Memorializing

I'm wondering...what do you memorialize?  Why?

It seems like the activity, as a discipline, is not a bad idea.  We do it on a national level (unless we just view it as another day off work — but, there's another holiday for that, isn't there?).  For whatever its merits may be, what are the implications for memorializing at a personal level?

We often seem to agree that the sacrifice of others (especially for my sake) is worth noting...if not more.  Perhaps, then, we should stop just racing off to the next thing, just because we can, and consider something — something that got us here, something of what is good about it, something that we are grateful for.  Memorializing seems to require some kind of pause....

What do I memorialize, then, in my life?  What am I doing or who am I that is worth memorializing?  If this exercise reveals not much more than what I consume with my money and time, then maybe it is worth it...to stop and reconsider some things.

Like taking a day to do sometime...like today.

Worship

My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.

-- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

I feel increasingly aware that without a sense of community, we are not only impoverished, but we also lack a fundamental element of both our sense of being and our calling.

The act of worship is a communal act that nourishes and reinforces social solidarity without in any way diminishing the spiritual, inward, personal nature of the outpouring of the human heart in prayerful approach to God.

-- Nahum Sarna

How Humanity Gave Itself an Extra Life

Between 1920 and 2020, the average human life span doubled. How did we do it? Science mattered — but so did activism.  Continue here....

-- Steven Johnson

A longish (by today's standards), but fascinating read — an especially contrasting perspective to what is represented in this piece:

Continue here....

Randoms...

I have always been fascinated with good oration.

When it comes to worship, truth and God are not the same thing.

Existence is never simply for our own self, for our own sake.

We all think thoughts — but, how many of them should be shared?

Prior Randoms...

Happiest Man On Earth

The Mind & Wisdom

The greatest opportunity you have to change the world is to change your mind about the world.

-- Marianne Williamson

Some people will never learn anything because they grasp too soon. Wisdom is not a station that you arrive at, but a matter of traveling. 

-- Anthony de Mello

Not Want To Be A Christian

Another lingering reflection, from a recent Randoms...:

One thing that makes me not want to be a Christian is the way they treat the people they disapprove of — often simply because of what they think.


The strange thing is that many "Christians" seem to think they're never the ones that do this to other people.  

So why, then, do you hear them so often refer to other people or groups the way they do?  

"He's black, you know...".  "Hispanics are always...".  Not knowing any better (from what's being said...out loud even), you could easily assume all Chinese are bad, right along with Muslims.  

Of course, it's never a specific person...no one in particular — unless the person is gay or has had an abortion or has a drug problem.  

Having grown up a Christian, I'm afraid I might have thought some of the same things at times.  

Two things changed me — 1) meeting specific people in these groups and learning that they are actually people (not issues) and 2) feeling some of the same things from Christians myself, when I embraced these people.

Yes, Christians turned on me, too (trending anyone?).  For the first time, I actually experienced some of what 'those' people feel from Christians.  No longer friends; I got the silent treatment, the slant-eyed looks, the whispering, the "you've changed" comments, the withdrawal, no longer being invited, being described as the opposition, etc.  

And, my version of experience didn't even include things like lack of safety, threats, or physical harm, like many of these people feel — all under what amounts to be the sanctions of Christians...you know, the ones that are supposedly called to love others.  But, they will turn on you, too, if you don't join in or remain loyal to their ideals...about others.

And, nothing makes me NOT want to be a Christian more.

Not the Absence of Fear

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear.

-- Mark Twain

Describe Things

I've noticed...that I can describe things, especially concepts.  

Some have even said that I do that pretty well.  

But, notice what I'm not saying; like, what is needed beyond simply being able to describe things?  What is the insight or action that is needed, related to what is being described?

Midwives of Divinity

Christian life is a commitment to love, to give birth to God in one’s own life and to become midwives of divinity in this evolving cosmos.

-- Ilia Delio

This is more than just a cute way to say something — it is profoundly worth contemplating.

Randoms...

Approval so often feeds something in us.

It’s harder for me to have one-way conversations…than it is to have two-way conversations (Arsenio would probably say, “Hmmm...”).

Change is often hard — otherwise more people would do it.

I live with a question — why can't I leverage what I want to do?

Prior Randoms...

Visual: Purple Butterfly

 Visual - "Purple Butterfly":

Do you see it (click to enlarge)?

A Disease

Hate is a disease, which may destroy your enemy, but will also destroy you in the process.

-- Eddie Jaku

Persistent Terror

Sometimes, I really don’t know what to do with a world where so many people are living in persistent terror. 

