A Personal Challenge

Breaking out of Powerlessness

I spoke with a young lady this evening who is dealing with a lot of stress and she is very frustrated with her situation. I've known her for a little while, and this was much the same many months ago. She's not a bad person by any means. She has a lot going for her, except for herself. That's the team member she's missing.  She has fine ideals and a sense of direction, but runs herself down dead ends by focusing on things beyond her control. What others are doing, what courts have determined, or anything or anyone that she has no control over.  I feel for her, and wish there were some magic wand I could wave and make everything as she wishes.  But I don't have one of those, none of us do.

So, I listen to her, and comiserate with her because that's what I can do.  It doesn't change anything, but maybe it makes her feel better that someone is listening, someone cares,  but as I said it doesn't change anything.  A couple hours, or days, weeks, months later I hear the same script. And I'll be dammed if I don't find myself listening and wishing for a magic wand again that I still don't have.  She's frustrated, I'm frustrated, and there's no reason to believe anything will change. How could it if you're focused on things that you cannot control? You render yourself impotent, a passive spectator of your own life, rather than the helmsman of your course.

As a child, you were hopefully fed, clothed, and cared for by loving parents. All the choices were made for you and you had no role in the decision making process. As a young adult, you took on a larger portion of this responsibility, and as a fully matured adult you bear the complete burden of responsibility. That responsibility is commensurate with control. In other words, the more authority one possesses the higher their level of responsibility.  By focusing on the actions or views of other people, we surrender control, avoid responsibility, and remain in the chains of powerlessness. 

"Be nicer than necessary to everyone you meet. Everyone is fighting some kind of battle." - Socrates

A Better World me Thinks

I spoke in my last post about those who spend too much time looking at their past have no future. I didn't mean this in the sense of forgetting the past because that would mean one could never learn from it. 

What I meant was don't become obsessed with it. What was cannot be changed, it simply is not an option. We have now and the future to work with and the more time you spend digging in the dirt of the past, the less working time you in the world to make a positive impact on something or someone. I don't expect you to change the world, but try to leave it a better place for having been in it. This applies to you non-Christian and even atheists, in your world view this life is all we have, ergo what would you have; a life of havoc and sorrows or a life of meaning.

We can build bridges or we can destroy them. We can be burdens or help carry them. It's a choice, and only you can make it. If there is anything that you have that bankers, lawyers, ex's, or "the system" can't take from you, it is this choice. Use it wisely. I know it sounds like I'm preaching, and I don't mean to come across like I have all the answers. I surely do not. But this is one thing of which I'm fairly certain. That we are born into this world without a choice, and we will as surely leave it without one, so what we have is now. That's all we have. What are you going to do with it?

Perhaps you never thought about life in such a way, and you lived in the grace of ignorance. Unlike the "law", philosophy doesn't hold you accountable for that which you are unaware. Today, you lost that immunity, you no longer have this excuse to hide behind. So,  you may blame me if something untoward were to happen, like you go out and do something you can be proud of. There are some very good people in my corner of the world. They are tireless in their service and I am proud to know them. With 7 billion and change people on planet earth, what could we accomplish if everyone gave one hour of there lives. just once in a lifetime. Do the math... It's roughly 800,000 years of service. Think about it. What lay at the end of this, a better world me thinks.

Water Acquisition

The average healthy person can last without food for a month or more.

The same individual will not last more than a few days without an adequate supply of safe drinking water.


After resperation, hydration comes in a close second place in the survival higherarchy of needs. Your body weight is roughly 87% water weight. So, a 150 pound man is 130 pounds of water. The other 20 pounds is bone, muscle, organs, and connective tissue. If that seems hard to accept, take a 1\4 pound of beef and turn it in to jerky, then weight it.

• If you lose just 5% of your hydration you will become exhausted, dizzy, and your mental processes begin to suffer.

• A loss of 10% hydration will result in unconsciousness, and your organs begin to fail shortly thereafter.

• At 15%, you're as good as beef jerky.

With these things in mind, let's not underestimate the need for a reliable source of water.

If you are living in an urban area, the resources are abundant; drinking fountains, residential spigots, fast food restroom sinks, park pumps, and a myriad of other options are available to you.

In rural areas the opportunities for a quick refill dwindle, and the risk of contamination increases. The prevalence of livestock,  chemical fertilizers, and untreated effluent greatly enhance the chance of waterborne hazards. 

In a wilderness area, ground water (e.g. - lakes, rivers, and ponds) may be plentiful, appear and smell clean, even inviting, but that cool,  refreshing brook may also contain dangerous pathogens. It's the deceptively safe appearance that is the real hazard here.

The most important caveat I have when it comes to drinking water from any questionable source... 

         IT IS BETTER TO BOIL THE WATER THAN TO DIE OF DIARRHEA,  

Back at last!

I have been working hard all summer.  (No, I was not in jail.) Now, with winter about to set in, I'll have much more time to write. I trust you all made it through these past summer months without too much difficulty.

But this is a homeless blog, every fricking day is challenging if not life threatening. Although, I have been very fortunate myself and am housed in a labor for housing arrangement with a couple local motels.

Additionally, this has afforded me the opportunity to operate a defacto homeless assistance program within my very limited means. I have a few donors who have provided me with the bulk of the donations, and while they prefer to remain anonymous, I remain grateful for their steady willingness to give.

