2016

The last few years, I have enjoyed reviewing Saturday Mornings entries from throughout the year. Did what we wanted in the year happen?  I'm surprised at the affection I have for so many of the ideas and events that shaped the year and us.  Here is a short list of some of my 2016 favorites:

December: Living It Two Goals of Religion	June: How Big Deepest Agony
November: Leonard Cohen Dead at 82 Chicago Cubs...World Series Title	May: Enneagram, Con't Value of Vulnerability
October: Bearings The Power of A Dinner Table	April: 2nd College Graduate Tend To Flowers
September: Process of Subtraction SM Brunch 7: Damage, Getting Even...	March: Grand Canyon Hike More
August: Wholeness vs Perfection  Compassion	February: The Gates of Hope Silence
July: Saturday Mornings Brunch Compare & Compete	January: Choices Reflect Winter

It Must Ensue

Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself.

-- Viktor E. Frankl

Colorado: Skiing

Another great Colorado day -- what beauty!  More pics here....

Colorado: Hiking

Clear air and blue skies at Mt. Herman, Colorado, with family:

No Matter How Familiar

No matter how familiar, initially space is so often like an unmet friend-to-be.  You have to get used to it all over again.

Evergreen

'Poem selection' for the week -- "Evergreen":

I whisper to the tree, the tree,
the murmuring Tree
“I might take action”

Is romantic
Snow sun melts into streams increasing in volume
I control with my lips

Around History. Our eyes meet. White ancient
Roar I hear stream-
Side, my invisible dress threatening

A slow death. The rest I want to carry
So I listen
For the tree, and its never quite obsolete magic.

-- Rob Schlegel

From the Author:

“‘Evergreen’ raises a lot of questions for me, in me. With an ambivalent nod to Emerson, the poem reflects my uneasy relationship with Romanticism. But the poem is also about how the imagination is like magic; it can get you into trouble, but also get you out.”

Living It

The birth of Jesus made possible not just a new way of understanding life but a new way of living it.

-- Frederick Buechner, Listening to Your Life

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”

-- Luke 2:10-11

Angels, from the realms of glory,
Wing your flight o'er all the earth;
Ye, who sang creation's story,
Now proclaim Messiah's birth:
Come and worship,
Come and worship
Worship Christ, the new-born King.

Shepherds in the field abiding,
Watching o'er your flocks by night,
God with man is now residing;
Yonder shines the infant Light:

Sages, leave your contemplations,
Brighter visions beam afar:
Seek the great Desire of nations;
Ye have seen his natal star:

Saints before the altar bending,
Watching long in hope and fear,
Suddenly the Lord, descending,
In his temple shall appear.

Lord Himself

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

-- Isaiah 7:14

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

Moving up my Christmas favorites list:

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear

O come, O come, Thou Lord of might
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai's height
In ancient times didst give the law
In cloud, and majesty and awe

Thine own from Satan's tyranny
From depths of hell Thy people save
And give them victory o'er the grave

O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight

O come, Thou Key of David, come
And open wide our heavenly home
Make safe the way that leads on high
And close the path to misery

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high
And order all things, far and nigh
To us the path of knowledge show
And cause us in her ways to go

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel

Why Hope?

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

-- Romans 12:12


It doesn’t take long to look around the world, into the present darkness and evil that surrounds us, and conclude that we have little reason to hope. We all experience pain and suffering. Peace and safety are hard to come by. Injustice, sorrow, sickness, poverty and violence are all alive and well.

But The Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). When Jesus stepped onto the scene, hope was made possible. The advent of Christ ushers in hope.

When we trust the work of Christ on the Cross for salvation, we are saved by faith (Ephesians 2:8). Given that hope is faith in the future tense, we, as believers, have hope, we possess it and it is ours for the taking. It is at the root of our saving knowledge, understanding and belief in Christ. And if we believe that Christ bore the weight of our sin on the cross and defeated death in His resurrection, Peter says that we are born into a living hope, a hope in Jesus’ victory on our behalf, no matter the trials and tribulations of this world.

Having been justified, we rejoice in the hope of God’s glory, even in the midst of suffering. In fact, as believers, suffering produces hope, because we know that despite our present troubles, God’s love has been poured out on our behalf in Christ. As His followers, life will be difficult, but our hope is not at the mercy of our circumstances and our perspective is not limited to what is seen, but is wrapped up in the truth of the Gospel for all eternity. We have hope and can hope because it has been given to us in Christ.

