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RE: ZamDad's World - 2/2/2006 7:20:56 AM
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zamdad
Posts: 1066
Joined: 4/8/2005
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February 2, 2006
While driving home from work last night, I heard Crawford Loritz speak on the radio. He said something to the effect of, “Discipling relationships do not create dependence.” He repeated his statement once again and added some explanation about how; often we get into the trap of spiritually mentoring someone and creating a form of dependency. As through they can’t grow without us. I hear much wisdom in what he is saying.
I look at government programs and how they have created dependence. Church programs tend to create dependence as well. People turn to programs to meet some need. Because no one from the program takes the time to truly disciple them, to walk alongside them, get to know them, take them fishing, the person in need does not gain the knowledge or the wisdom to mature spiritually; let alone mentally and emotionally. Thus, they keep coming back looking for whatever tidbits are being handed out.
As I write this, I am not against programs. There are many good programs that do a lot of good. What I see few to of are people who are willing to help others grow. The other side of this coin is that many people are looking for the love that God has to offer, but they are looking to find that security in something tangible, like another person.
I see this frequently with probationers. I develop a relationship with my probationers in which I provide support and encouragement in the process of change. As I see change occurring, I keep prodding them along the path. If they are not attempting to change, I send constant reminders that failure to change will result in jail time. I have had several who have earned their way off my caseload express fear of having to adjust to another PO in their lives. They get used to the way one person operates and fear the unknown of life under a new PO or, without a PO.
One particular female client expressed concern that she did not want to lose me as a PO. She had made some significant changes in her life. She had accepted Christ while in jail and demonstrated through the changing fruit in her life that her faith was genuine. She told me that she has always had someone monitoring her life ever since reaching adulthood. She had always been a scammer, getting her needs met by using the system to get whatever it had to offer. For the first time in her adult life, she was holding a full time job and earning a living for herself. She told me that she feared moving off my caseload because she knew I was going to hold her accountable; that I was not going to stand by and watch if she were to backslide. I told her that the goal of probation supervision is to get her flying solo. It’s to help her develop the skills and the discipline to stay on track in a law abiding life, that she is not always going to have a paid person in her life to keep her accountable. I encouraged her to find a Barnabas of her own to help her in her growth as a Christian.
_____________________________
You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
A. Lincoln
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RE: ZamDad's World - 2/4/2006 4:54:37 PM
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zamdad
Posts: 1066
Joined: 4/8/2005
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February 4, 2006
One of the things I hate about writing is that I sit at the computer to begin putting my thoughts together, and my mind goes blank. My daily drive home seems to bring about much material for commenting in my blog. It seems that any time I am alone, I am unable to capture my thoughts to save for writing about. So I sit here and just begin to write and see where my mind takes me. There have been so many things both personally and professionally that I often don’t know where to begin.
I had to take a PT test in class Thursday night. PT is short for physical training. My son was giving me all sorts of grief because I have gotten fat and out of shape. I have had a whole semester to get off my lazy butt and get going, but the only part of my body that seems to get a workout are my lips as I talk about how I need to get into shape. I have taken many PT tests with the Army. I know I can do the pushups, I knew I was going to be able to pass the sit ups, but I was not expecting more than the required 70%. Pull-ups have always been a strong event for me. I was not worried about failing them, yet I knew I was not going to max it either. We had a couple of other events I had not even considered training for, the standing broad jump, the standing vertical jump, and the trunk flexion. None of them were anything to be concerned about. It’s that stinking run that I dread. I have always hated running.
If I have to run, I can. I have always been a good sprinter. But, whenever the military or any entity that requires physical fitness as part of their duties wants to test people, they want to know you have endurance. I have always hated distance running. I can do it, but I do it at a snails pace. Well, even though I am not in shape, I’m in better shape than I thought. Not only did I pass the test, I passed with ease and did not even need the grandpa factor to make it easier for me.
While I was elated that I passed, I am saddened for the kids in my class who did not pass. They too had a whole semester to get ready and, apparently, did not take advantage of the time. The instructor was upset, and rightly so, that so many of these kids were out of shape and that myself and the other person in his 40’s in the class ran circles around these kids.
I have to wonder if we, as a nation, are falling apart. Not only are we getting physically rounder, we are not getting any smarter. I go to my daughters school once a week and have kids from the second grade read to me. My job is to help the kids work through words or sentences they have difficulty with and to encourage them to keep reading. The other day we had two men in one of the groups who had to read through some scenarios in a workbook so we could work on them as a group. As I listened to these men (one 30 and one 41) read, it became apparent to me that many of the second graders who read to me each week are better readers. Why is this?
Our tendency is to blame everyone else. Our obesity problems are the fault of the fast food restaurant chains and the food producers who put prepackaged items together. Our falling educational standards are the fault of the schools. But, who’s really at fault? No one makes anyone go to McDonalds and buy Big Macs. The teachers are doing a good job in the schools despite some very difficult conditions. It has to come back to the parents. Parents teach kids eating habits. Parents reinforce what kids learn in school by reading with their children or making certain school work is being done properly.
It seems that, as a nation, as we have become more prosperous, we have gotten lazy. We no longer spend time in the kitchen preparing meals like we once did. We no longer spend time with our kids developing and nurturing as we once did. We have lost our discipline. We have lost the ability to look in the mirror and accept responsibility for our part in our problems as well. Instead, we find fault in all these other places and point an accusing finger at “them.” Nothing ever gets solved because no one is responsible to anyone else.
Well, so much for not knowing what to write about. I sit down and let my fingers do the talking and pretty soon I have another blog commentary. At least life is never dull.
