Category Archives: Service Activities

The Road to 65, Mile 291: Pending

10
Posted by on in distraction issues, Personal goals, Service Activities

September 14, 2015, Prescott- First, my apologies to friendly readers- Heath Muchena, JoEllen Coney, Starman Jones, Richie Salgado and Michel Fauquet.  I found your lovely comments in my Pending file, which has been ignored even longer than my Flickr site.  I have cleaned it up and approved all of your comments.

I am sad to hear that another Xanga friend, Sister Mae, has died.  She was a rock-solid friend, when I was on the old network.  I hadn’t heard from her, on Xanga 2.0.  Now, I know why.

My new position is three weeks away.  I worked today on a one-day post and will do the same tomorrow. There ought to be several other posts, this week and next, in the run-up to Fall Break, which will see me enjoying a bit of the high country.  I haven’t decided exactly where,yet, but I know it’ll be in-state.

Choices, we make and choices we own.  In accepting the charter school position, I had to decline a Red Cross post.  I think that position will go to someone who has actually worked in Social Services.  Several other changes, vis-a-vis my weekday schedule, will come about, after October 12.  I own those, also.

My erstwhile tendency to walk off and leave things hanging came to me in a dream, last light, with Penny warning me that this is a feature of mine that I should relegate to the past.  Yes, I have made a world of progress, in that respect.  Focus is improving, day by day.

Someone commented this afternoon, that I have “bedroom eyes”.  Yikes!  I thought we had left that term in the scrapheap of shallowness.  Since this person is not within my age-range, I will take it as a misguided compliment, and leave it at that.

It is nice to be appreciated, and it is nice to have a few things- pending.

The Road to 65, Mile 290: The Soup of Good Fortune

9
Posted by on in Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Service Activities

September 13, 2015, Prescott-   I spent three hours today, in one of the most worthwhile of endeavours.  The Empty Bowls Project is an annual event in Prescott, on Courthouse Square, where so many of our great community events take place.  I was given the job of Gazpacho Ladeler.  Each of us ladelers gave a contributing patron 6 oz. of soup in either a ceramic bowl, which they had purchased, or in a free Styrofoam bowl.  Patrons could come back for second helpings, so one or two of the more popular soups (i.e. lobster bisque) ran out.

Various restaurants in Prescott and nearby Prescott Valley sent a plenitude of soups, most of them hot.  The gazpacho seemed to be the only one that wasn’t.  Even so, there was just about a bowl left over, when we stopped at 2:10, and the chef came to get her materials. My tangible reward for this effort was two 16 oz. cups of soup, one minestrone and one coconut cauliflower curry.  Far greater, of course, is knowing that a substantial amount of money was raised for the benefit of local food banks.

I went back to the house afterward, and finished reading “Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior”, which recounts Dan Millman’s experiences, whilst on Oahu and Molokai.  I sat, totally concentrating on the last fifty pages of the book, and journeyed with him through various dimensions and states of mind.  He did not use hallucinogens, and I can identify with that, since my own mind can make its way to worlds that hardly make sense, in a tangible context.  This afternoon, I only followed his lead.

After my reading was finished, I was given the message to prepare a certain soup of my own.  I first peeled the rind off a butternut squash, after cleaning out its seeds and slicing off the ends.  Then, I did the same with an eggplant and a red pepper, adding lean ground beef and a few figs, with various seasonings.  Turmeric was put in there, for some reason.  I don’t usually add it to a vegetable soup, but there it was.

The scraps and seeds were then buried in the backyard, in an impromptu garden plot.  I’ve never heard of planting so close to Fall, but that was the message I got- and well, trust the journey.  We’ll see what transpires.

I will regard the resulting concoction as a soup of good fortune- celebrating what appear to be doors opening for me, even as a door of friendship, of two years’ duration, seems to be closing.  Everything happens in its time.

The Road to 65, Mile 269: Honour

2
Posted by on in Assistance, Personal goals, Service Activities, Social

August 24, 2015, Chino Valley- I will be working here, in a small Middle School class, from now to Thursday.  Today, a school-wide assembly focused on self-worth and standing up to bullying and intimidation.