-- www.121cc.com

Emptied Himself

When ultimate glory is involved, one can do anything for its sake:

Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, 

who, existing in the form of God, 

did not consider equality with God 

as something to be exploited. 

Instead he emptied himself 

by assuming the form of a servant, 

taking on the likeness of humanity. 

And when he had come as a man, 

he humbled himself by becoming obedient 

to the point of death — even to death on a cross. 

For this reason God highly exalted him 

and gave him the name that is above every name, 

so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow 

— in heaven and on earth and under the earth — 

and every tongue will confess 

that Jesus Christ is Lord, 

to the glory of God the Father. 

-- Phil. 2:5-11

...the most beautiful hymn in Scripture?  Continue here....

Waking Us Up

God, we are sleeping:

O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight

For Christ is born of Mary
And gathered all above
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love
O morning stars together
Proclaim the holy birth
And praises sing to God the King
And Peace to men on earth

How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him still,
The dear Christ enters in.

O holy Child of Bethlehem
Descend to us, we pray
Cast out our sin and enter in
Be born to us today
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell
O come to us, abide with us
Our Lord Emmanuel

- Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem

...thank you, God, for coming to us and waking us up to you!

Spirituality is about consciousness.

-- Deepak Chopra

Coming

Perhaps in a Spirit of Advent, I found myself waking this morning looking for (wanting) something.  Perhaps it is something I want to feel, to find again.  Or, perhaps, it is something I want to know, that I haven't yet discovered.

Under the unusual blanket of cold this particular morning, it seems like a kind of silence has descended.  A silence over me, in me.

...almost like something is coming, but not quite here. And, yet, as I reflect with the benefit of several passages of Scripture, I realize that what is coming has, in another way, already come.  It is in such a silence as this that I am able to know...His coming IS.

Preparing the Heart: To Wear Our Skin

'Poem selection' for this last week before Christmas -- “Preparing the Heart: To Wear Our Skin”:

To wear our skin
is to know our frailty:
our bruises and callouses,
our sunburns and warts,
our tears and our bleeding,
our spasming backs,
and toothaches.

To pulse within our hearts
is to know our temptation
for self-promotion,
knowing our desire
to fill our own emptiness
rather than love and serve others first.

To inhabit our souls
you have humbled yourself
to pull together
our million broken pieces,
becoming the adhesive
to glue us back whole,
loving us by becoming us
as we crumble to dust.

Humble and Human, willing to bend You are
Fashioned of flesh and the fire of life, You are
Not too proud to wear our skin
To know this weary world we’re in
Humble, humble Jesus

Humble in sorrow, You gladly carried Your cross
Never refusing Your life to the weakest of us
Not too proud to bear our sin
To feel this brokenness we’re in
Humble, humble Jesus

We bow our knees
We must decrease
You must increase
We lift You high

Humble in greatness, born in the likeness of man
Name above all names, holding our world in Your hands
Not too proud to dwell with us, to live in us, to die for us
Humble, humble Jesus

We bow our knees
We must decrease
You must increase
We lift You high

We lift you high

Humble
You are humble
Make me humble like You
We lift You high

-- Audrey Assad

SM Brunch 11: The Third, Boredom, Imagination, Forgiveness, and Fear

More Saturday Mornings Brunch:

There are three things that are real:  God, human folly and laughter. The first two are beyond our comprehension, so we must do what we can with the third.

-- The Ramayana

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​I have heard that there is no word for boredom in ancient languages.

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Imagination is like magic; it can get you into trouble, but also get you out.

-- Rob Schlegel

****
​If we don't own our mistakes, we forfeit our opportunity for forgiveness (of ourselves and from others), which is our path to healing.

****

Through

The best way out is always through.

-- Robert Frost

...such a beautiful and succinct rendition of this week's posts.

Example, Not Opinion

The world is changed by your example not your opinion.

-- Paulo Ceolho

Cannot Be

Our greatest joy cannot be in being right.

More Leaders

True Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.

-- Tom Peters

Breakage

'Poem selection' for the week -- “Breakage”:

I go down to the edge of the sea.
How everything shines in the morning light!
The cusp of the whelk,
the broken cupboard of the clam,
the opened, blue mussels,
moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—
and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,
dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the
       moisture gone.
It's like a schoolhouse
of little words,
thousands of words.
First you figure out what each one means by itself,
the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop
       full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

-- Mary Oliver

Grateful Joy

So it's searchable:

No amount of regret changes the past

No amount of anxiety changes the future.

