03-20-2022, 12:36 PM
I have had several experiences with homeless individuals.
... I have participated in a CityReach conference... twice, if I'm remembering right. CityReach is an overnight urban outreach program designed for youth (with accompanying adults), young adults, and college students from churches of any denomination. The program has participants join CityReach staff in street ministry to speak with homeless individuals, learn from them, and invite them to the CityReach conference hall for more hospitality, food, hygienic products, and clothing. This is followed by times of sharing and reflection. I attended with a small group of mentors and friends from a Unitarian Universalist church, and we drove up to Boston to join the conference there. I stopped going after the second conference because something in the air made my throat and skin itch.
... When I worked in Cambridge (Massachusetts) I would, on the way to the office from the subway station, pass by a homeless man. Sometimes he had a few fellows there with him, too. I held this job--really an internship (although it was paid)--while I was an undergraduate student... right after my junior year, summer into the first semester of my senior year, ending sometime in the winter. I had already been introduced to the work of L/L Research and had been exploring the material for a couple years. So, each day as I would leave the subway, I would wish my fellow travelers "joy and productivity," or something along those lines. I had been, at that time, exploring in a dedicated fashion the concepts of surrender, fate, and synchronicity, so I would give my blessing to the subway and then move on. As I approached the homeless fellow or fellows, I would ask the universe what would be good for me to give... this I did by attempting to project my energy outward--and I would always feel a current lightly vibrating or humming around my body when doing this--and then ask the question in my mind, or picture the homeless fellows, or simply try to feel, wordlessly, the interconnectedness of the world. Some days I 'received' that there was nothing better to give than a smile and a greeting, some days a short conversation, some days whatever bills I had left in my wallet. One particular day, I felt that I should give my winter coat (this was towards the end of the internship)--and for the remainder I wore sweatshirts or long-sleeved shirts with an undershirt layered underneath it. The homeless fellow I interacted with most was always quite cheerful... he was one of the highlights of that internship, just greeting him, talking to him.
... A few months into my second year at graduate school, my friend became homeless. He hadn't found a job yet, and his rent had evaporated most of his savings--so when his lease ended, he couldn't really go anywhere. I wasn't allowed to keep him in my rental for any protracted time, but I would have him stay over when he could. My roommates didn't ask any questions when he stayed there for close to a week, but my landlord had cameras watching the property, so we were fairly careful. Sometimes he had to make a bed underneath store awnings or in abandoned sheds. He wasn't too disturbed by his situation--he recognized it as an injustice, but he was also determined to find a job and a home and often spent the day building a programming portfolio in a local coffee shop or diner. He rarely asked for money or food or other resources, and often denied offers of these except when he was really in need. He mostly asked for car rides, which I was happy to provide. I haven't heard from him in a while; though, he said he might take a bus out west and stay with a friend. I hope he made it.
... Now, I'm the homeless fellow. Well--I'm legally homeless. Since the 16th, I've been holed up in a motel... and Cornell Law includes in their definition of the "homeless individual" any individual who has "a room in a hotel or motel and where they lack the resources necessary to reside there for more than 14 days."
I had enough saved up to make a reservation for 15 days, so, technically, I hadn't become legally homeless until the 17th. I also have my car, my laptop computer, my phone, a closet's worth of clothing, some cash for gas and food... So, I'm doing alright. I'm perceiving it as an exercise in equanimity... Two things I ask of you, Lord; do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. I can also see that this situation is one borne of some subtle desires. Like Omcasey, I have often pondered the life of the nomad. In high school, on our work aptitude testing day, I mused to my friends that I might like to become a traveling monk. I often joked to my parents when they would fret over my choosing of a career that I would end up homeless, and that my younger sister would have to be their star child. And I have lived for years and years already with a fondness for unheated soups, for simple breads and cheeses and cured meats and berries, for sleeping on floors and couches, for... well, for living in a more contented fashion. So, although I did not think I asked for this, perhaps I had! ... And, anyways, I will find out soon if I will be offered placement in a rescue mission's residential program. I feel that would be one appropriate chapter for me... as the program would be a year-long dedication to street ministry, serving my fellow homeless (or mostly homeless) while studying principles of faith and inner development. Like my hopefully-now-formerly-homeless friend, I feel that my semi-homelessness is, in some sense, a miscarriage of justice... but I also don't mind it. It is unfair but fine, very fine, and I feel blessed.
