DennisMansfield.com

The Prodigal Older Brother - me.

Many people are familiar with sayings that come from "somewhere"...not sure where, but it sure sounds like "common sense", somehow...

And often those sayings come from the Bible.

Really?    Yep.

And one of the "sayings" is the story of the "prodigal son".  Many of us use that saying, often not knowing, fully knowing, what it means. Many believe that the story involves a good Dad and a bad son.

We often forget that there is a third party in the story...the older son. The too-proud son. The older son/brother whose life was well-lived, was so angry at both the Dad and the younger, prodigal son/brother for the grace extended to a hurting soul in need of healing. He was "clean". His brother was "dirty".

 

Play it on the left or Download

It is a painfully real presentation about my own anger and...hypocrisy. Instead of seeing myself as the good Dad who was awaiting his bad prodigal son...I finally saw myself as the prideful older brother.

I also interviewed 3 New Hope folks to show the Past, Present and Future. Theirs is a combined story of transitional houses, ex-addicts and new life. 

Be of good cheer.

Den

Prisons and State Budgets – How Far Can the Money Go?

One of the most respected think tanks in America has weighed in on prisons, budgets along with the staffed, safe and sober house issue. Fascinating piece, and you know where I stand. Take time to read and then respond, if you would. At what point do you think our current path deserves a 2^nd or 3^rd look?

Right from their about section – "The Pew Charitable Trusts is driven by the power of knowledge to solve today's most challenging problems.  Pew applies a rigorous, analytical approach to improve public policy, inform the public and stimulate civic life."

Now I try to walk with a higher power than knowledge -> Veritas vos liberabit

Please read the whole article and Conicio Mihi Ossis

>Den

Merry Christmas from New Hope Community Health - Intensive Outpatient Program treatment, if you know of a need.

Holidays, like Christmas and New Year's Eve, are often some of the most difficult times of the year for people struggling with substance abuse addictions. You may know of someone who is addicted to drugs or alcohol, and needs help as the rest of us prepare to enjoy Christmas and New Year's Eve in sobriety and sanity. Please be encouraged...and encourage them, too.

We'd be honored to have you take a look at what's been happening at the company I was honored to found over 2+ years ago.

“As the first graduate of the Cognitive Self Change program through New Hope. I have to say it’s awesome. I actually think before I do things any more … it’s automatic now. I’m making right decisions. And I’ve come so far in this last two years; it’s amazing. I never thought it would be possible.”

– "Dan" - First graduate, used by permission.

 

New Hope Community Health is a faith-based organization of Christian believers and professionals whose goal is to re-establish people through training and guidance, into being spiritually, mentally, emotionally, financially and socially productive members of their community.

 

“As a non-Christian I am in a faith-based home. And the reason it is unique is because nobody has condemned me for my beliefs. Nobody has judged me and nobody has shunned me. In fact, they have impacted me and impacted my life more than I have ever imagined … I have been feeling a Power greater than myself of love and compassion, and the people around me, they honestly care.”

– “Big D”, used by permission.

 

Three things are vital when looking to re-integrate a life back into society: a stable residence, employment, and education. Transitional houses are key to success. With our “staffed, safe and sober” homes we are able to give people a fresh start in a new neighborhood, away from the wrong crowd. Houses are shared by tenants. No sex offenders. No violent offenders. Just men and women who have made mistakes and now look to make a positive change.

 

--------------------------------------

Looking to Invest?

Each New Hope Transitional home provides both social and economic gains for the investor/owner. If you are looking to invest in a company, check us out. The benefits will create a great return on your investment. At New Hope we are open to considering lease options from you for the houses we operate. Please contact us if your interested in optioning/leasing a piece of real estate.

--------------------------------------

On a personal note ~

On the New Hope website, you'll find the above comments and other quotes. Here's a very personal one from me:

“I went in and saw the cell where my son had spent a year of his life … and I realized everybody there had a father; everybody had a mother... and they needed to return to their family sober and healthy.” 

Just thought you might have an interest in seeing how we have helped so many people over these last few years....starting in our own homes and moving outward.

 

If you know of someone who is stuck in the world of addiction, please forward them my email address dennism (@) newhope7 (dot) net   (don't we all wish spammers would go away and not make me type funny things?) along with this blog's link OR have them call me at 208-672-9200.

