(1) Response to injustice
(2) What to do while you wait?
Category Archives: Homelessness
In the forecast: Pain
(Originally posted 2016-01-16.)
A toothache can distract you completely.
For the past two months, I have now and then, with increasing frequency and duration, had mild toothaches in (I thought) one upper left tooth and one lower left tooth. They always went away; and that’s all I thought of it.
Then last Thursday night there was such severe pain for such a long time, that I lost several hours’ sleep and resolved to get those two teeth filled the next day. But that didn’t happen. The dentist said four teeth must be extracted; and the appointments the clinic scheduled for me are two weeks and four weeks away.
This means: for the coming month, I am going to be in pain of varying severity for varying lengths of time.
It may not be much, now and then; it may be a lot, now and then, and for quite a while now and then. But it’s unavoidable. It’s coming.
How will I choose to feel about it?
Will I accept it, or react continually against it?
Will I hate myself for being in pain? or possibly hate others? Hate God?
Will I be crying out, “Why me?”
Or may there be other options?
Related: A short route to agony
From my diary:
#AffordableHousing …
… may be one of the toughest of all nuts to crack.
‘This is war’: Protester arrested as KC approves change to housing affordability rate (yahoo.com)
Podcast — Rodney
Many problems, one solution
Rodney
Related:
- The woman who vanished | The Homeless Blogger
- Blinded by the light | The Homeless Blogger
- Inexplicable
- Podcast – Brightening the sparks | The Homeless Blogger
Music: Laura Branigan, “Gloria”
Live and let live: Ishmael
Wednesday 2016-01-06
“Live and let live” is a Recovery principle. In recent weeks, it has been “in my face” from many different directions:
- Recent challenges I’ve faced in managing my own feelings, have made me less judgmental of others who seem to me not to manage their feelings well.
- Pastor and I are not on the same page concerning the concept of justice. He is thus prone to say certain things in sermons that I don’t necessarily want to hear. But I am in no position to demand that he abandon what is, for him, an honest and impassioned point of view.
- Something in Jamilah King’s 12-16-15 .mic article hurt my feelings. I have not yet re-read it to determine what specifically it was. But if the mere expression of an opinion about social conditions can evoke that response from me, it does not bode well for what I hope to accomplish as William Tell the talk show host. William Tell must be able to “Live and let live.”
Ishmael showed up at the shelter for the first time last night. When he joined us in the crowd across the street waiting admission, his face said he’d already had a hard day. Something told me he might be a screwball.
Coming changes
Originally posted 2015-12-29.
10:56. I have a noon appointment with my therapist. I’d originally thought to stop downtown for coffee afterwards and then go to the mission. However, last night I got turned away, so I now think to go straight from my doctor’s office to the mission: I don’t know how long that walk takes. If I arrive at the mission at 13:45 and have to stand there idle for 45 minutes — after last night, that’s a price I’m willing to pay.
This morning I’d meant to go up to the doctor’s office early, arriving at 11:00, and then try to find someone in Case Management to help me get into transitional housing. I came to the library first, but it got to be 10:40, meaning I’d have less than an hour to work with the case manager; so I cancelled that plan for today. Later this week I’ll have opportunities.
The move into transitional housing, and the transition into that move itself, are likely to bring many changes.
The woman who vanished
Sometimes you’re powerless.
This program turned me away.
Adapted from a 12/03/15 e-mail to my brothers and some others.
Given instability at the shelter where I’ve been for almost five years, I decided to apply to a certain program affiliated with a major national charity and major local soup kitchen. This program is residential, has a nice facility, and (as I understood it) was geared toward taking men with histories of addiction or homelessness and rendering them self-supporting.
Since it is a residential program, I would no longer have to carry my bags everywhere I go, vastly increasing the radius within which I can look for work; and, I supposed, I would be able to work any shift. After all, unlike the shelter where I’ve been, they’ve got a big shove towards self-sufficiency.
They rejected me.
I wrote:
Baptismal grace means: when you get knocked down, you get back up.
Blog post (from October ’14, about getting back up): Life in the outer darkness
In the immediate future, I will be checking out options in transitional housing, and case management services at the clinic where I’m currently in treatment for everything I’m in treatment for.
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What happened?
Mike’s cocoon
A safe place where one may, or may not, ever grow up.
GREAT NEWS !!!
I’m lined up to get my own place.
The Homeless Blogger 