I spent some time, in each class, aside from the assembly, getting kids to talk about their individual talents.  Some have “none”- a sublime fallacy.  I must say, though, that when I was their age, I would have said the same thing.  Honouring oneself is a long-term process, but need it be so?

I have a soft place in my heart for teens who feel downtrodden, or beaten down.  This is the time of life when people need special encouragement to stand up for themselves, albeit in a way that is not embarrassing or ostentatious.  There are no uglies in this forest.

The Assembly did a good job of explaining this to the students- and further making the point that a person who follows his or her finer passions, can never be bowled over by the vicissitudes of life.  Several proactive and hard-working teens were shown as examples of how to rise above some very challenging life situations, none of which were of their own making.

One young lady became an archer; another overcame a “lack of talent” in running, and has mastered that skill; a young man, who is very short, became a fine golfer; another young man established several community efforts to help homeless teens.

The students who watched all this, can each overcome their own challenges.  This, as much as anything else, keeps me working in the schools, rather than in retail or in an office, somewhere.  I have a drive, to build honour in yet another rising generation.

UPDATE:  My place, for the foreseeable future, is here in the West.  I spoke with a family member who has his finger on the pulse of things back in Massachusetts.  He reassured me that visiting Mom is a good thing; but it is not necessary for me to move back there, on her behalf.  So, in the interests of being helpful, in the real sense of the word, I stay the course.  I appreciate all the support that various friends and family have offered.  I’ll still visit there, over the holidays, but then it will be right back here to AZ.

The Road to 65, Mile 257: Desert Wildfire, Day 3

6
Posted by on in Assistance, Service Activities, Social

August 12, 2015, Mohave Valley-  Wherever there are unicorns, there are also dragons.  Where there is joy, sorrow and rage are not far away. Light is accompanied by shadow. I prefer, I insist, that the former will outlast the latter, because that’s how life goes on.

The fire has been reduced to hot spots, which are being monitored, 24/7, by a very capable local fire department.  As always happens in a community that prides itself on independence, there is gratitude towards the local first responders, and grumbling towards the Federal presence, in this case, the Bureau of Land Management.  A government that seems distant, both physically and ideologically, is an easy target, and so it has been here.  The perception, among many who have come by for food, clothing and comfort is that the Feds didn’t seem to care about them, or about their property.  The Gold King mine mishap is thrown in, for good measure, as “eventually, that stuff will find its way down here, en route to the Gulf of California.”

It’s hard for people who are themselves overwhelmed, to see the situations of others- no matter which rung of the ladder we occupy.  I was fortunate to have been raised by parents who instilled the viewing of the situation of the other, in me.  Being the oldest of five made it more urgent.

Having to deal with the local bete noire, yesterday, put this whole concept to the test.  I went through six months, last winter and spring, of being patient and forbearing with someone whom nobody else seemed to want.  These folks are sent to us by a Creator Who desires only to see our full potentials realized.  This, I understand; it was just that, at the end of a long day in the heat, I had trouble waiting for a well-rested, fastidious case worker to complete the process with a needy, isolated and very edgy outcast.  I went back to the truck, turned on the A/C, and saved myself, while keeping the window cracked open enough to hear what was going on.  She completed the matter, thirty minutes later, and the four of us left the man, who felt more accepted, and headed home.  I guess this is one of the lessons that Christ meant to impart, when He worked on Lazarus, and on Mary Magdalene.

There are issues in any community, on any given street, and within any household which has more than one occupant.  In the Fire This Time, we, as a team, did well by the town of Mohave Valley.  After a day largely spent cleaning the gym floor of the temporarily closed Mohave Valley Elementary School, three of us volunteers headed home.  As we left town, a swirl of burned-out desert dust rose high in the air, causing our Team Lead to call in a “possible re-sparked fire”.  It turned out to be just a dust devil, with burned material, almost giving us a farewell, of sorts.

We stopped up the road apiece, at Westside Lilo’s, a homey, relaxed German restaurant, in Seligman, and decompressed with some fine sandwiches, served by an engaging and spirited young woman.  I always enjoy a good bratwurst, and a pretty smile.  The rain, which our driver had feared, seems to have preceded us, and it was an easy drive back to Prescott.

Goodnight, and it looks like tomorrow will be a bit of a respite, before the next big thing.