PRISONER EXPRESS

In perspective to my current situation, a great truth rear's a taunting face with a cackling jeer. Three times a day. I sit down to eat with a couple of hundred strangers. And that! Seems to be a recurring truth of my life. While growing up, my family shared no "Walton" or "Brady Brunch" brunches. We were in essence a family of strangers pretending to be a model of the great American Dream while sitting around watching TV at every meal.

I won't deny a deep yearning desire to belong to a family like the perfected unions of the Waltons or Bradies. These two Hollywood icons are in fat just symbols of a better life in harsher times where luxury was defined with a simple AM radio and daily family dinner. These were the epiphany of a well rounded and focused family unit which advocates the cliché',

"A family that prays (eats, plays, communicates or even sings) together stays together."

I'm finding a great amount of truth in this, how be â€" it somewhat to late. Many desire to be stubborn by denying we become a product of our environment. A person reared in a pitying irresponsible racist environment will carry the torch of racial hatred on, just as the Alcoholic drug addict sexual deviant or power hungry pig will propagate the next generation of cops and robbers. In the sixties we as a country shredded the cocoon of future hope with impatience leaving us a desecrated ill formed butterfly that will never fly. During that time, we turned our backs on what was moralistically founded which resulted in Divine Blessings. I'm doing so, we attained a farce unity without roots or traditions.

What does all if this have to do with dinnertime? Well… There was that time when society didn't just expect parents to uphold moralistic points of view, but required those people to set an example for the generations to follow. Two of the greatest single morally upholding events were daily fundamentals. The family gathered at the dinner table to eat together. And, when they sat down for dinner, they prayed. This daily ritual insured one of the greatest blessings Christ Yeshua could give, namely;

"Where two or more are fathered together in my name. There I will be also."

Don't get my wrong I can't claim to be a righteous man for I am the chief of all sinners in this world. At 45, I am being awakened daily to a better way and deeper understanding of what once produced a great reward, family unity. Hindsight is 20/20. Had I the opportunity to go back and do some things over my focus would be on having a large family that would return to our abandoned traditions. The traditional dinner complete with a dining room setting, good wholesome meals and the giving of the blessing; an invitation to Christ to join us at dinnertime.

Today I sit with a blood-brother that has been a stranger to me almost my whole life. I also sit with a spiritual brother who by all rights should have actually been my real brother. We sit among hundred of so called associates, strangers I n every sense of the word. No meal in prison is respectable and seldom edible without first asking the lord for a blessing and a purification. For the gluttons, it is never enough for the high rollers or spoiled, it is never good enough. For those who's perspective is anchored in reality. It is more than any one of us deserves.

Dinnertime, this theme viewed with my own single minded perspective is a haunting as it is hopefully. Haunting in that, I now recognize how much of a good thing I never knew could have been had I been smart enough to grasp it. But, it is also hopeful, because at midlife, I know my days are as plentiful as they were a mere 20 or 30 years ago.

In prison, we have a habit of tapping on the table before we leave. It is this tapping that helps me focus on some future hope. A time when I can tap a table not to leave, but to bring order in a world that has lost its blessings. I can tap a table to initiate the dinner time blessing. A blessing that will give Christ Yeshua his seat at our table. A blessing of family unity and of coming together as individuals and to add to that blessing the change to learn observe and communicate with each other so that we will never be strangers.

Dinnertime, a traditional ceremony that brings. A sense of belonging not just in our worldly family but also in our spiritual family.

If I have any advice to give now on this matter it is summed up in the truth of these cliché's.

"Families that dine together, pray together, stay together."