It's the Environment

I must be the problem. It is not possible that such good people and such good Community including thousands of followers of Jesus would sit idly by while Souls needlessly die on the streets, in the pinon daycare center, in the jails, without doing everything in their power to save at least a few. It's not possible.

It must be me. Somehow I must be blocking your efforts. What a wonderful discovery! I don't care how the life inside our community gets saved. I don't care what it cost me personally. I couldn't care less. If getting out of the way is the answer so that the people inside the agencies, inside the churchs, and in the broader community step up again, that's no price at all for me to pay.

Cortez did it once to stop people's bodies from dying!

They WILL do it again to stop the living beating Souls inside of at least 5 or 10 from dying every year here!

And what's lacking is so simple. It's not brick and mortar we've got that. It's not armies of richly paid unaccountable staff. We've got that! 

To paraphrase a politician, it's the environment stupid. We catch alcoholism. We catch habits that lead to homelessness to a substantial degree. From those around us.

All we have to do is resume identifying the five or 10 people needlessly languishing and dying inside, in Cortez, and become a different environment for them.

Moving the pinon daycare center from 10 hours a day deadly toxic, to 10 hours a day enriching. It doesn't all have to be at the pinon daycare center, it can also be utilizing the wonderful Library facility, the rec facility, the jails. And the outdoors, the park.

Someone hanging out unobstructed with their friends that are deeply infected with alcoholism and habits that contribute to homelessness, their soul is going to die inside if left in that environment. If instead their environment becomes enriching activities/time with people that through the grace of God are not infected, their chances of coming back to life go from slim to substantial.

Although no one matches our Cortez situation entirely, there are many useful models that we can learn from and modify: 

https://cortezpeoplecaring.blogspot.com/2025/02/life-rehabilitation-for-living-beating.html?m=1

https://cortezpeoplecaring.blogspot.com/2025/03/resources-safe-legal-permit-only-safe.html

If and when I return in the fall I will be much more careful to come alongside, and not once again to profoundly obstruct, the thriving, public, transparent, aggressive beating-soul-saving programs that you have put in place, in addition to coming back alongside my family no longer being left languishing on the street! No longer leaving itself languishing on the street.

Godspeed!

PS. And of course a central element of this is to scrupulously avoid enabling. It is cruel and deadly when people that for the grace of God are resourceful, create the illusion among those that need help, that they can be saved. No. No one can save an individual except for themselves. However, no one that's badly damaged can save themselves without help. It took massive amounts of help, probably hundreds of thousands of dollars, and many hundreds of days intensive team effort, to stop my stage 4 cancer for a while. I did my part, but there's no way in hell I could have done it without a whole lot of help.

[If you emerge as someone with an all-consuming passion to help quarterback this effort while I'm gone, please message me about becoming a co-administrator of this page. I will no longer be doing so unless and until I return.]