The Colors of Thanksgiving

We praise you, O Lord, for all your works are wonderful.
We praise you, O Lord, forever is your love.

The colors of Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving I went to church, to give thanks for the many blessings in my life, and was treated to a wonderful program that tied in the colors of our life to the liturgy. Afterward, I asked Sister Mary Rose if she'd written it, and I could have a copy to share here.

To explain, she had someone process down the aisle with an object representing each of the following colors, colors that matched the programs we were handed as we entered the worship space. Those objects were:

A Green Plant
A Yellow Basket
An Orange Pumpkin
Red Apples
A Brown Floral Arrangement
A Blue Votive Candle
White Mums
Purple Grapes

What follows are the words that accompanied these symbolic objects. I hope you'll take the time to reflect on them, and will get as much out of them as I did.

Today’s Liturgy is both a HOLIDAY and a HOLY DAY. For people throughout our land,
today traditionally marks the day on which we, as a nation, pause to give thanks for the bounty of the earth.

Those of us who have gathered in THIS sacred place...at this moment in time...are also gathered to give thanks for the gifts that come to us from the goodness of God.

In the spring, GREEN symbolizes breaking from the shackles of winter. At this time of year, it represents bounty...and hope...and the promise of victory of life over death.

YELLOW conveys energy and warmth...and is the symbol of light and purity. It speaks of youth...and happiness...and harvest...and hospitality.

Symbolic of endurance and strength, ORANGE is the color of fire and flame...and represents the red of passion, tempered by the yellow of wisdom.

Signifying action...charity...and spiritual awakening, RED testifies to the joy of life and love.

BROWN represents the earth and the humility of those who work the land. It reminds us that God is connected to the common things in life...and so are we.

Inspiring us with insight and freedom, BLUE symbolizes honesty and integrity and reliability. We have also come to associate this color with loyalty and enduring commitment.

WHITE calls to mind all that is pure, and innocent...and for this reason, it is often associated with the newness of life.

PURPLE brings to mind valor and bravery. Used by royalty, nobility and the church, PURPLE enhances many celebrations of rich ceremony and deep penitence.

And then, after Mass, these blessings were bestowed.

Upon you, whose program covers are YELLOW and ORANGE: I ask God to bless you with the grace you need to bring light to a darkened part of God’s world, filling it with understanding, and renewing it with an energy that will bring others to Jesus, the true Light.

Upon you, whose program covers are GREEN and BROWN: I ask God to give you the gifts that will nurture life and hope in others. May you stay rooted in the values of the Gospel and be always grateful for the common and the ordinary things of life.

Upon you, whose program covers are RED and BLUE: I ask God to make you strong in your commitment to live in imitation of Christ. May your love extend to those most in need of your compassion and care.

Upon you, whose program covers are WHITE and PURPLE: I ask God to bless you with new life as you face today...and every day...as God’s chosen people. May you rejoice in the blessings God has shown you, and become instruments of goodness and peace.

My cover was blue, and I extend my love and blessings to you, as we progress through Advent and into the busiest and one of the most holiest times of the year, Christmas.

Fridays With Louis - Three's A Crowd

As of December 18, Fridays with Louis will be moving to another blog. I’m starting to feel like I have multiple personalities. My Sunday posts are intended to be positive and inspirational, my Wednesday posts entertaining and informational, and my Friday posts are getting darker and darker. I’ve been talking with my friend Marc (29) about writing some blog posts, and his are even darker than mine, so I’m going to have to branch those two out and let them tell their stories elsewhere.

I would also like to post about Louis more than once a week—Letters to Laura seems to have gotten lost in the wake of current events--but there’s not enough room on this blog for that. I’ve also got ideas and articles about prison life in general that I’ve written and never posted because I don’t have enough slots open. Plus there’s Nora’s Book Club for Parolees entries that she updates regularly.

Marc is approaching his minimum date in just over a year. When you’re sentenced, you get a minimum and a maximum date. You can be released any time after you’ve served your minimum. He wants to blog about what he’s doing to prepare himself to return to society. I sent him my blog post about On Choosing to Be Who You Are…and it got him to thinking about who he is and who he wants to be.

