These words will scandalize some readers.
Sometime in the future, I will no doubt discuss the same ideas in a more well-ordered way. But I think I need to produce some expression now.
Jesus never called upon his followers to “change the world.” Jesus never confronted injustice, oppression, slavery or “the system.”
He had opportunities to do so.
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.
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.
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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.
Although I know that, at one time, I was one myself, I’ve never understood the deal with hypocrisy.
Act all holy and pious sometimes for show (As if anyone cares?), and be a total scumbag other times.
I don’t get it. We do have guys like that at the shelter, though.
I am at a difficult juncture.
My immediate material situation requires that, like never before in my life, I practice what I preach; care for myself; work in my own self-interest; be “here-now-can;” “keep the focus on me;” live by the Serenity Prayer. These are what I counsel any poor person to do. These are what I most emphatically now must do myself.
This entails dis-attending to all the current social turmoil.
It entails turning a deaf ear and blind eye to many messages, insistent messages, particularly coming from those who claim to have the best interests of the poor (like me) at heart.
I have been spending lots of time at church during the week. I took to looking askance at two particular neighborhood teens who participate in a number of our programs — garden club, after-school, youth group — because they seem to manage always to be in the wrong place (an unauthorized place) at the wrong time, and Shontay in particular wears this mischievous grin, as if she’s looking for trouble.
One Sunday in mid-November, my attitude toward them changed completely.
I have just launched a Go Fund Me, and put a link to it in the menu bar here above.
This one:
At the risk of engaging in TMI:
About two years ago, I cashed in all my life insurance policies, and I’ve been living on those proceeds ever since. They are now exhausted … and I am going to need support beginning in the next few days.
A new thread at Messiah Truth.
This is most emphatically not Jewish teaching. I expect it correctly to be condemned as not-Jewish. I also expect it to be condemned, correctly or not, as just plain wrong.
The point is to facilitate understanding of what motivates belief in the Christian myth.
Sunday was Palm Sunday. The appointed “Gospel” text this year was Luke 22:14-23:56, which covers from the beginning of the Last Supper up to Jesus’ burial.
The pastor normally reads the “Gospel” lesson. Pastor’s voice quavered throughout this reading, which I found hard to figure since his beliefs are similar enough to mine. We waded through all the problems in the text, e.g. the impossible trial at the High Priest’s house on Pesach. But I also got re-acquainted with why Christians believe so fervently in this text.
An orthodoxy is a system of ideas that adherents insist one must accept without question. In other words, a set of dogmas.
Every media outlet has one. It may be implied or explicit; flexible or rigid; narrow or broad; but it’s there. It defines what ideas that media outlet will allow to be expressed. In publishing media, it determines what will and won’t get published.
An obstacle facing me in my hopes of getting published, is that I seem somehow always to run afoul of a given media outlet’s orthodoxy.
When I hang out at Dunkin’ Donuts in the morning, I have a prescribed spot, in a corner, by the door.
This morning this woman came in scowling. She was deeply resentful about something. Once she got her order and began to head out, it became clear that the something had changed. Whatever she’d been resentful about before was no matter; what she resented now was my skin color.
Transference is the removal of emotions, normally negative, from connection with one idea or situation, and attaching the same to a different idea or situation. This incident this morning was an epiphany for me of how easily it happens, and how evil it can be.
The Homeless Blogger 