The Path Ministry

 I’ve written before about “trying to help,” specifically about the homeless population. To sum up the previous essay: Trying is a cockroach- and bedbug infested flophouse for five dollars or a voucher. Trying is making it illegal to be homeless, so they get arrested, lose all their belongings, get thrown in jail for a few days, then tossed back onto the streets with nowhere to go. What’s the point of that? Now I’ve seen “helping.” There is an outfit called Urban Alchemy here in Portland that helps you get into a tiny home and then into real housing. They approached our little group and asked if we’d like to be in their system. I spoke with one of them briefly just to get an idea of what they do. They’re helping, well and truly. I also got to witness something called the “free store” giving out clothes, hot food, water, even cigarettes and joints, on a first-come first-served basis, but the crowd I saw was relatively small. (I asked my friend Rose about this, and she says there...

 We’re all a little too easily offended anymore. Here’s an example: I had a conversation with somebody who sometimes needs a mobility device to get around. They were complaining because people keep offering to help them with things, stating that “I’m not your infantilization kink!” is an appropriate response when this happens. In other words, this person gets so angry at people who are at least making an Effort to be Compassionate that they will loudly, publicly shame them for doing so. This does nothing whatsoever but tell the person that being nice isn’t worth it and disabled people are jerks. Then, when they see an old lady crawling down the sidewalk, dragging a wheelchair and trying to control a German Shepherd at the same time, they can just step over her because they don’t want to “infantilize” her by offering to help. You choose to be offended. You choose your reaction when you do get offended. It’s not on them, it’s on you. The hundredth person who offers to hold the do...

 I’ve been expressing a lot of anger lately about the current state of affairs in America. I fear for the future, and we all know that anger is based on fear, so I’m angry. However. The Path teaches Compassion, which is similar to freeing a raccoon from a trap. The animal doesn’t understand your intentions; it is afraid of you. To be Compassionate means dodging the claws and tending to the wounds. It’s easy to be kind to those of your tribe, isn’t it? Whenever anyone gets killed, one side cheers and the other side weeps. No difference in the level of Compassion there. We cannot be kind or empathetic towards our tribal rivals. It may be hard to believe, but billionaires are miserable. Look at their faces. Neither Musk nor 47 can even smile properly. Musk can’t even play his own video games; he hires people to play for him so he can brag about his high-level characters and equipment. How sad is that? What a lot of people don’t know is that there is what’s called a diminishi...

You all know how I feel about xianity as a whole. I’m not a big fan of the mythology or the ones who believe in it. However, there are xians, and quite a few of them, who actually do what their jesus character told them to do as it comes to charity. They are instructed to give in secret instead of announcing their generosity to be admired by other people, so they do. I got this information from a few posts that popped up on my Facebook feed. (I get a lot of religious content.) There really are xian ministries who teach their adherents to actually care about other people and help those who may be struggling. I think this is something to admire no matter what mythology one adheres to. So let’s take a moment to be glad these churches exist. They may be few, but even a few is enough to be grateful for.  

 People have been "trying" to help the homeless for decades. There was even a War on Poverty, but that didn't seem to get very far. Let me tell you what "trying" looks like: Trying is packed shelters with no transition to stable housing. Trying is a five-dollar-a-night, bedbug- and cockroach-infested flop house.  Trying is leaving homeless veterans to fend for themselves. Trying is walking past tents all over the downtown sidewalks. That's trying. Now, why don't we actually do something, since trying isn't working? I know the problem is money. So why not provide some kind of incentive for developers to create some low-income housing? Something that balances out the money they get for more expensive apartments that would sit empty, anyway, since nobody can afford them. Also, a note about "anti-homeless architecture." It is used to refer to those arms in the middle of bus benches and bolts imbedded in the concrete around doorways to make it u...

  Wheels Upon Wheels The Wheel of the Virtues and the Wheel of Ka. The wheel of the seasons, the wheel of years. The wheels that measure the globe of Earth, horizontally and vertically. The wheel of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. The cycle of the phases of the moon can be expressed with a circle. The cycles of life and death and rebirth. Then there are the cycles of the Chinese and Solar Zodiac signs. Even the pattern of a single rotation of Earth describes a wheel. Everywhere you look, there are wheels or circles or cycles. What does all of this mean? The most likely explanation is that I am stoned and seeing patterns in the Universe that I cannot see while I am sober. Does this invalidate the whole thing? I do not think so; now that I see it, I cannot stop seeing it. Just an interesting thought.