I wasn’t going to mention this, except, when I saw this story, it reminded me of Sunday. Protesters from Occupy Omaha …well I should say, protester…there was only one at any given moment….anyway, the protesters came down to “speak for the downtrodden”. When each of these college aged kids has a nicer car than I have and bring absolutely nothing for the homeless 20 feet away, I had to wonder what they were so angry about? After all, doesn’t “social justice” sort of revolve around the plight of the less fortunate? Evidently not…see the article below. Goats milk cheese salad? Really?

Occupy Wall Street Protesters are upset that by providing high priced meals to their buddies, they might accidentally be feeding the homeless: For three days beginning tomorrow, the cooks will serve only brown rice and other spartan grub instead of the usual menu of organic chicken and vegetables, spaghetti bolognese, and roasted beet and sheep’s-milk-cheese salad.

They will also provide directions to local soup kitchens for the vagrants, criminals and other freeloaders who have been descending on Zuccotti Park in increasing numbers every day.

Full story here

It’s an exciting month for Blue Dream. With some donations we’ve got all the supplies we need for coffee, heat packs for winter, gas for a new project we’re working on, and still have some left over for the week to week expenses. We’ve completed 2 years and are now beginning our third year with a couple weeks finished already. Hmmmm? Oh, right, the new project. We’ve managed one supplier (working on another), which has nearly tripled the amount of donations we’ve been able to give. Boxes of fruits and vegetables now join the also doubled bread amounts and we’ll be giving much more regularly to a couple places we could only help from time to time.

One of our guys keeps getting left out of the donations. He’s just one of those guys who expects a crowd to form a line, but that’s just not going to happen. For that to happen, I’d have to hand out each thing individually, and I get shy about that because these gifts aren’t from me…they are from our donors and the Lord. I’ve explained it before, but one guy just said he was thanking me for taking the time to care enough to bring it. Still, knowing what would happen, I set aside some for him this last time. I felt a little silly doing it, but he was very happy and alls well that ends well.

Let’s hope my car lives a long life and the Lord is kind to us this winter hehehehe.

Today was interesting because the College World Series was in town. It scared off some of the guys who gather on the corner, but not everyone. Today we gave out some more supplies donated by my aunt and some of our usual breakfast items. The day cooperated with some great weather and the guys were either sitting around discussing things like last winter or reading books, etc. Now, I’m not the type to think that in a world of such beauty and tragedy, God is taking time out to worry about whether I have a parking space, but it did work out that in a place where parking is coming at $8 per space (CWS remember), I had my choice of parking spaces (which were filled almost immediately after I arrived). I thanked God, just in case…you never know. I was watching this psycho the other day on youtube (someone sent me the link), anyway, this guy was going off about sin and how God won’t hear the prayers of sinners, etc. Ignoring the idea that if God can’t hear the prayers of sinners, repentance would be impossible, the thing that struck me was that in an 10 minute rant, complete with website there was no mention of love or even caring about anybody. Just the usual “Come to Jesus and do everything right or burn forever”. That message is certainly inspiring in a creepy sort of sadistic way, but how do you make the world better that way? Sure…not killing everyone, committing adultery, etc are probably some good places to start on a better world, but it sort of misses the point, doesn’t it? I mean. Jesus told us that the two most important things in life were to love God with all of our hearts and our neighbors as we love ourselves. He goes on to tell the story of the Good Samaritan.
So if those ideals are the mission, then all these laws the guy was getting all worked about are just tools to accomplish those goals. Without a plan, and communication with the foreman, we end up misusing those tools and building a house no one wants to be in. I think that’s a pretty apt description of the churches where guys like this come from.
We had another visit from the guy who walks 5 miles to get where we are for bread. I broke my rule and gave him bus fare this time, because he was taking enough to feed himself for the week and a woman on the third floor of the place where he is staying. She’s less mobile than him (which seems an easy feat since he just walked over 5 miles), so he’s been getting her what he can.
Lastly, my best friend from childhood died this week. I had just sent her a message out of the blue with a picture of us together and we mused about it together and then 72 hours later, she was gone. It’s so unimaginable as to be impossible, not just because she was my friend, but if you had run a physical on her and me and 10 other people, you wouldn’t have picked her to be the one to die anytime soon. You’d have easily come to the conclusion that she would live to see grandchildren, not die 10 days after the birth of her daughter. The bible is brutally honest (a little too honest if you ask me) about the brevity of our existence here. Even 100 years would be a sneeze in time. It’s certainly too short to be mad about everything, but maybe, like those 72 hours, it’s just long enough to reach out with love to one another.