As of 2014-10-28, I am updating the Playlist, adding links to the music I have on hand. The original format of the page can’t accommodate them, so I’m reformatting it bit by bit. In the meantime, I’m leaving it online so readers can still use it — and listen to the selections they choose to, as those become available.
Link: Playlist
On Friday, July 25, I emerged from my devotional time exceptionally centered, and I stayed that way for hours. Nothing like this has happened to me before. It raised a number of new questions and resurrected many old ones.
UPDATES APPEAR IN THE COMMENTS.
Blogging experts tell us to give our posts dramatic titles. I might not tell the story at all, but on the one hand there is an expectation that (though I seldom do) a homeless blogger will tell about the difficulties homeless people face. On the other hand, it provides occasion for me to set forth William Tell’s current approach to injustice.
It will also let me model the principles of Free Speech Handbook.
This concerns an incident of October 7, 2014.
Continue reading * Does McDonald’s discriminate against the homeless?
Isaiah 5:
¹Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. 3And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. 4What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? 5And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. 6I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. 7For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!
The appointed Gospel text for Sunday was Matthew’s Parable of the Wedding Banquet, Matthew 22:1-14.
I was struck by verses 11-14 —
11“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. 13Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14For many are called, but few are chosen.”
— in that, last Tuesday at McDonald’s, I’m the one who got thrown into the outer darkness.
Continue reading * Life in the outer darkness
Bookmarks:
“Normal” life goals out of reach – for millions • I want this job. • Marketing strategies, part 5 • Farmers unite to combat hunger • Marlene Pinnock follow-up • Alex Hribal update • Stranger murders father breaking up a fight
Continue reading * “Normal” life goals out of reach – for millions
The shelter boots us out at 5:45 a.m. daily. You must take all your belongings with you and cannot come back until 2:30.
Until February 2013, my custom on non-work days was to go to Dunkin’ Donuts to pray, drink coffee and use the bathroom, until the library would open at 10:00 and I could go online. Then the temp agency closed down, and I could no longer afford Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, and so began going to McDonald’s instead.
Some days I would arrive at Dunkin’ Donuts before opening. One such morning, I arrived to find a large, neat pile of human feces on the doorstep. It was clearly no accident. Who had left it there, and why, had no bearing on the fact that it was there now.
When staff arrived we opened the door and stepped inside very carefully to avoid any contact between the door and the stool, or our feet and the stool. However, I knew that if nothing were done about it, eventually, inevitably, customers who could not take the time to be as observant and careful would step in it and begin tracking it through the store.
Continue reading * The poop on the stoop
The Homeless Blogger 