Self Radicalization

This term, new to our lexicon, has continued to cause me to ponder what it really means. Here is an academic definition:  

Radicalization is a process by which an individual or group comes to adopt increasingly extreme political, social, or religious ideals and aspirations that (1) reject or undermine the status quo or (2) reject and/or undermine contemporary ideas and expressions of freedom of choice.

As one watches the news, read the stories of credible news media such as Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Foreign Affairs, etc, which I do daily and watch the never ending news cycle with each competing for "Breaking News" with powerful graphics and compelling music, it is very easy to throw up your hands in angst and grow numb.  My wife loves to make the comment, "why do you do that for there is nothing you can do about it .." which to a great extent is correct.  But I believe those that have a hunger to want to understand the major dots and how they connect, and I plead guilty to be addicted to that avocation, your context of what is happening in this world becomes mind boggling.

There are so many forces screaming toward confluence in our world that one cannot but go back to Scripture and its clear depiction of the End Times I believe.  Racism, regardless of color, creed, sexual preference, location, etc is raging in this nation.  Flags, songs, monuments, names history, institutions, etc, etc; all being driven by a bullying set of forces. I learned today, assuming it is accurate, since 2007, the number of mass shootings in America is the greatest in American history for the same time frame. Drug addiction, trafficking, killing has accelerated at pace that is is mind-dazzling and what I know of thirteen years of working in prison ministry, the general population has not clue of the degree of this scourge on our society.e 

But my thesis is about Self Radicalization as I watch a diver in a lake in CA searching for a hard drive tossed by the killers of just a few days ago.  I am a man of strong passion if you know me you know how true that is.  But I realize, I think, that have a passion for something is a lower rung apparently than radicalization. Go back and read the definition.  As I read it over and over through the prism of is a crazed world that worsens by the day it seems,  "adopted increasingly extreme .." is the verb of the definition.

So I ask the question in the position hue; why are we not self radicalizing for Jesus and His Kingdom? How long has it been since you heard the terms such as driven, zealous, etc when referencing our Heavenly Father and the Heavenly Kingdom prepared for the believers? When you look at organized religion today and seeing so many churches closing, major reduction of membership thus becoming relics, you must ask why.  Prayer has been removed from schools. Allegiance to our Nation has become a point of caustic ethos so where do our children, our future, learn about God, learn about our Nation they will run in a few years?  The very history of our nation and our states is now being rewritten via bullying pressure from racial and LGBT organizations.  See my point for that point is the void of absolutes in our culture; you know what is clearly right and clearly wrong. Those lines are blurred or nonexistent. Given that, chaos reigns and that is exactly what we are transitioning to I believe. 

I yearn for Americans to turn from the craziness trajectory we are on and I believe if you look at the times of the terrible launch of these indicators, I must go to the President of our Nation and his tenure which is on or about 2007.  The "Great Hope" has turned out to be the "Great Flop" but the implication going forward, my grand childrens' world, is shaded and jaded for their entire lifetime. Our national debt will break the back of this nation due to the mountainous entitlement spending during this same period of time ... I believe you see my point!

So what is missing; radicalization for God so my prayer for this nation is to turn back to Him for if not, this gets much, much worse.  Our new normal is, well, destroying this nation and that lethal injection, I believe, has root structure back to the first ten years of our new, frightening century.  An inept, gridlocked Congress, a cunning, shadowy President with a very unclear strategy for our Nation; caustic equation.  Thus why would anyone be surprised by the Trump Phenomenon? This rise is due to the fact that he has given voice with passion to a scared, weary nation!

Here is all I know: I love Jesus Christ and His amazing touch on my life. I love my church home, The Canton Baptist Temple and the abundant love that church shows in so many ways. I love my family and want the best for them every day. My grand daughter's best friend's mother was brutally killed by her father this week and now my grand daughter is having to try and understand it all.  This is the new normal and Satan is having a field day with the craziness that is unfolding daily. Fear, worry, discouragement; all elements of a world that has turned from God; that same God our Founders leaned heavily on as history rightly records. 