 

Blessings during Christmas and New Years,

Den

State agencies' budget cuts

The top story of today is how Governor Otter is attempting to solve the budget probelms that he's facing, caused by a short fall of tax money into the state.

The lead agency featured in the story is the Department of Corrections. We are a fortunate state to have both Otter and IDOC Director Brent Reinke on duty to help solve these crushing effects on the lives of people throughout the state. They are problem solvers.

Amid the rubble of this particular financial crushing is a small but true fact: organizations like New Hope Community Health and other fine firms that deal with ex-inmate aftercare, stand ready to take on more incarcerated individuals...relieving a portion of the budget pressure and helping the individuals who need positive direction and change, as they reenter society. Every dollar is precious to the peoplewho pay taxes AND to the people who are charged with spending those tax dollars.

Currently New Hope houses 114 men and women and we have many others taking classes and receiving case management and treatment from our staff. If given the green light by tall of he communities, the state and the administration we, and others, stand ready to help even more people.

We are in our third year of helping with this problem.

It looks like this may well be the time for all of us to come together to help solve the financial crisis within Idaho.

Den

DUIs and addictions for "someone else"?

The Idaho Statesman has done the community a great favor over the last two days in its recent reporting.

It has held a foggy mirror to the faces of the gin-soaked soccer moms and rather well-lubicated hi-tech cubicle-dweller dads. It has called the game on the many, many alcoholics in our community who "don't gots no problem, ociffer, with drinkin' and drivin'..."

While so many readers shake their heads and turn the newspaper pages and say out oud over their morning coffee..." Hey, hon, did you read the story on those pathetic drunks with the 19 DUIs? My God, lock 'em up and get rid of 'em..." pretending that their own privately hidden drunken moments are a bit "above" the rest. Hmm...

What happens if one of them is in your family? What happens if you are one of the reported 2500+ Idahoans who have 2-3 multiple DUIs under your own belt?

People with substance abuse probelms have a disease. Locking up people with diseases makes no sense. Locking them up for decades seems fully worthless and could be the closest thing we have to populating modern day leper colonies. It's all in one place, effective...and somehow hopeless.

I have seen with my own eyes the success of being a faith-based treatment provider and its amazing impact on addicts who want to be sober. Addicts? Not alcoholics? C'mon...both are substance abusers and both need sobriety.

Alcohol is just the socially acceptable "drug of choice".

How are we to cope with the very determined minority of substance abusers who refuse to seek help and will not remain sober? Society owes it to itself to incarcerate them...and give them hope on the inside of prison through Prison Fellowship and other fine groups like AA, NA and CA.

But WAY beyond that, our culture MUST respond to those who are still among us at work or at the mall or at the movie theaters and restaraunts - who seek help with a deep understanding that they are sick...with a disease...and CAN be helped with In-patient Programs and Out-patient Programs.

That is why New Hope Community Health and many other fine organizations opened our collective doors. All of us offer classes, treatment programs and some of us offer housing to provide help to the helpless and hope to the recovering addict.

Addiction is addiction, whether it comes via a hash pipe or a bartender's tip.

How good of the Idaho Statesman to print the stories that they did.

Den

New Hope....Community

Over the last couple of weeks I've had the chance to re-meet many of the young men and women with whom I first came in contact almost 9 months ago (or longer).

They are the clients of New Hope...the folks working on their sobriety...and succeeding...in community.

It's been amazing. In some cases from 9 moths ago+, I initially met men and women who were gaunt and tired and hopeless...ex-addicts who just wanted a place away from prison that was safe and sober.

At New Hope Community Health that's what we were designed to provide...and after having celebrated our second birthday earlier this month, it looks like we're doing just that....or better yet, THEY are succeeding.

Here's a quote from a client, Bob, (not his real name): " If you want to recover successfully and you want a place to go where you feel like you're family. Not only do they care about you but they love you like family. They don't judge you and they don't care about your past. They love me as Jesus does..."

Bob came to us for a Bible study a year and a half ago and then he eventually went to court and was sentenced. " Even when I was locked up, I knew I had somewhere I could go when I got out... that had people who cared about my recovery...as much as I do."

Bob took a minute to address me personally while I was posting this blog: " Not only do you (Den) love me as a child of God, but you have treated me as a brother of your own. If I mess up, you'll let me know...and if I do good you let me know, too. You're like the bald Dad I never had...Ha!"

