Weakness

Partisanship may have been stronger in the 1850s, 1930s or 1960s, but the parties themselves have never been weaker. They are less functioning organizations motivated by a patriotic vision of what is best for the country—or even themselves—and more like competing brands willing to change their products based on whatever will sell this quarter. Though it may seem like an oxymoron, the country’s extreme partisanship is actually a function of this party weakness. Healthy parties mediate passions and reject passing fads in favor of long term success. As party power has diminished, media organizations have moved in to fill the void. Many news outlets do the work once properly carried out by the parties: opposition research, ideological messaging and even political organizing. As a result, much of what passes for political journalism is really party work by proxy.

-- Jonah Goldberg and Steve Hayes, Why The Dispatch

The Morning Dispatch

...there you go — that's what we need more of (a model of citizenship and leadership for our young people to follow)!  Surely, the only way to disagree isn't by everyone returning to second-grade....

Weakness is often an easy target for the self-proclaimed strong.  But, strength isn't the same thing as animosity, which seems to be what we have far more of today than anything else.  Real strength doesn't stoop down this far.  And, one reason I think this is true is the money that has followed this weakness and is being used against us to simply make more of it.  And, we don't seem to realize it (or care).

We, quite simply, have ourselves to blame, despite our attempts to foist it off on something else — media, government, liberals, LGBTQ+.... Can't we think of anything or anyone else (when will we finally run out of options and only have to face what is looking back at us in the mirror)?

We have ended up a caricature of real strength (the kind that has character and courage in the face of disrespect and violence).  Even basic decency is now more largely derided than simply a knock-off of authenticity.  

Instagram: real.woman._

Bought and sold so many times, we don't even realize that it is simply we who are buying our own destruction.  The sellers actually know better, but they do it anyway...just because they can get rich off that we keep buying it.

The amorality of it, itself, is what is so immoral about it.  Murder is always, in the end, as lethal to the perpetrator ...because they don't even see the suicidal nature of it.

This is not leadership. This is pure and simple pandering to our lowest common denominator and, perhaps, the truest form of weakness.

Sometimes there’s nothing quite like losing something to clarify what you want (or need). I'm afraid that's exactly what it's going to take (significant loss), if we can no longer even rationally consider that we are the them we are so convinced is the problem.

Could there be any greater evidence of a lack of real faith — evidence that we don't believe in anything greater than our own need to vanquish (before it vanquishes us)?

Remember that we are braced by a God who is too big for one-dimensional truths, and this is a good thing. It’s not that we hold paradox; it’s that paradox holds us. We are held in a deep place. An ample place. A generous place. Though we might fear paradox, God does not. 

-- Debie Thomas

LT: Disconnect

Why are employees so glum? They’re no longer riding the ‘highs and lows’ of their roles, but instead shifted to ‘resignation and apathy'.  The true problem with employee engagement isn’t a lack of motivation, but a disconnect between the employee and the organization’s purpose.

-- Jenn Lim

If you think about it, this assessment might transcend the context of business — is our societal glum a result of disconnection...from our purpose?

Thinking Patterns

I've noticed...something in my thinking patterns — I move from something specific to the abstract, and then back to the specific.

Accordingly, I'm giving these some thought:

5 power principles to create the life you want in just one year

Jesus Doesn’t…

Jesus doesn't dominate the other, avoid the other, colonize the other, intimidate the other, demonize the other, or marginalize the other.  He incarnates into the other, joins the other in solidarity, protects the other, listens to the other, serves the other, even lays down his life for the other.

-- Brian McLaren

3 Observations & A Question

If you want to see things more clearly, consider what you’re focusing on.

Sometimes, it is a gift (to someone else) to just ask for what you want.

While we hate to admit it, more often than not, people just want to be told what to do — rather than asked to figure things out and make a decision...besides, then they have someone else to blame, too (which people also seem to like).

When is easier actually not…better?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question….

Consumer Sentiment & Immigration

AXIOS

GALLUP - Front Page

On The Lighter Side: Maybe Thirty Years Ago

On the Lighter Side:

Stereotypes

We must reject not only the stereotypes that others hold of us, but also the stereotypes that we hold of ourselves.

-- Shirley Chisholm

Expectations

Do you ever think about what really drives you?

The other day, I noticed a reaction I was having to some new experiences at work. I recently took on a new role and knew it would challenge me in some ways. At the very least, it would move me out of my comfort zone, which I believe is important. So, I was now experiencing it more than just theoretically.