...especially, since my life is so relatively free of such things. 

I feel many things about this dilemma, including my ability to be indifferent, as well as an inability to embrace it all at times. While I can still pursue and find kinds of joy (in spite of the tension I feel), I can never fully expunge traces of sadness until we all are able to be free and prosper. 

Perhaps this is the essence of true shalom, where no individual is fully at peace without awareness that his neighbor is too.

The fact that the knowledge, not to mention the reality, is bigger than what we can handle or design should lead us to recognizing that we need some kind of help — from a kind of power that only something divine can bring.

The map is not the territory

The map is not the territory

And that’s a feature, the reason the map exists.

The phrase reminds us not confuse the diagram or model or overview of the situation with the situation itself. Because they’re not the same.

We make a map so we can leave things out.

By leaving things out, we can help people focus on the core concepts we’re trying to get across. And so, the map of the London subway is not actually the London subway. In fact, it’s not even geographically accurate. That’s okay. The job of the map isn’t to show us precisely where each station is, the job is to make it easier to get around London by showing us a theory of the subway.

And the words someone uses don’t accurately convey everything they’re feeling and thinking. They simply stake out some of that in a way that the speaker hopes will express the point they’re trying to make.

When we decide what to leave out, we’ve made a series of decisions about the story we’re trying to tell with the parts we leave in.

-- Seth Godin, The map is not the territory

Need Them

Ever noticed...that certain people need you to need them?

Love Is His Meaning

And so what I saw most clearly was that love is his meaning. God wants us to know that he loved us before he even made us, and this love has never diminished and never will. 

-- St. Julian of Norwich

Love has no why. 

-- Meister Eckhart

At End of Life: Top 5 Things People Wish

Randoms...

Among our greatest consistent tensions is the judgment required in determining what to hold onto and what to let go of.

If you are evaluating something, almost everything needs context because, in fact, everything has one.

One thing that makes me not want to be a Christian is the way they treat the people they disapprove of — often simply because of what they think.

Why is it that so many people don't seem to have much emotional intelligence?

Prior Randoms...

I Never Wanted to Die

'Poem for the week' -- "I Never Wanted to Die":

It’s the best part of the day, morning light sliding

down rooftops, treetops, the birds pulling themselves

up out of whatever stupor darkened their wings,

night still in their throats.

I never wanted to die. Even when those I loved

died around me, away from me, beyond me. 

My life was never in question, if for no other reason

than I wanted to wake up and see what happened next. 

And I continue to want to open like that, like the flowers

who lift their heavy heads as the hills outside the window

flare gold for a moment before they turn

on their sides and bare their creased backs.

Even the cut flowers in a jar of water lift

their soon to be dead heads and open

their eyes, even they want a few more sips,

to dwell here, in paradise, a few days longer.

-- Dorianne Laux

From the author:

“There have been times when my life became what seemed to me, in certain dark moments, an unbearable weight, another day to be slogged through, another night to endure. And when thoughts of stepping off the edge of the world slipped in, I found that what I really could not bear was missing out on the larger narrative unwinding around me. This surprising insight seemed worthy of a poem.”

Well-lived Lives

I am connected to the past and the future by the ligatures of well-lived lives, the mysteries of “beyondness,” and the memories and narratives that lovingly bind and support me. 

-- Barbara Holmes

...this observation connects me, somehow, to the question in another recent post.

Observations

I prefer to refer to quotes as observations.

It often seems like when a quote is used, someone is attempting to make an assertion — to validate something that they believe is true by referencing someone else who also knows about that truth.

Many times untrue things are asserted to be true.  Other times, truths are taken quite out of context (or, at least, quotes are).  Lots of reasons for this, some are even unintentional.  I prefer to work with whatever somebody else says as mostly just an observation about something that has an element of truth to it.  In other words, it could very well be true, but it could very well not be true. Just because something is stated — even stated as true — doesn’t necessarily mean that it is.  Certainly our times have exposed that.

For me, the term ‘observations’ allows for the opportunity to consider what might be true about something that is being asserted.  

One of the benefits of a quote (or, in my case, an observation), is that it appears to be something that I am referencing...that someone else has also observed.  I like that — it pokes at something, while still allowing for latitude in what understanding truth is all about.  It's more fluid. It breathes, allowing for something like imagination (as opposed to leveraging, co-opting, or coercing) to discover something meaningful, timeless, transcendent — whether that be at the center of an idea or on the edge of it

Probably, in the end, I just prefer the concept of observations.  I guess you can quote me on that, if you want to.