_____________________________
You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
A. Lincoln
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RE: ZamDad's World - 2/5/2006 11:16:52 PM
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zamdad
Posts: 1066
Joined: 4/8/2005
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February 5, 2006
Michael is a troubled young man. He is in jail for the umpteenth time. His crimes are primarily assaults. He likes to beat up his girlfriend. When she is not available to be his punching bag, he goes out with buddies and finds someone to fight. There are enough stupid people out there who are all too willing to oblige him with fisticuffs.
He is set to be released from jail real soon. His release date falls on a Sunday. He told me that he asked to be held a little longer in the morning so that the chaplain can pick him up and take him to church. He began to tell me how he wants to change his life. His plans include attending church and Bible studies and hanging out with people from the church. He plans to get a job if he can find someone who will hire him. After he finds work, he says his life will be work, church and sleep.
We spoke about his substance abuse. His former PO told him he had to stay away from pot, so he turned to alcohol. He does not seem to make the connection that his former PO told him he could not indulge in any mood altering substances. He somewhat boasted about how he would begin drinking in the mornings and finish three fifths of hard liquor before passing out prior to the following sunrise.
I happen to supervise Michael’s mother as well. Much of the trouble I see in his life can be directly attributed to the way she raised him. Her life was chaos. She had one man after another in and out of her life. Her drug of choice was crack cocaine. He witnessed his mother live the life of a crack whore. His father lives in another state and does not approve of the lifestyle he has been raised in. Any time he spent with his father was short lived as he did not like the rules.
His mother found Christ while in jail. When she first told me she found Christ, I was more than skeptical. She had been a person who scammed everyone for anything she could get. She was a master manipulator and had it figured out that people, in general, are lazy and don’t follow up on what they’re told. When she told me she had accepted Christ, I told her I would not judge her, but that I would be watching to see if her transformation was real. It has been a couple of years now and I have seen her grow in many ways. I know that her conversion to Christianity is genuine. I know that she has been working to undo the damage she has done in raising her children.
Michael told me that his mom has been preaching to him and that he sees the changes she has made in her life. He said she has really been on him to make some changes too. While he began the conversation telling me that he was going to use the church to make the changes to his life, he turned the conversation in the opposite direction when he told me that he is not ready to make the commitment yet.
I told him that he is not going to make it on the outside. He has all of his eggs piled into the basket of the church. He is counting on the people there to make the changes for him. He also knows that they will help him with whatever needs he has and counts on the fact that no one will hold him accountable. He seems to believe that the members of the body will not call me or the police because in their efforts to build a relationship with him, they will not want to see him get into trouble if he slips.
Michael is a young man who wants God to change his circumstances, but he is not yet ready for God to change him. He seems to think he has tomorrow. And tomorrow he will think he has the following tomorrow. He still likes who he is which means he likes getting into trouble. I like who he is underneath the veneer he presents for others to see. He likes to be the tough guy, yet inside he is soft as can be. He wears the mask to hide the pain of the experiences his life has brought. He is not yet ready to give the mask to Jesus. I pray that he can give it to Him before he runs out of tomorrows.
_____________________________
You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
A. Lincoln
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RE: ZamDad's World - 2/14/2006 8:13:07 AM
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zamdad
Posts: 1066
Joined: 4/8/2005
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February 14, 2006
I haven’t been able to get here for several days. Figured I’d better write just to bump myself up. I want to say three is nothing new here, but there are so many changes occurring. One of my coworkers surprised everyone and turned in her resignation. She doesn’t have another job, she just needed to get out of this one. Another coworker is expected to turn in his resignation soon. And, one of the best judges I have ever known is set to retire next week.
Last week I was called as a witness in an evidentiary hearing; a hearing in which the state has to prove its case on the probation violations I alleged in my report. I got called as a witness and the offender got called. The offender is a man I have written about many times on this blog. I think I have used a bunch of different names for him. He has illustrated more spiritual lessons to me through his life. He seems to teach everyone something about life. Everyone except himself.
I spent nearly an hour on the stand answering questions about why he was terminated from sex offender treatment and what makes him dangerous. He was terminated because his walk does not match his talk. He can articulate the lessons learned, but nothing about his life reflects what he has learned. His crime was against the very young daughters of a former girlfriend. To anyone who meets him, he is a genuine “nice guy.” He is meek and mild. Not a drinker or a smoker. He does not come across as abrasive or abusive. His pattern is to find women with self esteem issues, women in the age range of 30 to 60 who have had a pattern of bad relationships. He gets sexual with these women immediately and enters a relationship that, on the surface, appears caring and nurturing. But, for him, it’s about sex. His own sexual gratification is the only reason he remains in the relationship.
This past summer he had five women that he as seeing at the same time. They all happened to find out about each other at the same time and all called me. All of them described the same thing. How when the relationship began, he was Prince Charming. But, once they got to know him and spend some time interacting with him in other than sexual ways, he turned mean spirited, cutting, and critical. Fights would always turn in to make up sex. All of them described how he was not the man he initially presented himself to be.
What makes him dangerous is that he preys on willing victims. While he is engaging in legal, consensual sexual relationships, most of the women he dates expose their children or grand children to him. While he claims he would never touch another child sexually, he views females in general as sexual objects. It was arguing with the mother of his victims that he blamed the perpetration of his crime on. In addition, the women he selects tend to have very poor boundaries for themselves and are unable to properly place boundaries around the children in their care.
I told this man after court that I have written about him in a journal. That he has taught me many lessons about life. We spoke about how he does not seem willing to look under his mask and learn about who he really is and why he does the things he does. He gets angry with me when I get under the mask and cause him to have to see things he does not want to see. The saddest part of this whole thing is that this is a man who claims to be a Christian. He is active in a local church, has even taught Sunday school. But, when his inconsistent lifestyle is pointed out to him, he compares himself to others in the community and finds an endless list of excuses why nothing is ever his fault. In his eyes, he is always the victim. I reminded him that his decisions have placed him in situations where he is not a victim, but a volunteer. I wish that members of his congregation would point out to him is inconsistent lifestyle. But, it seems that those in his church are too busy looking for the splinters in their own eyes to point out the logs in the eyes of others.
