My boss shared this idea with me today.It is the principle that motivated him to devote the rest of his working days to helping poor people get a hand up in the world.Surprisingly, it’s not about giving people free stuff.It’s about dignity.It’s about leaving enough for people to take when they are willing to put a little skin in the game. Well worth the few minute read…In ancient Israel, God instituted the practice of gleaning as a way to feed the poor. A farmer would leave some of his crop in the fields, and afterward the poor (the fatherless, widows, foreigners) would gather the leftover crops for their own sustenance.*Vineyards, as well as fields of grain, were to be available for gleaning (see Leviticus 19:10; Deuteronomy 24:20—21). The most well–known example of gleaning is found in the book of Ruth. To feed herself and her mother–in–law, Ruth “went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters…” (2:3).Gleaning was a command by God for those with productive resources to leave something extra so that the poor, through their own labor, could provide for themselves. Although the practice is no longer required for Christians, it provides an example that can be applied to the stewardship of our own resources.1. Leave some work for others — We no longer live in a society dominated by agriculture. Instead of working to create produce, most of us use our labor to produce goods and services in exchange for money. Because of our type of economic system, it isn’t always easy to see work we can leave for others. But by thinking creatively, we can often find a way to let the poor use their own labor to provide for their own needs. For example, while we might be capable of mowing our own lawn or cleaning our own home, paying someone less fortunate to do the work can be a viable way of applying the gleaning principle.2. Gleaning is better than a handout — You might ask, rather than pay someone to do work for us, why not just give them the money? Direct contributions can be a valid and efficient form of charity. But giving someone a handout deprives them of the value and dignity that can be gained from working and earning an income. God could have commanded landowners to simply collect the crops and give them to the poor; instead, he protected the dignity of the poor by requiring them to contribute their own labor.People who go through hardships and come out stronger on the other side aren’t those who get a free handout. They are the ones who are willing to take help and maintain their dignity in the midst of it. They don’t expect life to GIVE them anything, but they will take it if needed and just as eager to rise back to the level of self-sufficiency they enjoyed before, sometimes higher.This is what makes where I work so successful in moving people out of the crisis of poverty back into self-sufficiency. It’s a unique place with a unique idea of what constitutes true help for people who both need it and deserve it.Incidentally, bosses who share stuff like this out of the blue with their staffs are the kinds we need more of in this world.
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wrinkles.
Maybe it’s because I’m older and wiser, but I’ve noticed that the things which now bring me to tears are fewer the everyday instances of hurt, pain and sadness, but more the unexpected moments of joy, reconciliations and serendipity. Maybe as we advance in years and become more numbed to experiences of tragedy we become more easily moved to tears by the sudden simple beauties that were always before us but appeared at an untimely early age when we still believed the world owed us more.
All I know is the less time I have left here the more important I find it is to plan a clean exit on a high note.
This small epiphany and the wrinkles are how I know for certain that I’ve finally grown up.
No clue what I will do.
????? ?????? ??? ???? ??? ???.??? ??? ???’?? ???? ?? ?????.
I bought more panties, bras and pads than any gay man should.
More comfy purses to fit my arms than any straight man would.
To beauty parlors, nail salons and pharmacies with you
Been here and there and everywhere…I’m not sure what I’ll do.
The little walks and tearful talks and stories of your life
Have filled our days with laughs so thick, can’t cut them with a knife.
I get us lost, you drive me mad and tell me what to do
But we always end up back at home…I’m not sure what I’ll do.
The butts of jokes and puns of posts that make so many happy
That Q-Tip hair, the clothes you wear on Facebook looks so snappy.
So many pics that you have nixed and some you never knew
You make life fun to be your son…I’m not sure what I’ll do.
Clockwork calling days and nights to see how your day went
And kindly and reciprocally, you ask how mine was spent.
I can’t imagine how it’ll be some day when yours are through
You’re woven so deep in my days and weeks…I’m not sure what I’ll do.
No clue what I will do.
BFFs
Best friends have shorter conversations lasting twice as long, three times as deep, and you only need to say half as much for them to understand it all.
The search is over.
The search is over.
30 years of looking left me one day short of locating my longtime best friend.
At 12:19am this morning, Jodie notified me that Jim had passed in a California hospital just 6 hours earlier from a surgical infection.
For much of my 20s, Jim and I did everything together from hiking to biking to traveling and we made some of the best memories up and down the west coast two quirky guys ever could. I’d exhausted all leads many years back, resigned that maybe—or obviously—Jim just didn’t want to be found.
Turns out I’d been only 320 miles away and right on both counts.
