April 26th, 2010

The delay in the publication of the book about my brother is due largely to my own ambivalence . I have three drafts written, but can’t decide which version to use in the final submission. Last week I heard from a reader who noted that they enjoyed reading the daily journals on my site about Rick because the feelings are raw and unedited. I guess there will be more of that coming because I will be traveling to see my brother this week. Going through the visitation process at a federal prison is a lesson in humility. All around you are broken, withdrawn family members waiting to get in to see their loved one. Regardless of what anyone thinks of the prisoner they are going to see, watching an elderly couple or a four year-old child, assume the position to get patted down is heartbreaking. You can’t look upon that scene and not be moved. One of the threatening emails I received a few weeks ago described how disgusting I was because I had sympathy for my brother, my parents – anyone other than victims. They described how I should have “my eyes cut out” and then be “left to bleed to death through my eye sockets.” I believe our failure to show love to those who are hurting puts us in league with the devil. When you are in a lobby of a federal prison you are surrounded by hurting people. You never leave a place like that unchanged. Sometimes I think the final submission of the book should focus on how God can use events such as these for his good. Others times I think the book the should go into production is a scathing expose about everything that’s happened in the last six years. Then there are those times I thing I should send my publisher a copy of the journal I’ve been keeping. I’m still not clear what the book should ultimately be. I only know it should be. I do know that the proceeds from the sale of the material (what ever form that takes) are going to go to the Prison Fellowship Ministry. While wrestling with that decision I’ll be working on Chapter 9 of the Elizabeth Custer book. I’ll be writing about the Battle of the Little Big Horn and Elizabeth’s reaction to the news that her husband had been killed. On this day in the Old West in 1895 – the outlaw Black Jack Will Christian and his brother Bob killed Deputy Sheriff Will Turner during an arrest attempt. They were soon arrested by other lawmen but shot their way out of jail in Oklahoma City on June 30.