It's hard to compete with the writings of a guy like Paul.
Hell, it's hard to compete with any of the great leaders of humanity. I feel like a tool when I compare my writings and thoughts to someone like Martin Luther King Jr. His understanding of philosophy and religion crush my own. And then his speaking. His words are like thunder and lightening. Explosive yet precise.
I've been reading a lot of the Catholic writer Thomas Merton. He is so good it's like he rips a hole in our universe to open up a gateway directly to God. I don't know how he possibly channeled those thoughts and spiritual truths into human words.
Probably my biggest regret of this entire journey of fighting for the incredible injustices of homeless people is that you are stuck with me. I often wish someone like Gandhi would sweep in and take over. But I'm the one that showed up and here we are.
A young woman, Ashleigh Hughes, who works with us shared with me a devotional she read yesterday. It was from Paul the Apostle. It was based on these sentences in the Bible:
Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:9)
This is what the person who wrote the devotional said:
"The sentence of death" Paul calls it.
What REALLY interested me was the verse before this one:
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself.
These sentences brings me so much comfort. This is basically Paul saying "the situation sucked and our ability to handle it sucked."
Paul is no joke. He's the real deal when it comes to leadership in humanity. I'm so thankful when someone we hold up in such high regard transparently shares with us their weaknesses and failings. It's like a dog whistle to me. That these "great" people are saying, "look, we don't know what the hell we're doing. We're just making it up as we go. So we're going with the flow and see what happens."
I'm sorry to say, humanity often gets stuck with leaders that don't have any idea what they are doing. They just fake it and hope they make it.
I don't know if there are any classes or books for humanitarian leaders. But that should definitely be a major guiding principle. "You suck; and all your heroes sucked. Just fight anyway. Maybe you'll get lucky."
Invariably, spiritual leaders get stuck in a real bind and they finally let go. They go with the flow, which they often call God.
Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:9)
This happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God.
We are meant to suffer so we will eventually let go and let God. The pain is intentional and must happen.
If you fight long enough and hard enough you eventually get yourself in such a mess that you have no choice but to let go of your own ideas and thoughts and "not rely on ourselves but on God."
I see it over and over again throughout history.
The craziest things happen when you let go and let God.
First, they closed our village. Then they closed the lower level of our building to offer services to homeless people. And yesterday they closed our upper level to offer homeless services.
We are currently "allowed" to offer some basic services in our backyard. But it's likely that the health department will be called and they will likely tell us we aren't doing that right either. I don't know that for a fact. But I wouldn't be at all surprised.
This is all done under the premise of safety. We must protect the homeless from the dangers of my building. We do that by kicking them out on the street. "There! Now they are safe."
What they really mean is when a homeless person dies on the street it is no one's problem so then everything is OK. We can just blame it on the homeless person. "They should have gotten a house."
We are thwarted at every turn. It's maddening. It's not like someone else is helping these people. It's only private people that push into the woods and the darkness to bring these people food and supplies.
The "professionals" believe that the woods is motivating. That if it is painful enough these people will line up for a house like they are supposed to. I am quite sure they feel helping these people with food and supplies is just enabling them to live in the woods. Like homeless people are some sort of pest animal that we should not feed because it will only "encourage them."
Never mind that due to mental health issues, extreme addictions and previous felonies the "system" becomes impossible to navigate for these people. No one talks about that elephant in the room.
Oh wait. I talk about that elephant in the room.
Excuse the sarcasm, but do you think there is any possibility that all the work I do is repeatedly getting shut down because I DARE to stand up to those in power and call them out on their significant failings at the expense of torturing the weakest among us?
The problem with a guy like me is that I'm a student of history and literature and humanity. Would Joan of Arc quit? Would MLK quit? Would John Brown quit? Would anyone I consider a true leader in the history of humanity have quit?
Who do they think they are dealing with?
Ironically, their pressure makes things worse for them.
Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.
When you push a guy like me, he doesn't quit, he becomes stronger. He starts letting go of his own thoughts and ideas and he starts relying on God.
We come to a point on the road where we have to let go. We can't hold onto old ideas or old plans. God has new plans. God has a new road.
I have some ideas of where I think God wants us to go. But I'm going to slow roll that out as we move forward.
What I can tell you is: we must move like water. If a damn gets put up then just go around the damn. It's easy when you let go.
No one said we can't do work on the backyard of 15 Broad Street so come and do work in the backyard of 15 Broad Street.
If someday they tell us we can't do our work there we have nearly limitless ways we can move around that damn and work somewhere else.
It becomes easy to do the work that needs to be done when we let go of what was and open our minds, eyes and hearts to what will be.
Don't feel bad. Don't worry. I feel neither of those.
Just feel love.
Be the happy warrior. We then become unstoppable.
God raises the dead.
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