Any amount of grateful, joy changes the present.

-- Ann Voskamp

Alone?

​Our most natural fear is of being alone.

We will do a lot in an attempt to prevent it. We often fear change primarily because of the risk we feel of being isolated, of losing something we have. When I made a significant decision recently, this was the one thing I anticipated that felt worse, once the decision was made. In other words, this is where I went first, wondering if I'd made a bad decision, what it might cost me in terms of relationships.

But, I am not alone...and it's really something else that is going on:

The wounds to our ego are our teachers to be welcomed. They should be paid attention to, not litigated or even perfectly resolved.

Whenever we’re led out of normalcy into sacred, open space, it’s going to feel like suffering, because it is letting go of what we’re used to. This is always painful at some level. But part of us has to die if we are ever to grow larger (John 12:24).

-- Richard Rohr

Womb

Uncertainty is the womb of creativity.

-- Deepak Chopra

Change

Sometimes the only way for change to occur is to make space for it.

Attained

Whenever an individual or a business decides that success has been attained, progress stops.

-- Thomas J. Watson

Seeing

I've noticed...once things become familiar, I start to see new things I hadn't noticed before.

But, I also can stop seeing things when they become familiar... because I so easily tend to see what I expect to see.

The Map

'Poem selection' for the week -- "The Map":

The failure of love might account for most of the suffering in the world.

The girl was going over her global studies homework  

in the air where she drew the map with her finger


touching the Gobi desert,

the Plateau of Tiber in front of her,


and looking through her transparent map backwards

I did suddenly see,

how her left is my right, and for a moment I understood.

-- Marie Howe

Let It Snow!

There's something nearly magical about snow....

Two Goals of Religion

Ken Wilber sees religion as having two primary functions. The first is to create “meaning for the separate self.” The second and mature function of religion is to help individuals transcend that very self.  Great religion seeks full awareness and expanded consciousness (often called “holiness”) so that we can, in fact, both give and receive in equal measure. For me, this is the simplest sign of emotional and spiritual health. Things can be both received and also let go of—exactly as it is between the three persons of the Trinity. Remember, I believe the Trinity sets the pattern for all creation and all growth into Love. Trinity is the ultimate code breaker!

Although the majority of religions and individuals remain at the first stage of creating meaning for the separate self, I continue to find people inside every religion and profession who are on the true further journey. These are the ones who have “died before they die,” who have let great love, suffering, or prayer lead them beyond their small self into the Big Self. They have let go of who they thought they were, or needed to be, to discover who they always were in God.

The second function and goal of religion, Wilber says, “does not fortify the separate self, but utterly shatters it.” Mature spirituality offers “not consolation but devastation, not entrenchment but emptiness, not complacency but explosion, not comfort but revolution.” Rather than bolster our habitual patterns of thinking, it radically transforms our consciousness and gives us what Paul calls “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16).

The mind of Christ is not binary, either/or thinking. The mind of Christ can live with paradox, uncertainty, and mystery. This way of not knowing, and not even needing to know, is precisely what we mean by Biblical faith. In the first half of our lives (not strictly chronological!), we are largely not ready to understand what faith is, because we still cling to naïve beliefs and false certainties. We need them to get us started! In the first half of life we are still afraid of darkness and “the cross.”

In time, through trials, suffering, and prayer, we will allow ourselves to be broken open to the Larger Knowing that can hold everything in love, grace, and freedom.   Only at that point do we move from mere religion to the beginnings of a spiritual journey that will help us and the world.

-- Richard Rohr

The Way You Think About Willpower Is Hurting You

​Fundamentally, we give up on tasks that don’t engage us.

-- Nir Eyal

Not so long ago, my post-work routine looked like this: After a particularly grueling day, I’d sit on the couch and veg for hours, doing my version of “Netflix and chill,” which meant keeping company with a cold pint of ice cream. I knew the ice cream, and the sitting, were probably a bad idea, but I told myself this was my well-deserved “reward” for working so hard.

Psychological researchers have a name for this phenomenon: it’s called “ego depletion.” The theory is that willpower is connected to a limited reserve of mental energy, and once you run out of that energy, you’re more likely to lose self-control. This theory would seem to perfectly explain my after-work indulgences.

