Tag Archives: Prayer

Treasures in heaven

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(Originally published 07/01/13 at Trojan Horse Productions.  Republished here 10/30/13.)

One of my buds came into McDonald’s this morning looking for me. I’d not seen him in about a week. He’s in really good shape today, but it turns out that, as I’d supposed, he’d been on a bender.

We went out front to smoke and talk, and the time came for him to get on his way. I expected him to turn to go back upstairs to get his stuff. He did not. “Where’s your stuff?” I asked.

He’d lost it. Again. Everything. Kept only his I.D. and Independence card. Somewhere, sometime, while blacked out, he’d got up and left wherever he’d been, leaving behind all his belongings in a forgotten place.

In my immediately last prior post, “Me, me, me,” I said:

It’s not that I despised material possessions; I did not value them nearly as much as I (overwhelmingly) valued relationships. What I did despise was the desire for material possessions. As a result, now I have none.

Relationships are what I do have. They are my treasures in heaven.
on air talent, talk show host, radio talk show, the homeless blogger

Me, Me, Me

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(Originally published 06/06/13 at Trojan Horse Productions.  Republished here 10/30/13.)

This has been a very heavy day, and there’s a lot here. For the moment, at least, I will not try to organize this.

Darkness at times appears to serve Light; destruction, to serve creation.

It is a rude awakening for me to have to revisit the world of infantile self-centeredness, apparently to have to re-learn correctly this time (at age 57!) some things I didn’t learn correctly on the first go-round.

A world where it is correct for me to want things only for “Me, me, me!”
Continue reading Me, Me, Me →

Dilemma

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In a comment on a WaPo article about “Prosperity Gospel” televangelists, someone said:

Jesus taught us to think of others needs before our own.

As of now I dispute that Jesus taught that.

If he did teach that, Jesus was wrong.
Continue reading Dilemma →

About the widow and the judge

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Many people are skeptical about prayer.

How many have prayed fervently, day and night, for an ailing loved one, and never obtained the desired outcome?

The parable of the widow and the judge promises, “[W]ill not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.”  For African Americans, that deserves to be laughable.

No one has ever lived, nor is ever likely to live, more expert in prayer than Jesus.  I cannot believe he set forth a teaching either so completely wrong in itself or so subject to complete misunderstanding.

So what is wrong, and what is right?

Continue reading About the widow and the judge →

The parable of the widow and the judge

Bible, Justice, ,

Luke 18:

¹Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’ 4For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’” 6And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

* A real church in a real ‘hood

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(Originally posted 10/01/13. Reblogged 11/28/24.)

Video: Amazing Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in East Baltimore

Link to it early and often throughout the day!

My first audition tapes will probably be PSAs (public service announcements) for this congregation.

* Light Inside: A Hallowe’en Message

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(Below appears a tract I passed out with the Hallowe’en candy in 2007. “Chaos overwhelms the poor” describes that neighborhood.  Originally posted here 10/26/13. Reblogged 10/31/24.)

Light Inside

Hallowe’en is the night before a Christian holiday. The name of the holiday is “All Saints’ Day.” Years ago, they called it “All Hallows’ Day,” and the night before, “All Hallows’ Evening.”

Continue reading * Light Inside: A Hallowe’en Message →

* Jacob’s ladder 04/05/14

Jacob's Ladder

(Originally posted 04/05/14.  Reblogged 06/07/18.)

Prayer for myself often takes the form of imagining myself climbing up a ladder out of a pit, the pit being my current circumstances of poverty and homelessness. Getting out at the top represents a return to the normal life of the American mainstream. I didn’t start with a ladder in there, but I decided to add one to symbolize the various structures and tools that others have made available to me — and eliminate the possibility of clawing at loose earth.

Here begins a list of “rungs” on the ladder that I’ve become aware I need to “overcome.” Each one takes effort, exertion, to get over. I will update this list from time to time as I learn of others.

1. Fear of the unknown. See From my diary: Learning to pray.
2. Jealousy of others who seem to be prospering more quickly than I am. Details here.
3. Times of despair. I guess, from time to time, they’ll happen. Details here.
4. Incidents of utter selfishness. Details here.
5. Moments of unusual hardship and sacrifice. Details here.
6. Cut loose the losers. Details here.
7. Smoking. See posts tagged “Smoking”.
8. Shame. See “(3) Baby steps.”
9. Attributions of arrogance, selfishness and greed. Details here.
10. Others’ well-intentioned but misguided prayers. Details here.

* Prayer cannot be politically correct.

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Monday, September 5, 2016

There is a certain time in my daily prayer routine when I give attention to each of certain names that aren’t on any list.  This happens to include every single member of the church youth group whose name is known to me.  (It happens to include all those names.  It’s not by design.  Each one got on there individually.)

Only one of those individuals is the same color as me.

Continue reading * Prayer cannot be politically correct. →

* “Every thought is a prayer.”

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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.” →