He hadn’t really thought about that before…because he hasn’t had that choice. He’s had to be who he’s had to be to survive. And who he’s had to be is a dark character indeed.

So, after I read his first post, I knew the idea I’d been toying with about breaking Louis off onto his own blog had to happen. So…the guys will move out and it will be just us girls here on the beach :).

But I’ll be sure to link to the other blog and let people know when I’ve posted something over there.

As for Louis, the mail, sporadic at best on a normal week, was completely thrown off schedule due to the Thanksgiving holiday. I don’t see that situation improving until after New Year’s. He remains in the hole, and will most likely spend his holidays there, unless something big jumps off at the prison and they need to bring a lot of new people to the hole.

Hole space is apparently at a premium there, especially with all those long-term hole-dwellers in residence. Louis says there are around 70 of them who have sentences of 6 months to many years. The longer hole sentences are for those who are exceptionally violent, in many cases mentally ill, have tried to escape, or killed a guard.

After Louis’s escape attempt, he did six years in the hole. Compared to that, 90 days to him seems like nothing.

It’s not nothing to me. I miss him. I was missing him this time last year, and now I am missing him again. I’m getting tired of missing him. He’s 53 years old, for Pete’s sake. Leave the man in peace. The man who came to his cell with a knife was 24 years old. He was not there for a cup of tea. The last one who came at him with a knife was 28. The first fellow who jumped in to help Louis’s attacker was 22. I don’t know about the other one, but chances are he was around the same age.

Louis’s reputation, the reputation he no longer wants, but which follows him everywhere he goes, is suddenly being challenged by these young wolves regularly. The sooner I can see him again, the sooner I can hope to find out why. There’s a chance he might not know what’s going on, himself. But something is definitely going on. As Marc will explain in a future blog post, you just don’t go to another man’s cell. It’s simply not done.

Louis lives in an extremely violent world. He tends to minimize the danger in his circumstances because one, that’s the way he is, (pretty much everything is ‘no big deal’) and two, he probably doesn’t want to worry me. But Marc has no such compunctions. He will tell you how it is with no holds barred. Since Louis is there for life, he focuses more on the positive side of things. So many things happen that I ask him, “Aren’t you upset about that? Doesn’t that make you angry?” And he will say, “What good would getting upset about it do? It won’t change anything.”

Like this hole sentence. 90 days for defending himself. I’d get angry. He pled guilty. He’s already let it go and moved on. I’ve never met a more serene, sane, or spiritual man. Louis will spit out his coffee at me calling him spiritual, but actions speak louder than words, and I’ve never known him to desire anything other than peace. Even with me.

Marc, on the other hand, is still dealing with his bitterness, frustration, anger, and rage. He feels the blog will be a good place for him to sort himself out. He knows he needs to find that state of peace that Louis ascribes to, peace with both himself and his surroundings, in order to succeed at living in society.

The new blog will be a journal of his journey to find that peace. But it will start with where he is now, and where he has been.

I hope you’ll join us there, and will pray for both of them.

Crimson Rose Call for Submissions!

Still pulling together my Wednesday Wellness blogs, so today I'll put in a plug for my publisher and post a call for submissions they have put out for the Crimson Rose line, the line that published Ashton's Secret.

Here goes, and good luck to you!

The Wild Rose Press
Introduces a Special Submission Call from Crimson Rose
Jewels of the Night…

WHAT MAKES THIS SUBMISSION CALL SPECIAL?
One submission will be selected to launch the series. The chosen contract will be given a premium publishing slot during Crimson month (November, 2010) as well as a featured review and interview with the review site Once Upon a Romance. The selected story will be showcased on the Crimson Rose Page of The Wild Rose Press website and the Behind the Garden Gate blog. The Wild Rose Press will provide an advertising book banner to the author. Once Upon a Romance will also display this book banner without charge for a thirty day period beginning with the day of book release.