Our 2016 World

On this day after the 2015 Thanksgiving Day, ones mind cannot not think about the world as it rolls into a new year only weeks away. The world is still reeling from the Paris massacre, the latest killings in the Murder Capital of the World, Chicago, Europe has rolled up its walls and shut out the rest of the world quaking in fear of ISIL thus ISIL has won without firing a shot.  We see the bawdy, blatant aggression of Mother Russia led by King Putin surging forward unchecked for the great checker, America, has pretty much checked out if you get the play on words. Global warming seems to be the Obama landscape to escape his Commander-in-Chief role when it would seem to me that every meeting and gathering should be focused solely on the elimination of this scourge to mankind called Daesh or ISIL or whatever you choose to called this menace to mankind running apparently unabated.

Earlier this week I watched an interview on Charlie Rose with General David Petraeus in which is articulated as clearly as I have experienced the multifaceted spider web of killers most of which are affiliates of none other than Persian now known as Iran. Yes, that same Persia our President and his minion John Kerry, have negotiated an immense nuclear pact for it is "the best we can do and we must ratify it" for some strange reason I still do not understand. And, oh by the way, this agreement frees up somewhere around $150 billion to Iran and we know now where some of that will go which is to fund the terrorist groups linked and aligned with Persia's intention well stated to remove Israel from the face of the earth. This is the same Persia that is thumbing its nose at the Great American Satan; that would be We the People. It simply is beyond my level of understand to grasp what this President's real agenda is for with seemingly each day, he says and does things that seems shadowy and almost sickening supportive of our sworn enemies.

As a man of passion and patriotism, this POTUS behavior and agenda is not only frightening but downright angering knowing so many have given so much for this wonderful gift of Freedom. Now with the Paris attacks and others no doubt being planned for execution soon, the Government will be seeking more and more access to our personal information thus infringing on certainly inalienable rights granted us by our Bill of Rights.  We see all too clearly the failed of institutions in our nation such as the VA, the IRS, the Post Office, Amtrak, and the list goes on. We see and hear so much about "shovel ready" infrastructure work needed in America which I agree with but have you driven by a work site lately to actually see actual work being done? Earlier this week I did see several road projects underway and what I saw was invariably one person working, one person standing and chatting, one person on break, one person checking the person working and two persons getting read to go to break. It really is actually sort of funny to witness the lack of energy, push to get the work done but then I realize it is a metaphor for where America has evolved to.

I think about things strangely for I take the long view of what I see. For example, it has now become commonplace to see panhandlers at major intersections with signs asking for financial handouts and in all configurations of sad faces, torn, dirty clothes, animals, old Army camouflage passing as an old veteran, etc, etc.  Each time I witness this act playing out I find myself wishing I had ten job cards in my pocket I could hand to the poor begging soul and then see if there would be any effort to actually go earn a wage. I am convinced the great, great majority would throw the card away and just occupy the corner begging perch. When I see the same beggar on another corner I know then there is organization, planning, transportation, logistics invested in this begging venture. Sound cold?  I implore you to check me out on this non-work institution.  When people do not have to work, they will not work for when We the People are paying them not to work; well, you get my drift but sadly that is where we have evolved to.

In my naive belief that police are fundamentally good and seek to keep the peace, with each highly publicized shooting with police involved, I sincerely get sick of the same rhetoric and poison stirrers that work people into a frenzy that leads to blatant harassment of police all on national television.  CNN has become, sadly, the chief culprit in the stirring with the likes if Suny Hosten, Charles Blow, Don Lemon; all black, all with an agenda and all creating more angst and accusative narrative about "all" police that is getting more and more of them killed as they sit upon their perch pontificating angst and hate aimed at the very people that get up each day to protect us.  

It is beyond me, frankly, why a sane, normal young person would choose police work as a career in this cauldron of hate spun by media in the midst of blatant abuse and criminal activity by those, some of which end up shot or killed in the line of duty. But the police, regardless of circumstance, is guilty and drawn and quartered by the CNN butchers I have grown to loathe.  I know so many police and deputies and see how hard they work, how dedicated to their mission and I love and admire each. Yes, there are bad ones as with any profession but this is a very, very small percentage but it is they ghat get all the television time thus broad-brushing the great majority of great police.

