This will be a challenge to write……..
It is now 7 months later since I came back to this blog post idea and still have not written the blog. I am wondering, is this being insensitive? Is it something I should leave alone or is there value in writing? I think it will be a work in progress for a while.
I’ll start with the characters, but not use their real names.
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#1- “Skater” was a student in the 7th grade(?) Sunday School class I was teaching. I was preparing a lesson for them and ran across the surprising statistic that 1 out of 6 people end up in jail. I had 6 kids in the class that day. I shared with them that likely, one of them would end up in prison. I visited one of the kids the day after his 21st birthday in his prison cell. It was also the day after he accidentally shot and killed someone.
#2 – “Disturbed” was one of the youth in the high school youth group we were teachers in. He was very friendly and treated us respectfully. One or both of his parents were drug and alcohol abusers. My pastor and I visited his apartment to intercede on his behalf one time. A friend even allowed him to move in and live with his family. Later, he made headlines participating in a murder which left the victim mutilated and burned.
#3 – “Silence” was a lab assistant in school. He has since been executed by the state of Texas. I figure it safe to blog about him. He was a great guy. I really enjoyed his quirky behavior and odd sense of humor. Two bad the robbery he planned went bad. That’s how the newspaper wrote up the account.
I wonder about some of the other people in my past. I can imagine some of them could have just as easily become a murderer given the right set of circumstances that would push them over the edge. This sounds a bit like “The Twilight Zone”.
God Spots 