THE STORY:
• Must involve a blue diamond. It could be a treasure hunt or a midnight thief or… Let your imagination take flight! :)
• Must involve a high level of danger
• Can be in any region of the world
• Can be any timeframe as long as the most prevalent elements are romance and intrigue

Guidelines:
• Stories must be complete. With a word-length between 20,000 and 60,000 words
(miniature rose or rosebud length)
• Must be an original, never-before published work and you must own the rights to it.
• To qualify for the launch, submission must arrive on or before March 31, 2010
• Manuscripts must be formatted per standard formatting rules
(Times New Roman, 12 pt, double-spaced, 1 in. margins, numbered pages)
• Submission call is open to both published and unpublished writers
• Story content must adhere to posted Crimson Rose guidelines as posted on the submissions page of thewildrosepress.com

HOW TO SUBMIT:
Email your manuscript as a single Word .rtf attachment to Lori (at) thewildrosepress.com
Put: “Jewel of the Night Series: Manuscript Title: YOUR NAME” in the subject line
In the body of the email, include
• The synopsis
• Your Real name
• Pseudonym, if applicable
• Your contact email
• Word-count

Submissions received that do not follow these guidelines will be discarded without notice. The Wild Rose Press is not responsible for submissions lost in cyberspace and not received.
Upon receipt, you will receive a confirmation email. If you have not received a confirmation email within five working days of emailing your submission, please send us an email.

Direct questions regarding this submission call to: Lori (at) thewildrosepress.com.

If you have received receipt of your submission, please do not inquire about status until after standard response wait time. All entrants will be reviewed per our normal submission guidelines which are available at http://www.thewildrosepress.com/.

Thanks for submitting and good luck!

Loving Your Neighbor As Yourself

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (NIV, John 13:34-35)

I watched the movie Slumdog Millionaire the other night. On the DVD case, the movie was touted as the “feel good movie of the year.” While I thought it was extremely well done, and well-deserving of all those Oscars, I didn’t see much in the movie to feel good about, and have to wonder how anyone can feel good about torture, extreme poverty, sexual slavery, violence against women and children, and betrayal.

It reminds me of those movies where for 95% of the movie the main character is a complete jerk, and then suddenly has an epiphany and for the last 5% of the movie is a good guy, so you can see how he’s reformed and go home happy. I think the expectation after Slumdog is you can go home happy, too. He gets the money and the girl and life is good. But what about the millions of other children living in poverty, not just in India, but all over the world? And what about the people who were in the movie, still living in poverty? They weren’t all actors, you know.

Throughout the movie, I had to keep telling myself, “It’s just a movie. It’s not real.” But it is real, in that people really do live like that, and treat each other like that, in our world. Which leads me once again to realize I live a very blessed life. A very sheltered life.

But the bottom line is it’s all relative. What I think is horrendous, others accept as normal, or just how it goes.

Take Louis, for example. He’s doing fine. No stranger to hole time, he’s settling in for a 90-day stay. The person who attacked him got 150 days. The two who jumped in to help the attacker got 150 and 135. The kid who saved Louis for giving him food got 90 as well. Louis and the kid are in one section of the hole, and the others are in another section. But Louis has a friend near them, and he told Louis the three of them argue all day. The two who jumped into the fight didn’t even know what the fight was about. And for that they will be locked away from their families and friends for almost half a year.

I would find that a hardship, but Louis is used to being cut off from friends and family, just part of life, and so he focuses on the positive. He’s grateful for a clean mattress and pillow, and his first shower and shave in a week. He’s grateful for being loaned several biographies to read. It seems there is a whole society in prison of hole-dwellers, who have lived there for years on end and, I suppose, have made themselves somewhat comfortable. Louis has been in prison a long time, so he knows some of these long-term residents of the hole. Because of that, he was able to get paper and envelopes rather quickly, since his personal possessions (or property, as they call it) would not arrive for another week.

When a person goes into the hole without warning, someone on staff packs up their things, and in time the inmate is allowed to go to the property room and retrieve some essentials, like paper, envelopes and reading material. Until then, though, you’re stuck with nothing but four walls to look at. Unless you know someone, like Louis does. His first note to me from the hole was written on the inside of an envelope. The next day it was on yellow legal paper, and he said, “And don’t start complaining about me not starting new paragraphs because I only have one sheet of paper.”

