Day 4500

1705 days/55 months left

I wish you all Merry Christmas and a happy Boxing Day. Mercifully, this autumn has been a very peace filled 100 days. I have so much to be thankful for right now. I am finding so much fulfillment at work, fulfillment in my ministry, and fulfillment in my friendships. In fact, I do not know that I would be any more content, fulfilled, or free-to-be-me even on the other side of these fences. Freedom is not the same as autonomy. True freedom involves submitting to the will of the Lord. Ironically, because of my submission to the Lord this past year, I have felt an undeniable pull to be even more strongly involved in the lives of my peer/friend group as I have accepted the challenge to become a new man in 2024. Having this particular strong pull towards acceptance from a friend and a peer group is something new for me, period. Often, however, because I do not "imbibe", I feel like I am caught in that episode of "Friends" where Rachel keeps missing out on the group catharsis, group experiences, and group discussions because she did not smoke and go take the common employee smoke breaks outside. I often feel like that. I miss out on some of the inside jokes and group decisions because I do not participate in a couple of their mildly unhealthy habits.....not sinful behaviors...just not beneficially healthy. I often wonder if I am holding myself to too high of a standard, a standard the Word does not actually specifically lay out for us, as some last remaining vestige of my own childhood religious indoctrination. Unabashedly, I think about my Grandpa Cowen as I contemplate what real freedom is. In his sixties Grandpa loosened his grip on "religion" and took that self righteous stick out of his arse. As he smoked a cigar with his grandsons (not me (1)), drank a cervaca with his daughter (not my mother), sipped a beer with his younger brother and grandson (again not me (1 #mwbsp)), consumed vodka soaked raisins for pain (ahem, Ira, how many does it take to feel better?), and frequently enjoyed some overly fermented combucha tea, he became so much more relaxed and seemed like he finally was enjoying life.The transformation he undertook in his sixties made him much more relatable, fun to be around, and interesting to engage with. Once he quit trying to live out the idealize self image he had spent a lifetime building up and gave himself a break, the new man that emerged was so much more authentic to whom he was created to be. Like my Grandpa experienced late in life, I like to think that I too am now becoming the new man that I was always meant to be. Unlike Grandpa Ira, I have always been open to change, in fact I have always, always, sought out new adventures, new experiences, new growth, and new change. I feel like I have always been evolving and expect that mindset to continue over the entire course of my life. One of my friends and I have been commenting of late that we are living life "one cliché at a time." It seems that the 2024 counter cultural prophet Jelly Roll has summed up these past 100 days quite well for me when he sings that, "I'm not OK, but I'll be alright." I have rediscovered that "the wound is the place where the light enters you." I have learned to "see through the noise to hear the news." And the "news" of late has been good (NOT the political, international, or TV news, those fronts absolutely suck!). Frankly, the "news" I am referring to is that I truly have so much to be thankful for right now, on day #4500. I am finding so much fulfillment at work, fulfillment in my ministry, and fulfillment in my friendships. In fact, I do not know that I would be any more content, fulfilled, or free even on the other side of these fences.

I am fulfilled to be able to operate in my spiritual giftedness each day as I interact with "students" while teaching CareerTech Career Readiness skills. I have noticed that those men whom make the greatest strides while incarcerated are those whom, like CMcD, LM, and CS, made a decision, a choice, to capitalize on the educational opportunities available (GED, Conner State College, CareerTech), have taken self improvement courses (Malachi Dads, Celebrate Recovery®, Life skills), focus on healthy/fit living, and have built healthy reciprocal friendships/relationships/community where they are at. That I get to play a small part in that transformation through classroom teaching is an incredible honor. While 6:30am is very early to start class each day, I am so blessed for that opportunity to continue to work in a profession I have always loved. I am fulfilled to be able to operate in my ministry giftedness each week as I interact with men while co-leading our new and growing Celebrate Recovery® Inside®. In fact we "graduate" 12 men from our first step study next week and I am very excited to be organizing a training day event and graduation banquet with our Tulsa sponsors (Steve and Rich from Southern Hills) on January 3rd. We are also hosting a yard-wide showing of Homerun on January 10th. We begin a new round of step studies on January 17th. Our group grew 300% over the summer and fall. There is a personal satisfaction, a personal fulfillment, in watching these young men my son's age transform as they discover that their faith placed in Jesus Christ offers them hope, health, and healing from their hurts, habits, and hangups. I am fulfilled in my friendships. CMcD continues to be an important friend/brother/confidant (2). He has become one of the top 20 most important and influential people of my lifetime. The way he handled the recent disappointment related to his denied parole in November is personally encouraging and examplery to me. The way he implemented everything we have read and talked about over the past 24 months were played out in real time. He adopted a monk mind set (opposition to the monkey mind). He choose manhood over boyhood. He choose to see God's blessings in the delay (opposition to the denial). He has taught me so much about perseverance and the determination it takes to overcome circumstances...and he has had circumstances... since the very day he almost was not born. Watching him grow in his faith walk is inspirational. I am so thankful to the Lord for him and for the way Chris challenges me, grounds me in reality, and holds me accountable. I am proud of him, proud for him, and proud to be counted amoung his friends. Likewise, getting to know LM and CS while working out, talking, breaking bread, and praying together each day has encouraged my spirit and given me even more insights into how easily a person's life cash slip into/onto a pathway that leads to incarceration. None of them should be here. They should have been placed into diversionary programs, detox, and in counseling a long time ago as teenagers, but they had grandmothers whom excused and caudled their misbehaviors. They were, they ARE, all good men whom had circumstances that did not allow them to fully realize their potential (ironically this just makes me more disappointed in my prodigal and his own squandered potential. Did I waste my efforts in raising him? Only time will tell. I wish he could spend time with these men, whom are all his age, so he could realize how privileged he was and see the waste his willing perjury and weaponized false allegations of abuse have made of his life).