_____________________________
You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
A. Lincoln
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RE: ZamDad's World - 2/22/2006 8:21:49 PM
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zamdad
Posts: 1066
Joined: 4/8/2005
Status: offline
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February 22, 2006
I never get sick. I hate being sick! Last week, the stomach flu moved through my family. I thought I had come away unscathed. But, on a three day weekend, I get hit Sunday afternoon and find myself unable to get out of bed on Monday.
Upon returning to the office, I learned that a reporter form another state called for me. Back in posts 27, 35 and 36 of my blog, I wrote about this client who was sentenced for failing to register as a sex offender. This offender should have been sent to prison for failing to register, but the judge chose to place him on probation supervision. The judge went against my recommendation feeling that probation supervision would have a greater long term public safety impact than sending him to prison.
The offender was not from our community. He had been placed there by another county to sit in a treatment facility. He left and did not notify the authorities of his address change which for him, in this state, is a felony. After court, he was returned to his original community where he was going to live with a relative. He was told by the judge, that he could not leave the relatives residence until he was in contact with the probation officer in the original county. The offender agreed to this and many other stipulations. He said yes to anything that was going to get him out of jail at that moment. Prior to that, he had been fighting everything the whole way. He even fired his own public defender.
Well, the man was dropped off in his original county by an armed deputy and was never seen again. The probation officer in the other county called to tell me that the offender was not where he was supposed to be and no one had seen him since his arrival. Several months ago I got a call from an investigator in another state. I was told he was being investigated for failing to register in the other state. Unfortunately, the warrant in my state will not extradite across state lines.
This offender has been a nemesis to me since our first encounter. I knew he was bad news. He refused to provide me with any information. He told me if I wanted to know anything about him, I could dig through his other files and find the info. What I found disturbed me greatly. He is a crack addict and a drunk who takes anything not tied down and liberties with females who cross his path. To make matters worse, he had been ordained by some ministry and was portraying himself as a minister. He has good relationship skills as he can come across as a pleasant human being. His relationship skills were good enough that he married his former probation officer after getting off paper. I made the recommendation that he be committed to prison because he is dangerous.
He has now raped an elderly woman in another state. It turns out that he has been engaged in plenty of criminal activity in his new state. And now, judges and attorneys are ducking and dodging to avoid responsibility. The public wants accountability and politicians devour cases like this soliciting votes by promising to lock predatory offenders like this away from here to eternity.
I guess part of my reason for writing this is more about the sex offender registration laws. While they are a good step in the right direction, they fall short of protecting the public from these predatory offenders. The law places the burden on the offender to be compliant instead of having someone to monitor the offender. I also write out of a sense of frustration that this guy has slipped away one more time to hurt someone else.
< Message edited by zamdad -- 2/22/2006 8:24:12 PM >
_____________________________
You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
A. Lincoln
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RE: ZamDad's World - 2/28/2006 7:17:36 PM
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zamdad
Posts: 1066
Joined: 4/8/2005
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February 28, 2006
So, where to begin. I got a very nice PM today that was encouraging. There has been so much going on both at home and work.
Yesterday, I got a call from a probationer at 3:30 in the afternoon saying he had just been released from the jail. He’s on probation in another county as well. I had been working with his PO there to try and tighten the noose on him to keep him from wandering back into his drug using ways. We both missed the fact that another county had a warrant for him and he was released from there with no place to go and no money.
I had to drive an hour to get him and then another hour to get him to a motel. In the mean time, I was in contact with his parents to get them to pay for a night in a motel and playing phone tag with the other PO to shore up a short term plan.
The guy is a meth addict. Everyone can see he’s addicted. Everyone but him. He told me that he can count on one hand all the times he has used meth. Yet, his family and all his friends tell stories of him being up for days, having sores on his body that he won’t stop picking at, how he described his house being full of spiders and snakes. He tested positive for meth the last time he was arrested and one of his relatives went to pick up his things only to find syringes used for shooting up meth.
In the past, he has simply been released from jail to simply disappear until apprehended on a warrant. This time, however, he is out with no money and no place to go in a county not anywhere near any of his friends. I think this is the only reason he called me. Now that he has returned to the county where his friends live, I anticipate he will vanish again. A warrant will be issued and, several months from now he will turn up being arrested after having committed a new crime.
This is one of the thing I really struggle with in regard to the justice system. It is so backlogged that the attorneys wheel and deal coming up with plea bargains that allow people to plead guilty of crimes and avoid jail. While plea agreements are necessary, all too often they wind up hurting some new victim. Then, the process begins all over again, each piece of the system has its work to do. The cops have another crime to solve, the prosecutor has another case to prove, the defense attorney has another case to defend, the judge has another case to decide, court administration has more paperwork to process, the probation office has more reports to write and added conditions of probation to monitor.
What makes this all the more sad is that when something goes wrong, we all tend to point the finger of blame at some piece of the system. We acknowledge the offender is responsible for his actions, but we blame the system for failing us and allowing the offender to inflict more harm. This is especially true when the offender is someone near and dear to our hearts. We don’t want to believe they could be capable of such evil. We look for reasons that caused them to act out and for excuses from the system to avoid or diminish responsibility. The fact of the matter is that we all have a responsibility to account to and for one another. If we want crime and other social ills to diminish, we all have a part to play in being responsible and expecting responsibility of those we love and interact with.
