REFLECTIONS: YOU JUST DON'T KNOW
The former prison school teacher and the 17 1/2 year(s) ex-convict watched JUST MERCY last night. It has been 42 years since I left prison behind, and it only took hearing the slamming of the prison cells to take me back, like a Pavlov dog. If you have never been shackled, strip searched and made to feel less than a man, if you've never been handcuffed and laying on the ground with two cops kicking you in the head and side, YOU JUST DON'T KNOW. To feel dehumanized by your captor, with no recourse, knowing he can take your life...and you have to take every humiliation he throws at you. I've had a very nervous, enraged cop, jumping up and down screaming in my ear "YOU WANNA DIE!!! all the while with a gun at the back of my head
, YOU JUST DON'T KNOW. 42 years and it all comes rushing back like it was yesterday. I know the stench of powerlessness, hopelessness, nothing is ever going to change. You grow hard, cold, filled with hate and rage waits to burst forth at the smallest provocation. And then, YOU DON'T CARE. And then, in this condition they release you into society. But for the prison school teacher, who told me God could change my life, and that He did, and a small group of Christians took me into their home, I would be still in prison adding to the dozen prisons I've already been in. YOU JUST DON'T KNOW. So I know the rage, the hopelessness, HOW LONG? And left to politicians whose only vested interest is in the POWER they hold and wield, Nothing is going to change. So that leaves it to you CHRISTIANS, who believe in the God who created the world, can CHANGE THE WORLD. As I said to God, "I can't do it." YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO DO IT. Christians need to step to the forefront and put your FAITH on the line and challenge the power bearers, the bureaucracies, that hold down the powerless, the impoverished. Because when the protests stop and the rage has been sapped, They're still going to have that power, and if that power falls into the wrongs hands.... We need healing, reconciliation, empowerment, and forgiveness and LOVE. The End
