The Trackless Path

Words matter. They effect the way we think of things, the way we feel about things. So how might it change the way we think and feel, were we to call the placebo effect a miracle.

This is the Beggar's Bowl,

The weekly edition of my podcast

Wherein I highlight one financial principle of the new life

And beg for spare change.

This week I do not ask for 50 cents.

I ask that if you've been blessed by the things I share,

That you consider sharing a post, a video, a podcast,

With someone close to you.

The ideas that I am sharing are important

But I cannot do this work alone.

I need your help,

Which brings me to this week's principle:

You only get paid once,

So don't expect a future reward

When you have already been paid.

On the other hand, to do a good deed

Without thought of reward

Is to store up future blessings

Thank you all for listening,

And God Bless.

I did not write today's post. It was written by a friend of mine who lives in Arizona. It seems like a fitting ending to the last little series. I hope that the last few posts have not been too somber for you. I cannot say that I have any big solutions to the problems that I see. I don't think that way. But I have found that God leads me to broken people, or leads them to me, as the case may be. And when I find them, there is something he wants me to do. Sometimes, it is a conversation. Sometimes, it is a meal, or a ride, or a few dollars, or a prayer. Once he asked me to drive a man to the grocery store. That assignment lasted for two years. And I don't think I would have had time for two such assignments. And God knew that. And all the while, I watched other broken people pass me by. But I was not called to care for them. I often wondered why I was called to help that particular man. God only knows. But it's important. And I pray that you will find your own way. God only knows what the world might be like if we all listened. 

Joel and Rottie

His girlfriend dumped him in the desert, looking for greener pastures I suppose. We found him camped with his little dog beneath a tree. He was from Pennsylvania. He didn't understand the desert, and the temperatures were rising above 110. He had a catheter, kidney stones, and a touch of dementia. Bad combination. He trekked three miles to McDonald's every day with his dog for food and soda, another mistake. Three miles out. Three miles back. Every day.

Eventually, he had to go to the emergency room. They took him by ambulance. I cared for his little dog while he was in. The dog was his lifeline to the world. Each time they were reunited the tears flowed. He was so grateful. The dog meant the world to him. But the world did its best to ignore him. He made the world uncomfortable. It was a world that wished he'd go away.

We couldn't get him a driver's license to get him a plane ticket. No birth certificate. No Social Security Card. No picture I.D. Our Church missionaries became his dearest friends. Out of desperation we found an abandoned motorhome in the desert and began to clean it out. For someone who had dodged Covid for three years, I was pretty sure I'd get the Hunta virus from all the rat droppings. We abandoned the cleaning and tried to get him into an R.V. park. Once they found out he was homeless, no one would rent to him. Another dead-end. They all had excuses. Joel was faceless, nameless. He had no voice. No advocate to plead his case. And the dementia didn't help. He got confused easily. He forgot appointments. He lost his phone a couple of times. Finally, a miracle. His sister back East sent money for a bus ticket.

The missionaries managed to get the bus company to consider Rottie a service dog. It was a light (of sorts) at the end of a long tunnel. Suitcase and guitar stowed safely on the bus he began his long journey East. But who would take him in at the end of his journey? We didn't know. But at least he was out from under that tree and away from the Arizona heat. But now he was entering an even more brutal desert: bureaucracy. And he would be alone in an unforgiving world.

Mary Cowan

There's another reason we don't consider reasonable housing options.

We don't want to see it.

But we will.

We have pushed back the ugly,

But the ugly is coming for us.

Why is it not ok

For someone to live in a storage unit?

Why do municipalities fight tiny homes?

I've seen 4 tiny apartments made out of a storage container.

Each unit was roughly eight feet by ten feet,

With a shared porta potty

And a spigot for water -

The perfect solution for someone

Desiring to rise from the street

Or simply live within their means.

I have visited historic sites:

Cabins raised from the prairie -

One room and a loft for the kids.

No money needed. No loan.

But that's illegal today.