If I have a deep concern for our nation, and I do, it is with the overworked and overwhelmed all-volunteer military construct. Ten deployments is simply wrong for the service person and their tortured families.  It is illogical to me for less than one percent of the US population to protect the 99% of Americans. I understand fully the logic for going to the AVA but that was before the days of multi deployments in never ending conflicts in a world gone mad with weaponry never thought feasible. I think it criminal in a nation as great as America to know have a system where every single America male and female must serve our nation for two years at an early age.  We are one of the very few if not the only nation in the G20 that does not have a conscription system to bring fresh minds and bodies into the role of protecting our nation. We see all too clearly the downside of multiple deployments and this will only worsen.

During my ten years teaching university level students I found a way to trigger the conversation about the above paragraph meaning their thoughts on taking on the responsibility of protecting our way of life from foreign and domestic enemies. Easily over 99% saw no reason nor any desire to step up to that noble task which saddened me but allowed me to project that that is our America today. We are an aging empire that, like all other empires will collapse from the inside due to the weight of government cost, entitlements and no internal armed force to fight back the enemies that would wish to destroy our way of life. Does that not depict America today?

The Poison of Hate

On Lady Liberty given to us by the French, lest we forget, that has met countless millions of immigrants coming to our Land seeking refuge, a new chance and life and freedom of worship.  Emma Lazarus is inscribed on this Statue of Liberty: 

"Inscription on the Statue of Liberty"

Give me your tired, your poor, 

Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free, 

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, 

Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

In these terrible, deadly, ever-shocking days unfolding on global networks and social media, the litmus test of and for each of us reading this resides in the 2015 application of those infamous welcoming words.  Within a 99.9% percentile of those reading this came here from another location for an array of reasons but freedom was the overarching thrust of the voyage and the worth of the challenge to leave loved ones, homes, work, etc.   

As I began to see a few weeks ago posts to FB decrying acceptance of the poor and pitiful migration of people scared to death and many dying trying to escape the horrors of their hell in their homeland, I began to feel conflicted deeply. 

Then with the Paris attacks, the xenophobic nature of Man began to rear its ugly head around the world but not stronger than right here in America. We have all read or heard of the internment camps for the Japanese after December 7, 1941. We can all, as well, understand the fear our grandparents felt in trying to grasp the what and why Japan did such a dastardly deed. History has always shown us the Japanese felt they were driven to take such drastic actions due to America shutting off its raw material supplies. I am not justifying the whys or wherefores of what happened but history has recorded that as a dark time in American history with the treatment of the Japanese which were American citizens.

This with the Japanese is but one of many such xenophobic reactions to calamities.  The Syrian refugee crisis looms in the sunlight and TV light of our social media world so it more real and in HD for we in 2015 than it was in the black-and-white media world of 1941.  Seeing photos on FB of these poor wretches of people selling their lives to Turkish and Greeks to get away from the morass of their lives next to pits of rattlesnakes crawling on each other are, for me, reprehensible. While reprehensible that one of the Paris bombers allegedly came into Europe as one of the refugees angers, sickens and causes many of us to want to lash out in some caustic way. But let me say again:

"Inscription on the Statue of Liberty"

Give me your tired, your poor, 

Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, 

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, 

Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

I am deeply, deeply conflicted on the actions of now roughly thirty American states denying entry of these "huddled masses yearning to breathe free .." for none of us can know the statistics of the level of potential threat.  To give it another slant, the Mafia has been granted almost elite star status with movies when realizing these were Italian and Irish street gangsters and thugs making their way to America to Americanize their ill gotten gains and means to those gains via murder and mayhem, right? So do you see my point and parallel?

In our local Canton, OH newspaper today, a great writer, Charita Goshay, has posted a challenging piece on this very issue in American life in 2015.  That which we have held valid and valued is now challenged on every hand in America and in Europe.  Legitimizing and celebrating the many things the Bible clearly states to be wrong in God's Eyes is example of the transformation of America as it becomes more god-less as has Europe since World War II.  