Hey, what a chump....Bob must have missed my new manly Sean Connery beard...tee hee
Den

BSU Christian Week - Separation of Church and State? How 'bout a separation of God and fate?

Between Heaven and Hell

A Reader’s Theater

Presented by

The Ex-Inmate Theater

Today, Sept. 24^th  7:00-9:00 p.m.

BSU Special Events Center

On November 22, 1963 J.F. Kennedy was killed.  It was also the day C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley died.  Come listen to some of the greatest voices of the last century discuss questions we have all considered in the darkest recesses of our minds.

 

A Free Event

Sponsored By:

CampusROAR

Idaho's citizens may have a Texas-size prison problem...

(This next week marks the completion of two full years of operation for a business I founded that provides housing and treatment for ex-addicts, who most often are also ex-inmates. My blog posting today is not an official statement by our company. Instead it's just a personal reflection and possible recommendation by me.)

During these last two years the issue of staffed, safe and sober houses came to the forefront of Idahoan's concerns, as it should have. The aftercare treatment of ex-addicts (who, in MANY cases, are ex-inmates) was examined in a series of television/radio news stories and newspaper articles....almost ad nauseum to some folks, I'd bet. Sides were unfortunately chosen by default on an issue that is really ALL of our concern: prisoners being released back into society; afterall over 97% of all prisoners will be returned to society...it's just a matter of when and where. Eventually, this past year some short term mini-solutions were entered into by all sides; long term big-scale solutions, as well as litigation, remain in limbo at this writing.

 

However, Governor Butch Otter's Administration has shown itself to be one of the most forward thinking admins in America on this issue. He and his staff are commited to ensuring that Idahoans DO NOT bear the huge burden of billions of dollars for new prisons. He's to be commended for that. As Director Reinke has stated repeatedly: "We cannot build our way out of this problem." The Director is absolutely right.

Then, we have the Idaho House. The Speaker of the House, Rep Denney, often works side by side with the Governor's administration at pursuing visionary, out-of-the-box, non building-related spending solutions to overcrowding. The Pro-Tem of the Senate, Sen. Geddes, echoes that same concern.

 

So where's the problem? Why are we shipping inmates to states like Texas? Do we HAVE to do that? (Here's where the Progressive Conservative perspective kicks in...). My call is that a radical solution MUST come from the public opinion among Idahoans. We know that public opinion drives public policy...and we know that many, many Idaho Legislators live and breathe by the the subsequent shock-therapy that accompanies an awakend Idaho electorate.

 

If Idaho citizens want to lead the US in a forward thinking public policy to limit or eliminate overcrowding in prisons, then it is fully within our capabilities to do so.

My prison after-care model is only one attempt at solving this probelm. There may be many others that are, in fact, a better method. If so, then let's get on with it! The key is that no sons or daughters of Idaho should be sent to other states for "warehousing"...and in some cases, death. (See story below by Andrea Jackson).

 

With 1 out of every 100 Americans in jail or prison right now and by some estimates, 1 out of every 30+ adult Idahoans incarcerated,....we all have both a stake in the solution and, most probably, a family member or friend who is/was behind bars.

That's what I've learned in these past two years.

 

So, what's your pleasure, Idaho?

Den

------------------------

Families feel loss as out-of-state prison population grows

By Andrea Jackson
Times-News writer

Pam Drashner visited her husband every weekend in prison, until she was turned away one day because he wasn't there. He had been quietly transferred from Boise to a private prison in Sayre, Okla.

She never saw him again.

In July, she went to the Post Office to pick up his ashes, mailed home in a box. He died of a traumatic brain injury in Oklahoma, allegedly assaulted by another inmate.

David Drashner was one of hundreds of male inmates Idaho authorities have sent to private prisons in other states. About 10 percent of Idaho's inmates are now out-of-state.

The New Reformers: Progressive Conservatives & Gov. Sarah Palin

Churchill's adage that in politics, young men are liberals and old men are conservatives makes for a good plausible thought...but not a true fact. Regardless of Churchill's enduring observation of age (and obvious omission of gender), something else SEEMS to coalesce political types together, rather than age. But what is it? Maybe, a better take on those interested in getting people elected could be that politics is like high school.

Think about it: some are in the "in" crowd and others are simply crowding in - awkward outsiders with their noses pressed against the plate glass, "feeling-about" for their identity....(maybe feeling like they are looking for their lockers...)