_____________________________
You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
A. Lincoln
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RE: ZamDad's World - 3/4/2006 2:50:14 PM
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zamdad
Posts: 1066
Joined: 4/8/2005
Status: offline
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March 4, 2006
I’m a hurting unit today. I had class both Thursday and Friday nights this week. We’re doing defensive tactics and my body aches. Twenty years ago I went through basic training. My body hurt then, but the recovery time was quick. A bump or bruise would hurt for a moment allowing for quick recovery to move on to the next task. Ten years ago I was in Infantry Officer Basic. I noticed then, at 33, that my recovery rate for aches and pains was twice as long as ten years before. What I am doing now is not as intense as IOBC or boot camp, but age has a tendency to slow the healing process.
But, this kind of pain is a good pain. It lets me know that I am alive, that I can still do so many things I might otherwise take for granted. It is resharpening some perishable skills that will keep me alive when some other person wants to shorten my life or restrict my livelihood.
I wish that probation officers in my state would get self defense training when they begin their employment and that we would train on this annually. In my former state, we received self defense training and were required to attend annual refreshers. Since moving to my new state and beginning work as a PO, I have not received any training in self defense. We have had some safety trainings. Training that instructs us to get out of the way or run if things get dangerous. But nothing on how to get away if someone actually gets hold of you or how to fight if someone is between you and your only route of escape.
I think that corrections administration and the politicians in our state see us as social workers. We are supposed to be there for our clientele to rehabilitate them; fix them so that they don’t commit further crime. Those who write the policies seem to forget that we are dealing with the same people the police and the corrections officers deal with. We walk into their homes and look through their things which can be pretty invasive. We find them intoxicated, we find their stashes of dope or other contraband. We are a real threat to their freedom at a given moment. We can be having a very nice conversation with them with no indication that they may assault and then in the course of that conversation, find a stash of dope and have them go ballistic.
Often I am required to interview people in the jail. While they are generally cooperative because they think that I am someone who is going to help them get out, they are unpredictable. I have had people get up across the table from me and begin stomping around as if they are going to hit me or something. In people’s homes, we become a threat to their freedom. One day I stopped at then home of an offender who lives in the middle of nowhere. I had not planned on stopping there, I had gone to another home several miles away. As I drove past the house, I saw that the offender was home. The house was a mobile home in a very secluded location. As I approached the front of the house, I saw someone sleeping on the living room couch. I went to the front door and knocked. I was let in a by a woman who did not live in the house. My client was there with this woman and the man sleeping on the couch. I asked who the man was. It happened to be another one of my clients who is known to have a very explosive, violent temper. As I spoke with the client I stopped to see, I opened the refrigerator and found beer. The client had a condition not to possess or consume alcohol. I walked into the client’s bedroom and found a stash of marijuana, about ¼ ounce. I then found some methamphetamine paraphernalia with a trace amount of the drug. My client began freaking out. I stopped right there realizing that I was in over my head. I had not notified anyone that I was there, I had a known violent person sleeping on the couch in the living room. The owner of the house in a panic thinking he might be on his way to jail, and a female I knew very little about. And, I was in a very remote area where my body could be hidden for quite some time.
I grabbed a grocery bag and started placing all the dope and paraphernalia into the bag and decided to get out of the house. I told the owner of the house that no one was going to jail today, but I was taking the dope with me. I got out to the car and drove out of the driveway as fast as I could in case anyone came out with a gun.
I realize that I made a number of mistakes throughout the whole scene. I should have never stopped alone. I should have checked in with dispatch or the office to say where I was. Once I knew who the guy on the couch was, I should have backed out and called for assistance. Would have, could have, should have. Some good lessons learned and, hopefully, mistakes to never be repeated. But, this state needs to do a better job of training and preparing PO’s for the situations they will run into and how to make a dangerous situation safer.
_____________________________
You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
A. Lincoln
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RE: ZamDad's World - 3/11/2006 10:15:37 AM
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zamdad
Posts: 1066
Joined: 4/8/2005
Status: offline
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March 11, 2006
Wow, I logged on to blog towne and saw that I was moved near the bottom of page 2. It’s been a busy week. I haven’t been able to get here. I also have not been able to post much on the forums. Frankly, it seems like some of the discussions on the forums have become dull,; not challenging.
One thing I have been doing with my computer time is trying better to monitor my kids usage. I have been wanting to put something together to present to local parents about online safety. There has been a lot of discussion in the media about myspace.com. I went in and checked this site out. It’s amazing what one can find there even if there not looking for it. Thankfully, I know my kids have not been hanging out there.
There are, however, other sites such as bebo.com that seem to work along the same lines, but monitor the content of their sites better. It’s still scary though what kids post that reveal more than enough info about who they are, where they live, and what their interests are. Any predator who is seeking a kid in a given area with particular interest can find whatever they want.
As parents, we have to do a better job of knowing what our kids are up to online. My kids tell me I’m annoying because I have been getting in and monitoring their sites. But, in order to be involved in their lives, I have to go where they are going. The web has changed the way we communicate. Kids no longer spend hours on the phone talking with other kids from school. Now, they use blogs, instant messenger, email and other forms of computer technology to communicate. The language has changed as they use emoticons and abbreviations. They post pictures and links to friends or interests.
I know that in posting this on my blog, I am preaching to the choir. But, in the area I live, there are so many parents who have computers in their homes and don’t know the first thing about the technology. The kids control the home. If these parents want to take their rightful role as leaders of their homes, they have to get over their fear of technology.
_____________________________
You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
A. Lincoln
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RE: ZamDad's World - 3/13/2006 8:51:45 PM
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zamdad
Posts: 1066
Joined: 4/8/2005
Status: offline
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March 13, 2006
My nephew turned 24 yesterday. I forgot to send him a birthday card. He’s not my real nephew. I have an adopted family in Alaska and Kent is a grandson to my adopted mom. It seems that each March as Kent’s birthday nears, I think about him and the fine young man he has grown into. Thankful that he did not follow the same course as his dad and me. It also makes me feel old. It seems like yesterday that I was carrying him around town and getting dates from girls I liked who thought he was such a cute baby.
