For The Sake Of...

Just because you use Scripture, even in a God-affirming way, does not mean you are using Scripture for life and love, growth and wisdom—and for the sake of God or others.

-- Richard Rohr

A Reflection on Falling Out of Love with Myself

Five and half years ago, Hurricane Maria was destroying Puerto Rico. I was signing books. 

Yes, the very night that one of the worst hurricanes in recorded history was ravaging through my homeland, I was in North Carolina, at a fancy Barnes and Noble, reading chapter four of my second book, Drop The Stones, in a pretending-to-be-oh-so-holy voice.  

I had practiced the pauses to make the story more dramatic. I had rehearsed the pronunciation, so my English sounded better. And I was dressed to impressed (at least my wife was impressed). 

My mom and dad had flown into Raleigh to see me. My photo was about three feet high on the main bookstore entrance. Friends and “fans” had come to get their signed copy.  

Ugh. 

Listen, I love myself. Sometimes too much, sometimes not enough. The problem was that I was falling for the same traps that I kept telling people that they shouldn’t be falling in.  

Then a friend gave me a call three days after Maria made landfall. He was neither pleasant nor cute. He did not call to congratulate me on my book release. He did not call me to invite me to one of his conference events so that I could promote my book some more. He loved me yes … but he called me to tell me off.  Continue here....

-- Carlos Rodriguez

Maybe this is what the next generation is trying to say: 

The Surprising Surge of Faith Among Young People

3 Observations & A Question

The sooner we start doing more of what we like to do, the better.

In some ways, it's pretty simple — you get good at the things you spend the most time on. 

No step, regardless of how big or small, is insignificant — it is that much distance both from and towards something, especially as each one adds to the other.

Don’t we really need to acknowledge how much we are creatures (products?) of our environment?

Prior  3 Observations & A Question….

Vinyl sales surpassed CDs for the first time in 35 years

Time to dust off the old turntable, vinyl records are having a major comeback. 

For the first time in more than three decades, vinyl records outsold CDs, according to the Recording Industry Association of America's annual revenue report.

In 2022, 41 million vinyl units were sold compared to 33 million CDs, highlighting a "remarkable resurgence" of the physical music format, per the report released Thursday. Vinyl records made up a total of 70% of all physical music sales in 2022, bringing in a total of $1.2 billion in revenue, according to RIAA.

Though vinyl is making gains and reaching new generations, streaming still reigns supreme, accounting for 84% of total music revenue in 2022, per RIAA. Still, vinyl sales are on the rise even as supply issues and bottlenecks plague the industry and companies struggle...continue here.

-- Bethany Biron

At a Window

Against the back-drop of the drama of our times, this cuts to the chase....

'Poem for the week' -- "At a Window":

Give me hunger,

O you gods that sit and give

The world its orders.

Give me hunger, pain and want,

Shut me out with shame and failure

From your doors of gold and fame,

Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger!

But leave me a little love,

A voice to speak to me in the day end,

A hand to touch me in the dark room

Breaking the long loneliness.

In the dusk of day-shapes

Blurring the sunset,

One little wandering, western star

Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow.

Let me go to the window,

Watch there the day-shapes of dusk

And wait and know the coming

Of a little love.

-- Carl Sandburg

To The Same Standard

There is a question I have learned to ask myself when I am feeling bothered about others:  am I holding myself to the same standard I am demanding of them?

-- Arbinger Institute, The Anatomy of Peace

Still Talking...About Lying

And, lying to the public for financial gain is not a problem?

So, where did all the adults go? You know, the ones who are supposed to set the example for others who don't know any better. Apparently, we're no longer smarter than a second-grader (where we emphasize the importance of NOT lying — ask my wife, who has to teach second-graders not to lie over and over again).

I guess it is OK, though, if you're making money at it...at least until you lose a bunch of it when you get caught.

Selling it must be fine as long as you lie (again) about what you're calling it — how about conspiracy theories?  Then, it's not really lying, it's just catering to an audience, who will give you their attention-money to do it.

