Category Archives: Get on your feet

x From my diary: Learning to pray

August 25, 2016Career goals, Get on your feet, Homelessness, Job search/Job prospects, Motivations, OUR BEST POSTS, The Way of PeaceAmbrose Worrall, Faith, Prayer, Resentment, The Homeless Blogger, What IsWilliam Tell

(Originally posted 05/12/13. Reblogged 04/18/24.)

Wednesday 04/24/13

Facing various issues as to how to spend my time. The current appearance of this blog is a far cry from what I want, but I don’t want time spent redesigning it to take away from job search. The same dilemma presents in choice of whether to use my tax refund to restore my former website on Yahoo! for $125.00/year, or instead rebuild the site as part of this blog.

My church is about to launch Saturday morning prayer services in which I will have a leadership role. I will be offering teachings on prayer; I think I have about two hours’ worth of material, and an issue rises of whether to try to organize that into 10-minute or instead 15-minute segments. And there’s an issue that what I would present to the prayer team members only, isn’t necessarily what I’d present to the general public.

This morning at McDonald’s I was reflecting on these things, and on what I might teach to an audience drawn from the general public. I began to understand why Ambrose Worrall fails to refer to Kabbalah.

Prayer team members will be principally interested in learning how to pray effectively for others. People who come from the general public will be principally interested in how to pray effectively for themselves — how to get their own prayers answered.

I presume to be pretty good at the former. That’s how I became prayer ministry coordinator to start with. I’m not so good at the latter.
Continue reading x From my diary: Learning to pray →

* Let that shit go

August 24, 2016Bible, Get on your feet, JusticeHow I became homeless, Matthew 19:24, Microaggressions, Presence, Racism, Resentments, SacrificeWilliam Tell

The whole hullaballoo about #microaggressions assumes that one can never heal from even the slightest insult. The same applies, frankly, to a ton of what folk obsess on concerning #injustice and #racism.

And certainly I’ve done enough such obsessing myself; in the end it plays a large role in how I became homeless. And have remained homeless.

How I’ve failed to get back on my feet.

In this vein, I often recall Matthew 19:24, about the camel that can’t get through The Needle’s Eye (a particular very narrow gate in Jerusalem). Many people may be “poor” in material things, but exceptionally “rich” in resentments. One must unpack the camel, discard all that junk, if one is ever to enter the Kingdom.

Reblogged 04/11/24.

Ends and Beginnings

Let that shit go

If I were to bet I would guess that 90% of the “shit” that troubles us is already behind us. In some cases, so far in our past that we are not even sure if we still have the story straight.

“Two monks were on a pilgrimage. One day, they came to a deep river. At the edge of the river, a young woman sat weeping, because she was afraid to cross the river without help. She begged the two monks to help her. The younger monk turned his back. The members of their order were forbidden to touch a woman. But the older monk picked up the woman without a word and carried her across the river. He put her down on the far side and continued his journey. The younger monk came after him, scolding him and berating him for breaking his vows. He went on this way for…

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* For us

July 9, 2016Bible, Get on your feet, Justice, OUR BEST POSTS, Poverty, Qabala, Squalor, The Way of PeaceChaos, Chaos and order, Creation of poverty, The Chaos Factor, Tikkun, Tohu, Wealth creationWilliam Tell

A grassy lot inspires a vision of what can be when a community cares for itself.

When I take the bus to church in the morning, I normally get off at the closest stop, walk three blocks north and one block east. At the corner where I turn is a vacant lot. I don’t know who owns it. In months past, it has typically been heavily littered.

One morning not long ago, as I approached that lot, I saw that it had been cleaned. I saw this from fifty feet away. The way things are around here, that little bit of beauty nearly knocked me down. It took my breath away. It lifted my spirits.

A tiny bit of beauty can powerfully affect one’s mood. A mere glimpse of a pretty face can make one’s whole day.

I reflected: harmony is the essence of beauty, exemplified in the orderliness of the clean lot as contrasted with the chaos of its previous litter. I reflected on the relatednesses among light, love, harmony, order and prosperity, on the one hand; and darkness, strife, chaos and need, on the other. What does it take to begin to establish harmony? I concluded that perhaps love, or self-love, is the beginning of creation.

What if the whole community cared for itself as someone cared for that lot? Continue reading * For us →

o Three Spiritual Principles to Help You through Trying Times

May 31, 2016Get on your feet, Homelessness, Justice, The Way of PeaceNatasha CheWilliam Tell

An unexpected blessing, in my current trying times:

Three Spiritual Principles to Help You through Trying Times

Note, 08/01/23: The link no longer points there.

* The offering plate, part 2

May 21, 2016Dependency, Get on your feet, Homelessness, Jacob's Ladder, Motivations, OUR BEST POSTS, Poverty, The Way of PeaceBootstraps, Dreams, Infantilism, Karma, Panhandling, Takers v. Makers, VisionWilliam Tell

ADVISORY: This post includes explicit content that some readers may find objectionable.

One lives in a world substantially of one’s own creation.

The previous post asked, “What can I give as an offering?”

As of now, I am essentially a panhandler.

Continue reading * The offering plate, part 2 →

* The offering plate, part 1

May 14, 2016Dependency, Get on your feet, Homelessness, Jacob's Ladder, Motivations, OUR BEST POSTS, Poverty, The Way of PeaceBootstraps, Dreams, Infantilism, Karma, Panhandling, Takers v. Makers, VisionWilliam Tell

One lives in a world substantially of one’s own creation.

The offering plate came around, and I got a shock. I can remember when I dreamed of putting $60 in there each week, as the woman does who normally sits in front of me. No such dream is available to me now; I am unable to envision myself ever putting anything in there.

My circumstances have rendered me infantile; a complete “taker.” One of those who seeks to receive “blessings” rather than seeking to be a blessing, a “maker.”

What can I give as an offering?

The offertory hymn was, “We are an offering.”

We lift our voices, we lift our hands
We lift our lives up to You
We are an offering
Lord use our voices, Lord use our hands
Lord use our lives, they are Yours
We are an offering

All that we have, all the we are
All that we hope to be
We give to You, we give to You

We lift our voices, we lift our hands
We lift our lives up to You
We are an offering, we are an offering[*]

I myself can be my offering.

More about that next week.

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Previous posts mentioning the offering plate:
I’m getting interviews!
What a homeless man dreams of

Previous posts mentioning the credibility of dreams:
Hope and vision

Reblogged 2023-10-05.

* Hate speech is normally protected.

April 4, 2016Get on your feet, National politics, SqualorArrested development, Free speech, Hate speech, Microaggressions, Political correctnessWilliam Tell

That’s the law.

Accordingly, this speech I just heard a mother direct to her one-year old:

“Shut the fuck up. Yo’ little punk ass always cryin’ an shit.”

First point: Do I have a right to be offended by that? Do I have a right to say it offends me?

Second point: Look at the exact words used. As with many people I meet from day to day, the words they use indicate conclusively that their lives revolve around their privates.

Related: The Word of the Day