The one even I never let him forget is when he spit up in my mouth. Two girls had come to visit me. I was home alone with Kent while his grandmother had gone to run errands. The girls stopped by to visit and I was laying on the couch with Kent. I was showing off for the girls who were admiring how cute he was and I placed him up in the air as I lay on the couch. I was laughing and so was Kent. All of a sudden this white blob spewed from his mouth directly into mine. The girls all got a good laugh as each of us scrambled to find something to clean up the mess with.
I understand that Kent is a dad now. Now he will have his own memories to share. I pray that he stays on the path he blazed as a teen toward a godly life. His father has left a mess in his trail. Thankfully, Kent did not allow himself to be one of his father’s casualties. Happy birthday Kent!
On another note, I’m dealing with a woman who was just assigned to my caseload. She’s a prescription drug addict. She has four kids and has lost parental rights to three of them. She has been married four times and is engaged to husband number five. She has no job and no job skills. Her fiancé just got a job and she wants to have him pay the fine instead of her doing the community service hours the court ordered.
The fiancé has been calling me and telling me that she is getting new prescrips for narcotics by visiting different doctors. I can’t stand these cases as there is not much I can do if she gets a drug from a physician. What boggles my mind even more is why would this man stay with her? He knows she is addicted to pain pills. He does not like the fact that she wants him to spend his hard earned money on her legal matters. She spends a lot of time with another man in the community when he is at work and the rest of her time is spent chatting online. What’s in it for him?
Then, I have another case involving a female client who is about to have her parental rights terminated. She has been given a plan to follow and can’t seem to hold it together from one day to the next. I have caught her in so many lies now that she can’t keep track of what’s what or who’s who. She keeps allowing all these negative people in to her life and then does not understand what’s wrong when the obvious is pointed out to her.
If I sound frustrated it’s only because of what I see parents like these doing to their kids. Some people should not be allowed to be parents. We have to get a license to drive a car. We even have to get a license to get married. Perhaps we really should require a license to parent. I know it sounds draconian. But, there are some out there who really should not be allowed to raise their offspring.
_____________________________
You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
A. Lincoln
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RE: ZamDad's World - 3/15/2006 12:37:46 AM
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zamdad
Posts: 1066
Joined: 4/8/2005
Status: offline
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March 14, 2006
This has been on my mind for quite some time, but after court this morning I knew I was going to come home and write about this. I was in court for a sentencing hearing this morning on a very troubled young man. He has quite the juvenile history. He spent most of his teen years in foster care or out of home placement. He was in trouble for theft, burglary, assault, and an assortment of petty crimes. Shortly after his 18th birthday, he and a couple of other kids stole a bunch of cars off a car lot and totaled each vehicle causing thousands of dollars in damage. He was being sentenced on three charges.
His attorney wanted the court to consider his ADD and his learning disabilities before imposing a sentence. In the next breath, his attorney objected to my recommendation for a psychological evaluation. The court asked me about my recommendation. I said that the defense attorney had just indicated that his diminished mental capacity may have been responsible for his commission of the crime.
Discussion then centered on this kid trying to get social security disability and the fact that he will be required to get a psychological evaluation as part of his disability claim.
This kid, like so many others that I work with, wants to get paid to stay home and do nothing. I’ve seen it too many times now. People receiving SSI disability benefits for depression, ADHD, and other mental health disorders. While I do not wish to diminish the suffering that some people have as a result of their depression, what I see is SSI disability adding to the depression many people suffer.
Since they are guaranteed a few hundred dollars each month to not work, there is no incentive to find a job because income means loss of benefits. Having nothing to get up for in terms of work adds to the depression because there is no purpose in life. One in this situation simply exists, looking for whatever type of fulfillment they can find for a given day. All too frequently there is no purpose to the activity engaged in which leads to further depression. I feel that our disability system and the doctors that contribute to the mess are doing their clients and the rest of us a huge disservice.
This kid, as an 18 year old, if he gets his disability can count on making less than $700 per month until he decides to begin working. He is more likely to continue engaging in criminal behavior, to have additional medical problems as a result of his depression, more likely to engage in risky behavior, more likely to continue contributing to social problems as opposed to contributing to the community. The prognosis is not good.
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You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
A. Lincoln
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RE: ZamDad's World - 3/18/2006 10:17:31 AM
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zamdad
Posts: 1066
Joined: 4/8/2005
Status: offline
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March 18, 2006
So, where to begin today. Like seems to happen so often, I sit to write for my blog, and my mind goes blank. So, I’m searching my memory banks and just recall a story that I told someone yesterday about a situation where work and my personal world collided.
I live in the country and work in a poor, rural county with a number of small towns. I get to know almost everybody in most of the towns. Living in the country isolates me from normally having to worry about offenders knowing where I live. One of the other things about living in the country is that deer season turns my neighborhood into a war zone. When deer hunting is open, I take my dogs outside and stay in the driveway with them so that they don’t wander off and get shot. Sometimes, it feels like the hunters are laying in wait for us to walk out the front door, get off the steps and onto the dirt. Every year I feel my infantry training kicking in as I am standing in the front yard and suddenly bursts of gunfire seem to be ringing from every direction. My instincts drop me to the ground and I low crawl back inside my house calling for the dogs to run back into the house; faster, faster, faster.
Several years ago I was out in the garage working on something on the opening day of deer hunting. I heard a vehicle pull into my driveway. I looked out to the end of the driveway and there was a van parked there. No one seemed to be moving inside the van, there was a man in the driver’s seat and a woman in the passenger seat. Both were wearing blaze orange. I figured it must be hunters just turning around to go back the other way. But, they sat there for about two minutes. I began to walk out of the garage and up the driveway to see if they needed help. The man jumped out of the driver’s side and ran around the back of the van. I noticed he was wearing a blaze orange jump suit. As the man was near the rear of his van, a truck pulled up in front of my mail box and the driver of the van was speaking with the driver of the truck. As I began getting closer I thought I recognized the man in the orange jump suit, I thought, “That looks like Joe (not his real name, names are changed to protect the guilty).” The man in the blaze orange jump suit saw me approaching the van and looked up at me. I then realized, “It is Joe.”