Evaluating each 100 days of my incarceration continues to help me see the small but significant ways God continues to bless me (4). While there were some very minor negatives over the past 100 days (5), the positives continue to far outweigh them. I see so many men in here let some minor set back "twist them off" for weeks. But I can not live in that fear. Negative things happen to ALL of us. Fear is how you loose your life....a little bit at a time. What we give to fear we take from faith. I refuse to choose to allow my faith to be depleted when some insignificant setbacks occur inside or outside of these fences.

December has traditionally been the hardest month to endure incarceration. Mercifully, this December has been a very peace filled. I have so much to be thankful for right now. I am finding so much fulfillment at work, fulfillment in my ministry, and fulfillment in my friendships. In fact, I do not know that I would be any more content, fulfilled, or free-to-be-me even on the other side of these fences. This year, this particular holiday season, the positives outweigh the negatives and I truly wish the same for you. Endnotes 1. #mwbsp mother would be so proud - I'm loving the new Matlock with Kathy Bates! Simply genius. 2. I Enjoy being able to have "real talk" about our relationships, future relationships, and finding someone special in each of our lives with CMcD. As he reconnects with past female friends I am reconsidering reaching out to my own. My hesitation is my ongoing struggle with reoccurring feelings of rejection/abandonment. I am at a good point right now with having put my former wife and my children all in a box and then placing that box on a shelf, just living the incarceral life I have w/o worrying/concern over the uncertainty of what is going on outside of these fences. I am physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally healthier by focusing my efforts and energies on my workout buddies, the men in CareerTech, and the men in Celebrate Recovery®. Why open up that sealed box and invite the possibility of pain IF I do not truly have to/need to? From the movie IF by Lewis the Bear, "Nothing you love can ever be forgotten. You can always go back. Memories live forever in your heart, you just need to invite them out." Some day, when my love/memories can be requited, I'll open the box and let them out. 3. I have noticed that more and more people are interacting with me and that they call me by my given name. To staff we are all dehumanized and called by last name with an impersonal militaristic tone, or worse, our chattle number. I almost always address a fellow resident as Mr. ___ or as sir, and that is usually reciprocated in how I am addressed. The students in my CareerTech Career Readiness class and at Celebrate Recovery® I try to address by first name as it seems more personal. I usually avoid street names or monikers. I have not allowed one to be placed upon me nor allowed any shortened forms of my own name. I especially enjoy hearing my name used by my friends.....it reminds me that I am more than an entry on the State's inventory rolls.

4. Not every moment of every day has been roses the past 100 days. On the morning of 11/26 my 8 year old TV fritzed. It was very distressing for a moment. Listening to the television is a lifeline for me. I had no money to replace it because I was also replacing my 3 year old running shoes as the 3,000 miles I had run in them had left them in absolute shambles. However, in the uncanny way God has about himself, He had arranged up to 3 replacement offers within an hour. PTL I was immediately and affordably able to fix the situation in just minutes. On 12/1 I had a rough start to my morning. One of my friends woke up in a bad mood, which is often typical. It takes him a minute and some coffee to shake off the dreams and memories of childhood sexual/physical abuse, rejection, and abandonment that haunt/taunt his mind each night. This morning he was talking about giving up on his faith walk, relapsing, and other negative self talk. His mind was under continual attack from Satan. Satan hates to see a person find freedom and victory in Christ. It breaks my heart for him to know that this is his fight, his battlefield of the mind, and all I can do is pray for him and watch it play out. I even left the chow hall early so as not to indulge his fantasy and off the wall commentary. I sometime regard him as an actual son, so that kind of "tough love" pains me. I almost feel like I am abandoning him when I don't indulge/listen to all of his negative self talk, but I don't want to be an "audience" that offers encouragement to his repeating out loud the seed thoughts that the Deceiver has scripted for his torment. It is hard to see someone you love in that much pain. I felt a deep sadness walking back across the campus by myself from chow. I know that pain of rejection and abandonment, and the thought that I might contribute to that pain in someone else's life is not a pleasant proposition. That is a new fear I have....of inflicting the pains associated with my own unresolved rejection onto him, or anybody, because of things I may say or do, or worse, by not doing and not saying the things I should. But I can not live in that fear. Fear is how you lose your life.....a little bit at a time ....... what we give to fear we take away from ..... faith On the morning of 12/10 I had a very brief minor health "episode"... I am still not altogether certain what was going on there.