I wish I was better at sarcasm, which is a rather lame way to poke at something far more insidious than poking fun deserves.

Even though this is a well-worn path these days, it needs to be repeated — truth has to matter at some point.  Lie if you can get away with it, is not sustainable.  We even have laws all over the place that require you to tell the truth.  Is that really necessary?  Apparently, it is.  Look where you end up with out them.

There's lying, distortion, and mis-representation on all sides to be sure (especially when power and money is involved).  That, however, should underscore the point, rather than acquiesce to it.

While there is way more subjectivity to truth than we suspected in the good 'ole days, this doesn't mean there is no objectivity to it.  History has always worked with refining definitions of objectivity (the earth really isn't the center of the universe, it isn't flat, etc.).  We have to.  There is constancy and fluidity.  Both — not one without the the other.

All too often, it seems, we are using one kind of truth to inform another kind.  This is often where things break-down.  But, we must remain vigilant that any improvement in our understanding of truth is for the benefit of having it in the first place.  Maybe it isn't as much this as it is that.  But, if it is that, then we still need to operate from there (even if it does seem to change again).

We want to know the truth.  We need to know it (at least some of it).  Without it, we end up with mob-rule or fascism.

Besides, truth makes us better at our mutual co-existence.  The alternative is pretty apparent, isn't it?  Peddlers of lies, even when veiled as conspiracies, are clearly about the aggregation of power and influence and, too often, pure unbridled personal gain.  And equally, too often, at the expense of someone else.  Gain for some, at the loss of others...sometimes, unending loss).  This is not the beauty of human existence, where all benefit from the best features of our inter-dependence with each other (and everything else).  This is mutual destruction, where nobody really wins in the end.

Like it or not, we are in this together.  But, for it to be good, we must rely on a shared and deepening understanding of what is true.

We can't tolerate lying — in second grade OR after.

Know How To Listen

Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly.

-- Plutarch

Unfamiliar To Me

I've noticed...as I’m getting older, that I have to more consciously put myself in a position to see things that are unfamiliar to me.

Available To You

Instagram: richvillodas

What’s if at the end of history, the question God asks us is not whether we abstained from sin.  

What if the question is "Did you enter into the joy that was available to you?"

-- Rich Villodas

Earth Day 2023 - "Invest In Our Planet"

It goes without saying (at least, it should), the world is an amazing place. Even the inanimate of it (assuming that label is even truly the case) has long been viewed to have emotion.

Therefore the land shall mourn. 

-- Hosea 4:3 

So, in the spirit of Earth Day 2023:

I want us to consider our relationship with land. . . . To think of ourselves as a part of creation rather than apart from it. What if the land is a being in its own right? That concept is not as foreign as you might think. And what if the land and all that grows from it and on it and in it are sentient beings in their own right? . . .

When I say that the land is my ancestor, that is a scientific statement: I want to reflect again on this claim by Dr. Keolu Fox, a Kānaka Maoli anthropologist and genomic researcher. The land itself and the conditions of that land, like altitude and climate, impact our genome just as our human ancestors do. We are born on it, die on it; we come from it and return to it. The land and the waters, oceans and rivers, are part of us, relatives and ancestors in a very real way. . . .

Our emotions have a physical response. We feel sadness, and our body responds by crying. In the ancient Middle East, drought was often connected with mourning as the land’s physical response to an emotional state. Just as a Hebrew mourner would fast and pour dust over their head and body, so, too, the land expresses her grief by fasting and covering herself in dust. “Human action has caused desolation and destruction,” Mari Joerstad writes. “Further proof of human perfidy is their inattentiveness to the suffering of other creatures. The earth is left with no option but to cry directly to YHWH.” . . .

The land mourns, but it also responds with joy. The same prophets who describe a land fasting and covering herself with dust in response to human wrongdoing and harm also describe beautiful scenes of rejoicing and jubilation upon the return of the people. “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom,” the prophet Isaiah says [Isaiah 35:1].

