The Global Conversation

Tag: homeless

  • How can I help the homeless find shelter?

    My wife called me crying because of a couple she found in a laundromat. I found out later they were homeless but chose to live their lives in the streets. My wife wanted to help them so we bought them food and gave them blankets and pillows. (I had tried to get them a room in nearby motels but they were well known and had created such a mess and “smell” before that the motels had to throw everything away.) Other people had paid cash for a room and then put the homeless couple in there without the manager being aware. In other words there was “no room in the inn.”

    Because of my background in law enforcement I found some police officers and spoke to them about a homeless shelter. There are none in the city and there are up to 25 “couples” they are aware of living in wooded areas within the city limits.

    I now feel I would like to help with love, money, and time, to help these people but do not have a clue where to start. Any suggestions?… Mickey

    Dear Mickey… How about soliciting help from the churches in your area? Perhaps you can put together a meeting with area church leaders asking them to help you implement a program called “Room In the Inn.”

    The homeless people can sleep in the church’s fellowship halls, taking turns on different nights so that it wouldn’t be overwhelming to any one church. If you can get 7 churches to commit, each church would have one night per week. If you can get 14 churches to help, that’s just one night every two weeks.

    The members can volunteer their time helping with meals and clean-up and have a couple of men from the church designated to stay overnight. The ladies can bring in potluck dinners and breakfasts.

    How’s that sound? Think how great you’ll feel if you get this going! And your sweet wife won’t have to cry anymore.

    (Annie Sims is the Global Director of CWG Advanced Programs, is a Conversations With God Coach and author/instructor of the CWG Online School. To connect with Annie, please email her at Annie@TheGlobalConversation.com

    (If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to:  Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com where our team is waiting to hear from you.)

     

    An additional resource:  The CWG Helping Outreach offers spiritual assistance from a team of non-professional/volunteer Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less. Nothing on the CCN site should be construed or is intended to take the place of or be in any way similar to professional therapeutic or counseling services.  The site functions with the gracious willing assistance of lay persons without credentials or experience in the helping professions.  What these volunteers possess is an awareness of the theology of Conversations with God.  It is from this context that they offer insight, suggestions, and spiritual support during moments of unbidden, unexpected, or unwelcome change on the journey of life.

  • Making the most of a “chance encounter”

    Dear readers: Today’s advice question comes from one of my students in the CWG Online School, who has recently decided and declared his life calling is to be a “good Samaritan.” When I read his response to one of our homework questions, I knew I wanted to share it with all of you in the hopes that you will gain from his experience:

    As I was leaving a take-away shop with my dinner recently, I passed a guy who was just sitting on the sidewalk with no shirt on, an unkempt look, a bottle of beer, and a shopping bag which seemed to have all his possessions in it. As I walked past he says “Hey old mate.” I chose to ignore him, thinking, “I do not need this hassle or want to deal with this at the moment. I just want to get home, I’m exhausted.” And I then let fear take over. He says again, “Hey old mate,” but louder this time. I chose to ignore him again and kept walking. Again he says “Hey old mate,” and his voice is quite loud. This then got the better of me and I snapped at him and said quite loud myself, “Are you right? What’s Up?” He then looked at me and slowly turned his head away and looked towards the ground – and I just got in the car and drove away, feeling angry and also like a heel. Then I beat myself up a bit and thought of a thousand different ways I could have handled this differently. I could have acknowledged him at least. Maybe he was down on his luck and just hungry and I could have bought him a $9 meal from the take away shop, as I had the money. And not let fear take over. Maybe he might have only wanted to know what time it was, etc. So this was a real eye opener for me to see that I have a long way to go in having the right attitude and how I perceive others and how I might respond in unusual situations. I am feeling a little lost at the moment… Ben

    Oh, Ben, don’t you see the perfect irony in this “chance encounter”? If not, please let me show you how it looks from my perspective:

    1. You decide and declare Who You Really Are, which is a good Samaritan.

    2. You meet someone on the street who, in the past, would have frightened you, simply by his appearance—unkempt, drinking beer, apparently homeless.

    3. You forget your decision to be a good Samaritan and you do the exact opposite, reacting as you would have in the past, rather than creating as you would like to from now on, when faced with this type of situation.

    4. He looks you in the eye, then slowly looks away as if to say, “You forgot, Ben, to be a good Samaritan. Here I am giving you the perfect opportunity to fulfill exactly what it is you say you are, and you forgot.”

