Finding Radical Love

FINDING RADICAL LOVE                                                                      Dec. 9, 2013

To me, the Gospel, the "Good News," is all about revealing the eternal freedom (past, present, future) that has ALWAYS been our (everyone and everything).  We simply are afforded the HONOR chosenness) of helping others to become aware of it all.  We "do" because we "are" eternally free!  It's the meaning behind "resurrection," which is the power behind "the cross," which ALL are invited to take up, in whatever LITERAL sense Jesus sees fit for "the cross" to be.  For some of us, at least, "the cross" means LITERAL, earthly death, for exposing the illegitimacy of the "idolatry" of " institutional religion" and of ALL that is "empire" (nationalism, statism, kings, presidents, congresses, treasuries, police, etc.).  So, I remain excited and eager to experience all of the Joy of Jesus, who loved us mere humans enough to become one of us, in order to show us, in "real time," the way home.

Lately, I have been thinking about, and pondering, my "UNCONFORMITY."

Ched Myers, in BINDING THE STRONG MAN, spoke best what my heart and brain embrace: "The way of nonviolence, as Gandhi said, will not prevail on account of words or argument, 'it shall be proved by persons living ii in their lives with utter disregard for the consequences to themselves.' "

Some HARD demographics have been floating through my total being, of late:  80% of ALL Americans (by survey) profess to trusting in a "loving" God, 80% of ALL Americans (by survey) profess to trusting in a "loving" God, 80% of ALL Americans (by survey) believe in the NECESSITY of a "strong" military, 50% of ALL Americans are considered to be poor (by their government), and 16% (1 in 6) of ALL Americans (including 50% of ALL Native American children) go to bed hungry…EVERY DAY!

I find something tragically amiss in the image presented by these figures.  How is one to suppose that the society of which "everyone," or so we are told, desires to be a part, is so schizophrenically paranoid that it is willing to blindly allow its leaders to expend 70% of ALL Federal Revenues on a "strong" military, when its supposed "loving" God is so close at hand?   Maybe AMerica's god, like AMerica's so-called god-trusters, doesn't genuinely know how to effectively deal with Love, Power, Justice, Poverty and Starving Children et al.

Thanksgiving day, here in Hell, began with a lull in our otherwise escalating violence.  Recently, an inmate fight left a guard injured, which raised the stakes quite dramatically.  Add a face slashing and the morning was ripe for an inmate stabbing on my block, for which we received a complimentary lockdown.  At dinnertime, our warders were quite cautious, choosing to release our block in small numbers.  This was in no small way aided by the greatly pacifying effect of a better-than-average meal, which replaces our norman, pathetically poor fare on 3-4 occasions, yearly.   The calming effect was fairly short lived.  The following day ended with a fight on our block and with yet another complimentary lockdown.

My fellow inmates have not ceased to drone on about the "black" inmate who stabbed another.  Feigning ignorance, they just can't seem to understand why the blacks tend to be so ready to act out their anger in such open manners.  When quite a number of my peers asked me for my take on the matter, I responded with demographics: Around 12% of the total U.S. population is African AMerican.  African Americans commit less than 12% of ALL U.S. crime yet fill in excess of 38% of ALL U.S. jail and prison beds.  Dumbfoundedly, my peers responded with absolute profundity, "You're so naive," then walked away to bitch and moan to someone willing to join in with their "make me feel good" insanity.

Last week, my friend Eileen, lit a candle for me and for all who are precious to me (which is EVERYONE), near the ancient temple wall in Jerusalem, Israel.  It was a visual prayer for PEACE.   As I shared word of this act of Love with others, the response was most favorable, until it was remembered that Eileen was the friend who was openly critical of Israel's secretive nuclear weapons program, of U.S. complicity, and of Israel's cruelties toward nuclear whistleblower Mordicai Vanunu.  The discussion rapidly digressed to BIG BAD IRAN and how they simply needed to bee NUKED.  I excused myself, so as not to diminish the act of Love by al prized friend.

Some of the prison's church folks recently came to me, asking that I cease my associations with Jews; which was an expansion of their previous lists; which included sex offenders, rapists, blacks and Muslims.  With blood boiling, I informed them that I would no longer be talking with them.