I was provoked by some things related to how some people seemed to be reacting to something I was trying to make happen. To begin with, I could have done a better job. Even though I tried to anticipate a few problematic things, I still could have done more. This was apparent in the moment (at least to me) and especially later when I realized more about what I was feeling.

I mention this because paying attention to our reactions can be highly helpful, for our own good as well as for the situation (and other people) involved.

It occurred to me freshly that a lot of what we’re working with in such things is related to expectations.  Expectations we have of ourselves, expectations we have of others, expectations we feel from others — are all in the mix, whether we are aware of it or not. Many of them are conditioned by the experiences we've had or are aware of. A lot of what we deal with could be summarized by an operating sentence like, "What is expected of me here?"

We might quickly quip with a good ole "Who cares?". But, the reality is we are often concerned about what others think (sometimes, even appropriately). It is when we become pre-occupied with them that we know we have something more to deal with.

The crux of the matter probably comes down to what we’re trying to avoid IF we don't meet expectations (wherever they come from). What is at stake? What if we feel disrespected? What if someone doesn't like us?  What if...we simply blew it?

But, is it really that precarious? Or, is it an opportunity to consider where I'm really putting my confidence (feedback of others can be both highly tendential... and, at times, highly useful). Without asking such a question, I might altogether miss the whole opportunity — to grow from things that I don't do perfectly (or, for that matter, even well).

Perhaps, it's pretty simple.  Do I want to know how to get better?  If so, I'm simply free to explore things, largely even through our reactions, and learn from them.  Pouting, blaming, or pay-backs hardly seems of much real use.  

While understanding what drives me does.

Perception of the Economy

Your perception of the economy used to infuence your political leanings.  Nowadays, Americans' political leanings determine how they perceive the economy.

-- Mike Allen

2 Things At The Same Time

Ever noticed...how often we want two things at the same time — something right now (relief, etc.) AND something long-term (ultimate, etc.) — and the two are in tension with each other?

Spiritual Maturation

The first half of our lives is spent building an identity, establishing our security, defining our boundaries, creating a zone of safety, and having controllable order. We can liken this first stage of life to operating on lower levels of consciousness. Many religious people get stuck on the level of mythic consciousness, with a narrow, ethnocentric, law-and-order mentality. God is a superior being outside oneself, and fidelity to God means abiding by the laws of religion and church. Wholeness means nothing more than obeying the rules. Looking for one’s center always outside oneself inculcates a basic sense of unworthiness, distrust of self, and subservience to those “better,” “more qualified,” or “superior” to counsel and guide.

What creates a breakthrough in consciousness, whereby authentic growth shifts from attention to authority outside ourselves to the inner law of the heart, is not simply growing old but, rather, it is growing inward in freedom: “If you make my Word your home,” Jesus said, “you will learn the truth and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32). Freedom requires a breakthrough into unitive consciousness, a radical surrender and complete letting go, trusting the spiritual impulses of life….

Life still breaks down as matter weakens and expectations fail, but the one who lives on the level of integrated consciousness lives in moments of failure or disruption with a lightness of spirit, a sense of openness to divine love, which appears like light shining through the cracks of darkness. Suffering is where divine love radiates in hidden darkness, where God is fully human; the power of life itself in the midst of disruption. We [live into our divine nature] when we cling to this power of life, finding that this power within liberates us beyond the threat of death because “fear is driven out by perfect love” (1 John 4:18). Living into our divine nature is the source of our freedom and happiness.

We cannot know this deeper divine reality if we live only on levels of mediocrity and self-preservation. We are created out of love and are made to energize the world in love…. Aging can be either a life of nostalgia or a wholehearted engagement with the future. It is a disruptive process as things break down, friends and pets die, houses are sold, and memories of the past haunt the present. Months melt into years, and we find ourselves in the flow of life.

Growing inward by falling upward means learning from our mistakes…. Even if the felt experience of life dims, we are invited to let go and surrender to the wild love of God, living into the endless vitality of life itself. Letting go into God is coming home to our true selves, where we discover that our root reality is infinite divine love, and in love, we are eternally free.

-- Ilia Delio

Letting Go...Will Free You

As you let go of the complications, emotional toxins, and everything else that isn't serving you, you will be free to experience the happiness that exists in simplicity.

-- Deepak Chopra™

3 Observations & A Question

If we think we can get away with something, we will likely try to — too often only when we become aware of the probability that we can’t will we reconsider.