I worked for an executive at Goodyear that loved to state when some were celebrating attainment of a target and wanting praise, he would quietly and succinctly state .."one robin doeth not a Spring make!"  I believe one terrorist is that robin in this ocean of people that direly need to be absorbed into the less barbaric global village.  If not I believe the level of brutality and killing will be enhanced via technology of explosives and weaponry obviously readily available on world black markets.

Many will disagree with my sentiment in my writing this morning and please know, that is perfectly within your right for I understand fully the innate longing to protect and build a wall. But our global village is burning around us. I am convinced the Obama Administration has heavily prompted and fueled much of this disdain and hatred both foreign and domestic we are seeing come to fruition as the sunlight of hatred grows hotter around the world.

I go back to Lady Liberty's telling words for my guidance as I navigate this deep sense of confliction I myself am feeling on this mass of people seeking life ... is that really too much to ask?

Skin in the Game

http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/11/12/cavuto-interviews-college-protest-organizer-one-percent-can-afford-cover-free-tuition

I am beginning my comments with this link of a student interview about the million student march. Like so many of us we have watched the bullying at the University of Missouri and saw clearly the utilization of the leverage from athletic program revenues and then see the top two university officials simply tuck their tales and run and hide.  I do not know about you but all of this is, well, typical of America today defined as bullies gaining the high ground.

Listening to this young lady talk about the March is designed to get free tuition for college, all student loan debt paid off and all paid for by the "1% of people hoarding" the money.  

How immature misinformed and incredible such rhetoric is.  I had a great friend many years ago tell me bluntly that until you have skin the the game, you nor anyone else will full embrace nor engage the issue.  But her rhetoric aligns perfectly with the Democratic 'give me because you owe me' mentality that now abounds.  In doing organizational effectiveness consulting for nearly ten years after my retirement from Goodyear, I saw that adage so clearly.  Free anything means free some taking responsibility.

Had I not personally witnessed by thousands of university students how badly student loans were abused, not an intent to repay, total disregard for credit viability into the future, purchase of nicer cars, nicer computer, iPhone, clothes etc, etc, I lost great respect for many students in their intentional misuse of borrowed funds. That was exacerbated by the fact by the fact of knowing so many parents were sacrificing their retirements accounts, etc, to pay for their child and to see the abuse of the sacrificial support from parents and grand parents was and is sickening to me.  Mind you, this does not describe the majority of students but a sizable portion certainly feed it that trough in various tributaries.  

But at the aggregate of my thesis is that unless a person be they a spouse, a child, a student, an employ invests some of their on skin / responsibility into the work involved, they will never fully invest themselves thus fall along the roadway of bystanders. I apply my Pareto analogy of the 80/20 for I believe it is roughly 20% of students that choose not to invest themselves and tend to take advantage of the 80% that invest themselves fully into their education and thus life and thus future and it is that 80% that will lead the future while dragging the 20% along the way as their, the 80%'s taxes they pay from earnings are siphoned into entitlements and safety nets for the 20%ers. Trust me, this is a viable theory that is very real and measurable. 

There are millions of amazing, gifted, hard driving students in our classrooms.  My greatest concern for those students is the very poor quality of teaching they will receive as too many professors are over-focused on research, dissertations (a racket in and of itself), and too many faculty, like the communications professor at Missouri inflaming the terrible unrest now apparently proven to be fueled by lies and troublemakers.  But alas, the Pandora box is now fully opened so we will now witness more and more of this and it will be the 20%ers of tomorrow that will be filling the campus quads and student centers shouting and demanding.

The Missouri reality should have been handled day one by the President firing the football coach, revoking all participant football scholarships and forfeiting the rest of the football season.  What we are witnessing is a new form of bullying and the stick of TV revenues flowing into universities and being spent less on student enhancement to learn but on more computers, buying parts of cities to expand country club type facilities, etc. 

