This past week was a whirlwind. I had a contract job that required me to run nearly 800 miles, but limited funds with which to undertake it. I left knowing that we had to sell things online, and possibly wait until the Friday of that week to get paid on another contract job.
Murphy followed me much of the trip. I'll skip the sordid details to get where I need to; what happened AFTER the trip. Delays caused me to finish the trip up early Thursday, and I put in at a rest area, hoping to have an epayment come in the following day and roll out. Well, Friday came and no payment. I decided, since selling things online was almost equally dry (although I did get food to eat for the weekend by selling a couple things at a substantial loss), that I was putting up for the weekend, and decided to make the most of it.
A few weeks prior, I had purchased a copy of Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. Those occupied a corner of my dash, and, thwarted as I was in my hopes to play guitar, I pulled them down and resolved to read them through.
My food stash was limited, as I decided to spend my remaining cash on some healthy options, and because I had eaten relatively little on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, I decided I would spend Sunday fasting. I needed to do so for my health anyway, but the discipline to do so coupled with the work rarely works out. I spent Saturday night camped in a friend's yard.
I am summing all of this up, but as the weekend progressed, I became much more aware of the difficulties of the homeless population. As many know, that's a deep passion of mine. I was uncertain of when exactly I was heading home, I was increasingly exhausted, I was cold (twice the weather dipped below freeing, and I had nothing but the clothes I had packed and two very thin and very small fleeces to keep me warm), and worst of all, I was powerless. Santa Fe has strict rules on busking, so I couldn't afford a busking permit, and I have a hard and fast rule against begging (as Scripture makes it clear that God WILL supply our needs), so that was out....and I really didn't want this trip to include a visit to their lockup facilities.
But before I go further, I have to say, I had options that the homeless population do not have. I had a perpetual lifeline home in my phone. I had my van, and I had a bank account which meant that, once a check came in during business hours, it was a matter of minutes until I was heading home. In short, I knew I was heading home; I just didn't exactly know when.
Monday was a disaster. Unfortunately, my wife's place of employment had computer problems and checks were delayed. This was not good, as I HAD to be home Monday night, and I said so. Being tired, filthy (no truck stops in Santa Fe, so really no place to shower), hungry (My Saturday and Sunday [pre-fast] calorie totals were 2000 and 500, respectively; and both Thursday and Friday were well under 2000 calorie days), and cold. This all equalled out to irritable. As I sat there pondering what on earth God could be teaching me through THAT, I realized that it was simply: my accidental bout with homelessness was far easier than most people have it. I had a lifeline, and knew that even if it meant moving around another day or two, I WOULD eventually head home; and that as I looked at people around me, they had no idea what was going on. Nor did they care. I was convicted by how many times I have personally been inattentive to what was going on around me as well. We definitely could further the Kingdom with greater awareness and empathy.
I'm not referring to this trip to brag; if anything, it showed how soft I've become. I was loathe to leave the few comforts I had brought with, and relied on my ever present Internet lifeline. I am doing this because it opened my eyes to just how urgently we need to rethink our entire approach to discipleship and to those around us.
And I had some surprisingly good pointers from the Carnegie books. I may touch on that in a later article!
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