Over at Home On The Range, Brigid dispenses some hard-learned wisdom about personal security and how to do your best to make sure you’ve got it.
I can understand and sympathize with the incident she reports that brought the article to mind:
Someone I testified against, just got out of prison. Some threats were made. I’ll be sitting careful, watchful, for the next few days. I’m used to it, but we all should be thinking along these lines. The world is changing, and not for the better.
Truer words were never spoken. As a prison chaplain, I had a similar problem, not once, but many times. (You’d be amazed how many convicts try to persuade the chaplain to smuggle messages and/or drugs and/or other contraband in and out of prison, and get all hot under the collar when he won’t oblige. One’s accused of being ‘unfeeling’, ‘uncaring’ and ‘un-Christ-like’ for one’s pains. My answer was usually to reply, “Guilty as charged,” while escorting the reluctant inmate to the Lieutenant’s Office to face disciplinary action. For some unaccountable reason, this didn’t seem to inspire greater respect for my office among the inmates concerned . . . )
Go read. You won’t be sorry.
Peter