America has turned soft and flabby with this new exhaustive layering of movements, entitlements, softening the rules enforcement, police hating, loss of global power leadership and more than anything, turning solidly away from God. A recent poll I saw this week indicates that 42%  of Americans consider themselves spiritually "nones" meaning they have nor feel no sense of connection nor value in organization religion. 

Satan is winning!

Facing the Bullies

Good morning. I have just watched a Charlie Rose interview with Admiral McKernan, retired Navy Special Operations Commander.  Rarely am I moved as I watched with swelling pride renewing my pride in our nation's military as I watched this highly decorated Navy Seal answer Rose's questions with fervor, frankness and absolute clarity.  I realized how much I miss briefings and straight forwardness that is the military for it cuts through the politics and smoke and the misdirection or pitfalls of poor communication.  This man was the key military head of the Bin Laden raid so his credibility is beyond reproach. He had thirty-seven years in the Navy and is now a Chancellor at the University of Texas. Enough on his stripes but there were two areas of the hour that resonated with me deeply both of which I absolutely concur and always have.

How do you stop a bully?  "To stop a bully you have to stand up and push back and push back hard."

Is Leadership hard?  "There is no endeavor more difficult and challenging than that of leadership."

Let me expand on both these boulevards of success for a few minutes:  How do you stop a bully?  "To stop a bully you have to stand up and push back and push back hard."  There are very few reading this that have made it to this stage of the journey and not have faced the sting and stench of being bullied.  My first real experience that is still vivid was in the ninth grade and a senior guy began to say terrible things to me, threaten me and demand my lunch money. I yielded and gave up my lunch money thus going without lunch for nearly a year which nobody ever knew. This began against when I hit the tenth grade the this same guy was still there. He was large, scary, rude and frankly, I was afraid of him.  About the third week of my tenth grade year, he confronted me yet again but something had happened that summer within me. He poked me hard in the chest, demanded my lunch money and as I fell backwards almost falling down a set of bleachers in the gym, I took a hard swing with my fist as he was sitting and hit him in the left side of his head. He was as shocked as I as I remember. But something immediately happened inside me which was that I had a gut full of this sense of being a wimp and with that, as he stood to kill me, I am sure, I hit him again in the same place harder. He fell backward, he jumped up and walked away and that never happened again. LESSON LEARNED; I hated being bullied and detest a bully to this day!

Bullies exist and feed off of the weak. As I watched this Admiral expound on America today as viewed by the world, he iterated Russia, ISIL, Syria are bullies and they are bullying America. As along as America, like my bully, is allowed to keep pushing and scaring, they, the bully, will only feel more empowered; so very true.  

I believe the Obama Doctrine when assessed and viewed through the lens of historians, will clearly carry the taint of a weak, isolationist, dovish President as our standing as The Global Power Broker imploded around him. I sincerely believe that is what we are all witnessing day-to-day but with no Title affixed. History will affix that title! So in the mean time, Putin will have his way in reconstructing Mother Russia, he will augment that with his Middle Eastern influence he now musters via massive arms sales to these ME States. 

The Iran Nuclear Deal is another example, at this stage at least, of the US being bullied by assuming the position of weakness and pleading instead of a position of strength, fear of retaliation and force structure and projection. 

America is being bullied at home by the race-baiters and the fissures of that will likely lead to domestic warfare as the police are now the enemy. That, personally, concerns me more than ISIL, Russia, etc. And for me, this President and his policies and rhetoric has fueled this widening gap within our nation.  

My freshman year of college at a tough basketball practice one evening, a senior player was guarding me and with each rebound he was intentionally pushing me around, elbowing and being profane.  This went on for several minutes until I popped him with my elbow in the ribs, legally I wish to add, and he went down no doubt feeling embarrassed in front of the rest of the team. A minute later I received a pass about twelve feet from the goal and was about to drive to my right for the basket and as I did he hit me in the fast  hard with a fist that sent me to the floor. I was dazed for a minute or so, felt really terrible and looked up and he was smiling at his accomplishment. The other guys, I realized were waiting to see what this freshman was going to do about this as was the coach I realized as well. Knowing I would be killed, I felt this sense of "who cares" wash over me and as I came up I returned the favor I had received sending him reeling. I heard this applause and then realizing I had passed some unwritten test.  I have never forgotten that night for many reasons.