    5. You, of course, feel terrible because your actions were out of alignment with your new decision about yourself.

    Please, please forgive yourself for forgetting, dear sweet Ben. We all forget… until we don’t anymore. And remember this encounter, always. Then the next time something like this happens, you will choose differently, thus allowing yourself to feel really good about remembering, then acting on, your decision to be a good Samaritan.

    Do you know what the definition of “sin” is? It’s missing the mark. Whose mark? Our own! When we commit a sin, we’ve fallen short of who we say we are, knowing we could have done better. Now, “go and sin no more,” dear Bob. You are growing into higher and higher states of awareness, and these growing pains are all part of the process. This is Life, giving you the right and perfect opportunities for you to step into your next grandest version of the greatest vision you ever held about Who You Are.

    This was a perfect life lesson for you. And now, the “Moral of the Story”:

    When you lose, don’t lose the lesson!

    (Annie Sims is the Global Director of CWG Advanced Programs, is a Conversations With God Life Coach and author/instructor of the CWG Online School. To connect with Annie, please email her at Annie@TheGlobalConversation.com

    (If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to:  Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com where our team is waiting to hear from you.)

  • How can I help the homeless find shelter?

    My wife called me crying because of a couple she found in a laundromat. I found out later they were homeless but chose to live their lives in the streets. My wife wanted to help them so we bought them food and gave them blankets and pillows. (I had tried to get them a room in nearby motels, but they were well-known and had created such a mess and “smell” before that the motels had to throw everything away.) Other people had paid cash for a room and then put the homeless couple in there without the manager being aware. In other words, there was “no room in the inn.”

    Because of my background in law enforcement I found some police officers and spoke to them about a homeless shelter. There are none in the city and there are up to 25 “couples” they are aware of living in wooded areas within the city limits. 

    I now feel I would like to help with love, money, and time, to help these people but do not have a clue where to start. Any suggestions?… Mickey

    Dear Mickey… How about soliciting help from the churches in your area? Perhaps you can put together a meeting with area church leaders asking them to help you implement a program called “Room In the Inn.”

    The homeless people can sleep in the church’s fellowship halls, taking turns on different nights so that it wouldn’t be overwhelming to any one church. If you can get 7 churches to commit, each church would have one night per week. If you can get 14 churches to help, that’s just one night every two weeks.

    The members can volunteer their time helping with meals and clean-up and have a couple of men from the church designated to stay overnight. The ladies can bring in potluck dinners and breakfasts.

    How’s that sound? Think how great you’ll feel if you get this going! And your sweet wife won’t have to cry anymore.

    (Annie Sims is the Global Director of CWG Advanced Programs, is a Conversations With God Coach and author/instructor of the CWG Online School. To connect with Annie, please email her at Annie@TheGlobalConversation.com.

    (If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to:  Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com where our team is waiting to hear from you.)

  • MAJOR CRIME SPREE HITS SARASOTA

    A series of horrible crimes has hit the golden city of Sarasota, Florida, according to news reports, and the city government itself has had to marshal all of its forces — from the city manager to the police department to the depart of public works — to forestall a complete collapse of civility and safety, law and order there.

    First to be arrested in a crime sweep last Sunday was 28-year-old Darren Kersey, a homeless man, who was charged with charging. He did not charge the officer who arrested him on the charge of charging, and because he was homeless he could not charge on a credit card the $500 bail required to be released on the charging charge, so the charge of charging landed him in jail for the night, where the police were put in charge of him.

    To explain further, Mr. Kersey was charged with charging his cell phone at a public electric outlet in a picnic shelter in the city’s Gillespie Park. The arresting officer was not a mere patrolman, but a sergeant on the city’s police force, Anthony Frangioni, who wrote in his arrest report that he told Mr. Kersey that the “theft of city utilities will not be tolerated during this bad economy,” according to a news report in The Sarasota Herald Tribune which may be found here…

    http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20121112/ARTICLE/121119888

    Sgt. Frangioni, as a 14-year-veteran of the police force, knew a serious crime when he saw one, and took immediate action to protect the citizens of what in 2006 was labeled the “meanest city” in the nation by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty and the National Coalition for the Homeless.

    The charge of charging against Mr. Kersey, standing alone, might be considered a minor offense — if an offense at all — but his crime is part of a larger and escalating problem at Gillespie Park, according to news reports. Apparently, more than a few homeless people use the electrical outlet there to charge their cell phones. They carry the phones, they say, so that they are able to call 911 should they ever need to. They also try to stay in touch with whatever friends or family they have left, the Herald Tribune story said.