Another friend, Berry, recently sent an article, in which Author Ian Welsh's premise was: "For some time my base scenario has been as follows:  We are so screwed."  Quite compassionately and masterfully, the author proceeded to voice his urgent concerns regarding our allowed pillage and desecration of all that supports life on our fragile planet and in our fiscal, industrial, military and political institutions.  He asked tough questions and offered keen insights, such as those by Wendell Berry:  "We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are.  Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed?  Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers?  Why else would we--by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians--be participating in its destruction?  Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and reward them for it.  We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cisterns are wealthier than the rest of us.  How do we submit?  By not being RADICAL enough.  Or by not being THOROUGH enough, which is the same thing!"

I've been pondering what it would mean for me to become RADICAL; THOROUGH.   American church and state have long been partners in advocating, perpetrating and perpetuating the brutalization of humanity and the desecration of our planet.  To draw a line in the sand, between myself and the originators of such execrable malignity, seems to me to be simply normal and restorative.

My nearly 61 years have borne witness, as my so-called "Christian" society advocated "turning the head," while my black neighbors were brutalized, burned and hanged; while women and children were belittled, mistreated and molested; while injustice and abject poverty were heaped on the backs of minorities and on those already poor; while war-making was celebrated as our DUTY to God.  Though our mainstream media and political pundits aid us in keeping our heads in the sand, today our situation is so dire that our children and grandchildren are 100% GUARANTEED to bear the consequences of our abominations.   They ARE going to die and it is WE who have MURDERED them…SIGH!

    I'm no longer a citizen of the United States of America.  I have renounced America's so-called "Christian" religion.  I'm nonviolently at war with, and in prison for saying my simple "NO" to our society's EXTREME love of Violence, Racism, Bigotry and Poverty-production.  This is  my NORMAL!

I'm madly in love with our Creator and with ALL women, children and men; boundlessly and indiscriminately.  I'm going to allow my love to become RADICAL; THOROUGH enough to make a change in my little corner of our world that, for years, I was helping to destroy!

CONSEQUENCES

               CONSEQUENCES      By Norm Lowry                       October 2013

"My nonviolence does not admit of running away from danger and leaving dear ones unprotected."  --Gandhi

We choose what we live by  Directly, we choose our thoughts and actions; indirectly, our feelings and physiology.  Internal control holds sway and external control is utterly nullified, as we choose to become responsible for the inherent, often frightful and severe pricetags attached to our volition.  Consequence lies solely in our life-offering or life-defeating thoughts and actions.

This premise is faultlessly illustrated in Raj Patel's solicitude over the McDonalds Big Mac, which he posits, in all actuality, to be "The $200.00 Hamburger."

When we think of the Big Mac, we think of a $4.00 sandwich, which can be discounted when packaged in a meal.  We seldom consider the socio-political, ecological or economic impact.  It tends to make us nervous when we consider the sordid costs, such as the "carbon footprint" (around $300,000,000.00 per year for all Big Macs sold in the U.S.), government agricultural (beef, corn, et al.) subsidies, governmental economic and healthcare subsidies to underpaid/under benefitted employees, underpayment to agroworkers in Florida's tomato fields et al (slave labor), etc.

Who do we presume to be fiscally responsible for this year's U.S. $107,800,000,000.00 Big Mac subsidy?  To whom should I remit my $196,000.00 repayment to society, for the 1000+ Big Macs which I've consumed over the past 40+ years.

Recently, on America's most popular morning TV news/gossip show, the panelists nearly unanimously agreed that maybe it's time to remove the phrase, "innocent women and children," from media reporting on oppression, terrorism and war, due to its caustic impactions.  I bawled like a baby!  I mean, who on earth, in the history of humanity, has been more abused than "innocent women and children?"  Women are humanity's most faithful, though largely unrecognized and unfitted, servant-leaders; children, its most helpless yet hope-filled trusting precious ones!  How dare we?

Interestingly enough, the lone dissenter to this conversation was a woman who dared to play the "I get paid less than a man for doing the same work" card.  The panelists got fidgety, made a few jokes and moved on, missing yet another momentous opportunity to adsress the monstrous bigotry and racism that is literally rotting our humanity away, from the inside out.