I hate bullies!

Is Leadership hard?  "There is no endeavor more difficult and challenging than that of leadership."  I love watching, studying, assessing, coaching leadership perhaps more than any other field of endeavor.  For some leading comes seemingly ease and for some it seems unlearnable. I have been privileged to work with some amazing leaders and as well to try and work for some simply horrific leaders for they themselves were never comfortable in their own skin.  

Respect, Calm, Directness, Clarity and Can-Do assemble the traits of effective leaders. There is no leadership until the leader fails and decides to get up and learn from the knock down or choose to reside in the prone position. I have experienced both with so many others and within myself.  If the leader does not feel the work or the job can get done, it will not and so many lessons for those being led will have been lost forever.  

People want to be led. People want to cool in the shade of leadership. People crave effective leadership.  After all is said and done, that is my summation comments on the topic. 

The Admiral was the best example I have seen in a long time of exhibiting leadership as a science and an art. But understand, when it comes to leadership, you must learn the science before crafting into the art.  Those being led will see the lack of depth if the art is sought too quickly meaning a leader must earn the right of those being led to lead.

I highly recommend watching the Rose interview at his website. www.charlierose.com.

Like Sands Through the Hourglass, So are the Days of Our Lives

Yes, I made that title up, not sure where it came from, ahhhhhhhh, I hope there is no TV show that uses the metaphor so it is MINE to use this rainy Saturday morning. It has been two weeks since my last blog and there is so much unfolding in our world that it is not a matter of what to expound upon but the challenge is selecting which from the mass.

This week we see the GOP continue with its circular firing squad approach to the POTUS elections.  I still smile when I read or watch Trump's name come up, as it so often does, and there is this cynical, sarcastic smirk that accompanies any comment about Trump so the pundits want so badly to see him crash and burn; but he keeps on chugging.  

This week we saw Mrs. Clinton probably ascend the throne to the POTUS but the tactical partisan Benghazi hearings, frankly for me, were blatantly partisan to the point that the killings in Libya were a sideshow. Clinton, short of a disaster or an unexploded IED, will surely be her entry cadence. Why? option 2 is what in either party? 

So sad but at this stage so blatantly correct. So another eight years of Obama legacy is something I cannot fathom but I will be seventy-six by the end of her reign so it probably won't matter much, will it? Enough on POTUS politics for it truly sickens me for my children and grandchildren but the ball is rolling and it is apparently unstoppable from this vantage.

I choose this day to remain hopeful and believing that God is absolutely in control of all this noise for that is what it becomes is white noise.  Legalization of drugs is the new norm.  Ms Jenner is the Woman of the Year; how sick is that but hey, this is our new norm it would appear.  Putin is doing what he wishes while our POTUS strategy stated is that he will mire himself down and he will just pack up and go back to Moscow. Yes, and pigs fly is my thought on that gutless doctrine! 

Did I mention the Middle East is at a state of absolute collapse which I am thinking is inevitable and perhaps good in long term for the boundaries the British drew in 1917 are being erased in blood and will be redrawn by ethnic boundary markers I would envision.  But there will be much blood yet to be spilled as the erasing goes forward and as Iran and Russia and I believe China will dictate the pace and terms of this monumental transformation. The U.S. will be fundamentally a zero-based force in the redrawing. So enjoy the cheap gasoline while you can!

Here is what I know! I am happy. I love what I get to do. I hear often I do too much of it but that is me if you know me. My family is healthy and happy.  My amazing ministries in both prison ministry and singing in assisted and nursing homes continue to bless and amaze so it is worth the abundant effort and time and energy invested. I love getting to do that and never could I have imagined my life would have evolved to that.  I could not be more proud of my five grandchildren as they are excelling in their strengths be it athletics, music, academics; such a blessing!