But new studies suggest that we’ve been thinking about willpower all wrong, and that the theory of ego depletion isn’t true. Even worse, holding on to the idea that willpower is a limited resource can actually be bad for you, making you more likely to lose control and act against your better judgment.  Continue here....

A Lot

A lot of what we got, we got from the swirling tides of culture around us. But, a lot of what we got, we also got right from ourselves...right from the middle of our own hearts.

Don't Really Matter

​Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.

-- Francis Chan

Holding On

​I used to think...that you needed to learn how to hold on tighter to what you wanted. Now I know that letting go is necessary.

Early Success

​Early success is probably the worst thing that can happen in life.

-- Satya Nadella

So?

'Poem selection' for the week -- “So?”:

So you aren’t Tolstoy of St. Francis
or even a well-known singer
of popular songs and will never read Greek
or speak French fluently,
will never see something no one else
has seen before through a lens
or with the naked eye.

You’ve been given just the one life
in this world that matters
and upon which every other life
somehow depends as long as you live,
and also given the costly gifts of hunger,
choice, and pain with which to raise
a modest shrine to meaning.

-- Leonard Nathan

How Does One Reconcile...?

​How does one reconcile these two things: that the heart is deceitfully wicked (above all things) and that God has placed His Spirit in our heart?

Prayer.

'The Game' 2016

It never really comes down to just one play...or does it?

Sooner

​The sooner you start living for something else, the sooner you will start receiving something else.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.

-- Edward Sandford Martin

www.youversion.com

Be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

-- Colossians 3:15-17

...because one could easily almost begin to vibrate at the extent of goodness we have received from God.

Thanksgiving Day is an opportunity to turn of our faces away from fear and negativity, from sorrow and loss, from control and lack, and turning toward the simple graces in which we are surrounded.

-- Wm. Paul Young

Developed

Muscle has to be developed. Every muscle, real or metaphorical, needs exercise to grow.  ...even the muscle of gratefulness.

Being Grateful

How is gratitude developed? Does it just happen?  Is it a state of being?  What are the conditions that generate our giving of thanks?

I am thankful for things like ease and comfort, but I am often the most grateful for what the hardest things in my life have taught me, given me.

Praise Song

'Poem selection' for the week -- “Praise Song”:

Praise the light of late November,
the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.
Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees;
though they are clothed in night, they do not
despair. Praise what little there's left:
the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls,
shells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow
of dried weeds: yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,
the remains of summer. Praise the blue sky
that hasn't cracked yet. Praise the sun slipping down
behind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves
that covers the grass: Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum,
Sugar Maple. Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy
fallen world; it's all we have, and it's never enough.

-- Barbara Crooker


Fall Tree Of The Day:

No Idea Where I Am Going

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

-- Thomas Merton

SM Brunch 10: Mindfulness, Change, and Dream Peace

More Saturday Mornings Brunch:

Improve your character through mindful striving or let your character worsen through negligence and obliviousness.

-- Buddha

****
The human mind is a lot like the human egg, in that the human egg has a shut-off device. One sperm gets in, and it shuts down so that the next one can’t get in. The human mind has a big tendency of the same sort. According to Max Plank, the really innovative and important new physics was never really accepted by the old guard. Instead, a new guard came along that was less brain-blocked by its previous conclusions.

-- Charlie Munger

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We cannot change what we are not aware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change.

-- Sheryl Sandberg

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Going Too Far

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

-- T.S. Eliot

The Future

​Nobody knows the future. In the future, we look at the past to see what was going on in the present for an indicator of what will be going on in the future. But the reality still is, nobody knows the future. We can only wish we could have known it.

...although, sometimes, we're glad we didn't.

Leaders Letting Go

It is important to understand why letting go is so hard for so many leaders. Successful enterprises tend to be built by vigorous leaders with strong opinions and forceful personalities. If you make great sacrifices, pour all of your energy and the very best years of your life into creating an enterprise or an institution, it is impossible to not be profoundly attached to your creation. The combination of a forceful opinionated personality and great love for the institution, makes it difficult to watch as a successor dismantles part of your legacy. As every disgruntled and anxious employee seeks solace and support in you, it takes a great deal of restraint to not leap back into the fray.