This week will see the premier of a movie which chronicles the hijacking of an American Captained container ship by Somali pirates.  From the pre-release trailer we are promised that, once again, good will prevail against evil.  Tom Hanks portrays the hijacked captain, a hero.  I wonder who will portray Larry Summers, former Obama chief economic advisor and recent appointee for Federal Reserve Chairman who, while an executive at the World Bank, spearheaded the dumping of U.S. toxic/nuclear waste into the ocean off Somalia.  Accepted reasoning was that it was more economically sound to pay $2.50 per ton for disposal in Somalia, compared to $1000.00+ per ton for disposal in the U.S.  For his fiscal brilliance, Mr. Summers was appointed to the Clinton Administration Treasury Department.  Somali fishermen lost their fishing ground to toxic, radiation-typical poisoning and chose to become pirates.  With no justification intended, in the actual, portrayed hijacking, did good prevail over evil?

Our society has no shortage of good people!  This being so, how is it that we allow:

1.  our consumption to be such that, if all other nations were to consume as we consume, it would require Nine Earths to absorb the ecological effect?

2.  racism, bigotry and poverty-production to drive our so-called Justice System?

3.  our prisons to house 25%+ of the world's total domestic inmate population, in a country comprising merely 4.5% ot its total population?

4.  our government to expend 70%+ of all federal revenue on war making?

5.  et al.?

Inside each of us exists a "quality world" (William Glasser); a virtual picture gallery of what we most value.  We pursue only what we most value!  In order to perpetrate or perpetuate an "evil,," we have to make it our "best" option; the "right" thing to do, according to our "quality world."

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I sat enjoying a cup of coffee, in my favorite Portland Oregon Coffee Shop.  Three friends, Portland CIty Police Officers, came in late that morning and were quite haggard looking.  Greeting them, I said, "You guys look like crap.   Something bad happened, didn't it?"  They proceeded to fill me in on the occurrences at NYC's Twin Towers; of the planes hitting the towers.  The youngest officer commented, "But you told us a couple months ago that this was going to happen."

After that morning, the subject was never broached again.  This was quite surprising, especially so, as the ensuing weeks exposed Portland Oregon as being a key city in the supposed terrorist attacks.

There is no history nor holy book which tells us that those who perpetrate and/or perpetuate oppressive horrors will end well.  There are always consequences!

Love

                                    Love                                 September 2013

                          by Norm Lowry

Love is the Divine Essence,and the altar of its flowering;

The Love and the beloved, spoken into existence;

The rudiment, development, pilgrimage and never-ending destination, 

The refulgent, imperishable merger of infinite and finite beauty.

Love is the embrace of the solitary nature inherent in both life and death;

The seeming desertedness from which all genuine concomitance springs;

The perceived tragedy; the death to self which removes the fear from truth-telling;

The submissive individuality which allows risk-filled adventure, in a world as alive as we.

Love is the adoption of a new inclination; a resolute fixedness of attitude;

The posture of stalwart conduct; the animus of selflessness; the practice of fruitful suffering;

The quintessence of unconditional giving;  the negation of tyranny; the repudiation of violence;

The coming home to indiscriminate intimacy; the reconciliation with everyone and everything.

If I want Love, my aim will be to live a life of uncontaminated tenderness;

Self-conceit, self-exaltation, envy, suspicion and resentment will cease;

Vitality will be birthed in the privacy of silent embrace with our Creator and with all mankind.

Affirmation will emerge from the knowledge that the meaning of life cannot be discovered alone.

If I want Love, I will be sated with serenity, peace of mind/heart and centeredness;

Gloating, dejection, distress and threat of terror will not influence what I think or do;

My choices will disclaim all outgrowth of my actions and offered homage of others;

Security is assured in who, or more pointedly, whose I am.

If I am Love, my joy is to indiscriminately and boundlessly cherish both God and man;

My pursuit is patient endurance, nonjudgmental favor and unrestricted access to all;

My discipline is subjugation of all self-concern to mastered intellect tempered by wisdom;

My pledge is the promise that  my word my be taken to the bank.