This lyric keeps circling through my mind; 

I serve a risen Savior, He's in the world today. I know that He is living whatever men may say. I see His Hand of mercy, I heard His Voice of cheer. And just the time I need Him, HE's ALWAYS NEAR. So I will just lean on that fact in my life!

Let's eat!

It is early afternoon on a beautiful, cool, Fall day and am just in from an amazing Bible study.  That is important to know but the precursor of importance to my blog today must go back to last night after being part of two county jail chapel services.  

In the two services we had over fifty men of varying ages, races, ethnicity, crimes, family situations; yes, a metaphor for life on this journey I have come to realize. For almost thirteen years I have been more and more heavily involved in prison ministry now numbering nearly 300,000 men and women. With each church service I find myself feeling blessed, warmed at the fire, seeking ways to be more effective but still with the question: what is it that keeps that ministry work vital, always a blessing and grasping bigger bites of involvement each year to me. I am a man of passion as many of you know and if I get impassioned about cause, my drive triggers to accomplish more and more. But the prison work still maintains a deeply rooted question as to why this ministry is so important to me.

Most people I know would never understand the blessing that comes from this work.  Getting to do this work with an array of preachers, speakers, volunteers that are there just to be there and to encourage; I find myself blessed by the equation God fulfills in bringing such an eclectic band of brothers and sisters all pointed at bringing the matter of Salvation to the surface in these men and women society would generally like to just assume do not exist which extends to their families as well. 

The services last evening were unique in the sense of connectivity established and the level of respect, intensity of listening, the spirit of the Lord being shown in raised hands, clapping, praising God intently; WOW!  In this Bible study this morning we drilled into the story of Jesus and Levi (Matthew the tax collector) and the answer to the burning question for me and the why of the prison work came bursting to the light of day.  Jesus intentionally put Himself in places and with people "normal" people did not and would not associate with.  

Read these verses from Mark: 

Jesus Calls Levi and Eats With Sinners

13 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.

15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick" ...  Insert prisoners for the "sick" and voila, that is exactly the why!  In the hundreds of services I have conducted and been part of and the innumerable songs I have sung and the many times I have had to get rather "stringent" to quiet and stop anything as to behaviors that would interrupt the work church service, I have never felt fearful nor threatened.  The relationships developed with the corrections officers and deputies is part of the blessing for I get to minister to them as well and realize my personal behavior and demeanor given that environment is satisfying to those men and women in uniform doing potentially dangerous and ever changing events inside the bars.

Verse seventeen shown above, for me, was like watching a shooting star as so many questions I have had were answered. Jesus I certainly am not. But this work has created an inexplicable empathy for these men and women that have made many terrible choices and they are paying the consequence. 

Never have I excused the act that put them into the prison for it is all part of the process they chose to embark upon.  I have yet to have a prisoner tell me they were in prison for no reason and believe me, I have had thousands of conversations hearing stories that most would think were from a television program. Broken homes, drug addiction, alcoholism, violence, hate, anger, discouragement, suicide, murder; that is my world in which I feel this amazing sense of joy and worth. It still simply takes my breath away even when tired, frustrated and discouraged.

A bonus to all of this is in getting to work with some amazing volunteers and pastors that take time from their busy lives to invest in these downtrodden and many times forgotten men and women.  I learn from each sermon, each testimony, each quiet private conversation with an inmate. I am blessed!

To close, each of us if we are like most Christians, have many friends that are Christians. It feels right and good and warm to be with other Christians. But here is the challenge for Christians I realize more strongly than ever before: how many non-Christians do you know and choose to associate with? Think about that for a moment! 

My answer is in the thousands of non-Christians I am with each year and realize more clearly with each passing year that God has opened this door to me for exactly what the verse 17 says and the example Jesus gave us all.  He did not linger or warm up to those that are on easy street and going well. No, He went to the tired, the poor, the dead so why on earth should we not follow that example?

So, how many non-Christians do you choose to be an example to in your words and deeds and actions?  Please, ponder that. I am re-energized in these last twelve hours as I guess and hope you can tell!