. (II Corinthians 7:4)

 

I want you to know how much I am struggling for you…. My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and unified in love…  (Colossians 2:1a; 2a)

 

Earlier I introduced you to Aunt Ruth and attempted to describe the impact she has had on my life.  Amanda is my mother’s other sibling. 

 

Aunt Amanda and I have been close since my childhood.  Usually living within the same State, and her only child just two months younger than I, resulted in frequent and lengthy visits during my early years.

 

However, that is not what prompts me to include her in this story.  Her inclusion here results from a piece of common ground we share.  For a large block of each of our lives we lived out a form of religion without possessing the substance of it.

 

Each of our fathers were Nazarene ministers.  Each of us suffered disillusionment and disappointment when we realized our “perfect” earthly fathers—idolized and, in some ways, worshipped by us—were not perfect but, in fact, had feet of clay.  Each of them failed, falling victim to the attack of Satan, and left a wide swath of pain and confusion in their wake.

July 30, 2002

My precious mother passed away December 22, 2008.  The awful disease with which she suffered for so long finally claimed her life.  In many ways those of us that knew her best and loved her most mourned for her long before she finally breathed her last breathe and, while we gathered with heavy hearts to pay our last respects, our sadness was more for our loss than for her passing.  You see, we all know exactly where Mom is and we have faith that we will see her again.  The only requirement is that we “stay on track.”

This letter was written to her son in jail.  Her heart was broken even as Alheimers’ stole her physical ability and mental capacity.  But though obviously affected by this disease, the message rings true and the love shows through.

I love my Mother.  And the present tense is used there on purpose, for she lives on with our mutual Savior.

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July 30, 2002

Dearest Son,

My thoughts and prayers are constantly with you.  I pray while I play the piano, I pray for you as I do my daily chores, I pray you will get your life back someday and I believe you will.  The way I look at this whole matter is that God had to bring to you your knees before He could pick you up and put you back in track.  God doesn’t waste anything.

Memorials

and command them, ‘Take twelve stones from here out of the middle of the Jordan, from the place where the priests’ feet stood, carry them over with you, and lay them down in the place where you camp tonight.’” – Joshua 4:3

We humans love our memorials.  Whether it’s to mark the final resting place of a loved one, the completion of some great task, or a time in history we choose to commemorate and honor, we build memorials and return there to remember the lives lost, successes achieved and victories won.

But what about the lessons learned?  What about the discipline developed out of financial mistakes?  What about the sobriety accrued after some tragic consequence?  What about the faith found from a time of trial or testing?

God establishes memorials in our lives.  That’s what He was doing with the river stones.  The Red Sea crossing was a miracle but memories were short – what inspired an overwhelming sense of awe yesterday becomes dull and ordinary today.

God wanted to make sure the future generations remembered the miraculous flood-stage crossing of the Jordan, so He commanded the retrieval of twelve stones from the middle of the river.  Not just any stone would do.  Only stones worn smooth by the sand and water of the river.  Only stones impossible to obtain in any normal manner.

Yes, God establishes memorials in our lives.  Sometimes it is made of stones from a river.  Sometimes it’s years from a life.  And not the edge of a river or a life, but from right in the middle.

Remember.  Honor.  Learn.  Teach.

Memorials are valuable.  What’s yours made of?  More importantly, what are you doing with them?

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Which Way?

We were past it before our brains realized what we had seen.  “Was that really a….?”  We had to see it again to be sure.

And there was no easy way to get back to it.  We were leaving a friend’s house, turning onto an interstate overpass, traffic was relatively heavy and it was a mile or so before I could safely negotiate the U-turn and return to the scene.

But we returned to the site of the sighting and, sure enough, there it was – a question mark with a directional arrow below it.  It was as if it were directing all those on that road with any question whatsoever to follow the sign for the answers they sought.