"God doesn't have houses. He's a hobo."
-Geoff on hearing the term "House of God" on the news
The quote of the moment, and the title of this entry, are courtesy of Geoff. Last night he was watching the nightly news and the big report was on the apprehension of three knuckleheads who set fires to churches in Alabama. The reporter stated that they had burned several "Houses of God." Geoff, in his simplicity, said that "God doesn't have houses. He's a hobo."
After we stopped laughing we had to explain the whole concept of "house of God" was to him, and he didn't buy it.
In his mind, since God is EVERYWHERE. He's more like Johnny Cash than a bearded sandaled deity. He probably wears dirty jeans and a cowboy hat as he travels around with a guitar slung over his back. He sleeps, when needed, under train trestles and in doorways. Sometimes way out in the middle of nowhere under the stars.
"I've been everywhere, man. I've been everywhere..."
The concept of Hobo God has really started to appeal to me over the past several hours. He is a God who goes around helping the poor, the destitute, the helpless. He rides the rails and hitches rides from Amarillo to the New Mexico border on the back of pig haulin' trucks. This Hobo God doesn't take rides in big huge Limos, who doesn't have busty church secretaries with big bouffant hairdos leaning over his humongous Cherry desk when taking a letter. Hobo God doesn't tell you that you need to up your donations to His organization, there is no planned giving campaign run by suits and ties where they tell you how much to tithe. Hobo God loves when you can give a hand, no matter how small or large. He loves you just the same. If you give him a T-bone steak or a can of tomato soup, either way -- you done good.
I'd rather associate my concepts of God going forward with Hobo God and not some sort of white evangelical preacher God. As of late, the houses of the mighty well-dressed TV preachers have become empty bombed out shells of irrelevance to me. Blown up with hot air and deflated by lies and scandal.
I like Hobo God. I'd really like to thank my son for giving me a spiritual epiphany in this Lenten Season. Thanks Buddy. And, thanks Hobo God.
Since we are on the subject of Geoff in a way, he could use your mojo and prayer and thoughts at about 10am. That is when Geoff will give his very first oral presentation to his class. They all had to do book reports, and he chose "The Magician's Nephew" by CS Lewis, one of the Chronicles of Narnia. He did a great job of reading it, and made his presentation poster on Sunday, and really grasped a lot of what was happening in the story. If you're not familiar with this one, it is basically the Genesis/Creation story of Narnia, and a lot goes on in there... he had to write from the perspective of his favorite character in the book. One of these "If you were in the book, who would you be and why, and tell us what you'd do." And he chose Uncle Andrew.
I'm really confident in him doing the report. The thing is, I can't be there today. I took half of Tuesday off, and have to leave early today to meet his bus. We have a conference call at 11, and his presentation is at 10. There is no way I'd be able to do it.
So he's kind of sad that I won't be there. I am not babying him, but I did let him know how sad I feel to be missing it. I know he'll do fine, in fact, he always does better if I'm not there. He tends to get silly and perform if I'm there. And we want him to play this straight up.
Please pray for him to do a great job and to be confident and not get silly because he's nervous in front of the group. Sometimes he sings his responses because he's anxious. Pray that he has the calm assuredness to just stand up there and do his thing.
Thanks.
So neighbor cousin came to look at our house last night and was here for over an hour. In the end, he doesn't know if this is right for him. On the pro side, he could make money off of 2 rental units and live in one unit. But he sees that the two rental units would never cover 100% of the mortgage and I think that's what he's hoping for. Our rental set up doesn't cover 100% of the mortgage. It covers a little less than half. This isn't an income generating property, it is a place to LIVE. Now, if you were renting out all three units, you could pay the mortgage 100% if you charged the right amount but it would be years until you were income generating.
He said he'd call us. Doug thinks he won't.
Meanwhile, we lawyered up so we can do documents if necessary. I'll give neighbor cousin a couple of days and then hit him up with a call to see if he's interested. If not, I'll hit the neighbor around the way to see if he figured out financing so that he could buy it. If he's not interested, we'll double check with the tenants to see if they are. They have very little cash flow, but a zero down mortgage could work for them if they do things right. We'll make sure they know their options.
And if all that falls to the wayside we call a contractor, get things very fixed up in here, do a bridge loan on the 2nd house, and put this one on the market through our realtor.
So I'll keep you posted, of course.
Anyway -- it's already 7:30 so I ought to get a move on. Have a super day.
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