Recent fruitage reports
Two new incarcerated women started coming to the main yard services at the encouragement of one of them that has been very impressed with Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (which one of them had and was reading). They both have been reading it now. They were both in a room … Click here to read the full report.
I was at the Juvenile Justice Center every Saturday in December and what a blessing. I had a total of 17 one-on-ones, many “bench” talks, some great talks with several of the staff members, about a half-hour talk with another Chaplain, and gave almost all the youths a bit of something to think about every week. Most of the youths are very familiar with me and I greet them all by going around the room and chatting. I did two fun things this month when I went around. I have a puzzle you do with six coins where you ask them to make two rows of four coins each. It is impossible if you are thinking one dimensional, … Click here to read the full report.
I’m very grateful to say that there are now seven inmates requesting Christian Science chaplain visits. One inmate speaks very little English, though he is trying to learn. Amazingly, I had started to take Spanish lessons again to brush up on my rusty Spanish a few weeks before this gentleman requested to see me. Our first visit saw me telling him that since Dios es Todo-en-todo and Dios es Amor; entonces Amor es Todo-en-todo. I told him that he is loved and asked if he knew “el Padre Nuestro,” which he did and recited for me in Spanish. It was beautiful! I went to the Reading Room after our visit, bought 2 Spanish Science and Healths, and took one back to jail. By the next visit, … Click here to read the full report.
Gratitude has been a theme with whomever I’m talking with during my visits. So far no one is put off by my asking what they are grateful for. They can always think of something. One inmate likes to think of five things he’s grateful for before he goes to sleep at night. He’s been reading Science and Health enthusiastically. Mary Baker Eddy mentions her book Retrospection and Introspection in Science and Health, and he said he really wanted to read about her life. I brought him a Prose Works and he is enjoying it very much. Another man I’m seeing is very well versed in the Bible. The first time I saw him…Click here to read the full report.
Another COVID virus shutdown of prisons in California. One is tempted to think this is the “new normal.” Reminds me of the “Godzilla” fires last summer where I live in the northern Sierras. It was called “A Big Palooza” because several monster wildfires conjoined into one big deliriously consuming Godzilla-like fire that fed on its destructive rage, leaping over large bodies of water, consuming townships and creating smoke plumes that looked Godzilla. Impressed?
Where I lived there were long lines at the gas pumps and peo…Click here to read the full report.