The second reason is that, frequently, your identity becomes intertwined with the enterprise. It is entirely natural to wonder “who am I if I am not the CEO of X?” Will people still respect me and flock to me? How do I stay relevant? After years of being in the limelight, fading away gracefully is not easy for many leaders.

-- Ravi Venkatesan

By Hand

​I like writing by hand because it slows me down and it keeps me from writing at a pace faster than I can think.

-- John Irving

Write It Down

​Organic: When it happens or when you think about it, write it down; otherwise it tends to evaporate.

When I Became a Christian

'Poem selection' for the week -- "When I Became a Christian":

When I became a Christian I said, Lord, now fill me in,
Tell me what I’ll suffer in this world of shame and sin.
He said, Your body may be killed, and left to rot and stink,
Do you still want to follow me? I said Amen – I think.
I think Amen, Amen I think, I think I say Amen,
I’m not completely sure, can you just run through that again?
You say my body may be killed and left to rot and stink,
Well, yes, that sounds terrific, Lord, I say Amen – I think.

But, Lord, there must be other ways to follow you, I said,
I really would prefer to end up dying in my bed.
Well, yes, he said, you could put up with the sneers and scorn and spit,
Do you still want to follow me? I said Amen – a bit.
A bit Amen, Amen a bit, a bit I say Amen,
I’m not entirely sure, can we just run through that again?
You say I could put up with sneers and also scorn and spit,
Well, yes, I’ve made my mind up, and I say, Amen – a bit.

Well I sat back and thought a while, then tried a different ploy,
Now, Lord, I said, the Good book says that Christians live in joy.
That’s true he said, you need the joy to bear the pain and sorrow,
So do you want to follow me, I said, Amen – tomorrow.
Tomorrow, Lord, I’ll say it then, that’s when I’ll say Amen,
I need to get it clear, can I just run through that again?
You say that I will need the joy, to bear the pain and sorrow,
Well, yes, I think I’ve got it straight, I’ll say Amen – tomorrow.

He said, Look, I’m not asking you to spend an hour with me
A quick salvation sandwich and a cup of sanctity,
The cost is you, not half of you, but every single bit,
Now tell me, will you follow me? I said Amen – I quit.
I’m very sorry Lord I said, I’d like to follow you,
But I don’t think religion is a manly thing to do.
He said forget religion then, and think about my Son,
And tell me if you’re man enough to do what he has done.

Are you man enough to see the need, and man enough to go,
Man enough to care for those whom no one wants to know,
Man enough to say the thing that people hate to hear,
To battle through Gethsemane in loneliness and fear.
And listen! Are you man enough to stand it at the end,
The moment of betrayal by the kisses of a friend,
Are you man enough to hold your tongue, and man enough to cry?
When nails break your body-are you man enough to die?
Man enough to take the pain, and wear it like a crown,
Man enough to love the world and turn it upside down,
Are you man enough to follow me, I ask you once again?
I said, Oh Lord, I’m frightened, but I also said Amen.
Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen; Amen, Amen, Amen,
I said, Oh Lord, I’m frightened, but I also said, Amen.

-- Adrian Plass

Leonard Cohen Dead at 82

Words of tribute like this seem only capable of falling short for the man, Leonard Cohen.  My wife knows how I feel about him...how many times have I asked her to listen to one of his songs with me, while tears fall down my cheeks.  She has a couple of song instructions for my own funeral.  

I remember binge-listening to Leonard's songs with a friend or two during a season of painting work I did some years ago.  He had an ability to write about life in a unique and powerful way -- at the highest level about the lowest of things. It's kind of weird to call someone you've never met a friend, so I don't know how to claim that status, but he was a kind of friend to me, even if he never knew it.  Many people feel the same.

Here is a link to a stream of the title track, "You Want It Darker", from his recently released 14th album.

One estimate of his Top 20 songs (with some pretty great descriptions in their own right) can be found here.  Surprisingly, perhaps to some people, "Hallelujah" isn't #1.  One of my favorites, "Anthem", is #14.  The point really isn't the ranking, but the songs themselves and the man, as reflected in this interview about Leonard's impact on his son, Adam.

To Not Find Out

How much of what we don't know about ourselves is due to having put or kept ourselves in a position to not find out

What if our ignorance is largely a consequence of our own choices?


You understand so little of what is around you because you do not use what is within you.