I thank you all for your generosity and understanding that "community" is a verb.


Your world view may very significantly from my own, and I am not one who insists that you need to adopt mine. I have no monopoly on Truth, and I am as inclined to be wrong,  stubborn, and self absorbed as anyone else. Probably, more so than the average. In my opinion I am broken in a fundamental way, at the core, and moreover I cannot fix myself.  A broken thing cannot fix itself. It is not in its nature. It’s nature is to continue being broken. Many of us operate in this manner every single day of work, school, parenting, marriage, and every other abominable broken thing we do.

Human nature has been thus since Cain picked up a rock to reshape his brothers skull. Now,  whether you believe in that story of fratricide or you believe that the world is majestically balanced on the back of a great cosmic turtle, about the only thing that remains unchanged in all those years is us. Human nature has blessed, beaten, and propelled us from then until now.

There are many along the way who said that they could change it, harness it,  mold, master, or evolve it. A few met with limited success in some key areas, such as slavery and... um... I'm sure there are others, but to be honest we have yet to abolish slavery from the planet.

Sad.

My point is not to point out our human inadequacies, but rather to acknowledge them as part and parcel of the human condition. We have common ground here because we are born with them and we must suffer them all. Our prosperity is not shared. Some have much, while others have none.  Our loves and passions are not identical,  perhaps not even similar. Our sense of humor, our desire for drink, all points of divergence. However;  we are all broken in the same core of our being.  We can manage our brokenness to different degrees, and often use them to secure a temporary shifting, sinking sense of superiority over others, but that fades quickly under our own introspective examination. Ultimately, we are never really good.

This is the first, best reason I have for viewing the world from the perspective of Christianity.  Not because I am without sin, no far from it. If I were, I wouldn’t need a relationship with our Creator.  I wouldn't need much of anything, would I? It’s for the broken, deficient, bewildered being I am that I reach out to Christ, and my fellow man. Here is where I found my mission to help the homeless, the hungry, the misfits, the disenfranchised, the ignored, and unwelcome. It’s not that I love everyone, that would be being perfect, again.  It’s that by looking at myself I see that same brokenness in others, and thereby a mirror unto myself.  In  this way,  I quit trying to "fix myself", which is impossible.  Instead, I am doing what I can,  helping others in some small manner. A blanket,  a sweatshirt, a can of beef stew, or maybe just a few words scribbled in virtual digital to let you know that I care.

Whether you do or not.

Gimme Shelter (Part 3)

OK, it's time for another quick and dirty shelter lesson. This is perhaps the fastest and easiest shelter you can whip out. all you need is a piece of 3 mil visqueen (sheet plastic), a few 3-5 lb rocks, and a sapling.

First bend the sapling down and tie it in place. Like this:

 Easy, right?

If you don't have a rope or some cordage fill a plastic bag with water. Water is heavy and it adds up fast.




Now toss the visqueen over the top like so:

And viola! You have this:

Oops! Not quite. But put the rocks around the edges on the ground, or better yet bury them. Blam! in 2 minutes or less you have a cover!


Gotta run kids. I love you and so does our Awesome God

Gimme Shelter (Part 2)

I know what your thinking, "Mike you went a little way over the top on Part 1".

I'm sorry, I got carried away and I forgot the basics, which is a sin when you're homeless. Basics is all we have, if we can muster that much. So lets get you into something fast, cheap, and easy!

The Recycle Bin Shelter

You are familiar with these little beauties, of course. They line the alleys of most urban and suburban neighborhoods across the United States and  Canada. Let's say that you manage to find one in a...dumpster or in a field, whatever. Well you rotate it 90 degrees (lay it on it's side with the lid side down).

Now you will need 2 or 3 bread racks. Lay them end to end over the recycle bin lid.

Then drape a tarp over the top with some bread racks under you and you have a windproof shelter that you can heat with a candle.

I'm no artist, but here is my rendering of the finished product...

Wait, one more thing...

There, that's me sleeping inside my new shelter. Quiet, we don't want to wake me up.

OK, folks that's all the shelter talk my brain can handle for today. 

 In our daily struggles we tend to lose sight of what’s really important in life, and it’s not things and stuff. That sh*t is all temporary, and you never really own anything but your own soul. You will never see a U-Haul on the back of a Hearse.

Fine! You will rarely see a a U-Haul on the back of a Hearse. In any case, the destination of the trailers cargo is not eternity, nor is the cargo of the Hearse. It is the Soul that is eternal and you own that, it's 100% paid off, no payments on your part were or will be required, the debt was paid for you. Lucky for you, because you couldn't afford it, no one could. We lack the proper currency. The price for your soul was paid by Yashua (Jesus) and the price was His sinless blood. 

I know, I know, it sounds too good to be true, but there is a catch. To seal the deal, you have to accept the offer. It's easy (no mind numbing prostrations to perform 5 times a day), painless (you or your children don't have to become a human bomb) , and there are future offers that you get as well. One of them being, a future. 

So, what's in this for Yashua?  

He get's His beautiful lost son or daughter back. You. You were created to be a companion of Almighty God (Yahwey). It is your sole purpose, your appointed vocation, and your annointed destiny. All He asks in return is the one thing that cannot be bought at any price, forced, or substituted. Your love.  

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” - Jim Elliott

I love each and every one of you, not for who you are, but for what you have it within yourself to be.