Joe was one of my sex offenders on probation for having molested his step daughter. He was also a drunk, a liar and a thief. He is one of those people who seems to have every disability that enters the medical lexicon and works harder at not having to work than actually working. Because of his conviction, he is not allowed to possess firearms, thus he is not supposed to be hunting.
Joe saw me approaching the van, but did not realize who I was. He sprang from his spot next to the truck near my mailbox and began jogging toward me. He yelled, “We just stopped to….Holy cow!” It was clear to him now that he knew who was walking up the driveway. I said to him, “I bet you’re thinking this was a bad place to stop.” He replied, “Yep, sure was.” I asked what he was doing. He said that he had been at his friends place up the road and was going through some junk that he could sell. I asked if he was hunting. “Oh, no,” he replied. I asked why he was wearing all the orange. He said, “Everyone is hunting out here, I don’t want to get shot.” I asked if there were weapons in the van. He told me there were none and said to take a look. He opened the van for me so I could see. There was so much junk in the van that I could not tell what was what. I was not about to conduct a thorough search in my own driveway. It was bad enough that he now knew where I lived, I was not going to keep him there any longer than necessary. Yet, since he had me there, he wanted to talk.
My mother in law came out to check the mail as Joe and I were talking. Joe’s vocabulary was filled with words not fit for print. I could see my mother in law’s face as she got the mail and began walking back to the house. She knew something was amiss and that the person I was talking to must be a professional contact. After Joe left, I returned to the garage where my mother in law asked, “Friends of yours?” We all had a good laugh as I told them about Joe’s realization he had pulled into his probation officers yard.
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You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
A. Lincoln
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RE: ZamDad's World - 3/18/2006 11:24:29 PM
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zamdad
Posts: 1066
Joined: 4/8/2005
Status: offline
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March 18, 2006
I rarely get to post twice in a day. Another thing I rarely get to do is read through other’s blogs. I was struck by Catlover’s comments as she too works with hurting people. In a sense, we both work with the same clientele, only on the opposite end of the spectrum. Life gets busy; too busy.
Trying to keep up in such a busy world often means that other things get pushed aside. Time to spend with God, time to care for the physical body, time to nourish the mind. At times, I really enjoy the thrill of the challenges life throws at me. Only, as I get immersed in a project or the problem of another client, I come to realize that it takes time away from my family. And, if it’s taking time away from my family, it’s robbing me of time with God and God alone. If I leave time with god out of the equation, I’m no good to anyone, family, client, or any person in the community. If I’m not spending time with God, I’m not taking care of myself. If I don’t keep myself strong, I can’t be strong enough for anyone else.
Sometimes my life feels like a movie. There’s more than enough drama. Work seems to be operating on several different scripts at the same time. I’ve often thought that I could create a great soap opera out of the daily grind of the job. But, I want to keep my family out of the script. I want to be there for them and not let the drama of others shattered lives interfere with their development. At the same time, family often creates enough drama of it’s own to be yet one more script to add to the mix.
My two oldest kids are annoyed with me right now because I have invaded their online reality with some of their friends. I created a web site where I can monitor some of the stuff they are communicating with school friends. None of the other parents invade the privacy of their kids, so in my kids eyes, their dad is a freak. I told them it’s in the job description. My youngest, though, came and sat on my lap the other day and said, “Don’t worry dad, you still have one kid who thinks you’re cool.”
My middle daughter turns 12 in a few weeks. She came home the other day and said that a boy from school asked her out. My jaw hit the ground. I don’t want my little girl to grow up. I asked her what she said. She told him she would think about it. I told her that she had better tell him to ask her dad. A couple of day later I asked her if she told him to ask me. She replied, “Do you have an application or something?” I told her I do. If I give him the application, he will never pursue my daughter again as it’s a no win situation.
With my son, at 14, I struggle with how to keep him pure. He has girls calling the house for him all the time. Now, on his website, he has girls writing to him and telling him he’s a hottie. It’s really scary. These girls really put themselves out there. When I was his age, this would have been a dream come true. Times have changed and girls are different than when I was growing up. I don’t want to encourage the double standard, I want him to remain pure and save himself for when he gets married.
And my wife is struggling with trying to find her calling. She is looking for new work to supplement her lost income after losing her job. Finances place a strain on us, but I am doing what I can to be there for her and support her in finding another way to bring money into the house.
Somewhere in there, I have to find a devoted, committed time with God. When I do find time in the morning, I find that I am often too distracted. My biggest distraction? Right here at CW and the forums. I will look and see who has contributed to the latest discussion and lose my time with God. Sometimes I justify it by telling myself that I am often talking about biblical matters and that He is giving me the go ahead. I know better. I have to get my discipline back.
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You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
A. Lincoln
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RE: ZamDad's World - 3/19/2006 6:03:16 PM
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zamdad
Posts: 1066
Joined: 4/8/2005
Status: offline
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March 19, 2006
We had an interesting discussion in Sunday school this morning speaking about Christ being both fully human and fully God. As we dove into His many attributes and tried to wrap our minds around the many concepts of Christ’s humanity and deity combined, we wrestled with how to apply these concepts to our own lives.
One of them was how Christ gave himself up for us completely. Someone in the class responded that we are to give ourselves up completely for others. I agree with this concept. But, as the class sat there in silence pondering the thought, I remarked that there has to be balance. Our tendency as human beings is to take this to the extreme. All too often we take on ministry and take it beyond what God may have intended for us. We wind up putting together all kinds of programs, events, outreach ministries, etc. We burn ourselves out and cause our families to suffer because we become so focused on doing God’s work that we forget that God uses others just as equally.
