Escape from Alcatraz!

 

 

One of the drawbacks of constant air travel is that when you're sequestered in a plane for over 5 hours with folks hacking and coughing it's hard not to catch something.  This week while in the great State of California, a terrible bug hitched a ride to my Napa Valley hotel room and hit me with everything it had.  However, since I'm a big believer of eating my medicine (fresh fruits, vegetables, and such), I was able to beat that bug into submission.

  This morning when I opened my eyes in my San Francisco hotel room I simply knew that I had to go running to make-up for my downtime.  Therefore, I laced up my running shoes, made a right onto Jones street, ran down to Jefferson Street (Fisherman’s Wharf), and kept gettin’ it in.  After navigating construction, cars, and jacked-up sidewalks, I discovered a wonderful path that ran along the water and gave me an incredible view of Alcatraz.  With every stride I thought about the lives that were lost there and the lives that were lost attempting to escape.  That’s when it hit me…many of us are also living in our own little self-imposed “Alcatraz” with no hope of escape, parole, or even conjugal visits from four bad sisters named Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace.  These prisons don’t have bars, cells, COs (correctional officers), or even big Green Mile looking dudes trying to make us their girlfriends. However, they do have dank and dimly lit prison cells of doubt & insecurity, bars of debt & shame, and bullies of blame.

Back on January 1^st many of us made “resolutions” not to bring old lifestyles and negative ways of thinking into the New Year. I encourage you to continue to swim to the shores of new beginnings as you flee your “Rock.”  However, please know that a free man will never truly be free when he holds on to a prison mentality.

 

About the Author of "Body, Mind & Spirit: The Awakening": James Hackley is an author, inspirational speaker, and a philanthropist who earned a B.S. degree in Physics from Longwood College and an M.S. degree in Engineering from the University of Virginia.  He's the founder of Omega Consulting Enterprises, chaplain of a local chapter of Omega Psi Phi fraternity, and faithfully attends Holy & Whole Life Changing Ministries International in Lansdowne, Va. His latest book, Body, Mind & Spirit: The Awakening can be purchased by visiting him at www.jameshackley.com , www.Amazon.com, and http://www.barnesandnoble.com.