Usually, it's not that I'm not paying attention, it's that I'm paying attention to something else.

The problem isn't just politicians capitalizing on us (not to mention exploiting) — we must demand more of ourselves than to lazily just leave it up to them…we’re using each other, to our peril.

When does independence just become deferral?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question….

The One Habit Is The Key To Better Friendships

It's no secret that many men struggle to maintain or even build strong friendships. Bucking the trend is essential — and easier if you do this.

Men get a lot of mixed messages about their friendships. Get too close to a pal, or react too enthusiastically about meeting another guy you click with, and people might joke you’re in a “bromance.” On the other hand, if you don’t have many close friends, and mainly confide in your wife, people might say you’re suffering from what’s been called a “friendship recession” among men – and as a result, you could be at risk for the negative health consequences that can stem from loneliness.  

People with more friends are generally more satisfied with their lives, according to a recent Pew Research survey. Yet people of all genders have fewer close friends than they used to. In 1990, less than a third of people said they had three or fewer close friends, but in 2021, that figure grew to almost half, according to a survey by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Survey Center on American Life. Half of Americans currently don’t think they have enough friends...continue here.

-- by Virginia Pelley

Not Really Living

If we don't change, we don't grow.  If we don't grow, we are not really living.

-- Gail Sheehy

Law

If you break the law… 

How would you finish the sentence?

...there will be consequences.
...and get caught, it's your fault.
...you better not get caught.

Human law (at least in principle) is designed to encourage behavior that contributes to the well-being of its citizens.  Ideologically, it is designed by those people (or their representatives).  If there is something harmful going on, we often try to stop it...with law.  After all, if something bad is happening and we don't do something about it, it will only get worse.  Or, so the thinking goes.

But, when people (the citizens and their representatives) relate to law primarily as something to be circumvented, the system no longer works.  When so many people, especially leaders, are actively manipulating the law, primarily to get around it (or avoid its consequences), true well-being suffers.  Law is a method to maintain something greater — when that greater thing breaks down, a larger problem exists that law cannot effectively address.  We all know the legal system, for all of its merits, has some clear flaws.  One of which (sometimes infuriatingly) seems to include something like, "Well, if it's not against the law, there's not much we can do...".

But, it's wrong (or, But, it's not right!)!

True....

So, what to make of such things?  

Our sense of law has to come from something higher; a deeper, richer value system.  If it doesn't, we end up having a lot of what seems to fill our social-media these days — people 'getting away with it'.  And, sometimes, it feels like we're more miffed that we can't do the same thing than we are about what is truly wrong about it.  Another too ever-present response seems to be that the law (the one involved in any given situation) is bad anyway.  And, so, the sophistication of our justification only grows.  

What is, after all, a fundamental basis of law?

Isn't it rooted in a shared sensibility about what is good?  There is law to promote what is good and there is law to prevent what is not (the 10 Commandments are one example).  But, if we lose a deeper sense of common good, we often end up well down a track of something quite different before we realize it.

At the end of the day, we are the ones who reinforce law the most, primarily by our abiding by it.  Lawmakers can often get side-ways by the pressures of influence.  This is not hard to see today.  Lawkeepers (not simply rule-followers) are where the real power is.  And, we must be involved in perpetuating the ideals of what is good.  Law is (mostly) a method of doing this.  Even if useful, it is incomplete.  But, the point here is that it is in our hands (personally and collectively).  We can't simply get comfortable with trying to circumvent it.  And, we certainly cannot defer it to those who have no real interest in common good; who are simply interested for their own personal interests, who use the system of law to avoid the consequences of violating it.  

By the way, Jesus said he came to fulfill the law.  So, what do you think he meant?

Being Busy

Being busy is not the same as being productive.  In fact, being busy is a form of laziness — lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.

-- Tim Ferriss

MLK Day: More Devoted to Order Than Justice

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice...

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

God's First Language

Silence is God's first language.

-- St. John of the Cross

...and, for some reason, we don't like that. 

But, that is far more our issue...than God's, who has spoken so much already.

3 Observations & A Question

Some days, the most significant choice you can make is simply to get moving.

What makes sense to you today is usually related to what happened yesterday.

We seem to be in a generation that essentially views itself as expert on diagnosing everything that is wrong, especially with everyone else….

Why do so many evangelicals share Trump's apocalyptic view of U.S. politics (there are very conditioned reasons — and, like it or not, we have to understand them)?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question….