The conversation turned to how we, the church, are always developing ways to attract and recruit new leaders. One of the women in the class spoke up and said that her son told her that the church always has seminars and trainings on how to be a good leader, but never do we teach how to be a good follower. In all the leadership courses I had in the military, there was a basic premise that one had to know how to follow before one could lead.
I think that we have lost our focus on developing good leaders because we have forgotten how to follow. We have forgotten how to follow because we have forgotten how to relate to one another. And our inability to relate to one another is an even greater reflection of our relationship with Christ.
Several years ago I read an article that spoke about the greatest technological invention in the 20th century was the air-conditioner. Prior to air-conditioning when it got hot outside, people would use the cool of the evening to sit on the front porch and talk. Once air-conditioning began being utilized, people withdrew from the front porch into the comfort of their homes. Air conditioning began to provide an excuse not to go out and talk with the neighbors because it was cool in the house and hot outside. Add to the invention of a machine that makes the temperature of a home more comfortable and we see the revolution of television. With TV, family members withdrew from the front porch talking with each other and the neighbors to the couch where they no longer talk with one another. What conversation does take place is often about the characters or the content of some show that each member of the household has seen.
As time has progressed bringing even more ways of communicating with each other, we seem to actually be doing less relationship in our communication. We talk about all kinds of things from the weather to the latest news stories to the characters or story line of some trendy show. We talk about work and the hassles of our hectic day. We occasionally share the joys of those times we are truly blessed.
Our conversations have become shallow and superficial. We have so many activities scheduled we can’t fit them all into our days. We all seem to have more friends and acquaintances than we can count, but yet more people than ever claim to be lonely.
In the days prior to my generation when we sat on the front porch, we spoke about what was on our heart. Now we have to pay people to listen to what’s on our heart. And, those professionals are not in our daily lives to walk along side us as we face the hurdles of the daily grind.
We have to be careful not to overextend ourselves in ministry. Jesus took time to himself to pray. We need to take time to ourselves to be alone with God. We need to take time with people. Take time with them as individuals and really listen to what’s on their heart. To ask questions of them to understand them better. Christ, being both fully God and fully human, had the divine insight to know our hearts when he me us on the path of life. We are not blessed with this type of insight. We have to work at it. It’s a work that takes time. Our culture pushes harder and harder to get more and more out of our time. We have to give our time back to God
< Message edited by zamdad -- 3/19/2006 6:08:02 PM >
_____________________________
You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
A. Lincoln
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RE: ZamDad's World - 3/22/2006 7:18:22 PM
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zamdad
Posts: 1066
Joined: 4/8/2005
Status: offline
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March 22, 2006
I met with a woman today who has been on my caseload for the past several months. I had to conduct an interview that gets deep into who she is, where she has been in life and where she is going. She is HIV positive. She told me today that she contracted the HIV when she was 13 and was raped by a friends relative.
She has a plethora of other problems in her life right now. She has spent the past 16 years abusing methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol. She has raised three children and has recently had them removed from her custody because she was failing to protect them. She has spent the past few months struggling with trying to quit the drug use she has used to hide her pain for nearly half her life.
She is seeing a counselor. She is trying to work through the past to help build a brighter future. She is finding it difficult, however, to meet people outside her normal running circles. Most of the people she hangs out with are users. She is like a dry drunk in that she is not using, but all of her associates are. She is scared of reaching out to non users because she fears being judged. She also acknowledged that she fears reaching out to people she has nothing in common with. She knows that she needs to attend church to find God and to find positive people to help her make the change she knows she needs.
In the discussion, I encouraged her to find a church. I encouraged her further to talk to a minister. She said that she had spoken to a reverend when in treatment. She said she told the pastor about how she had been raped and contracted HIV. She told me that the only thing she recalls about the conversation between her and the minister was how he told her she had to forgive the man who raped her.
It was one of those awkward moments for me. Yes, she needs to forgive him, but does forgiveness need to be the focus of her walk right now. She has been numbing the pain of this trauma with intoxicants ever since the rape occurred. She needs to get to know God and understand how much He loves her. The advice she got is not bad advice, perhaps it was bad timing. I have to wonder if we, as Christians, don’t do more than put minimal effort into searching our brains for words to give to the hurting. Sometimes hearing people tell of their wounds can inflict wounds on our souls as well.
Currently, my prayer for her is that she will find a church and that she will find some women from that church who will reach out and show her Christ. That they will disciple her leading her to a loving relationship with Christ where she can place her trust in Him and nail all of the trauma of her life onto the cross where it can be crucified. Where she can be resurrected in Christ with hope for building a new life.
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You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
A. Lincoln
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RE: ZamDad's World - 3/25/2006 9:38:30 AM
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zamdad
Posts: 1066
Joined: 4/8/2005
Status: offline
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March 25, 2006
I’ve written about my desire to get in shape in past posts. I also wrote about taking a PT test and passing without having to relay on the grandpa factor. I was saddened by how out of shape so many of the young kids are in my law enforcement class.
Since January we have been practicing defensive tactics. I have been through this before. I went through a PO academy in Alaska that taught self defense. I went through another academy when I moved to my current state and went to work in a prison. When I returned to community corrections, there was no training offered. When questions about safety arose, management simply says, get out. My question is, if I want to get out and the bad guy who wants to fight is between me and the door, how do I get to the door?
My class has brushed up my skills. Yet, these are perishable skills, if you don’t use them, you lose them. Right now, I feel confident that if I were to get into a situation where an angry probationer wanted to take me out that I could put up a good fight and subdue the person.