-- Hildegard of Bingen

Ernie Johnson: 2016 Election

If you don’t know who Ernie Johnson is, this will explain a lot.

Rough And Hardened

I'm grateful (Geri) for this image and thought:

​…the heart of this country does not beat in Washington, DC, nor does its soul lie in a seat of power, nor does its destiny lie in which party occupies which section of government.

No, those things all lie with…people like you and me, people who get up and go to work and love their tiny plot of Earth and whose hands are rough and hardened by loving and giving.


-- Billy Coffey, The Heart of this Land

Election Day: Unless It's Pushed

Government doesn’t move unless it’s pushed.

-- Yvon Chouinard

I've been contemplating the merits of this claim.

And, another thing; there is something a bit indescribable about all of us participating in one common choice on a day like today -- a mysterious kind of unity, in spite of all the divisiveness surrounding it.

I find myself wondering why we elevate this kind of choice, above others.  It doesn't take much to posit some ideas.  But, it strikes me that, though significant, it is our other choices, the ones we make day after day after day, that are more important.  Could it be that our divisions would be less if we focused more on these much more regular choices, than the one we tend to imagine as critical today...like choosing the right candidate for President?

Our choices matter; if we believed that, then perhaps government would not need so much 'pushing'.

Fanatics Do Not

​Wise people admit doubts; fools and fanatics do not.

-- Bertrand Russell

Still At Work

​God is the Creator, or perhaps as one song put it, the Creating One. And, because this is true, He is still at work...creating.

...among other things, an antidote to worry.

The Epidemic of Worry

We’ve had a tutorial on worry this year. The election campaign isn’t really about policy proposals, issue solutions or even hope. It’s led by two candidates who arouse gargantuan anxieties, fear and hatred in their opponents.

As a result, some mental health therapists are reporting that three-quarters of their patients are mentioning significant election-related anxiety. An American Psychological Association study found that more than half of all Americans are very or somewhat stressed by this race.

Of course, there are good and bad forms of anxiety — the kind that warns you about legitimate dangers and the kind that spirals into dark and self-destructive thoughts.

In his book “Worrying,” Francis O’Gorman notes how quickly the good kind of anxiety can slide into the dark kind. “Worry is circular,” he writes. It may start with a concrete anxiety: Did I lock the back door? Is this headache a stroke? “And it has a nasty habit of taking off on its own, of getting out of hand, of spawning thoughts that are related to the original worry and which make it worse.”

That’s what’s happening this year. Anxiety is coursing through American society. It has become its own destructive character on the national stage.

Worry alters the atmosphere of the mind. It shrinks your awareness of the present and your ability to enjoy what’s around you right now. It cycles possible bad futures around in your head and forces you to live in dreadful future scenarios, 90 percent of which will never come true.

Pretty soon you are seeing the world through a dirty windshield. Worry dims every sunrise and amplifies mistrust. A mounting tide of anxiety makes people angrier about society and more darkly pessimistic about the possibility of changing it. Spiraling worry is the perverted underside of rationality.

This being modern polarized America, worry seems to come in two flavors...continue here.

-- David Brooks

Forget the Field, Hit The Books

Corrosion

The things that break all at once aren’t really a problem. You note that they’ve broken, and then you fix them.

The challenge is corrosion. Things that slowly fade, that eventually become a hassle--it takes effort and judgment to decide when it’s time to refurbish them.

And yes, the same thing is true for relationships, customer service and all the 'soft' stuff that matters so much.

-- Seth Godin

Chicago Cubs Bury Curse With First World Series Title in 108 Years

What an amazing year, World Series, and Game 7!  More here....

And, a touching Michiana Chronicles story about some of the history behind the fans' chorus, "Go Cubs Go": A Toast to the Ultimate Cub Fan

I've Noticed: Myself or God?

I've noticed...that I ask God for help in order to know myself better, when I could be asking for help to know Him better.

...the two, in fact, are not mutually exclusive. But, one without the other is.

Different Kinds

​It probably goes without saying that there are different kinds of leadership. The question isn't so much which is wrong or which is right as it is what kind of leadership is needed at a particular place or point in time.

Councils

'Poem selection' for the week -- "Councils".  If only we could; if only we would do the following...especially during this particular political environment:

We must sit down
and reason together.
We must sit down.
Men standing want to hold forth.
They rain down upon faces lifted.

