About the book
The book What Do You Give A Man That Has Everything is based upon
a true story about a man whose quest for the discovery of life brought
him into an unknown world of drug abuse for twenty-three years as a known
Heroin addict. This addiction led him into cruel and brutal correctional
establishments, such as Jefferson and Orleans Parish Prisons, for nineteen
years. He was then deposited into the modernization of a famously
known plantation noted for its notoriety as a Black Slave Camp turned into
living quarters for men who had become human prison machines. These
human prison machines no longer had a name but a number. They had
lost all sense of reality and became the most vicious and violent prisoners
in the western hemisphere. It has been called by many names:
The Farm, Big House and the Ponderosa. It is Angola State
Penitentiary of Louisiana, where at one time a look or a whisper could
have gotten you killed. Only the presence of God’s grace and mercy
allowed him to emerge from the bowels of hell and to introduce this forecast
in epic proportions. His story provides exposure to the internal
struggle and enormous intricacies of finding Jesus as his Lord and Savior
as the solution to a nomadic existence in the eminent discovery of himself.
Excerpt
I had a problem dealing with the reality of being what I had become,
a “JUNKIE.” As we all know water will seek it’s own level before
it crests. How could I seek my own level when I had no idea where
to find my crest? I just couldn’t figure anything out at that time;
my life was in a rage.
Just imagine after all those years of being mentally dead, even after
being awakened, my rapture was greater than the hibernating state from
which I had just emerged. Suddenly, realizing that hibernating like
a bear was not for me, I had to be wide-awake for my master, Jehovah, who
does not sleep nor slumber. Realizing that I was a lost sheep hiding
for far too long and sleeping my life away, it was finally time to become
significant for the purpose of rendering myself so that I could find closure.
Today as I continue to move forward I can only think about how wonderful
it feels to express myself and write about my illustrious and lascivious
career. It was a career that spanned for over four decades.
A career that allowed me entrance into the back door of Egypt and deposited
me to the front gates of hell. To this day there was no illusion
about my immortality. What I preconceived to be real was definitely
only a delusion of my immeasurable imagination.
About the Author
My name is Phill Batiste, and I was born in an original setting
at New Orleans’ famous Charity Hospital. I was a 7th grade drop-out who,
while in prison, acquired a GED and 1 ½ years of college. Although
one does not always get the opportunity to write his/her autobiography
about self; at first I had a very difficult time expressing my thoughts
and then putting them on paper for the world to see. Somehow, God allowed
me to go into a spiritual process in order for Him to manifest his Holy
presence so that the Holy Ghost could have His way with me. Today, I have
taken upon the challenge that one day God would allow me to know in time
what profound effect this book will have on others who are afraid of opening
doors that have been hidden from public scrutiny for many years. In asking
the Lord for his divine guidance, I felt my approach to open my past had
to be dealt with very delicately with a force and with courage that I didn’t
even know I possessed. It was with this undying declaration that I had
to relinquish my hold on what was wrong and allow the Holy Spirit to show
me what is right. Many times in our lives, we fail to do those things that
are right because for many of us doing those things that are wrong somehow
is more appealing to our insatiable appetite. The option for questioning
what is wrong is not a choice or a matter for what is right. Yet, we try
to fuse together the two in order to create a situation that may leave
us compromising for days with the understanding of not acknowledging anything.
Meanwhile, to hold on or to re-establish a positive position will eventually
give us the hindsight that is needed to understand and reaffirm the truthfulness
of what is right, and for heaven’s sake who will justifiably be willing
to say who was wrong: And in the end, God will say, “All is well.”
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