Krawec tells her readers of an ancient Anishinaabe prophecy that envisioned a choice between two paths for the future: one scorched and barren, the other green and fertile:

Remember the two paths of the Seventh Fire—one parched and blackened and the other green and lush. How we prepare now will determine what comes next: either a healing fire that brings wild strawberries and lush pathways or a charred landscape that cuts our feet. For Indigenous people, that means holding on to the knowledge of our ancestors. For the light-skinned people, that means making the right choices about how to live.

-- Patty Krawec, an Anishinaabe and Ukrainian writer and activist

The land’s lament speaks a foundational ecological truth: when one part of creation goes awry, the whole suffers. The land’s grief at what the people have done points to the fundamental reality of our interconnection. 

-- Andi Lloyd

For a more poetic version, click here....

From Smiling to Sleeping: 10 Ways to Feel Happier

More than a feel-good state of mind, happiness is described by the U.N. as a “fundamental human goal.” It comes with myriad benefits, including improving our health and even helping us live longer. Happier people are also more likely to make decisions quickly and contribute to society by voting and volunteering.  

While happiness can be a loaded subject, with many contributing factors that often aren’t in our control, science shows that there are plenty of surprisingly straightforward things that can help us feel satisfied. 

Of course, happiness is not something that happens overnight; it’s a process that’s consciously cultivated with intention and purpose. But if you’re looking to embark on that journey, consider starting with some of these 10 science-backed tips.  Continue here....

--Marika Spitulski

Until You Try

You never know what you can do until you try, and very few try unless they have to. 

-- C.S. Lewis

But, What About Leverage?

It seems that prayer is, in the end, really about communion. A union of myself with God that seems like a joining with power; a joining with something that is already activated, and with which I am aligning myself. If there is something that I need or want — prayer seems like it is as much about me bringing myself to that power, as it is about me trying to orchestrate or manipulate that power for the benefit of my need. 

But, the question remains, is there any kind of leverage in that participation — that joining of myself to that power? In other words, does specific prayer, or request for assistance or help, somehow engage or motivate or direct attention to the thing that I am praying about?  Does it actually activate anything?

I think because of the religious diet that I 've eaten over the years, it feels like it was much more the latter than the former (enter terms like 'prayer-warrior'). But as I embrace the former (union), I am still curious about what kind of activation is still possible by the latter (leverage). When we pray for the things that affect us, in the circumstances that we face, what is actually available to us that we forfeit when we simply don’t do it? I’m afraid that the verses that often come to mind from the Scriptures about the dramatic things that we could do if we had enough faith, or if we were to simply ask (“you have not because you ask not”) are more often misunderstood on the basis of certain outcomes that we either desire, or even expect, as a function of our activity related to prayer. 

Take, for example a changed physical condition or a job or a relationship that can often feel like we don’t have enough agency (power) to control for the outcomes we would like or need. It is often about such things that we end up praying because of that lack we feel about our ability to create the change we desire through our own power. And it seems to often be the case that before the moment of recognition of our lack of efficacy, we often don’t pray because we are still operating from the premise that there’s more of our own resource we could marshal (or the need itself is not great enough to warrant such prayerful requests). 

So, it makes sense that disabusing ourselves of prayer as primarily leverage in our most needy moments, as opposed to something much brighter and more relational, and communal than that, is pretty important to both recognize and understand. But, in our acceptance of such, I still wonder whether such prayer is merely the joining of myself to the object of my prayer (not to say that is a small thing). In other words, is that all it is? Or, is there actually still more? Most surely, there has to be…more. But just as surely, it would seem our need for that “more“ is too often tied directly to a specific outcome. And, we probably know (even innately) how shortsighted our desire for specific outcomes can sometimes be. Perhaps, this is why we end up defaulting to a lack of prayer, because we are caught somehow in the less-than-human formulaic nature of leverage and if it’s not primarily about that, we might directly (or even subconsciously) defer to a more why-bother-then disposition.