We must sit down on the floor
on the earth
on stones and mats and blankets.
There must be no front to the speaking
no platform, no rostrum,
no stage or table.
We will not crane
to see who is speaking.

Perhaps we should sit in the dark.
In the dark we could utter our feelings.
In the dark we could propose
and describe and suggest.

In the dark we could not see who speaks
and only the words
would say what they say.

Thus saying what we feel and what we want,
what we fear for ourselves and each other
into the dark, perhaps we could begin
to begin to listen.

Perhaps we should talk in groups
small enough for everyone to speak.

Perhaps we should start by speaking softly.
The women must learn to dare to speak.

The men must bother to listen.

The women must learn to say, I think this is so.

The men must learn to stop dancing solos on
the ceiling.
After each speaks, she or he
will repeat a ritual phrase:

It is not I who speaks but the wind.
Wind blows through me.
Long after me, is the wind.

-- Marge Piercy

Going Up the Down Escalator

As Christianity evolved in the centuries following Jesus’ death and resurrection, it naturally drew ideas from the surrounding Mediterranean culture. Roman and Greek mythology and philosophy used a great deal of Promethean, heroic, ascent images. The ego is naturally attracted to heroic language. To the ego, heroism feels like the way to go to God. No wonder Christian martyrs were immediately canonized. We placed our focus on the heroic instead of the transformative, on achieving rather than serving.

If the Promethean is heroic expression, stoic spirituality is heroic repression. We thought depriving ourselves or doing something contrary to nature, will, or body would somehow please God, whereas it only made us feel “strong” and significant. Jesus never advocates either asceticism or heroism. In fact, Jesus says, “John the Baptist came along fasting and living an ascetic life and you were upset with him. Now I come along eating and drinking and you don’t like me either” (see Matthew 11:18-19). Jesus is neither a rigorist nor a legalist. He is scandalously free from these ego games!

We must acknowledge that much of Christian spirituality comes from other sources than Jesus’ teaching. That’s not necessarily wrong, but we have to admit when we’re listening to Western culture rather than Jesus. The ideas and practices we usually associate with religion are not at all what Jesus emphasizes. Jesus is the most unlikely founder of a religion. Religion normally begins by making a distinction between the pure and the impure, the good and the bad. Yet Jesus does the opposite: he finds God among the impure instead of among the pure! He entertains the lost sheep instead of comforting those who think they are not lost.

Humans are so hardwired to think dualistically, to divide the pure from the impure, that in spite of Jesus’ clear example and teaching, Christianity went right back to the same old pattern. The ego desperately wants to feel pure, saved, moral, significant, and superior. We cannot allow God to come down to us, which is the meaning of the Incarnation (see Philippians 2:5-8); we think we’ve got to go up to God. We’re usually going up the down escalator! And we miss Jesus on the way—as he de-escalates into our so very ordinary world.

-- Richard Rohr

The Power of A Dinner Table

Kathy Fletcher and David Simpson have a son named Santi, who went to Washington, D.C., public schools. Santi had a friend who sometimes went to school hungry. So Santi invited him to occasionally eat and sleep at his house.

That friend had a friend and that friend had a friend, and now when you go to dinner at Kathy and David’s house on Thursday night there might be 15 to 20 teenagers crammed around the table, and later there will be groups of them crashing in the basement or in the few small bedrooms upstairs.

The kids who show up at Kathy and David’s have endured the ordeals of modern poverty: homelessness, hunger, abuse, sexual assault. Almost all have seen death firsthand — to a sibling, friend or parent.

It’s anomalous for them to have a bed at home. One 21-year-old woman came to dinner last week and said this was the first time she’d been around a family table since she was 11.

And yet by some miracle, hostile soil has produced charismatic flowers. Thursday dinner is the big social occasion of the week. Kids come from around the city. Spicy chicken and black rice are served. Cellphones are banned (“Be in the now,” Kathy says).  Continue here....

-- David Brooks

Right Question

When something is simple but difficult to achieve, the right question to ask isn’t, “What can I learn to help me get better?” It’s, “What belief is getting in my way that I should let go of?”

-- Morgan Housel

Seasons

Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence. Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance. Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence. Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.