If I am Love, polar opposites of both nature and emotion will be treated as identical;

My actions will be trustworthy yet will not influence or bias my course;

Praise will not inflate my sense of substantiality; criticism will not reduce me;

Running from danger and leaving precious ones unprotected will never occur.

To Love is to realize that "God (Perfect Love) for me is inscrutable yet transparently apparent; undecipherable yet palpable."  (Eileen Fleming)

The Chasm Between Dogma and Doing

The Chasm Between Dogma and Doing                                                September 2013

by Norm Lowry

“[It is] necessary to renounce a freedom that does not exist, and to recognize a dependence of which we are not conscious.”  - Leo Tolstoy

Producing a breach in relationships with important people, accepted conventions and institutions and deeply-seated ideology, a paradigm shift occurred within me in the Spring of 2009, when I chose to destroy property leased to the U.S. Military.  This action was my first , of three, amped-up protestations in which I pointedly employed civil disobedience; my seemingly small voice saying its solitary “No” to our society’s extreme love of violence, racism, bigotry and poverty-production.  My total required investment in prison is nearly nine years (four served; five yet to be served).  When coupled with the resultant and costly ruptures in important relationships, the price tag seems big, but is small, as there is much at stake...the survival of mankind.

Extreme?  Not even close!  Extreme would have been for me to continue holding at arm’s length the fact my country’s “military-industrial complex,” which expends more than half of the world’s total military expenditures, thinks themselves to be sensible in their consideration that the nuclear option is viable.  Their thinking is the same regarding their use of unlimited biological, drone, laser and microwave weaponry, etc.  Extreme would have been to ignore my country’s insatiable thirst for war making and its endless fiscal and political sanctions, which seem to constitute history’s most extensive program of purposeful genocide.  Extreme would have been to ignore the resolute collapsing of our and the world’s economy, a corrupt judiciary system, a prison-industrial system based in racism and bigotry, a gasping-for-breath ecology, and religion which mostly cosigns it all...in the name of all that is Love.

You will not find in me remorse or any type of wavering from my well-thought-out and purposeful change in my life’s direction, which has led to prison.  Though I hate prison and see no value in it whatsoever, I would rather be here and free than to be in my old world and enslaved by all the lies that we as a society have told ourselves in order to feel good about our lives which are built on the backs of those we see as being less than we.   

Countless are the letters and conversations I’ve had which, while accepting that our lives and our seeming security are greatly at risk, if not actually nonexistent, still ask the lesser and selfishly more disturbing, to their sense of well being, questions:  Why would you renounce your U.S. citizenship?  If you don’t like America, why don’t you just leave?  What would make you willing to renounce your religion?  Aren’t you afraid of God and hell?  Why would you declare a state of perpetual nonviolent war against ALL violence, racism, bigotry and poverty-production?  What makes you so sure that all violence is bad?  Why would you destroy military property?  Aren’t you proud of those who bought your freedom and of those who continue  to protect it?  How can you befriend child molesters, rapists, pedophiles, gays, blacks and Muslims?

Renouncing my citizenship seems a no-brainer.  Nationalism, patriotism and statism seem only to be substitutes for honest, loving relationships with people; all people, no matter their lot in life.  Exclusive national loyalties originate and maintain our conventions and institutions of oppression, the sources of society-eradicating weaponry and violence.  Maintaining my narrow-focused national citizenship revealed my rejection of deep, satisfying relationship with our Creator, which alone, to me, is capable of inspiring oneness with all of humanity.

The fact that I reject all that national citizenship seems to stand for in no way means that I don’t like America.  America is my earthly birthplace.  To me, there is no difference between the value of Americans and all others.  The United States of America convinced its citizenry to steal the land from its indigenous residents, who generally invited outsiders to share it and to nourish it.  America does not own the land, no matter what we are told by its empire-builders.  This land is mine as much as it is yours, as is all of the earth.  If you wish to exert your temporal, nationalistic authority to remove me, you are already forgiven; eternity is already ours and we are already sharing it...somewhere in time.