We won't have it. And why?

Because it will lower our property values.

And we don't want that.

We are reveling in the spoils

Of a system that was devised to enslave.

And we don't want anyone to get out of the grind.

If I must do it, then so should my neighbor.

"And what is it to me if he can't keep up?

Am I my brother's keeper?"

Gen 4:9 And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?

We have grown lofty.

We have lost the sense of what we need,

We don't even know how to define it

Accept in terms of debt: the monthly payment

So that a man amounts to the quantity of debt that he can shoulder.

And most groan under the weight of it.

But instead of erecting something new,

We reach out toward the American Dream.

And what is the American Dream?

To free ourselves from debt

By heaping debt upon another.

We want to own the block,

To buy up this street and that.

We are a pack of aspiring landlords.

We practice in our youth with monopoly money.

And as the years roll on,

We exchange it for real money.

And some win. Most lose.

Until the poor have no place left

Except between the jaws of the rich,

Or on the street.

And even then, it's not enough.

We chase them from this place to that

And insist that it is their fault.

And it is.

They fell behind.

They lost at the game of life.

But I wonder if perhaps it doesn't need to be this way.

Perhaps we have been sold a bill of goods.

Perhaps we don't need to play the game.

For myself, I have ducked out. 

My place is on the street.

My place is on the street.

Or in this house or that

But nothing very long,

And to speak these words while I still live,

To wander, wander, wander 'round

Raving like a madman,

And one day return home

To the world where a man is measured

Not by what he can amass,

But by the love of his Maker.

There, He says, in that heavenly place

is the inheritance of all the poor.

And I think that I can wait.

Perhaps we are all trying to be BIG.

And that keeps us from doing anything SUBSTANTIAL,

Because SUBSTANCIAL work is long and tedious.  

It is LABORIOUS. It is a GRIND.

It is not a FLASH in the pan.

It is not TWO SCOOPS of Kellogg’s Raisin Brand.

It is not BIG. It’s not the SUPER BOWL.

It is CEASELESS, TIRELESS, and sometimes PROFITLESS work.

All for the sake of what?

The BOTTOM LINE?  

No.

But for the IDEA that the world might be BETTER for the work we do.

For this, we constrain ourselves to the SMALL

And TEDIOUS work that is our lives,

And TRUST that an unseen hand 

Will REWARD us for our efforts.

This is what is meant by HONEST WORK.

And it will grow according to its NATURE,

Some GREAT, some SMALL.

All else is born of LIES.

I bring myself back to work.

I want to stop. But I keep going.

I want to lessen the load, but I persevere.

Steadiness and consistency are what I am after.

And all of that sounds so trite,

Like a motivational speech.

But finally, I belive I am ready to hear.

I could not find a reason to try

When it was all for money.

But now it fits.

This is the Beggar’s Bowl,

The weekly edition of my podca                                                                    

Wherein I highlight one financial principle of the new life

And beg for spare change.

Follow your best impulse.

Let it lead you into your most authentic interests.

Sacrifice for the sake of finding the truth that you were meant to promote.

And then use your means to spread the message.

Let yourself lose in the short run.

Learn.  Then try again.  And again.

Let it take what time it takes.

Look to the 200-year plan.

This is the way of tomorrow’s marketers.

They will think in mission terms.

All else will bow out.

Because it will become too complex to live selfishly.

If you find these podcasts useful, 

Please consider a donation of 50 cents.

The links to do so are in the description.

https://www.thetracklesspath.com/donate.html

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Your life is not what you think. Thank God!

And you have less power to change your fate 

Than you might suppose.

But that doesn’t mean that it is nothing.

Kindness is never wasted.

And love, though it be measured out by imperfect hands

Into undeserving vessels

Is still love.

And after all of that,

Who knows what faith can do.

Because faith in God is more than you.

And that is the thing that interests me.

We are players on the stage.

Our lines are written down.

But to believe that an unseen hand can change it all 

Is the twist ending.