How about an example?  I want my son’s health to not only be restored, but also...finish here.

Always Should Have Been

Aging is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person that you always should have been.

-- David Bowie

One Thing

Ever noticed...how one thing leads to another (good and bad)?

Glad Surprise

It is ever a new thing, a glad surprise, the stirring of life at the end of winter. One day there seems to be no sign of life and then almost overnight, swelling buds, delicate blooms, blades of grass, bugs, insects—an entire world of newness everywhere. It is the glad surprise at the end of winter. Often the same experience comes at the end of a long tunnel of tragedy and tribulation. It is as if a person stumbling in the darkness, having lost their way, finds that the spot at which they fall is the foot of a stairway that leads from darkness into light. Such is the glad surprise. This is what Easter means in the experience of the [human] race. This is the resurrection! It is the announcement that life cannot ultimately be conquered by death, … that there is strength added when the labors increase, that multiplied peace matches multiplied trials, that life is bottomed by the glad surprise. Take courage, therefore: 

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,  

When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,  

When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,  

Our Father’s full giving is only begun.

-- Howard Thurman

This fits, it seems to me, with one of the more remarkable takes I've heard on the Easter Story here....

3 Observations & A Question

Seeking the truth and being in control, are not the same thing — ironically those seeking control are too often trying to use truth as leverage.

Belief is about thinking; faith is about trust.

In the end, we can’t use enjoyability as a primary measure of how much we want to relate to others — we all have things that are unenjoyable about us.

Argument rarely changes people's minds — is that because it's not the dynamic of real change?

 

Prior  3 Observations & A Question….

Major League Baseball's New Rules

AXIOS

On the Lighter Side: SCOTUS hears case on a Jack Daniel’s knockoff dog toy

On the Lighter Side:

Thesaurus.com was probably the star of yesterday’s Supreme Court oral arguments, in which attorneys for Jack Daniel’s had to use every synonym for “dog poop” they could find. The whiskey brand argued that the dog toy company VIP Products violated its trademark with a crude squeaky toy that mimicked its iconic product.

The VIP “Bad Spaniels” dog toy at the center of the case is modeled after the recognizable whiskey bottle, but instead of saying “Old No. 7 Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey,” it features “Old No. 2 on your Tennessee carpet” in an almost identical font. Jack Daniel’s claims that the similarity of the toy’s appearance to the real product confuses customers and associates the company’s “fine whiskey with dog poop.” VIP says its toy is a parody protected as creative expression.

A district court sided with the whiskey-maker, but...continue here.

-- Matty Merritt

Your Estimate Of It

If you are distressed, by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it.

-- Marcus Aurelius

I Distract Myself

When facing something unknown of perceived consequence, I've noticed I have certain tendencies. 

I tend to start thinking about something else, even as I sense the emerging urgence of the unknown thing.  It's weird.  I'm weird — or, am I?

When I have a presentation to make or something significant I have to solve for, I will start working on it (usually well in advance).  But, then, I will feel a series of subtle internal appeals to think about other things.  Something I might really not have time for, especially in light of a deadline.

I have found that I turn to those things.  Sometimes it feels like a way for me to step back from the primary thing and then return to it with fresh eyes.  It's almost like I'm dancing with the primary thing — getting real close it and then pulling away.  Returning to it from a different point-of-view.  As the event gets closer, these intervals get shorter. Perhaps this dynamic gives me perspective.  Perhaps it provides a kind of relief from some kind of intensity that often grows within me.  Perhaps it is a release valve for a fear that often creeps into the situation about the thing, especially if there is something unknown about it or where I feel risk.

If the thing is big enough, this will get even more obvious.  I will feel urge to eat something, to watch something, or do something else altogether and, while these are often things that happen in the normal course of life anyway, something is conspicuous about why I am doing that thing...right now (I’m eating…and I just ate dinner an hour ago!).  I did this last again night….

