Whisting Dixie for a week

I moved to the south at age 11, halfway through the fifth grade. I left the south the last week of 1989, so from 1961 through 1989 I lived in Alabama and Mississippi. Jr. High, High School, College, Seminary, Four years in a small town., six years on the Gulf Coast.

I moved to Phoenix AZ and unpacked and got to living in January of 1990, if we are still here through the end of this year we will have lived in Arizona 28 years.  I am thus, really South Western of equal division.

We try to return to the south every couple of years. Last time was four years ago. We only have time to touch base with New Orleans, where the culture, the music and the architecture keep us enchanted. We are staying in the Mazarin, which was the Hotel St. Louis when we stayed there 42 years ago on our honeymoon. Nostalgia!

We visit the gulf coast area of Pascagoula, Gautier, Moss Point where we lived for seven years before we headed west, where Laura was raised, where I served a church for over 6 years. Where we enjoyed daily fellowship with Laura's mother, Mary, a wonderful women.

We visit Pensacola, where my Sister and Brother in Law have lived, where my parents ended their years and where they are buried. There we remember many happy vacations, and stick our toes in the white sand beach and stare at the ocean we love.

For one week we become southern, charmed by the accents we hear, the traditions we observe, and the food we love. We see some friends, we are all aging. As I look back over my two geographical lives, my young life, and the one we have lived in our huge western city, I see the blessings of each, try to minimize in my mind and heart the hurts, heartbreaks, and near financial disasters we weathered. I also remember all the good days, the simple pleasures, the weekly, yearly routines we observed as our own family grew up together, imperfectly, but together.

We still see the big scars from Katrina and other hurricanes, we still see the poverty and struggles that endure in the south, and the list of saints who have passed on grows in our mind and hearts, and we are oh so much closer to the reality if the day....When the Saints Go Marching in...I want to be in that number, When the Saints go marching in. Gumbo, grits, BBQ here we come. See Yall Soon!

Prison Renewal, my surprising second career

I am in my tenth month as a Prison Chaplain. We have 2000 Arizona Inmates and about 500 of them are involved in weekly spiritual activity. I spend 40 hrs a week overseeing the various meetings, and getting new inmates hooked in and counseling several hours a day with Bible Questions,  advice, comfort, and often tough love.

I preach three times on weekends to about 240 individuals in attendance total at one of the three services. So three fourth of  our spiritual population are Bible studying Christians. I have baptized over 100 men and though we see some continue to struggle with the patterns in their lives we also see so many so full of joy and habitual change that any doubts I may have about spiritual transformation are put to rest with living proof each week.

Most crime involves alcohol and drug abuse, and the result of being raised in severely dysfunctional families and continuing to replicate the lifestyle in their own lives. There are innocent men in the system, and many who would better serve the public by paying restitution rather than this penal systems incarceration. There are evil men here who will not break with the criminal mentality that brought them here. There are many finding ways to continue the insane use of drugs to find short periods of the high that seems to give them meaning and purpose. Drug dealers are willing to lose money supplying prisons because they know they will one day be in, and they can keep users who will one day get out and return to the lifestyle. Its all sad and tragic.

But....while I have strength, I see them as human beings, I look into their eyes, remember their names as more than numbers, and offer hope, forgiveness, strength through the practice of spiritual disciplines, and grace, grace and grace that is greater than our sin.

I am respected, protected and as safe as one can be in a place of keys and button pressing doors and sliding gates and managed movements everywhere. I love encouraging the young officers who are making decent money to put up with the daily chaos of prison life. I enjoy the teachers and drug counselors who have the same joy in seeing men fall in love with learning and find pride in obtaining goals in education.  I enjoy the professional leaders with years in prison management try to create a human and safe environment while these men pay their debt for crimes they have committed.

I enjoy watching men set new career goals and create dreams of new life when they get free.
I enjoy getting a paycheck every two weeks at age 67, getting up at 5 am and seeing awe inspiring sunrises on back country roads in my commute to Eloy AZ and back.I enjoy the precious time with Laura after a day at work and the bliss of my two days off each week.  I enjoy knowing that the years of study and developing a winsome style of teaching are being used in this strange new second career.

Almost a LIfestyle Change

This was Kauai 2006 with one of my more pronounced bellies.

As I near the end of my tenth week of eating for healing I am pleased to report the slow steady downward creep of the scale, 209 today from the 227 when I started. A week ago I woke up just wanting to eat like a normal human and had a crunchy cereal and a muffin...and a blood sugar of 245 for the rest of the morning. I was upset with myself and had a resurgence of commitment that is going strong. I cannot eat like a normal person, I have two auto immune diseases caused by poor eating choices. I also am currently experiencing my first bout of diverticulitus which I am pretty sure was caused by eating the that can goes with a daily handful of pistachios. This is another reason to have a healthy gut flora fed by foods that nourish and heal. Now that Amazon owns Whole Foods maybe even some of the specialty stuff I need will be more affordable.

My coach and inspiration Julie Ferwerda gave me more info and eating ideas this week and my two days off have been problem free in terms of giving in to temptation. This is almost a lifestyle change. I say almost because I am human, and we will eat out and I will have a piece of bread. When I despaired of ever even loosing below 220, trying and failing again and again, and in ten weeks have broken through 220 and 210, this healthy eating is for me as long as I live. The day I hit the 200 mark I am going to share new photos.