He knows me too well. I can be rather rigid and legalistic at times, despite my efforts to live in the moment and go with the flow. My last blog post was about betrayal. How the investigators we hired to help Louis betrayed us. When I’m troubled like that, and start to become angry, I step up my spiritual reading in an effort to regain my balance. I was reading a book this week, written by a local pastor, especially for people disenchanted with organized religion. In it was the story of a person who was meeting his new girlfriend’s family for the first time, and they wanted him to go to church with them. But they belonged to a church that had some ideas the guy didn’t agree with. He asked the pastor, “How can I go to this church with them? Wouldn’t that be putting my stamp of approval on them? Wouldn’t that be going against the truth of what I believe?”

And the pastor said, “Jesus stands for something bigger than the truth.”

I thought about that, wondering what he could possibly mean, and suddenly realized he’s right. Jesus stands for tolerance and forgiveness. It’s not about who’s right, or who’s wrong. It’s about trying to get along. Helping your fellow man. Love your neighbor as yourself. Seems to me some of Louis’s hole-dwelling neighbors have this concept down better than the rest of us.

We have the knowledge and capacity to feed, clothe, shelter, educate, and provide health care for every living being on this planet.

Why don’t we?

Fridays With Louis - Trouble on All Fronts

This will be approximately my 50th post about Louis. Why do I blog about him? Because I think he deserves to be known for the good, kind, decent, and honorable man he has become. Without me, that would not happen. And without him, I would not be a full-time writer and freelance editor, working from home. It was his encouragement and support that gave me the confidence to step out on my own, in more ways than one.

When I met Louis, I was married and clinically depressed. At the time, my ex was either not able or not willing to give me that hand up and out of the pit of despair I was in. (We get along fine, now, but that was a dark time in my life.) I climbed out by myself, bought a house, got a divorce, and started a new career. Louis cheered me on all the way, and two years into the friendship, once he felt I was on my way, he told me my wings were fixed and I needed to fly. In fact, he kicked me out of the nest. Or car, as they call it in prison. He kicked me out of the car.

I was devastated. I felt abandoned. I refused to leave. For two years we fought like cats and dogs over this, because I realized Louis has a pattern of taking people on as projects, doing what he can to help them, then stepping back and letting them go. Most people do go, and don’t look back. I’ve seen them do it to him over and over and over again.

I wasn’t going to be one of those people. I wasn’t going to repay his kindness by walking away. But finally he wore me down and I said, “Okay, I’ve had enough. I’ll leave you alone.” I stepped back and started dating. That lasted all of six months, but was long enough to let me know I’d rather spend my time and energy in the relationship department visiting Louis.

Fortunately, he came to the same conclusion. And at that time, as a gesture to me, he made a sincere attempt to have his case re-opened and get out of prison. When that stalled, I sent him some private investigators to help. Louis has never let me buy him anything, not even the books I send him when he’s in the hole. I figured after 7 years I owed him something. In 2007 I paid $1000 and sent him two investigators as a Christmas present. I figured he couldn’t refuse a present, right?

Turns out he should have. Louis met with the investigators, and they came to an agreement about what they would do to help him and the fee for their services, which he then paid. They didn’t do any of it, and two weeks later he came up with a false positive on a urine test for which he was never shown the results. Louis doesn’t do drugs. Hasn’t for a long time now. Since 1993, when he hit rock bottom, he’s been trying to turn his life around.

With a dirty urine, you get hole time. The investigators refused to see him as long as he was in the hole and could only have visits behind the glass. Claimed confidentiality issues. However, within a few days of his face-to-face visits being restored to him, Louis was attacked by a man with a knife. The result of defending himself was a 90-day assault charge and a transfer, which took another six months to occur, as his transfer request was mysteriously deleted from the system not once, but twice. The end result was he spent nine months in the hole, and all the while his investigators refused to see him.