However, in our practical exam the other night, I was humbled. I have known for some time that my lips have gotten more exercise than any other muscle on my torso as I have spoken about the need to get into shape. I have joked to take comfort in the fact that round is a shape. As part of the practical exam, we had to fight the man in the “Red Man Suit.” As students, we teamed up two on one. There were three instructors (all of whom hold black belts in some form of martial arts) wearing these big padded suits that allow us to kick, punch, hit and strike them with batons or other instruments without beating them up. We also wrestled with these instructors four times in a row.
One student is the contact officer and the other student is the backup officer. We are told, “Go get him.” I was the contact officer in the first scenario. I approached the subject and asked him to accompany us. He responded that he didn’t do anything and asked why we wanted to talk. I knew he was going to punch, so I kept my hands in a ready position. He kept telling me he didn’t want to come with me so I reached for his arm. Bam! He sucker punched me in the nose (we were wearing padded helmets with cages). The punch came out of nowhere. The punch angered me more than anything. My head snapped back and as it came back to front I lunged at him and grabbed for whatever I could get to wrestle him down. We got him down quickly and subdued him. The second round went smooth, but took a little longer to get the bad guy restrained.
The third round sucked the life out of me. The bad guy took a swing at me and we began to wrestle. My partner came in from the other side and we took the bad guy down to his knees. He had hold of my leg and I could not get his arm off my leg. I applied pressure points to his neck and his jaw. He only seemed to grab tighter. Then I saw another “Red Man” run towards us and jump onto my partner’s back. As I saw my partner being pulled from the struggle, the bad guy pulled my leg underneath me and flipped me onto my back. He jumped on top of me and had me pinned. I thrust my knee into his groin to no avail as the padding protected him from injury. I tried to push my body to flip him off me. I had no strength left. All is could do was get my hands on his neck. I thought about strangling him, but this was a training scenario and I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Finally, the instructor told another student to get in and help. They subdued the other bad guy and then jumped on my bad guy and subdued him.
I got up knowing I had one more round to fight. Every muscle in my upper torso was fatigued beyond the limit. Somehow I managed to get through the last round. I don’t remember much of the fight other than we got him down and cuffed. But, in speaking with the kids in the class afterward, I told them that I had learned a valuable lesson. I really need to get off my butt and quit just saying it. I need to stay in shape. If that fight had been on the street, I would have been killed. It’s amazing how quickly our bodies get fatigued in a fight. If I had taken my physical fitness more serious before that night, I would have still been fatigued, but I would have had a little more endurance.
I hate my treadmill. But, this week, we’re going to learn to love each other.
_____________________________
You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
A. Lincoln
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RE: ZamDad's World - 4/2/2006 8:08:43 PM
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zamdad
Posts: 1066
Joined: 4/8/2005
Status: offline
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April 2, 2006
I woke up early this morning. My clock said 7:09 and I knew that was not right. The clock I can see when I wake up in the morning is always set fast. It’s supposed to encourage me to get going, make me think I am late. But, if I set it, is there really a psychological thing that makes me think I’m late?
I got home late last night. I got a call at 5:30 offering me free tickets to a Ken Davis comedy show that started at 7:00 in a town 40 miles away. My youngest child was sick so my wife was not wanting to go. My son was not interested in going and my middle child said she was not interested either. I began making some calls to see if anyone was interested in going at the last minute. After several tries with the telephone, I finally tracked down my pastor in his office, studying for the sermon. He had wanted to go and jumped at the chance to see Ken Davis.
I had to be at the church at 8:30 this morning as I was running multimedia for worship. When I got home last night, everyone was asleep. I saw that the clock in the living room had been changed. The clock on the stove had been changed as had the clock in the bathroom. The only one I was not certain about was the clock in my bedroom with the big red numbers. Since I was not the one to make any adjustments, I had no idea if it had been reset or if it was just set ahead randomly.
At 7:09 I rolled over in bed and was just beginning to become awake. I opened my eyes and saw sunlight. I thought about what I had to do. “Shoot, did the clock get changed? What time is it really? I really don’t want to get out of bed yet.” But, the dogs saw the whites of my eyes. I think they are awake well before sunup and ready to go outside, sniff, mark territory, sniff some more, and come back inside to sleep for another 14 hours. When they saw my eyes crack open, they let me know that that they knew I was awake and it was time to go outside. “Alright, I’m getting up, let’s go.” As I headed to the front door I could see the clock on the stove. It was 6:40. I wanted to go back to bed.
Knowing that going back to bed would result in me becoming like my dogs and sleeping the day away, I made my coffee and began to prepare for the day. I also turned on Good Morning America. Over the past few weeks I have been engaged in some conversations with our pastoral staff and some other friends about the hectic paces of our lives and the need to slow down and be intentional in our relationships with one another. Then this story comes on GMA about the concierge business. How corporations are using these businesses to pay others to do things like pick up dry cleaning, walk the dog, pick up the kids, go shopping, for their employees. It’s so the employees won’t have to take time away from work and lose productivity.
In some ways it seems like a good idea. Work gets busy. There are times I could use someone like that during the course of my busy day. Yet, I am troubled by this. It seems we are cramming too many things into our already busy lives that we don’t have the time to love one another as Christ loved us. Our concern over productivity means our hearts are chasing the almighty dollar while the people our money is intended to serve become less and less important. This piece on GMA only serves to prove to me that money really is a cruel master and that we sacrifice our families, friends, and loved ones to carve out more time to gain more money.
All too often it seems as if ministry becomes just as busy. While the pursuit of ministry is not supposed to be the dollar, where the harvest of souls is plenty and the workers are few, our pastors and leaders are burning the candle at both ends trying to treat the wounded of the cultural battle over our time. I don’t see any end to it until we make the personal decision to pull off the freeway of life, slow down and concentrate on some purposeful, intentional deep, intimate relationships with a few people so that our influence, over time, will expand to more people.
_____________________________
You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
A. Lincoln
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