Category Archives: Motivations

* “Every thought is a prayer.”

Get on your feet, Job search/Job prospects, Media, Motivations, National news, National politics, OUR BEST POSTS, The Way of Peace, , , , , ,

The seductiveness of turmoil.

Thursday, August 25, 2016

My foremost task for today is to keep myself focused on the practical things I need to do to improve my lot in life.

They can be seen as boring, mundane, dreary, tedious, and so on — if I fail to love myself enough to actually want to do them.

Accordingly, this morning I was reading through various news articles, and on one page, at the end, the links to “related” articles included this:

I didn’t read the article, but boy, just that headline really got my engines going.  I can’t remember the last time I was in a setting where someone might have been told, “Check your privilege.”  Normally this is addressed to a white person, and, as I’ve noted before, in my world there aren’t enough white people to matter.

Continue reading * “Every thought is a prayer.” →

x From my diary: Learning to pray

Career goals, Get on your feet, Homelessness, Job search/Job prospects, Motivations, OUR BEST POSTS, The Way of Peace, , , , ,

(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 →

* Appetites for darkness; befriending the shadow self.

Motivations, The Way of Peace, , , , , ,

Tuesday afternoon at the library, instead of doing anything on [church obligations], I spent time with several articles that could have been predicted to make me angry. I’ve forgotten specifics about them, and Net History from the library terminal isn’t available to me here. The deal is, I recognized an appetite for darkness; “The Itch.” Similarly yesterday, yesterday morning, once I realized I really had nothing to do that day, I became intensely angry and prone to look for ways to act out that anger; e.g. by finding more such articles to fume over. Went through some more of the same last night, albeit presence in the shower saw it all go away.

All this in the face of my goal of being perpetually happy and cheerful and an emanator of light and joy.

Continue reading * Appetites for darkness; befriending the shadow self. →

* The offering plate, part 2

Dependency, Get on your feet, Homelessness, Jacob's Ladder, Motivations, OUR BEST POSTS, Poverty, The Way of Peace, , , , , ,

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

Dependency, Get on your feet, Homelessness, Jacob's Ladder, Motivations, OUR BEST POSTS, Poverty, The Way of Peace, , , , , ,

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.

[*]Author: Dwight Liles. ©1984, Word Music, Inc.

=============================================

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.

o Update 04/06/16 – Housing, Job search

Homelessness, Job search/Job prospects, Motivations,

☺ PLEASE DONATE! ☺
(You can click here.)

I am facing urgent, drastic changes.  To find new housing, I may wind up in a distant location.  It may be difficult to get to church; it may become impossible to attend; I may have to give up my offices at church.  I may have to move out-of-state.

Transitional housing now does not seem likely to become available to me anytime in the near future.  The most realistic plan will be to continue to stay at the shelter, but take other steps to facilitate finding and keeping a job.  The first job I get will most likely be part-time.  However, any job that gives me an income of $100/week — whether that’s 10 hours/week at $10/hour, or 12.5 hours/week at $8/hour, etc. — will render me financially independent.  Self-supporting.

My current cash resources will be exhausted come Sunday.

Topics here below:
– Logistics
– Smoking
– Specific housing resources
– Job prospects
Continue reading o Update 04/06/16 – Housing, Job search →

* Hope and vision

Get on your feet, Homelessness, Jacob's Ladder, Job search/Job prospects, Motivations, OUR BEST POSTS, Squalor, , , ,

As of March 7, I will have been homeless five years.

This morning I took first concrete steps to get myself into transitional housing.

This is essential if I’m to get job.  For some time, I’ve been living off life insurance policy proceeds, but in the near future, that money will run out.  It’s urgent that I get an income.

The shelter where I’ve been staying is extremely comfortable, perhaps too comfortable, but it has very rigid hours that make it nearly impossible to hold a job while one stays there.  Currently, having to carry my two heavy bags and backpack with me wherever I go, severely limits my ability to commute.  Transitional housing will spell having a place where I can stash my stuff, and freedom to come and go as I please.  I will, for example, be able to take a night job.

Related:  Obstacles to my prosperity

Continue reading * Hope and vision →

* Guilt porn

Clippings, Media, Motivations, National media, , , , , , ,

My patience ran out when a display ad for Feeding America appeared on my e-mail inbox page.

I am seeing their ads and their public service announcements (PSAs) everywhere.  Like certain other charities, notably Autism Speaks and the Susan G. Komen Foundation, I wind up wondering if they engage in any activity beside fundraising.  In recent years, Breast Cancer Awareness Month had such media saturation it seemed impossible to be aware of anything else.

Continue reading * Guilt porn →

* Counting my blessings

Get on your feet, Homelessness, Motivations, ,

Here is a short list of things I can be grateful for.

✓ A clean sheet every night*
✓ A clean pillow case every night*
✓ A blanket every night*
✓ A pillow every night*
✓ A hot shower every night
✓ Clean clothes available every day
✓ A good supper every night
✓ Financial resources: At this time, anything I want, I can get.
(Anything I can’t get, I don’t want.)
✓ Moral support from my family, my friends and my church.  A ton of people are pulling for me, hoping for my prosperity.
✓ The best problems in the world. (See next Wednesday’s post.)

*(To my knowledge, no other shelter in Baltimore City provides these things. If you don’t bring your own, you sleep on a bare mat. A change in that situation is something to earnestly hope for.)

Reblogged 2020-09-10.