His life was an inspiration for that wonderful decade of explorational youth as single, available young men. I’ve assembled so much to tell him since, in hopes of finding him, if only he would have surfaced a little sooner.
But he was quiet, humble, unpretentious and always flew under the radar, never having coveted the spotlight nor celebration of anyone. I’m told his final years were spent reclusive, likely fighting the mental health demons we’d discussed 40 years ago and about which I promised to never reveal for as long as I lived…but now wonder if that was the kind of promise that should ever be made by a true friend.
Alas, I now have someone who I’m assured will be first in line to hug me at heaven’s gate soon enough. I’d have loved to write a much longer story about our decade of friendship together but it wouldn’t be fair if he couldn’t read it first. So I’ll just keep that story inside me as a special parting gift from Jim. Can’t wait to see you man.
He laughed until he died.
[In memory of our dad, Mike Miller,the funniest damn man I ever knew up until the very end.]
Whether naked and afraid
In the most desolate of places
During loneliest of moments
Or darkest of spaces.
Not a penny to your name
Nor a shirt on your back
Not a crumb in your stomach
Not a morsel to snack.
Even closest to death
And losing your fight
On your last breath
With the end now in sight.
It matters not time
It matters not place
You can always find humor
To leave a smile on your face.
Serendipitydoodah
It was a simple conversation about happiness that took quite a wide and unexpected turn into a moment of serendipity.
As if our lunch conversation wasn’t already and unexpectedly pretty fascinating given the long lapse of time between our in person meeting, at one point we shared our own list of what makes each of us happy. I wasn’t expecting an epiphany but that’s what epiphanies do, just creep up and surprise you when you least expect it.
As we went tit for tat across the table, I found our “happy” scenarios were all circumstantial, based almost entirely upon fortunate events and lovely experiences that either happened around us, to us, or were otherwise concocted by us simply that we might occasionally experience happiness and joy.
As we hugged and each of us drove back to work, I thought about that epiphany “Us humans seem to put in a lot of work for some fleeting bliss which, ultimately, passes until our dependence on the next experience prompts some catalyst. We could learn a lot from the rest of the animal kingdom.”
Seemingly, to be continuously happy requires effort and exposure to things outside ourselves, while simply being ‘content’ is a taskless, unavoidable state of peace within our selves despite the circumstances whatever they are. Happiness is merely the ! at the end while contentment is the entire sentence before it that we need not work to write because being contented, we just let it fall into place.
Serendipity is full of wonder and beauty, and exactly what our conversation that afternoon had very pleasantly become.
March 2 a different drummer.
It’s -uss with two s’s
After See with one -e
If today you send wishes
For a Happy Birthday to me!
I taught you to read,
Still my name looks like hell
You love my stories indeed
But still can’t spell very well.
–Dr. Freakin Seuss #HappyBirthdayDrSeuss
Cilantro
As garnishes go
I’m not much of a pro
But here I will state my opinion.
Tall and verdantly grow
I love cilantro
The best of my herbal dominion.
I’m a fan as you see
Of this little green tree
And order it wherever I go.
Not quite coriander
(Which is ever much blander)
And the seed from which cilantro must grow.
But today some will hate
This spice on your plate
Like you’ll die if you actually must eat it.
But by the bushel or bunch
Breakfast, dinner or lunch
It’s delicious and I think you can’t beat it.
Happy “ɪ ʜᴀᴛᴇ ᴄɪʟᴀɴᴛʀᴏ ᴅᴀʏ” to all you tasteless haters who don’t know a good thing when you seed it.
Sometimes it hurts.
It was both very dark and very cold at 4:15 this morning when I was inspired by a young black father in line at Walmart.
Waiting for the checker, I asked “Sick kid?”
“Yeah, all night,” as he laid out a small pharmacy on the check stand. We talked about the pain of a parent when kids hurt and he shared she’d been sick most of this week and how being a single father it was difficult to leave her home while he was at work ten miles away.
The checker arrived, he paid and we shook hands, both desperately praying for a speedy recovery for his little girl. My purchase made, I walked out into the dark, cold morning to see him fidgeting with the lock on an old bicycle.
Turns out, he lived four miles up Boulder Highway and didn’t relish the cold ride home or the couple hours ahead for a nap before riding that same rickety bike across town to his job.
After much insistence on my part, we packed up his bike and drove the distance, pulling into the drive of a small trailer where he and his six year old lived. I wished him well and he said thanks. Nothing more needed said, just the chance meeting of two fathers who may never meet again but who love their kids so much sometimes it hurts, and an inspiring way to begin both our days.
He’s a real life hero. Kayla, get well soon. Your dad loves you a whole lot.