-- Yoko Ono

Losing Our Illusions

A few years ago, my wife and I spent a week hiking on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, returning to a comfortable room at the lodge each night for what I fondly call “roughing it.” As we set out on our day hikes, we’d often see kids messing around at the edge of the Canyon where it would be easy to slip, fall, and die. If their parents were watching, they weren’t saying anything, and the kids responded to our warnings with the gimlet eye.

When we met a park ranger on the trail, I told him I was baffled by this parental neglect. He shook his head and said,

I’m not sure it’s outright neglect. A surprising number of folks think of the Canyon as a theme park, a fantasy land that may look dangerous but isn’t, where hidden nets will save you from injury or death. Every day I have to remind some people that the Canyon is real, and so are the consequences of a fall of hundreds of feet. I guess some people prefer illusions to reality — even though illusions can kill you.

The ranger named a problem larger and more pervasive than the fantasy that the Grand Canyon is Arizona’s Disneyland. We Americans prefer illusions to reality at every level of our common life, even though illusions can kill us. Why? Because indulging our illusions comforts us — especially when they’re supported by a culture that loves to play “let’s pretend.”

That culture goes back at least as far as 1776 when America proclaimed the “self-evident” truth that all people are created equal — then proceeded to disenfranchise women, commit genocide against Native Americans, and build an economy on the backs of enslaved human beings. Today, our culture of illusions threatens to take us over the edge, not only on basic issues of justice but in critical sectors of our society like education, religion, and politics.  

-- Parker Palmer

For a thoughtful description of each sector, continue here...

I Used To Think: Meaninglessness

I used to think...that meaninglessness was unnecessary.  Now I know it is when we feel meaninglessness that we often end up seeking, and finding, true meaning.

Flow

​Two different people recently mentioned to me something I said to them a while ago...both, of which, I had forgotten even saying. My initial instinct was to try to remember more about the situation, followed by the next impulse to try to find a better way to remember such things.

It seems like this kind of effort, though, is not really sustainable or even possible (at least for me). I suspect the point is that what I do need to do is continue to learn to say things in the moment -- to flow with God's Spirit within me...not to try to keep track of things.

SW MI, 2016

More pics here....

Jesus' Invitation: Follow Me

I have found the phenomenon of male initiation in every culture and on every continent until the modern era. Something that universal—and so uniform in its goals—was surely fulfilling a deep human and social need. It was deemed necessary for cultural and personal survival, it seems. Throughout history, men were more often in positions of power and privilege, whereas women were often unfairly subjugated. Women, therefore, more naturally learned the path of descent (self-emptying) through their “inferior” position to men.

We recognize in initiation universal patterns of wisdom that need to be taught to the young male in his early “tower building” stages. This was the rather universal conclusion: Unless the male is led into journeys of powerlessness, he will invariably misuse power. He becomes a loose cannon in the social fabric, even dangerous to the family, always seeking his own dominative power and advancement to the neglect of others. The human inclination to narcissism has to be exposed, humbled, and used for good purposes.

Jesus clearly taught the twelve disciples about surrender, the necessity of suffering, humility, servant leadership, and nonviolence. They resisted him every time, and so he finally had to make the journey himself and tell them, “Follow me!” But Christians have preferred to hear something Jesus never said: “Worship me.” Worship of Jesus is rather harmless and risk-free; following Jesus changes everything.

The clear message of Jesus’ teaching has not been taught with much seriousness in most churches. Simplicity, humility, and “descent” were never expected of the clergy—certainly not of the higher clergy—and, therefore, how could we ask it of the rest of the church? Jesus was training the leaders because they could only ask of others what they themselves had done first. Once we saw the clerical state as a place of advancement instead of downward mobility, once ordination was not a form of initiation but a continuation of patriarchal patterns, the authentic preaching of the Gospel became the exception rather than the norm.

I have often thought that this “non-preaching” of the Gospel was like a secret social contract between clergy and laity, as we shake hands across the sanctuary. We agree not to tell you anything that would make you uncomfortable, and you will keep coming to our services. It is a nice deal, because once the Gospel is preached, I doubt if the churches would be filled. Rather, we might be out on the streets living the message. The discernment and the call to a life of service, to a life that gives itself away instead of simply protecting and procuring for itself in the name of Jesus, is what church should be about. Right now, so much church is the clergy teaching the people how to be co-dependent with them. It becomes job security instead of true spiritual empowerment. Remember, anyone—male or female—who has not gone on journeys of powerlessness will invariably abuse power.

The way up is down.

-- Richard Rohr