Renouncing the institutions and conventions of my religion also seems a no-brainer.  Religion which seeks to dogmatize, control, manipulate, coerce, threaten or cosign nationalism and war is cult.  What I shed was merely cult.  I love our Creator and all of humanity, boundlessly and indiscriminately.  This is my true religion.  All else simply got in the way.  All I did was to relieve myself of an illicit weight which was never mine to carry.  

As to being afraid of God and hell, my answer is “No” and “No.”  If God is Love, there is nothing to fear.  If there is a hell, I would be honored to go there and minister healing and life to the damned.

To declare war on violence is to love our Creator and all of humanity.  Violence, in all forms, is the human substitute for love.  Any oppression of another human being or of our earth and its resources is violence.  If I need Love, I do not need violence.

To destroy military property is to destroy the means of many forms of violence.  It would not be my way to destroy simply for the sake of destruction.  This would be, in and of itself, violence.  Nor would I destroy property in any manner which would physically harm any person.  Yet I do believe that we should destroy all things military, acknowledging that military is  but a small segment of all that is violent. 

While I do have pride in people, I do not believe that it is people who buy or protect my freedom.   That was and is our Creator’s doing.  Whether military, police, prison guard, lawmaker, president, etc., I need and want the person yet have no need of their position or institution.

Regarding my choice of friends, I consider myself to be a friend of everyone, in spite of your chosen behavior, good or bad.  We have the ability to heal each other of the vast majority of all addiction, compulsion and disease.  That others will not choose to do so is not my issue.

The fact that many valued and precious relationships have been breached by my actions and subsequent imprisonment is of no light concern to me.  Relationships are priceless and are the product of love.  If our love is illicit, our relationships will be shallow at best, continuing to foment destruction and death.  But if our love is selfless, and thus licit, we will find the ways to cause destruction and death to cease.

     “The final destination of man is Love.”   --Thomas Merton

Recommended reading (These books contain some crucial insight and are great springboards to continuing research):

A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES  by Howard Zinn

THE NEW JIM CROW, by Michelle Alexander

CROSSING THE RUBICON by Mike Ruppert

THE GREAT DEFORMATION by David Stockman

THE JESUS DRIVEN LIVE by Michael Hardin

June 14, 2013

Dear Friends,

My heart is greatly quickened in this participation with our precious ones at Guantanamo (as representative of all who are oppressed and seemingly unwanted).   To me, none has ever been, or will be, forgotten!  They and their precious ones at home deserve relief from the agonies of their seemingly futile existences caused by my birth-nation's chosen evils.  It is my continuing desire to shoulder my portion of the responsibility for all inhumane acts which have been perpetrated on my watch.

Please forgive me, as representative of my apathetic and anesthetized, blind and deaf society.  In our combined and insatiable greed, we have stolen your birthrights, murdered your families and friends, and decimated your cultures and societies.  Now, as the tides are turning; as our consequences are falling hazily on our precious ones and on our communities, we continue to choose blindness and deafness to the continued lies of our sadistically brutal economic, political, military and religious leaders--who are the actual enemies of humanity; children of their self-created satan!

"When lies are being exposed there is backlash, and there is new hope."  (John Stoner).  Our Creator is working their wonder!  Change is in the air.  Our society is seeing amped-up activities by all agencies of "external power The Satan are nervously reacting.  We lovers of our Creator and of mankind are basking in Mercy-fled grace end love, and are simply standing in the gap.

For my part, I choose to work out my hope by continuing to give up all for Love.  Gone are my illusions of such "protective umbrellas"as national citizenship, institutional religions, and economic securities.  At present, my choice is to invest my life in prison,  in solidarity with all who are unwanted, unloved, oppressed, forgotten.  My choice to amp-up my food fast (for Love) has provided me with a month of heightened joy and hope for our future, in spite of seemingly horrendous appearances.  Accordingly, and at our Creator's invitation, I have chosen to further reduce my food intake to the level of basic subsistence.  This will be maintained until I am otherwise led.

To all who are oppressed and feel unloved, take heart--our Creator and I love you with boundless expansiveness.  To all, who are oppressors, take heart--our Creator and I forgive  you and also love you with boundless expansiveness.

