The Trackless Path

The gift of things is best for children 

Who don’t yet know what’s best for them

Nor what they really want.

The gift of money is best for those

Who know what they want

If the thing they want 

Is best for them.

A key difference between communism

And the oneness that exists between brothers

In God's unseen Kingdom

Is that God's Kingdom 

Does not rely upon

Two of the principal pillars of communism -

Force and deceipt.

Truth and free will and brotherly love

Prompt all of the giving and receiving.

No force. No lies. 

I am going to ask somebody else

To pay for the book that you receive.

That’s the new economy.

I’m going to give you the book for free

And I am not going to ask you to pay for it.

I’m going to ask for what I need right now.

And since you’re not here right now,

I will ask the nearest friend I meet.

Can I have food to eat?

Can I have the thing I need?

That’s the new economy.

You sow where you do not reap,

And you reap where you do not sow.

And you can buy the book on Amazon if you please.

We’re in-between and so it is a transition.

And all of this is an experimentation

Upon the Word… a work of faith

To see how far we can press

Into the New Life.

I know that God will provide for me.

But outward things press in 

And beg to be taken care of.

And they can become vexatious.

And so I like to push them out, to pay them early.

And thus, to know that they are taken care of

So that I can ply my trade in peace,

Also, to define them and keep them small.

That makes every surplus dollar extra-credit.

I like to be on the edge of what I have.

I like not knowing where my next meal will come from.

It gives me sweet pleasure

To ride upon providence.

So a strategy brews

To shed what I have quickly- 

To invest it into the ones I love

Before my right hand

Can know what my left hand is doing,

And to spread my bread upon the waters

And thus be ever on the very wake 

Of what God provides.

This post seems contradictory to the last one.

But I sense a resolution 

Though it’s hard to describe.

I think that it is something like

Shed more often, and outsource the frugality 

Wherever possible to the ones you serve.

The frugal man will always have the advantage

Over the man who spends beyond his means.

But we have forgotten what it means to be frugal.

Spend far less than what you make

And never go into debt.

That definition will work.

I met a man who lived that way

And he was wealthy in a way 

That I have never seen 

In another human being.

It was almost unearthly,

Powerful. Humble.

And after all these years

It seems that God has brought me

To the thing I learned in him

With one addition: 

To now and then shed it all

And start again.

An ad just played before the video

And suggested that I needed to manifest something,

And it pulled me in.

Yeah, maybe I need that... I thought.

But it is out there.

It suggests

That what I have is not enough.

And isn't that the opposite of wealth?

I busked today.

And it was the children

That paid my way.

They thought it was cool.

And they called their friends

And dropped coins into my case.

That surprised me. But it was beautiful.

A certain feeling visits me today.

I remember it from my childhood.

It is the feeling of looking out on the world in silence,

And seeing everything just how it appears, 

Without interpretation.

And you would think that the sentiment

Would be neutral, but it’s not.

There is a warm and definite sense

Of everything being just right,

As if existence itself

Has a favorable opinion of itself.

But strangely, it’s not perfect.

The flaws are more pronounced.

And that’s part of what makes it beautiful.

And that makes me wonder 

If the things we think are right

Are not necessarily right.

Perhaps reality is right

If we see it through child’s eyes.

And perhaps, the more we see it that way

The more we’ll be in keeping

With the true perception,

The rightest perception.

Perhaps then, we’ll be less likely

To try to force the world into the image

Of the thing we want it to be.

And that seems right.

I sit on the edge of the world - looking in.

And here upon the ridge of heaven

There is Peace.