LT: Earn Loyalty

Strong leaders earn loyalty.

Weak leaders demand it.

-- Simon Sinek

Going About It Wrong

I'm wondering...if, perhaps, I’ve been going about things the the wrong way.  

What If...there’s a different question, that I need to be asking?

Like...what story needs to be told?  

Where do I fit in that story?  What story do ‘I’ need to tell?  What is my story?

Inherent Sacredness

Without a sense of the inherent sacredness of the world, we struggle to see God in our own reality, let alone to respect reality, protect it, or love it. 

-- Richard Rohr

Most of the time, I hesitate to add anything to such observations by Richard Rohr because what I would say would most likely only diminish the power of it.

But here, I can't avoid personalizing how the simplicity, range, and depth impacts me.  

I struggle with the imbalance of manipulated spirituality and the inherent nature of it.  I know the sacredness is true, in some deep way.  And, yet, sometimes I can hardly think about it clearly (let alone speak of it) without feeling I am participating in something I want nothing to be a part of.  Thus, the words, "we struggle to see God in our reality..." resonate easily and deeply.

And, this does seem to be a beginning, not a destination.  For the magnitude of what would be true about this surely leads to a kind of protective and loving respect for it.

Randoms...

At least 2 things are always happening — 1) our sense of just trying to survive and 2) what is incubating within us, underneath our survival efforts, waiting to be birthed.

Although I can trace it as far back as I can remember, as I have gotten older, I feel aware of my increasing interest in the collective experience of humanity, rather than just my own personal experience of it.

Over the course of our life, we move from ‘they’, to ‘I’, to ‘we’.

Ever noticed...how dis-integrated we sometimes feel?

Prior Randoms...

You're Probably Not As Open-Minded As You Think. Here's How To Practice

Do you consider yourself an open-minded person? Most people would likely say yes. I mean, who wants to be closed-minded? But the reality is that many of us are probably not as open to new ideas as we might like. It can be hard to reconsider long-held beliefs, and even harder to question things you didn't even know you believed in the first place.

Recognize that your biological hardware isn't exactly setting you up for success. I have bad news for you about your brain: you don't fully know what it's up to. That might sound ridiculous. But in fact, there are tons of things that your brain does without your conscious control....

Be curious. This sounds easy, but it's not....

Being around different people day to day changes those hidden connections in our brain. Which means that the more you can diversify the people in your life, the more likely you are to scrape away those implicit biases you might not want to hold onto....

Continue here....

-- Andee Tagle

Break The Shell

The shell must be cracked apart if what is in it is to come out, for if you want the kernel you must break the shell. 

-- Meister Eckhart

Evolution of Experience

In the writing of any book, I would want to preface it by noting that whatever I write or say is a function of my unique experience.   

It is also important to note that my unique experience is always in a context of one kind or another — that particular experience (of mine) is somehow related to the experience of those around me.  And, of course, the combination of what amounts to be a collective experience is related to the experience of that which came before it.   In other words, it too is the experience of another group of people proximate to the experience of any collective group of people around and before it...and further and further out and back it all goes.  

By implication then, it will also be related to the one which comes after it.  If it works backwards, then it works forwards.  Or, put differently, it always is moving forward — my experience, influenced by a collective one, is both from something and to something.

What does this then infer?  An unavoidable question to me is how this experience evolves with each changing version of it?  Does any part of it remain kind of constant, even as context changes?  If so, how so the two realities relate to each other?

Compulsive Behavior

Shame drives compulsive behavior.

-- Wm. Paul Young

My sense is that it does this by inhibiting awareness.

A Desire Involved

I've noticed...that when I am talking about something, there is usually a desire involved.

Not Without Hope

We are not without hope. Lies ring hollow at the end of the day. Hatred is a poor imitation of purpose, celebrity a poor replacement for wisdom, and political tribes a poor comparison to authentic Christian community. We are a people defined by the resurrection of the Son of God. We are called to be redeemers and reconcilers.

-- Timothy Dalrymple

Randoms...

So much of life is becoming familiar with how it works.

Truth has an amazing capacity to be co-opted for self-interest.

True knowledge of self and God go hand-in-hand.

Do you ever feel like your life is just a combination of endless routines?

Prior Randoms...

Visual: Hello

 Visual - "Hello":

Winona Lake, IN

You just can't stop the power of flowers. Why is that? 

I heard something recently, that is like an answer to me. Ask me sometime....