    Residents living near the park have started complaining, not only about the charging of cell phones, but the escalating situation when a homeless woman in an electric wheelchair stopped to charge her chair. And the crime spree goes further, the Gillespie Park Neighborhood Association says. According to the Herald Tribune report, the association president said in a letter to city officials that the stealing of electricity was not the only crime being committed at the location by the homeless. They were also burning wood in the park’s grills to keep warm, sleeping in the park overnight, and smoking and drinking in the park, her letter said.

    To stop at least the first of these rampant crimes from continuing, the municipality recently sent a crew from the city, accompanied by a police captain, to the park to shut down all electric power at the location.

    This left the homeless lady, identified as Maura “Cookie” Wood, with only an hour’s power left in her wheelchair, but it did stop the electricity theft crime wave. At least for an hour. Sixty minutes later that the park’s power was turned back on, with the city manager calling the shut-off a misunderstanding. Or, as he termed it in his own words, an “oops,” according to a follow-up Herald Tribune story, found here:

    http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20121113/ARTICLE/121119842?p=4&tc=pg

    Meanwhile Mr. Kersey, the criminal originally arrested for the flagrant broad-daylight theft of the city’s electricity, said when he was interviewed later by the newspaper, that he wondered if perhaps his arrest on the charging charge might have been motivated by police Sgt. Frangioni being angry at him for walking over to the sergeant’s patrol car and snapping a picture of the car’s license plate after Mr. Kersey observed the officer arresting another homeless man for smoking in the park. Police officers have been known to react with anger when citizens try to make a record of their actions when seeking to put a stop to major offenses such as people smoking in a public park.

    Such lawlessness cannot and will not be allowed in Sarasota, if press reports are to be believed. A major crackdown will apparently be required to keep the members of the Gillespie Park Neighborhood Association safe.

    Oh…a final note: The charging charge against Mr. Kersey was dropped when he appeared in court as ordered the morning after he spent the night in jail. Circuit Judge Charles Williams threw the case out — but not quite soon enough. When Mr. Kersey reported for work at his new job as a laborer at a flower shop, a position he had just landed days before his arrest, he was fired for not showing up because he was in jail that morning, awaiting his arraignment in court.

    But justice had been done in Sarasota, where the citizens can be proud of their police force and their city manager.

  • The music never stopped

    “Ours is not a better way…ours is merely another way.”

    This concept is one of the basic tenets of the “Conversations with God” material and the prominent underlying message in this poignant movie I recently had the pleasure of watching called “The Music Never Stopped.”

    Based on a true story, this film revolves around the relationship between an estranged father and son who use the gift of music to bridge the painful emotional and physical distance existing between them.  When Gabriel’s overly strict father forbids him to attend a Grateful Dead concert in his teenage years, Gabriel runs away from his family home and becomes homeless.  20 years later, his parents learn that their son has a massive tumor growing in his brain which requires immediate surgery, and they are reunited once again to care for their son as he moves through this complicated and risky medical procedure.

    The unfortunate consequence to this delicate surgery is damage to Gabriel’s short-term memory, resulting in his inability to distinguish between the time period of the 1960s and today, and communication becomes frustrating and nearly impossible due to his almost catatonic state.

    Determined to reconnect with his son and repair their fractured relationship, Gabriel’s father, Henry, seeks the assistance of a renowned music therapist, whose research reveals that the key to unlocking Gabriel’s mind lies within the notes and melodies of the beloved music from his youth:  The Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Steppenwolf, and the Beatles.  This new revelation invites Henry to overcome his sharp distaste for anything but classical music and venture into the world of classic rock-n-roll so that he may forge a new relationship with his son.

    This film is compelling in that it demonstrates how adopting a new perspective can be transformational and healing.  Life is a never-ending process of change.  When we fear change and resist change, clinging tightly and begrudgingly to our thoughts and beliefs, as Henry did, we may very well find ourselves so stuck in “our way” that we miss the opportunity being presented to us in “another way.”  Our relationships invite us to experience life in ways that gently, and sometimes boldly, challenge what we hold to be true by offering us an opportunity to see – or in Gabriel’s father’s case hear – things in an entirely new and different way.

    I highly recommend and encourage you to consider adding this wonderfully original film to your next movie night!

    “The Music Never Stopped” can be found on Netflix and is available on video from most movie rental sources.

    (Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation.  She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)

    (If there is a book, movie, music CD, etc. that you would like to recommend to our worldwide audience, please submit it to our Managing Editor, Lisa McCormack, for possible publication in this space. Not all submissions can be published, due to the number of submissions and sometimes because of other content considerations, but all are encouraged. Send submissions to Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com. Please label the topic: “Review”)