When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. – Luke 14:8–10
Rev. Jeff Grant, JD, M Div, Minister/Director
jgrant@prisonist.org
(o) +1203.769.1096
(m) +1203.339.5887
Lynn Springer, Advocate, Innocent Spouses & Children
lspringer@prisonist.org
(m) +1203.536.5508
George Bresnan, Advocate, Ex-Pats
gbresnan@prisonist.org
Michael Karaffa, Advocate, Disabilities
mkaraffa@prisonist.org
God loves and I do too! Keep doing what you do!
Minister/Director, Progressive Prison Project, Greenwich, CT, The First White-Collar Ministries in the US prisonist.org
Barry S. Diamond –
Life is like a rose bush
something beautiful but also thorny
When I said life is good, I did not mean that there are no moments of bad. I just choose to concentrate on what is positive. We who have been incarcerated never forget. I agree that man has a problem forgiving but fortunately God does not.
So that your readers do not think your story is inaccurate, (about sitting in the wrong seat can be dangerous), I would like to tell you my encounter with this problem:
My first day in jail, I was in a cell with a young man who gladly let me bunk on the lower bed because of my age. We became friendly because he was a history buff and interested in hearing about Brooklyn , NY in the “ old days”. The first day I went down to breakfast and began to sit in an empty seat at his table. Before I knew what happened, I was being yelled at by someone who said it was his seat and if I valued my life I better never sit there. The only thing that saved me (which I did not know) was the fact that my cellmate was an important person in the cell block. He verified that I was his new cellmate and did not know better. I was “allowed” to sit at the next table over and was treated with respect by everyone who was at my new table.
Maybe it’s time someone wrote a short explanation of proper conduct for a newbie so that a first time person can more easily survive their incarceration. I would be more than happy to post it on our web-site reentrysurvivors.com.
– Barry