Somehow, an Oct. 9, 2006 copy of The New Yorker turned up on my desk. There I found a fascinating article about an escaped convict named McNair. What impressed me is the man's amazing abilities:

1. Disarming the opponent: he has an engaging, relaxed manner, often employing his playful smile (not what you would expect from a man who climbed the steps of a docked 18-wheeler and shot the driver between the eyes).

2. Deftly uses multiple disguises: crew cut, or long hair, which is sometimes black, sometimes blond; mustache (or not), stubble, beard, or clean-shaven; eyes that change colors with the shirts he wears.

3. Intelligence: a casual alertness; ability to accurately size up people around him; remembers anything he reads.

4. A superior fixation on escaping: Patrick Branson, deputy warden at North Dakota State Penitentiary, a maximum-security institution where McNair spent almost 5 years, and from which he escaped in 1992, said, "From the time you start step No.1," (of his internment routine), "his mind is thinking, 'How do I get out of these cuffs, or this car; What's the weak spot in this facility?' When he goes to a new facility, from the moment he arrives, he's thinking about escaping." (The New Yorker, 10/9/06, page 46.)

Once a sergeant in the US Air Force, also a confidential informant who could set up buy-and-bust drug arrests, this McNair guy reminds me in many ways of Satan.

McNair, while incarcerated, was instrumental in starting The Inside Times, a monthly newsletter, which provided him a cover to scrutinize various corners of the penitentiary. (Satan disguises himself as a churchgoer, gets himself elected to an office, becomes a choir member, or takes up maintenance work. All the while, he's "casing the joint" to see how he can plunder the system). While in West Virginia, McNair posed as a journalist for The New Yorker, and claimed he was writing a special feature on "rural poverty." (Forever joining himself to charitable causes, the devil rides a wave of popularity with those seeking to gain an entrance to heaven by their own works.)

On the pretext of seeing "The Ten Commandments" movie, McNair and two other men removed a pair of acoustic tiles from the ceiling of the prison classroom and broke through a vent. Crawling through ductwork and kicking out the security grate, the trio exited on the side of the prison without a guard tower. They shimmied up a fence post and dropped to the roof of the visitor's room. Then, with a 15-foot leap, they landed on a patch of lawn - and escaped.

Once when cornered by an officer in a car dealership he had broken into to burglarize, he pointed west and shouted, "He went that way." (Just like Satan. He just points and criticizes. Points and diverts. Points and accuses.) McNair was caught fabricating an identity card, one of many. (Just like Satan, who carries whatever card it takes to get into our wallet, our mind, our heart.)

The severe restraints at one super-maximum security facility caused McNair to reconsider his strategy: If he couldn't break out, he would render himself "persona non grata" by participating in a sit-down strike (tantamount to a riot) and get himself transferred. (Pose as a good guy, pose as a bad guy, pose as anybody, except who you really are.)

At the Polluck, Louisiana, facility, McNair had the job of repairing US postal mailbags, which were put on pallets, shrunk-wrapped, and fork-lifted onto trucks. McNair configured the cargo on one pallet in such a way that enabled him hide in a cavity, so even after shrink-wrapping, he could breathe with the aid of a snorkel-like plastic tube. Moved on the pallet beyond the prison walls, McNair broke through the shrink wrap and sprinted away.

If a mere mortal can be this deceptive, what hope is there for us frail sinners to escape the clutches of the master deceiver? The good news is that the Almighty is on our side. "Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world!" 1 John 4:4. By the light streaming from the sacred scriptures we can discern the difference between the Shepherd of the flock and the wolves in sheep's clothing that come to plunder. "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Hebrews 4:12. Study the word of God. Chew on it. Let it become flesh in you.

Chris Hasse was raised in Michigan, but spent most of her adult life in a "traveling" mode. In 1992, she and her husband, John, moved to Chloe, in Calhoun County, where they currently reside. Her vocations are gardening, writing, and "fishing." (See Matthew 4:19)