This is an excerpt from address I gave to the inmates of the faith-based dorm at Florida's Polk County Correctional Institution.

Eighty-nine-year-old Hugh Hefner ingesting handfuls of Viagra, a childless couple investigating artificial insemination, a barren, seemingly drunk Hanna praying so earnestly in the temple to bear a child, the Wright brothers attempting to fly that odd-looking contraption on the beach in Kitty Hawk, N.C. or Thomas Edison laboring over that light bulb. What is the common thread in the lives all of these unrelated individuals?

Their stubborn refusal to accept things as they are - to lie down and accept things as you have always known them to be. They disregarded the logical, sensible, reasonable approach to life. Conventional wisdom and opinion did not sway them. They and all movers and shakers before and after them have asked the same questions.

Is that all there is?

Is that the best I can expect?

Is there a different way that I can try?

Can I do better?

 At the risk of looking unwise, they decided to do something to alter their condition. As the presently airing Cadillac commercial says, ”only those who dare, drive the world forward.” One of the segments tells about a mother who allowed her son to play with dolls and toy around with dress-making and he became a world-famous clothing designer.

The reason why things do not improve for the majority of us is we remain stuck in the rut of tradition, perception, culture, ethnicity and the way things have always been. But the way things have always been does not mean that that’s the way things always should be.

That is not written in stone anywhere; rather like it or not, accepted or not, change is constant and happens around us every day. Furthermore, we are all on a journey to that great day when “in a moment, the twinkling of an eye we should all be changed.” My question to you this day: do you want to stay bad or change for good?

Consider just for a moment all the things that have changed in your lifetime. Things that were unthinkable just a generation ago.

Where does it start?

How does it happen?

It starts in our minds.

As a man thinketh so is he. (Prov. 23 V 7.)

The mind is the foundation of our character, the seed and origin of all our deeds. A person who is evil is said to “have a bad mind” and a man who is nuts is considered as “sick in the head.”

So if you are ever going to get from here to there, to achieve that dream or accomplish your purpose, you have got to change your mind.

Ah! There’s the rub.

That’s where the rubber meets the road, the crux of the matter. That is one of the most difficult things to do.

You will find it easier to change your clothes, change your car, change your house, change your location, change your job, change your spouse than to change your mind. Your mind is the sum total of who you are. It is unsettling, isn’t it? It requires herculean efforts in the face of all the above forces to adjust your way of thinking.

Why do you think there is so much recidivism?

If you come out of prison and your mind stays behind, guess what? You are coming back to where you left your mind.

Hence the reason that racism, poverty, crime and religious traditions are so hard to dismantle. Those minds seem to be impregnable fortresses - impossible to bring down or subdue no  matter how much cajoling, pleading or reasoning is extended.

Think for just a moment about the tremendous costs of the civil rights struggles, apartheid in South Africa, the war on poverty and drugs, or the flaming cauldron known as the Middle East.

How about two thousand years ago when a blood thirsty Jewish mob demanded that a despised Roman governor crucify an innocent Jewish carpenter’s son?

Turning the mind around especially towards good and better things is an extremely arduous, painful and inconvenient undertaking. Indeed because we are intrinsically evil, being bad involves no effort at all.

As the saying goes, “I can be bad all by myself.” And satan, the world and our flesh are ever willing and ready to assist us in that endeavor.

Nevertheless, God has not thrown up his hands in despair. He sent Jesus to lighten our paths and our minds, to show us the way toward salvation and freedom and remind us of our capacity for goodness.

Therefore, I choose to believe that resident in every heart, albeit covered over and hidden beneath the crud and dirt of the world, is at least a flickering of desire for the good things of life.

Unless we are completely bonkers, everybody under the sound of my voice wants a good job, to drive a good car, to live in a good house in a good neighborhood with a good wife and raise good children who are inspired to do it all over again.

Think about it, that’s not bad. In fact, it sounds good.

Do you know the Bible says, ”faith cometh by hearing?”

Perhaps it will happen if you dare to change your mind. Perhaps if it sounds good you need to convince yourself that:

If I think good,

Maybe I will feel good,

If I feel good,

Maybe, I’ll act good,

If I act good,

Maybe I’ll live good,

If I live good,

Maybe it will end up all good.

What do you have to lose? It’s obvious the other way has not worked out.

God knows and you know deep down in your soul that it can happen, it is entirely possible, if you would only dare to turn that thing called your mind around.