VOLUME JULY 2001 b

 

July 12, 2001

 

UPDATES:  STEWART AND MICHAEL

 

     The Lord has been once again teaching me to have patience and wait upon Him.  In many cases and situations, even though the Lord heard my prayers, time is needed for the hearts and minds of other people to be worked on by Him.

 

     This is especially true, I believe, in cases where the person I might be praying for at a given time is heavily bound by Satan and needs a big deliverance.  Or this person is, for whatever reasons, “very far from the Lord.”

 

     So at this time I want to give some updates on two men I wrote about in previous journal entries this year.  Stewart (“Stu”), whom I talked about in my February 16^th journal entry, left prison.  His time was up.  He was not paroled but instead received a “Conditional Release”.  This means he has basically done all the time he was legally required to do in prison.  Now he’s back on the streets.

 

     I got to share the gospel with Stewart, but he thought that he himself was a “god.”  I always showed him kindness, however, and listened to him talk about his life situation.  Stewart has AIDS.  The last time I had seen him as I mention in my February journal, he started to look noticeably sick, losing weight and getting that sunken, hollow look that I see so often in those who are suffering with this virus.

 

     Well now he’s out of prison. He doesn’t have much of a family out there.  So I assume he went the way of most of these men, that is, being released to a New York City shelter.  If they do not have a home to go to, and many of them do not, then a shelter is all there is.

 

     My prayer for Stewart is that he comes in contact with some loving Christians who have a “street ministry” or an outreach to the homeless.  Maybe he will finally open his heart to Jesus Christ.

 

     And as for Michael, who I wrote about the last time in my journal for March 22^nd, he made it to the chapel on Sunday mornings a few times during the past several months. 

 

     I have seen him in the hallways, and I always greet him and talk to Michael when I can.  But he’s very schizophrenic.  For the past month or so, Mike has gone back to being reclusive.  He purposely tries to violate some of the prison rules so that he gets “written up” for a disciplinary infraction of some kind.

 

     This is all part of Michael’s self-destructive ways.  When life gets to stressful or painful for him, he uses this means to shut himself off from people, both from the inmates and the staff.

 

     Because of a “write up” for breaking some rules, Michael will get confined to his cell for punishment.  Depending on what kind of rules were broken, this will determine how long he stays confined. 

 

     Usually Mike will get fifteen to thirty days of cell confinement, plus the loss of all privileges such as being able to go to the recreation yard or watching TV in the dayroom area.

 

     And instead of cell confinement making Michael upset, the effect it usually has on other prisoners who get punished for breaking the rules, Michael loves the isolation.

 

     This is not good or healthy.  But after all his years in prison, this is the main way he has learned for avoiding stress.

 

      I’m just going to continue to be hopeful and patient that one day change will come for Mike.  I know Jesus Christ truly loves this man.

 

David Berkowitz

 

 

July 19, 2001

 

GOD IS MY ROCK

 

But the Lord God is my defense; and my God is the rock of my refuge.

 

Psalm 94:22

 

     Today I got up early this morning and began to thank the Lord for all His help in my behalf and for all His blessings.  I asked Him for renewal of energy, both spiritual and physical, that I may continue to serve Him and be a blessing to others even in this place.

 

     For the past two weeks my journal entries have been sparse.  But my time is never wasted.  And while it is often so easy to get discouraged in prison, this past week the Lord has been urging me to encourage and to remind the brothers in here that their lives are of “great value” to God.

 

     No matter how much opposition may come my way—and there is plenty of it---the Bible assures that God truly loves me, and He has forgiven me.  Now Christ wants to use me and my fellow Christian prisoners for His glory.     He wants to prosper us spiritually and pull His children away from our “old lives” of criminal activities and sins of all kinds.  It is a new beginning for us, even from right now.

 

     I believe, too, that when god looks upon those in a correctional facility, He does not see us as convicts and felons.  I do not believe He sees the steel bars and concrete walls.  Instead He searches out those who hearts want to know Him and who long for His fellowship.

 

     God is looking at us from the side of  hope and redemption.  Christ sees me and my brothers as men He can use to accomplish good.  He sees us as winners and not as failures.  And God is daily conforming us into the image of His Son.  The Lord truly is my Rock and my stability.  He is my spiritual, mental and emotional helper.  God is also my ever-faithful Defender.  Yes, He is!

 

David Berkowitz

 

 

July 20, 2001

 

CLOSE TO DEATH

 

     I was sitting at a table in the recreation area earlier this evening talking with three other men who, like myself, became Christians sometime during our stay in prison.

 

     While each of our crimes and criminal cases are different, there was a unanimous consensus among us that, had we still been out in the “streets”, that more than likely all of us would have died.

 

     Going over each of our lives—but not going into specific details about our cases- we admitted that for each of us, we were out of control.  We had been living reckless lives, taking  crazy chances and daring death to claim us.

 

     We all agreed that, back then, each of us could not get out of the mental and physical bondages we were in.  On the “outside” our lives were to fast paced and pressured.  We seemed to be on our own individual roller coasters with no way to stop them.

 

     You see, prison provides lots of time for people to reflect.  And I have had this same discussion with so many other inmates over the years.  Some were drug addicts of alcoholics.  Their lives were coming apart and they were in self-destructive cycles in which there seemed to be no way out.

 

     While none of us want to be here, in spite of our prison sentences and present confinement, we realize that ultimately by getting arrested God actually saved our lives.  Because the Lord loved us even when we were in rebellion towards Him He had to use extreme measures to save fools form their own folly.  And He definitely saved a “fool” like me!  Amen!”