His transfer finally came through this past May, and Louis got back out into population. At this point his investigators started giving me the run around. Not returning phone calls, not calling when they said they would, having to be badgered into going to see him to give their final report, and a ton of false information provided along the way. One of these days I’ll get into it but not now. The wound is still too fresh. I tend to believe the best in people, and I believed in these people, because all indications were they were the best people for the job we needed done.

Instead, in September, after nearly two years of delay after delay after delay--yet still managing to provide us with false hope (something that will be the subject of another blog post)--I found out they were scamming us. I began an investigation of my own and found they had lied to me about at least a dozen things on one simple transaction alone. Because after Louis had paid them to conduct some interviews and retrieve some information for him--their supposed specialty--and while he was in the hole for the dirty urine and I was unable to communicate with him, the investigators strongly suggested that we needed a copy of Louis’s trial transcripts at a cost of $1800 for 1700 pages. Given the way they presented their case, I went along with it and paid the money, a decision Louis, when he found out about it, did not agree with at all.

Turns out he knew what he was talking about. The transcripts proved to be useless. Louis knew it, but I didn’t. And then I found out they didn’t even get the full transcripts. Only portions of it, for some strange reason. But they had charged me the full fee and then some.

In October, after much hemming and hawing on their part on the phone over why more than half the transcripts appeared to have “gone missing,” I wrote a letter asking for a refund for my $1800. No answer. In November I sent a follow up letter. The deadline I gave them for a response was November 15. To date I have not heard a word.

Then, on November 18, two men came to Louis’s cell with a knife. One of the investigators had told me in June that according to his sources, there was a contract out on Louis’s life. He even told me how they would do it. (Yeah, would you want these people working for you?) I never told him. The investigators seemed intent on fostering an attitude of paranoia in Louis. They would feed me this false information, then ask me about his state of mind. I never passed on most of the information, because what purpose would it serve? Louis had enough on his plate to worry about, with people coming at him with knives and being in the hole.

I find it hard to believe that a man who has consciously been trying to turn his life around since 1993, with no help from the system he lives in, but through his own considerable willpower and determination, would suddenly start getting into knife fights of his own accord. Louis lives for his visits. I was supposed to visit on Thursday. Instead, on Wednesday night, I got a phone call from a woman who said, “I’m supposed to tell you Louis was in a fight, he’s in the hole, and not to come and visit tomorrow.”

I knew immediately he hadn’t started it. Louis ascribes to the theory, “Don’t start no s*** and there won’t be no s***.” He even applies that to our friendship. He won’t start an argument with me to save himself. As I’ve said before, he’ll say, “I’m not paying to fight with you. If you want to fight, I’ll hang up and call you back collect.”

I’ll admit that in the overall scheme of things that’s pretty trivial. But it goes to show how Louis is faithful in the small things (like asking to have someone to call me in the midst of his bloody turmoil), and therefore can be counted on for the big things. I was right. Louis did not start the fight. On Monday I got a letter describing it in gory detail, and not in a prideful way. Not once did he use foul language or say anything negative about his attackers. He simply described what happened. Now he sits in isolation with a busted-up face and three oozing slashes in his left shoulder.

His wasn’t the only fight that day. Just seconds earlier, another fight broke out on another block. Since it happened, more fights have broken out on his block, no doubt fallout from the fight he was in as inmates take sides, and as of last Thursday, five of his neighbors had been brought to the hole...

Including the man who saved Louis’s life. Someone he’d been giving food to jumped in to save him, at great personal cost to himself. Not only did the man sustain considerable damage to his face, his chances of going home in two months are now nil.

I spoke with Louis on Tuesday morning and he was in good spirits. Laughing, joking, teasing me about an internet survey I had sent him to fill out. He was looking forward to our visit. The next day his world turned upside down.

If you’ll recall, Louis had quite a reputation for violent behavior in the 1980s and 1990s. His last write-up for assault until recently was in 1993. The result of that was four years in isolation, during which he got his college education and learned enough about behavioral theory to figure out why he was so violent, and how to turn that around.

So until a year ago last August, again, just days before a visit, he’d had no write-ups for assault—until someone came after him with a knife.

