{"id":987,"date":"2010-03-09T17:22:22","date_gmt":"2010-03-09T17:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/voteforjoe.com\/wheresjoe\/?p=425"},"modified":"2010-03-09T17:22:22","modified_gmt":"2010-03-09T17:22:22","slug":"everyone-has-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=987","title":{"rendered":"everyone has enough…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I gave a talk to some 40 people at the Open Door Community<\/em> \u00a0 in Atlanta, Georgia, today. \u00a0 The gentleman who introduced me, prefaced the talk by reading from Proverbs 30: 7-9<\/em>. \u00a0 \u00a0 The crux of the passage was “…let me be neither rich nor poor.”<\/em> \u00a0 \u00a0 I, in turn, said that that was the essence of our platform. \u00a0 That is, many Americans have the wherewithal to cut back lifestyle wise and help much more than they do. \u00a0 And it’s about tapping into that spirit of sacrifice… \u00a0 After the talk, our family volunteered helping serve a meal to the homeless here. \u00a0 I was assigned to the front yard where I picked up coffee cups among those waiting to get in. \u00a0 I also struck up a number of conversations. \u00a0 One was with “John” who renovates houses, but had fallen on hard times because of the bursting of the housing bubble. \u00a0 He hadn’t worked for awhile, lost his own place and was staying in a homeless camp underneath a cloverleaf of highways. \u00a0 “It’s a way to stay dry,” said John, who sleeps in a sleeping bag below a tarp he turns into the wind… \u00a0 Then there was James, who was volunteering here this morning. \u00a0 He grew up in a Black ghetto in Atlanta (“Close to where Martin Luther King Jr. grew up,” he said.) and was a good high school basketball player. \u00a0 Out of high school (1963), he was drafted. \u00a0 “Drafted or not,” he said, “the military was one of the few ways out of the ghetto.” \u00a0 James went to Vietnam where he saw fighting, developed a case of post traumatic stress syndrome, and a drug habit. \u00a0 Back in Atlanta, there was little work and the drug addiction persisted. \u00a0 He eventually ended up in prison. \u00a0 When he got out, there was still little work and he found himself homeless, sort of. \u00a0 Engineering students at Georgia Tech University here designed and built small 6ft. by 8ft. wooden “huts,” complete with small, vented fireplaces. \u00a0 James lived in one of a cluster of eight huts. \u00a0 (He said these hut encampments don’t exist anymore in Atlanta, simply because almost all of the land has been developed now.) \u00a0 James would often come to the Open Door for help. \u00a0 Some 11 years ago he got into recovery. And as his life started to straighten out, he began regularly volunteering here. \u00a0 And he still does… \u00a0 Note:<\/strong> Another of the volunteers approached me after my talk on everyone having enough. \u00a0 She said there was an author speaking tonight in nearby Decatur, Georgia, who I might be interested in hearing. \u00a0 The title of her book: \u00a0 Will Jesus Buy Me a Double-Wide (‘Cause I need more room for my plasma TV).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I gave a talk to some 40 people at the Open Door Community \u00a0 in Atlanta, Georgia, today. \u00a0 The gentleman who introduced me, prefaced the talk by reading from Proverbs 30: 7-9. \u00a0 \u00a0 The crux of the passage …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}