Blessings,

Norm Lowry

Guantanamo Solidarity Fast

My Statement for press release      May 28, 2013

My name is Norman Lowry.  As one who is "Crazy in Love" with our Creator and with all of humanity, volitionally, I am a "Prisoner of Conscience" (now, for 45 of the last 49 months) within the Pennsylvania State Prison system.  In my "amped-up" protestations, I have said my solitary and unstained "No!" to our society's extreme love of violence, racism, bigotry and poverty-production, by vandalizing/destroying U. S. Military property (2009), by trespassing on property leased by U. S. Military recruiters (2010) and by trespassing/impeding traffic into offices leased by U. S. Military recruiters (2011).

After my 2009 action, in an interview with the local head of detectives and with the agent in charge of the local FBI office, I was asked what I thought should be done with me.  My reply--" Send me to Guantanamo!)  Grantanamo is but one of several hundred "U.S. Military-Industrial Complex" torture prisons worldwide (read the public record).  Guantanamo typifies all that U.S. incarceration facilities are: "Houses of the Dead" (Dostoevsky); sewers, privately constructed hells for these we will not love.

It is my honor to stand in continued solidarity with the precious ones at Guantanamo (I read every available file on every  prisoner held there from the mid-1990's-2008), as representative of  all prisoners "held in slavery" in all U.S. jails and prisons (both on U.S. and foreign soil; (as well as the untold millions persecuted and genocided each year by the illicit fiscal, military and political policies of the United States of America.  If you are a religious person, who worships a violent, warming, war-cosigning god, I stand in direct opposition to your god and his/her policies, also.

Fasting to me is repentance; mercy as a sacrifice of love, especially on behalf of those whom most will not love.  This is my entire life today (you may read my related choices by inserting "Norm Lowry" into your favorite internet search engine).  Yet I have also escalated my food fast by decreasing my food intake by one-third.  This will remain in effect until our Creator asks me to again make a change.  I choose to make no related demands and rely only on our Creator's merciful love.  

Blessings….

(Signed)  Norm Lowry

Norman Lowry KN 9758

SCI Dallas

1000 Follies Rd

Dallas PA 18612

"Prisoner of Conscience: Endure"

My most recent article released for publication  May 28, 2013

by Norman Lowry

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."  -- Mohandas K. Gandhi

In her autobiography FALLING LEAVES, author Adeline Yen Mah gifts us with the beauty of her Chinese heritage.  To her, the word "ren" (endure) represents the epitome of the Chinese culture and civilization, comprised of two components -- "a knife with a sheath in the center of the rapier" and "the heart"--to endure means, "though [you are] wounding my heart, I shall ensheath the pain and live through it."

Prison wounds my heart; it wounds everyone's heart.  Prison is a sewer; a privately constructed hell for those we will not love.  Like all other forms of our culture's purposefully inflicted violence, prison has become a part of  "death, the destroyer of worlds" (The  Bhagavad-Gita); a part of "a consummate evil that unleashes its dogs of war on the helpless; an enemy motivated by insatiable greed" (Lynne Stewart).  Living in prison is like walking into a monsoon's downpouring rain and wondering why the whole world is not weeping, too!

Do not misread me--societies need to deal appropriately and equitably with crime.  Yet justice is not based in the love of  "mercy is no justice".  Rather, that is an illusion which ignores the truths which would require that we face all our own fears, frustrations and pains--and not merely those which can be so easily managed and manipulated by the institutions and medias to which we so regularly and freely seem to sell our souls.

In our society, prison was the inherent consequence of my repetitive choice to use pointed, purposeful acts of civil disobedience in my "amped-up" protestations (2009--vandalism/destruction of U.S. Military property; 2010--trespass on property leased to the U.S. Military; 2011--trespass on, and impeding entry to/from, property leased to the U.S. Military).  Regarding reasonings, you will find in me no sorrow or lack of peace, contentment and relative happiness.  You will never find me repentant for taking these "right" steps for the "right" reasons:  I am simply and irretrievably "crazy in love" (Eileen Fleming) with our Creator and with every woman and man who has ever lived, is alive now, or will ever live--period!  I will die before I will ever again consciously tread on another human being or participate in their enslavement. 