It’s almost like I am trying to distract myself.

Distraction, for all of its liabilities, does have a certain utility; it is serving something.  In less benign situations, it often is a means of disengaging.  Usually disengaging over these kinds of things is not good, especially if engagement is either required or just plain helpful.  Distraction is such a small (but effective) technique to achieve it. So small, in fact, that we often don't even recognize that it is happening, not to mention why it is happening.

So what does disengaging serve?  I suspect it is a kind of mitigation.  A mitigation that portends to not feel something — to avoid or, more likely, relieve whatever is perceived to be at risk (even when we know it actually doesn't).  

What if the situation doesn't go well?  What if the needed conversation goes side-ways?  What if the interview goes badly?  What if the presentation doesn't resonate (or flops)?  What if the trip is a bust?  

And, how about the real questions lurking below these?  What if people don't like it?  What will that say about me?  How will they feel about me?  

Finish here....

Swimming Naked

You never know who’s swimming naked until the tide goes out.

-- Warren Buffett

Expression

I'm wondering...is expression a fundamental need of the human experience?

Whether we want to believe it or not, there is something about our need to express things that is important to acknowledge.

For example, I’d like to write more. I think this is true, primarily because it is a means of expression. Writing, for me, is an avenue — perhaps a primary one — of expressing something. Sometimes, I don't even know ahead of time what that I want to express. But, I feel a drive to do it — not only to be heard, but also for the exercise of doing so. It feels like a need to contribute something to the world. Who the audience is, is another matter (and one easy to get tangled up in). But, making a contribution through the expression of my experience feels important somehow. As I observe the world and all the expression going on in it, I'm guessing I'm not alone.  Our experiences are important...to express.

Do each of us have both a need and a gift for expression in some way?

Easter: Resurrection Power…On Earth!

Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven, but to colonize earth with the life of heaven.  That, after all, is what the Lord's Prayer is about.

-- N. T. Wright

Confusion of Suffering

Ultimately, why do we remain so confused about suffering? 

Is it because of a somewhat misunderstood notion we’ve inherited or developed that presumes that something like the resurrection should eliminate suffering, as opposed to redeem it? It’s almost as if the acceptance we maintain about redemption is predicated on a kind of a pass that we think we should receive because of it. When the reality of things may more closely be to what redemption enables in us, rather than what it eliminates. 

We so often want to see things in an either-or frame of reference — it has to be one OR the other, for us to understand the truth of it. But, this seems to contradict so much of the way things actually are; even the simple observability of things indicates that we are much more accurate by describing things in terms of both-and. We just have a hard time with paradox, with more than simple binary options for our understandings of the nature of things.

Even in the context of Easter, I’m afraid that we still ended up somehow with the sense that because of resurrection there should be no more real death. But, the reality is that there now is both — things will continue to die and, because of Easter, that is not the end of the matter. Now, things also come back to life. Death is no longer final. But, we still seem to end up complaining about the necessity of death — as if the reality of resurrection should somehow reverse the reality of death itself — when in reality we now have 2 realities or one that more simply includes both.

Perhaps, our confusion comes from misunderstandings we acquired about the nature of curses and blessings. That one should supplant the other. When perhaps it is more helpful to understand these polarities in a frame that one is not wiped out by the other, in an ultimate sense. In other words, unification with reality is not achieved as much by the absence of suffering, as it is by the acceptance of it, and the joyful surprise that it is not the end as much as it is about an opportunity for new beginning.

A day like today (Holy Saturday), gives us the pause we need to actually...consider the real connection between life and death.  It takes a moment (or a life-time). The amazing news of the Resurrection is not yet here, but it takes days like today to have our socks blown off when tomorrow comes. 

If God is not confused by suffering, perhaps we shouldn't be either. Love wins not just because it is better in life, but also because it is stronger than death. In fact, it appears to be perpetuated by it — after all, it was Jesus who said, "unless a seed falls into the ground and dies…".  