He fought back then, and he fought back last week. Louis is a martial artist. Martial artists are trained to avoid fights by any and all means possible, but when pushed to the brink, are trained to fight back, and fight to win. Louis won his fights, but the cost will be high, to all concerned.

An Attitude of Gratitude - Giving Thanks

I know I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. You don’t go to church for what you get out of it, but to celebrate what you’ve been given—or to give thanks. In the Catholic faith, the Eucharist means to give thanks. So today I will go to Mass and give thanks for:

My faith, which keeps me going
My son, who is healthy and handsome, smart and strong, funny and talented, but I would love him even if he weren’t any of those things
My parents, who each called me this week and talked for over an hour, God bless them
My friends Louis and Marc, who keep me focused on what’s important
My health, which is improving every day
My home, which has everything in it I need to be happy
My car, which gets me where I’m going
My computer, which allows me to work from home and be creative in so many ways
My work, which gives me the opportunity to meet so many wonderful people
My friends both near and far, with whom I share my faith and joys and sorrows
My books, which teach me so much about the world
My music, which brings me untold joy
My cats, who provide hours of love and entertainment
My gift for writing, which comes directly from God, and allows me to share my thoughts with you
My writing buddies, who understand the need to write
My freedom, which allows me to enjoy all of the above

May God bless all of you on this special day of giving thanks and bring you peace, prosperity and joy.

Wednesday Wellness and Housekeeping

First, a little blog housekeeping. Judy was the winner of my Just for Fun drawing, and she chose to receive an autographed copy of Ashton's Secret. The giveaway reminded me that I'd said something on my website about drawing one winner per month for the rest of the year from the commenters on this blog, and...I hadn't done it.

So I'm taking catching up today. The winners of one autographed copy of either Thin Ice, Jake's Return, or Ashton's Secret are:

August - Doralynn Kennedy
September - Mary Rickson
October - Keena Kincaid

Congratulations, ladies, and sorry for the delay. Life gets a little busy at times.

That said, I'm still making changes to the content/tone of my blog. After much reflection, I've discovered I'm passionate about several things in my life: my faith, raising my son, helping others, my friendship with Louis (and Marc, whom I've asked to write a blog post or two), and now, after all this research I've been doing for my book on PMDD, women's health.

It's unconscionable, what is happening to women regarding health care these days. It's also unconscionable what is happening to Louis, but I will save that for Fridays.

My fifth passion is my writing, and from here on out, I intend to use my God-given gift to speak my mind about not just the blessings, but also the injustices I come across in my life and in my readings. So things might get bumpy here, but you're welcome to come along for the ride.

Since today is Wednesday Wellness day, I'm posting about health care reform. Personally, I don't agree that abortion is part of health care, or should be a part of national health care, so I have left that part of this message from the National Women's Law Center out, but the rest of what they have to say rings true to me after six months of researching women's health issues.

MYTH: We don’t need health care reform. This country has a great health care system and there’s nothing wrong with it.

FACT: The United States might have some of the best doctors in the world, but Americans pay more for health care than people in any other industrialized country. And we get less for our money.

Even worse, we have millions of uninsured people who cannot access health care. Eighteen percent of women in the U.S. do not have health insurance. Women who do have insurance are more likely than men to have insufficient coverage that leaves them vulnerable to financial risk and unmet health needs. More than half of all women — 52% — have had trouble getting health care due to cost, compared to 39% of men.

MYTH: Our economy is slowly recovering. We can’t afford health care reform.

FACT: The House bill that recently passed is projected to save us money — about $104 billion over 10 years. Health care reform is also expected to increase the number of insured Americans and help make health insurance more affordable.

What we can’t afford is doing nothing. We are spending $2 trillion per year now on health care. And if health care costs continue to rise, at least half of U.S. households will spend more than 45% of their income on insurance by 2016.

MYTH: Women aren’t charged more than men for health insurance. We already have laws against that.

FACT: Actually, when women buy health coverage directly from insurance companies, they can be charged more than men. Female non-smokers are often charged more than men who smoke. And businesses that have a large number of female employees are charged more for insurance than other businesses.

Current health care reform legislation would end this discriminatory practice.

For more information, go to The National Women's Law Center.