CPI & Presidential Favorability

AXIOS

GALLUP - Front Page

To a Snowflake

‘Poem for the week’ — “To a Snowflake”:

What heart could have thought you?—

Past our devisal

(O filigree petal!)

Fashioned so purely,

Fragilely, surely,

From what Paradisal

Imagineless metal,

Too costly for cost?

Who hammered you, wrought you,

From argentine vapour?—

“God was my shaper.

Passing surmisal,

He hammered, He wrought me,

From curled silver vapour,

To lust of His mind;—

Thou could’st not have thought me!

So purely, so palely,

Tinily, surely,

Mightily, frailly,

Insculped and embossed,

With His hammer of wind,

And His graver of frost.”

-- Francis Thompson

Enable It

Your task is not to foresee the future, but to enable it.

-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I Am Important

I am important. 

But, not in ways that are at the expense of everyone else.

We really have to move beyond individualism and, actually, back toward collectivism. 

Some significant strides have certainly been made towards the value of the individual, especially in contrast to where that has sometimes been historically.  Now, however, we seem to be running into some boundaries with regard to how individual freedoms are impinging upon the collective good.

Such ideology is quickly thrown into the air by claims of socialism.  But, have you ever noticed how little constructive thought or conversation really follows such claims?  Like many other things, terms like socialism are only really used as a means means of shutting something down...usually by the jeering of the home-team crowd.  

And, in this case, it really isn't used very honestly:  

It really would not be hard to add to this list.

So, do we really know what is meant when this term is thrown around or how intentionally it has been used by the echo-chambers of talking heads and political influencers for decades?  It is really more the stuff of boogeymen than it is real.

I'm not even saying there are elements of socialism that can't be debated.  But, for the most part, that is not what is happening in the common use of it today.  Not to mention, coherent discussion among people with distinct perspectives, based on genuine curiosity.

This narrow, oft-politically motivated narrative on socialism is not really what is at involved when thinking about collectivism relative to individualism.  What, after all, are the virtues of individualism?  I'm not throwing shade here — is complete autonomy and independence as virtuous as it is purported to be?  We cannot, after all, even live in such a state.  The nature of all existence on planet earth is inter-dependent.  Over and over and over again we continue to discover the depth and range of this truth .

But, for some reason, we continue hold out the mythology that one of the highest goods is that we shouldn't be bothered by (not to mention need) anyone besides ourselves.

...except for the exceptions that serve us (which really at base are socialism in the more purest sense) —we're fine with it then.  Just not when it comes to other things...or other people.

So, how about a little more honesty (and a little less hypocrisy).  How about some real dialog that life is not primarily for consumption purposes only?  That we are all in this together, not for what we can profit for individual gain, but for the relationships we have with all of existence.  For the good, in fact, of all (as opposed for just me).

Our questions need to shift from an exclusive focus of the rights of the individual back toward what is best for the common good and experience of all.  

I am important, especially for the enhancement I bring to what is truly good...for everyone.    

How Well You Learn

It's not the quantity of information you vacuum up, but the quality of information you seek out. Growth is less about how hard you work, than how well you learn.

-- Adam Grant

Dignity

I'm wondering...in what ways could I more fully live out the dignity that God designed me for?

Willing to Be Amazed

Since we're still, essentially, trying to start a new year, I find this a compelling and liberating enhancement to the more common discussion on such:

I believe the basic, primal, foundational religious intuition is a moment of awe and wonder. We say, “God, that’s beautiful!” Why do we so often say “God!” when we have such moments? I think it’s a recognition that this is a godly moment. We are somehow aware that something is just too good, too right, too much, too timely. When awe and wonder are absent from our life, we build our religion on laws and rituals, trying to manufacture some moment of awe. It works occasionally, I guess.

I think people who live their lives open to awe and wonder have a much greater chance of meeting the Holy than someone who just goes to church but doesn’t live in an open way. We almost domesticate the Holy by making it so commonplace. That’s what I fear happens with the way we ritualize worship. I see people come to church day after day unprepared for anything new or different. Even if something new or different happens, they fit it into their old boxes. Their stance seems to be, “I will not be awestruck.” I don’t think we get very far with that kind of resistance to the new, the Real, and the amazing. That’s probably why God allows most of our great relationships to begin with a kind of infatuation with another person—and I don’t just mean sexual infatuation, but a deep admiration or appreciation. It allows us to take our place as a student and learner. If we never do that, nothing new is going to happen.