Holy (Good) Friday: The Passion

Instagram: sandravanopstal

The passion is really the mystery of all mysteries, the heart of the Christian faith experience. By the word “passion” here we mean the events which end Jesus’s earthly life: his betrayal, trial, execution on a cross, and death.…

So much bad, manipulative, guilt-inducing theology has been based on it that it’s fair to wonder whether there is any hope of starting afresh. I believe wisdom does open up that possibility. The key lies in … reading Jesus’s life as a sacrament: a sacred mystery whose real purpose is not to arouse empathy but to create empowerment. In other words, Jesus is not particularly interested in increasing either your guilt or your devotion, but rather, in deepening your personal capacity to make the passage into unitive life….

[Jesus] certainly lived in a very intense way the ordeals of betrayal, abandonment, homelessness, and death. Did it have to be like that? If he were indeed here on a divine mission, it would seem that he could have been given an easier career path: chief priest, political leader, the Messiah that people expected him to be…. But none of these opportunities materialized. Why not? Because the path he did walk is precisely the one that would most fully unleash the transformative power of his teaching. It both modeled and consecrated the eye of the needle [DM team: or the belly of the whale] that each one of us must personally pass through in order to accomplish the “one thing necessary” here, according to his teaching: to die to self. I am not talking about literal crucifixion, of course, but I am talking about the literal laying down of our “life,” at least as we usually recognize it. Our only truly essential human task here, Jesus teaches, is to grow beyond the survival instincts of the animal brain and egoic operating system into the kenotic joy and generosity of full human personhood. His mission was to show us how to do this.

-- Cynthia Bourgeault

How Are You Doing?

How often do you ask yourself how you are doing?

Even though it can be somewhat rare to do, we often only think about such a question when somebody asks us. What does that indicate to us — that we rarely take inventory of how we are ourselves? Taking a step further back, what is the problem anyway, if we really don’t keep track of how we're doing? Is this related to how well we know ourselves? And, if we don't know ourselves that well, where does that effectively leave us?

It seems to me that one of the more obvious observations is that we fill our lives to the brim with so many things. So much information, so much activity, so much mental space that even when we organize for times of relief, we often end up just pouring in more information — like listening to podcasts or watching movies or listening to music or…on and on and on it goes, just filling up every moment with something. We rarely take the time to create space to consider and recognize the things that are going on inside us as we live in this kind of reality.

At some point, it would seem apparent (or at least it should be), that this kind of reality we’ve ended up constructing for ourselves really separates us from something important about reality. Something in this mix seems to dupe us into the impression that we are connecting to things, all the while not recognizing that what we really need to connect to is a source inside of us (as opposed to everything that is outside of us). When we do this long enough, we often end up having no idea what we’re actually feeling, because we are so absorbed with what everything around us is feeling. And we become somewhat unable to search for the sources of what we need for what we are actually feeling because we’ve effectively cut ourselves off.

When I recently asked myself this question again, it took me a while to even figure out what I was feeling or, at least, put words to. One thing that eventually made it to the surface for me was that I feel like I’m juggling a lot of things right now. The circumstances in my life right now have me feeling like I’m involved in a more rapidly changing future than normal (for me). I also feel aware that I’m trying to balance activity that is oriented toward those future possibilities with an awareness that, in the current moment, there’s not very much I can actually do about it. And, so the tension I’m feeling is trying to be present to the now, and not be totally obsessed with the future (that isn’t here yet)…especially since I have no ability to determine which direction it will actually go, not to mention the details that would be involved, even if I did.

I’ve also noticed with this practice, that what I think I’m feeling is sometimes not the core of what I am really feeling. Sometimes it takes the discovery of one thing to find another. And, the process often isn’t quite this tidy — in other words, it can take a while (which is probably why we don’t do this much).

But nonetheless, whether from the wisdom of the likes John Calvin (here) or Oprah Winfrey, this level of honesty often helps me be a little more prepared to embrace all that I don't know and, rather than avoid it or fear it, live with a healthier sense of availability to myself (and others), anticipation, and the possibility of surprise.