 

 David Berkowitz   

 

 

July 21 2001

 

$$BIG MONEY$$

 

     Bart  (aka “$$Big Money$$) is a thirty-one year old black man who’s doing a “15-years to life” prison sentence for the crime of “Murder in the Second Degree.”  He hails from Brooklyn, officially “Kings County”, one of New York City’s five boroughs.

 

     It was his partner, Bart insists, that whacked a drug dealer “several times in the head” with a baseball bat, and he says he was “just there.”  But Bart did not tell me that he and his partner were definitely trying to rob their victim.  He’s been in prison for about seven years already.

 

     So today I was finally getting to spend a little time with Bart.  We’ve made small talk in the past.  Now, however, I got the opportunity to sit on top of one of the picnic table, talk, and try to get to know him better.

 

     Bart never finished high school.   He dropped out in the 10^th grade.  He left school with probably what is a 5^th or 6^th grade reading level, and opted for the ‘streets’ instead of an eight hour a day job.

 

     “Big Money”  (as all his friends know him by) told me that he never went to a football or baseball game.  He never attended a wedding.  He never went to the zoo and never remembers ever leaving the boundaries of New York City to go on a vacation of any kind.  He’s never seen mountains up close.

 

     Bart was never a homeless person, yet he was almost never home.  His mother always had her door open for him, but he was used to “running wild” and could not stand living with a handful of brothers and sisters in such a cramped place.  His mom, being a single parent with a brood of kids to raise on welfare, could never control him.   Her apartment was for Bart a “crash pad” and a place to get a hot meal when his stomach was empty.    It was a little place of refuge and respite from the fast moving life of the streets.

 

     He survived, he said, by selling small quantities of drugs (mostly marijuana) to other people in his neighborhood.  He was no big time operator.  He said he would rob other drug dealers.  He would “steal whatever he could” and would break into parked cars “just once in a while”.

 

     Bart never owned a pet.  He’s never watched a National Geographic program on TV (until he came to prison).  He’s never spent any time from what he recalls, ever watching a squirrel scamper up a tree or a bird flying overhead, even though he’s spent much of his life hanging out in City parks and playgrounds.

 

     Bart seems to have no concept of nature or of any kind of life outside of his small world of hustling, surviving, and living in the “Projects”.

 

     In reality, Bart has never lived.  And it’s ironic, too, that the man who nicknamed himself “Big Money” never had much of it,

 

     He’s never made much money stealing things or in sticking people up.  His “takes” were always small, although he told me that he thought he was a pretty good criminal”.  And his dreams of being wealthy, successful and having “lots of ladies” have never been realized, although he somehow has not come to realize this truth himself.

 

     Furthermore, Bart never held a legitimate job.  He’s never cashed a check (at least not legally).  He’s never owned a car or rented his own apartment.   Bart’s

never had a steady girl-friend that he felt he was truly in love with, but told me he “shacked up” with a number of women and slept with them.  And he’s never raised a kid, but says he may have gotten a couple of those women pregnant.

 

     Bart’s never visited the Museum of Natural History or the Statue of Liberty.  He’s never gone to the top of the Empire State Building.  And he’s never gone to the circus; has never played Little League baseball. 

 

     Then when discussing his home life, Bart candidly told me that he has no memory of ever meeting with or speaking to his dad.  His mother told him that his dad was around for “a little while” after Bart was born, but he got into trouble in Michigan and ended up doing “big time” in that state for “armed robbery”.

 

     At some point, remembers Bart, a distant cousin from his neighborhood once told him that his dad did eventually get out of prison, but that he never made it back to New York City.  A few years after his release, Bart was told, his dad died in some big city.  He thinks it was Detroit or maybe Chicago.

 

     In actuality, Bart never had a “normal” American childhood.  “Big Money” spent virtually his whole life  (before coming to prison) living in and around a small one square mile of territory in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn.  He says he seldom ventured out of this area except to take the subway teo Coney Island during the summer months. Going along with a few friends “in search of people to rob”.

 

     But for me, being a Christian and wanting to steer our conversation towards spiritual issues, I asked Bart what did he feel was his purpose in life, and if he had a vision of something bigger than just trying to survive in the streets and in prison.

 

     Bart assured me that when he gets out he hopes to find himself a good job.  Yet he’s never held a legitimate job in his life. He says he hopes to leave prison with High School Equivalency diploma.  Yet he’s been in the same Pre-GED class for the past three years without making any progress and advancing to the next level.

 

     He also hopes to one day get married and raise kids.  He wants to have a nice home and a few cars.  Yet he has no money and he only lives off the few dollars he makes per week his prison wages for going to class five days per week in the mornings, then sweeping and mopping the hallways in the afternoons.

 

     Between both jobs, Bart told me, he makes about 85 cents per day or $4.25 per week. There is no overtime and no paid vacations for Bart.

 

     I asked him if he ever wanted to go to the chapel services with me.  He said he went a few times out of curiosity, but he was not interested at this time.  I asked him if he would like a Gideon’s New Testament to keep, as we get boxes of these as donations.  He declined a Bible telling me he only reads newspapers and magazines.

 

     Oh, well, it was really an answer to prayer to talk with Bart.  I’ll be the first to say that, in spite of his criminal history, he is not a bad person.  Surviving in the streets is all he’s ever known. And as for his dreams of one day having a better life, they’re just dreams.  Will they ever come true?   Probably never.

 

David Berkowitz