... I have participated in a CityReach conference... twice, if I'm remembering right. CityReach is an overnight urban outreach program designed for youth (with accompanying adults), young adults, and college students from churches of any denomination. The program has participants join CityReach staff in street ministry to speak with homeless individuals, learn from them, and invite them to the CityReach conference hall for more hospitality, food, hygienic products, and clothing. This is followed by times of sharing and reflection. I attended with a small group of mentors and friends from a Unitarian Universalist church, and we drove up to Boston to join the conference there. I stopped going after the second conference because something in the air made my throat and skin itch.
... When I worked in Cambridge (Massachusetts) I would, on the way to the office from the subway station, pass by a homeless man. Sometimes he had a few fellows there with him, too. I held this job--really an internship (although it was paid)--while I was an undergraduate student... right after my junior year, summer into the first semester of my senior year, ending sometime in the winter. I had already been introduced to the work of L/L Research and had been exploring the material for a couple years. So, each day as I would leave the subway, I would wish my fellow travelers "joy and productivity," or something along those lines. I had been, at that time, exploring in a dedicated fashion the concepts of surrender, fate, and synchronicity, so I would give my blessing to the subway and then move on. As I approached the homeless fellow or fellows, I would ask the universe what would be good for me to give... this I did by attempting to project my energy outward--and I would always feel a current lightly vibrating or humming around my body when doing this--and then ask the question in my mind, or picture the homeless fellows, or simply try to feel, wordlessly, the interconnectedness of the world. Some days I 'received' that there was nothing better to give than a smile and a greeting, some days a short conversation, some days whatever bills I had left in my wallet. One particular day, I felt that I should give my winter coat (this was towards the end of the internship)--and for the remainder I wore sweatshirts or long-sleeved shirts with an undershirt layered underneath it. The homeless fellow I interacted with most was always quite cheerful... he was one of the highlights of that internship, just greeting him, talking to him.
... A few months into my second year at graduate school, my friend became homeless. He hadn't found a job yet, and his rent had evaporated most of his savings--so when his lease ended, he couldn't really go anywhere. I wasn't allowed to keep him in my rental for any protracted time, but I would have him stay over when he could. My roommates didn't ask any questions when he stayed there for close to a week, but my landlord had cameras watching the property, so we were fairly careful. Sometimes he had to make a bed underneath store awnings or in abandoned sheds. He wasn't too disturbed by his situation--he recognized it as an injustice, but he was also determined to find a job and a home and often spent the day building a programming portfolio in a local coffee shop or diner. He rarely asked for money or food or other resources, and often denied offers of these except when he was really in need. He mostly asked for car rides, which I was happy to provide. I haven't heard from him in a while; though, he said he might take a bus out west and stay with a friend. I hope he made it.
... Now, I'm the homeless fellow. Well--I'm legally homeless. Since the 16th, I've been holed up in a motel... and Cornell Law includes in their definition of the "homeless individual" any individual who has "a room in a hotel or motel and where they lack the resources necessary to reside there for more than 14 days."
I had enough saved up to make a reservation for 15 days, so, technically, I hadn't become legally homeless until the 17th. I also have my car, my laptop computer, my phone, a closet's worth of clothing, some cash for gas and food... So, I'm doing alright. I'm perceiving it as an exercise in equanimity... Two things I ask of you, Lord; do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. I can also see that this situation is one borne of some subtle desires. Like Omcasey, I have often pondered the life of the nomad. In high school, on our work aptitude testing day, I mused to my friends that I might like to become a traveling monk. I often joked to my parents when they would fret over my choosing of a career that I would end up homeless, and that my younger sister would have to be their star child. And I have lived for years and years already with a fondness for unheated soups, for simple breads and cheeses and cured meats and berries, for sleeping on floors and couches, for... well, for living in a more contented fashion. So, although I did not think I asked for this, perhaps I had! ... And, anyways, I will find out soon if I will be offered placement in a rescue mission's residential program. I feel that would be one appropriate chapter for me... as the program would be a year-long dedication to street ministry, serving my fellow homeless (or mostly homeless) while studying principles of faith and inner development. Like my hopefully-now-formerly-homeless friend, I feel that my semi-homelessness is, in some sense, a miscarriage of justice... but I also don't mind it. It is unfair but fine, very fine, and I feel blessed.
![[+]](https://www.bring4th.org/forums/images/collapse_collapsed.png)