I think Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn understood this when he wrote, “the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive.”  It’s a telling judgment. The Western mind almost refuses to be in awe anymore. It’s only aware of what is wrong, and seemingly incapable of rejoicing in what is still good and true and beautiful. The only way out is through a new imagination and new cosmology, created by positive God-experience. Education, problem-solving, and rigid ideology are all finally inadequate by themselves to create cosmic hope and meaning. Only great religion can do that, which is probably why Jesus spent so much of his ministry trying to reform religion.

Healthy religion gives us a foundational sense of awe. It re-enchants an otherwise empty universe. It gives people a universal reverence toward all things. Only with such reverence do we find confidence and coherence. Only then does the world become a safe home. Then we can see the reflection of the divine image in the human, in the animal, in the entire natural world—which has now become inherently “supernatural.”

-- Richard Rohr

Diminishers & Illuminators

Instagram: reganrosburgartwork

4 Observations (from Others)

There is something deeply hypocritical about praying for a problem you are unwilling to resolve.

-- Miroslav Volf

I believe we are here on the planet Earth to live, grow up and do what we can to make this world a better place for all people to enjoy freedom.

 -- Rosa Parks

Solidarity with those who suffer, being there with commitment to their flourishing, is the locus of encounter with the living God.

-- Elizabeth Johnson

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.

-- Thomas Paine

Prior 4 Observations (from Others).

JAN 6, 2021

Three years ago today:

-- Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American

Rippling Earth

‘Poem (prayer) for the week’ — “Rippling Earth”:

You are kind in a thousand ways I can't name:

the world ripples with divine tenderness

and I can see it with the breeze.

May the unevenness of the earth below me

be an underfoot signpost of pocketing Presence,

a chance to find my bearings in an uneven Kingdom,

a shifting tabernacle where all is always being made new. 

Keep strengthening my stabilizing muscles,

so that I can delight in shifts and tides

without faltering. 

Keep me flexible with the warmth of your Spirit,

that I might stretch and bend in concert with you.

Amen. 

-- Emily Cash, Driftwood Prayers

The Ache of History

For as long as I can remember, I have had a soft-spot for the plight of the indigenous American Indian.  It, perhaps, is a gateway for my sensitivity to all people who are oppressed, by other men, systems, or country.

Say what you will about Joe Biden (or any president, for that matter), but I have to concur with what he says here:

We can’t just choose to learn what we want to know about our history. We have to learn what we should know.  We should know about our country.  We should know everything: the good, the bad, the truth of who we are as a nation.  That’s what great nations do, and we are a great nation.

We have to be honest and tell the truth.

Or, we become something quite different than...great.

Some history about the Lakota Indians...here.

Measuring Love

You don't measure love in time.  You measure love in transformation.

-- Jeff Brown

Closed To Ideas

When we are closed to ideas, what we hear is criticism. When we are open to criticism, what we get is advice.

-- Simon Sinek

14-0 ... Goin’ To The Natty!

More....here.

2024 - the Year of Us?

The older I get, the more I recognize one of the gifts of being human is... being limited.  

Contemplating another new year, I am struck with the notion of what little I can do, at least in terms of leveraging any dramatic shift of tide in the economies of worldly things. And, while that is certainly true, it leaves me much more at a fork in the road than it does in the gutter.

Because things like leveraging a dramatic shift was never really in my (or, for that matter, anyone else's) domain in the first place.  Clearly, such things are above my pay grade.

But, the fork-opportunity is to acknowledge what that doesn't mean.  That doesn't mean that what I can do doesn't matter...it matters deeply and could, in fact (somehow), change the world.  But, if it does, it will be far more likely that it only does so over the long-haul of time and because of what my small contribution adds to the small contributions of many others — because the accumulating aggregated power of those small things by so many is massive.

This is where the short-term economies of leverage and scalability, as defined by our world, don't really register in the broader and more significant ones.  Our small and seemingly insignificant choices of love are the very leverage of God.

And, this seems to take some time for us to discover — the power we do and don't have.  

One real beauty here is the pressure this takes OFF us.  We get to simply choose to follow the direction the Spirit of God has put within us through the limited talents and interests given to us.  We don't have to do it all or solve everything.  We just have to explore and pursue the small (and significant) parts we can play together for the good of all.  

So, what if our limitations aren't really liabilities after all, but only enable us to both better serve others and enter this year?

What If...2024 could be the year of what we do together — the 'Year of US' (instead of another 'Year of ME')?