My heart's largest prison-inflicted wounding has resulted from the heightened level of apathy and anesthetization of my fellow inmates.  This utterly astounds me!  The self-centeredness of our greater society was not something that I would have supposed could be bested, as historically, these enslaved generally seem to be the more hopeful ones.  "Without hope, patience falters/ Leaving cynicism and wounded pride/Apathy follows/An alluring refuge of a barren kind" (Berry Friesen).

My peers do not seem to be in any way misguided, regarding our fast approaching "Day of Reckoning."  Everyone I've met this far sees it as a given that the horrible consequences of our society's choices are merely "inches away;" that the proverbial "excrement" has begun to "hit the [industrial-sized] fan.."  The masses say, "There's simply nothing we can do," which means, 'let's watch TV, drink coffee, eat junk food and smoke.'  Many say, "We'll go out fighting," which means, 'I want to kill a cop, a judge, my prosecutor, etc'  A good number say, "I just hope that I can get out, get high and have sex, first."  Most of the "Christians" are counting on Jesus' "Rapture" thingy…sigh!  "Apathy is soul numbing and people prefer being comfortably numb--not wanting to know keeps them immune from having to change their opinions/preconceived thoughts" (Eileen Fleming).

Among the prison staff, the consensus seems to be that their "Security" lies in their "external control mechanisms."  Their "hands down" favorite is "Superior Firepower."   As all here listen to the near daily and abundant ruckus from the prison's firing range, which is often bragged about by the day's participants, no one seems to question what "Superior Firepower" means. 

My daily interactions, though filled with unexpected and much welcomed richness, are also regularly laden with great sadness.  Many is the day that my wounded heart feels as if it has been broken "far beyond repair" (Linda Ronstadt).  At times, it is all I can do to remember that there is a "Love strong as death--that love which waters cannot quench, no floods drown" (Thomas Hardy quoting The Song of Songs).  It is this Love, our Creator's Love, and its manifestations, in my interactions with my precious peers, that shows me how to "ensheath the pain [of my wounds] and live through it" (Adeline Yen Mah).

One set of issues that keeps me going and causes me to smile (and sigh) are the unwritten "Prison Rules" of my peers (of course I break them all the time).  My favorites are: 1.  Don't talk too much to the staff, as they are our enemy.  (I choose to call no one my enemy);  2  Don't take showers completely naked or people will think that you're gay.  (I'm not insecure and I like to get totally clean);  3.  Don't hug people, especially gays, rapists and child molesters.  (I hug only human beings who need and want a hug); and 4.  Don't ever tell someone that you love them.  (Tellling others of our Creator's unconditionally boundless love and of my love is my favorite pastime).

My peers often tell me that I'm courting death by my blatant unwillingness to "play by the rules."  The truth is that I am courting life--passionately!   For those who are willing to listen, I reveal my "Prison Rules:"  1.  Mankind always wins, whenever anyone says "No" to Evil. (Gandhi); 2.  True personal freedom begins when we give up "the compulsiveness of [our vision] of self as the guardian of history." (John Howard Yoder);  3.  True societal freedom begins when we accept that "the kingdom of God is an earthly phenomenon always shaping our world." (Berry Friesen); and 4.  Maturity occurs as we give up the illusion of personal "effectiveness;" by choosing to "accept defeat {and/or death] rather than to be complicit with evil." (John Stoner, Michael Hardin, John Howard Yoder.).

Most of my peers tell me that "I'm a dreamer;"  ("but I'm not the only one"--John Lennon),,,Smile!  Among the great crowd of fellow dreamers who write to me is Alina Dollet, from France.  Alina sends great pictures from nature, discusses great French writers (Victor Hugo, Rene Girard) and composers (Jean Racine), and speaks grand words of inspiration.  On May 3, Alina wrote, "…if all around the world they continue to oppress peoples, that can't finish well…Human violence is escaping our control, today it threatens our world."  Her profound closing words to me were her favorite line from "Le Cantique de Jean Racine," which I gift to you, "May the entire Hell flee at the sound of your voice!"

Endure...