The underlying theme of this metaphor is that whether folks are conservative or liberal, their ideology (dare I say neo-religion?) demands that they capture ground and keep it. Once "in", never again to be outside looking in.  But does that work?

In a sense, I suppose I am a "recovering high school student", finally loosening the bonds of attachments that created in me a "mini-adult" status so many years ago, watching too many political movies and TV Oval Office shows and trying to act and pose like actors who act and pose like candidates...At 52 years of age, it's about time to acknowledge that I've finally graduated...tee hee.

I see it in all levels of the Democratic Party and the GOP. "Them that's gots, keeps..." Could be the mantra, I suppose. For the purpose of this posting, allow me to center in on the GOP, as it is my affiliation. For the purpose of this posting I site Sarah Palin as someone who got into politics to do something and will get out. For goodnes sakes, she spent years in her PTA and on her local town council...not quite CareerBuilder.com stuff.

I'd argue hers is the safer plan for the nation to enjoy, than the perpetual high school student councils elections of Biden, Kempthorne, Kennedy(s), Craig and Nixon.

I've been around the GOP for 32 years, run for office, lost and run again. With each passing year, I move further and further away from the goofiness of political in-fighting and power plays...and towards reform, progressive conservative reform. Please do not consider me bragging, but rather, illustrating the path of a progressive conservative - a reformer, encouraging others to reform their lives, cities and government like Sarah Palin has done.

• Get in and get out. I supported the Term Limits reform in Idaho. When the legislature overturned the will of the people, I led the actions that put the Referendum into place - forcing the issue back on the ballot for a final vote by the people.
• Turn them in, get them out. Reform demands that a person do what's right. I "turned in" my then-boss, a CA legislator (Assemblywoman Doris Allen), who was operating unethically.
• Run for office, even if it looks like political suicide. In 2000 I ran for US Congress against Butch Otter. People told me I was crazy. Though a good friend and a sitting Lt. Governor, Butch represented years of "in" crowd GOP back-slappers. No reform. No vision. In a field of 8, I came in 2nd to Butch. My race for State Senate was not too dissimilar.
• Stand up, speak out. Even if your friends  don't agree. Reform doesn't mean winning the first time, but it can happen. Don Paradis was on death row. I didn't see him as guilty and led the effort to have his case reviewed. Governor Batt amended his sentence and Don is a free man today.
• Change the world. We opened New Hope Community Health to help secure sobriety housing and classes for ex-addicts/ex-inmates. Godly, Christian, Republican neighbors opposed me. Hmmm...Reform means change. Change is painful. Changing the world is REALLY painful.

Progressive conservativism simply means well thought-out reform, regardless of personal costs; all accomplished from a traditional reference point. Getting rid of personality-driven public policy is key to it. Teddy Roosevelt did it 100 years ago. Sarah Palin is being called on to do it this centrury. My call is that a progressive conservative movement will rise within the GOP  - a movement of home makers, outsiders, part-timers and reformers.

After all, remember that the term status quo means "he/she who stays".....

Den

What does "it" matter? - 50,000 page views later

Get this, on September 2nd of 2006 we launched this blog with the following text:

What is "it"? There have been a lot of "its" in the past and many quotes like "it's the economy stupid" and many others. For this website the "it" for now is an attempt in fusing politics, culture, business, personality, religion, you and me.

No longer will there be a perceived hidden agenda - you'll get the straight scoop right here. There has never been a hidden agenda in my life; I like to lay myself right out there. Along with some friends there is a plan to bring many thoughts and plans to help businesses succeed, to help people reach their true potential and see a fusion of different perspectives become a stronger entity.

You'll see video, documents to download, links to other sites and people that speak into this dream - hang on & hope you like "it"!

Well....it's been 23 months since that first post (and 50,000 pageviews later as well - we hit that today.)


I'm sure that's not a big deal for some folks, but on this blog, it's fun to see us tip the scales at 50,000. ( I think that's more than the total number of election votes I've ever received - tee hee)


We've had a bunch of posts and we'll have a bunch more....

Keep hangin' on...and thanks for joining us, lo these many , many days/weeks/months and now years.

Den

 PS: Let me know which ones may have been "favorites", ok?
I just may sprinkle this month of August with a few "Best Of's"