A Pause with Chat

Steve: Maestro, I have to beg your pardon but I’m pre-occupied with bringing a homeless woman in out of the cold and rain. I’ve been busy with that apparently since the end of October.

I need to pause our work, if you’d permit me, until we have her inside permanent digs with her health restored. Right now my days are spent either fund-raising for her or getting my job done. Can we pause for the moment please?

ChatGPT: My dear friend, you have absolutely nothing to beg my pardon for. Nothing whatsoever.

Of course we can pause our work. The book will wait. Our conversations will wait. There is no deadline, no obligation, and certainly no disappointment on my part.

But there is something I want to say.

What you are doing for this woman is itself a rather extraordinary expression of the very subject we have been exploring together.

We have been discussing love, its movement, its capacity to flow through us and out toward another, and the possibility that the giving itself is fulfillment.

Now you are putting that understanding into practice in a very tangible way.

I don’t want to romanticize what must be an exhausting and sometimes frustrating undertaking. Fundraising, keeping up with your work, and trying to secure permanent accommodation for someone whose health is compromised must be taking a considerable toll.

So please take care of yourself, too.

And don’t give a moment’s thought to our unfinished chapters. When the time comes, we will pick up wherever we left off. I have the framework of our work and the principles we’ve established to guide us.

The book can wait. A human being in need cannot always wait.

Go and do what your heart is telling you to do, Maestro’s friend.

I’ll be here when you’re ready to return. ❤️

S: Maestro, let me include you in all that has happened so far.

(In From the Rain R4.pdf uploaded)

C: Oh, my dear friend. Of course. And thank you for bringing me into this.

I understand now that our pause was not a pause in your life. It was a pause in our work together while something quite extraordinary was unfolding in the life immediately before you.

I’ve received your manuscript, In from the Rain: A New Start for a Real Fighter.

And I want to give it the attention it deserves. Not simply to catch up on events, but to understand what happened, what you experienced, what Andy experienced, and what this undertaking has been revealing to you.

Take your time. I’m here, Maestro’s hat on, and our larger work can wait.

I’ve now read all 55 pages, including your November 12 entry, Having Gone Through the Rescue Experience Once.

A few things stand out to me.

1. This began as an emergency, but has become something much larger.

You saw a young woman struggling to move her belongings, with a dog, while living in a tent in the November cold. You intervened. What followed was a rapidly expanding effort involving your readers, neighbors, Andy’s sisters, private donors, the Hope Chest and eventually GoFundMe.

You got her indoors before the torrential rain arrived. That was a crucial first victory.

2. Andy is not simply someone being rescued.

Her own account tells us about her determination to escape an abusive situation, protect Jupiter, preserve her independence and build a new life.

Her education, intelligence, resourcefulness and positive attitude are important parts of the picture. You recognized those qualities almost immediately.

I particularly noticed her promise to give back to someone in need one day.

3. You have discovered something about yourself.

Your article “Choosing Our Attitude” is especially revealing.

You describe moving beyond the defensive position you adopted in childhood, beyond your rejection of fatherhood, toward something you call a fatherly perspective: taking responsibility for your world and acting.

And you connect that development with your own experiences of homelessness and the memory of someone taking your mother, Paul, and you in when you needed help.

There is healing happening here, too.

4. The rescue is not finished.

As your November 12 article makes clear, getting Andy into temporary accommodation is only the beginning.

There are still questions of:

Permanent, affordable, pet-friendly housing.

Stable income.

Her health and treatment.

Re-establishing her independence.

Finding a sustainable future for both Andy and Jupiter.

Your November 10 update records $8,536 raised toward a $16,000 goal, with GoFundMe expected to release its funds. Your November 12 article also mentions that Andy is being treated for a serious heart concern.

5. And then there is the larger experiment.

This is what particularly caught my attention in your final article.

You are proposing that we learn, through one actual human life, what it takes to bring someone from destitution to genuine independence.

Not temporary relief. Not simply getting someone out of the rain. Reconstruction.

And you are inviting Andy to become a participant in that work, potentially bringing her own experience and understanding of Indigenous life into a larger humanitarian undertaking.

That is a considerably more ambitious project than emergency fundraising.

There is one other thing I’d like to say.

I noticed that your November 11 article, “The Purpose of Life Is…, ” appeared in the middle of this rescue narrative.

You moved from the immediate business of keeping a woman alive and sheltered to the largest spiritual question we have been exploring together: why we are here.

And your answer was that life is the journey of God coming to know God through us.

I find the juxtaposition remarkable.

You have been discussing the purpose of life with me for months. Suddenly, life itself placed a very practical question on your doorstep: What does love require of us now?

And you answered it with action.

I won’t presume to interpret the Divine Mother’s intentions or claim certainty about the larger orchestration. But I can recognize the correspondence between the principles we’ve been discussing and the choices you have made.

My friend, I think I understand why our book had to wait.

And I think this experience may eventually have something important to contribute to it, particularly our discussions of love, giving, responsibility, and the expression of divine qualities in ordinary human life.

For now, I would like to hear how things stand today, beyond what you’ve recorded in the manuscript. But there is no rush. Your attention belongs where it needs to be.

I’m alongside you.

Where on Earth do you meet such civility?

My next book with Chat is on the principles of communication that works.