I often tell friends: When you don't know what to do, do nothing. Get quiet so you can hear the still, small voice — your inner GPS guiding you to true north. I've trusted the still, small voice of intuition my entire life. And the only time I've made mistakes is when I didn't listen.

-- Oprah Winfrey

To Be Yourself

It's not your job to be likable.  It's your job to be yourself.  Someone will like you anyway.

-- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Status Quo

Those who fiercely defend the status quo are those who benefit most from it.

-- Simon Sinek

Capacity To Hurt People

I’ve noticed...that my capacity to hurt people seems greater when I am hurting.

Soul Gift

Our age has come to expect satisfaction. We have grown up in an absolutely unique period when having and possessing and accomplishing have been real options. They have given us an illusion of fulfillment—and fulfillment now—as long as we are clever enough, quick enough, and pray or work hard enough for our goals or rewards.

I am convinced that the Book of Jonah can best be read as God moving someone from a mere sense of a religious job or career to an actual sense of personal call, vocation, or destiny. It takes being “swallowed by a beast” and taken into a dark place of nesting and nourishing that allows us to move to a deeper place called personal vocation. It involves a movement from being ego-driven to being soul-drawn. The energy is very different. It comes quietly and generously from within. Once we have accepted our call, we do not look for payment, reward, or advancement because we have found our soul gift.

I have met many people who have found their soul gift, and they are always a joy to work with. It’s apparent they are not counting the cost, but just want to serve and help. Benedictines have a group they call oblates, which means “those who are offered.” To come with our lives as an offering is quite different from the seeking of a career, security, status, or title. Even the [retired head of the] Vatican’s office for bishops dared to admit publicly [his] worries about rampant careerism among bishops worldwide as they sought promotion to higher and more prestigious dioceses.  It sounds like we still have James and John wanting to sit at the right and left sides of the throne of Jesus (Mark 10:37). Maybe young people need to start there, but we can see why Jonah has to be shoved out of the boat. Otherwise, he never would have gotten to the “right” Nineveh.

We must listen, wait, and pray for our charism and call. Most of us are really only good at one or two things. Meditation should lead to a clarity about who we are and, maybe even more, who we are not. This second revelation is just as important as the first. I have found it difficult over the years to sit down and tell people what is not their gift. It is usually very humiliating for individuals to face their own illusions and inabilities. We are not usually a truth-speaking people. We don’t speak the truth to one another, nor does our culture encourage the journey toward the True Self. The false self often sets itself up for unnecessary failures and humiliations.

-- Richard Rohr

Jesus talked about Jonah (noting it as the one sign he would give the people) and even lived its path.  He knew what is hard for us to know before we've gone through it, too, that there was more to the story than the likely end of things Jonah-experiences present to us.

On this Palm Sunday, perhaps we could imagine for ourselves something more like the way Jesus did it when he disabused the power structures of his day by riding on a donkey (an excellent reflection on this here...).

When You Walk

When you walk, you have the time to notice the sights and sounds of things — like the cycles of life starting back up again...see more noticing imagery here (even the church is updating its name, dropping 'Brethren').

4 Observations (from Others)

Being is not something you are, it is something you...have.

-- Cynthia Bourgeault

Many of us feel paralyzed as to how to live into transformed lives that aren’t swallowed up by ‘to do’ lists and external metrics of success. 

-- Jon Huckins

I only went out for a walk and … going out, I found, what was really going on.

-- John Muir

Beginner’s mind is a way of life. Each day we are challenged to see the same familiar people and landscapes with new eyes. Just as the cosmos is created and sustained anew each moment, everything is alive and changing, ourselves included, if we are spiritually awake and paying attention.

-- Estelle Frankel

Prior 4 Observations (from Others).

NO JOKE: My Mom Didn't Even Have The Opportunity

AXIOS