Think, Feel, Imagine

What you think, you become.

What you feel, you attract.

What you imagine, you create.

-- Buddha

COVID intermission continued

From Michiana Chronicles:

At the risk of sounding like a groupie, I rhapsodize, “Maine is soooo beautiful!” The only negative thing that I have to say about it is that it could be more conveniently located for those of us in the Midwest who aren’t that excited about long bouts in the car.

Like Key West had gotten into my head because of a book, Silas House’s Southernmost, Maine is in my head thanks to my honey, Larry’s, summer sojourns there with his grandparents when he was a “ute,” and the writings of Elizabeth Strout. Books, naturally: that’s where curiosity is born and nurtured. As an aside, if you’ve never read any of Elizabeth Strout’s works, get cracking. She’s a “Mainer,” sets her stories there and both the characters and settings are mesmerizing. You’ll wanna’ go, even if it is inconveniently located.  Continue here...

-- Jeanette Saddler Taylor

If you haven't heard what puffins sound like (shown above), make sure you listen all the way to the end.

Knowledge _/¯¯Understanding¯¯\_ Wisdom

Knowledge and wisdom are not the same thing. 

Perhaps a bridge between the two is understanding. 

Knowledge alone can actually become destructive.  In the end, all rationality must be seasoned with some kind of actionabilty. 

While insight is constructive, wisdom is necessary, or you have something that is, at the very least, incomplete.

Those who are wise know.  But, those who know may not be wise.

Proposing A Question

The art of proposing a question must be held of higher value than solving it. 

-- Georg Cantor

Disruption

I’m wondering…about the role of disruption in our lives.  Is it something we create — by intention or neglect?  Or, is it a dynamic that just happens in the normal course of things?

Is it a function of resistance within us?

It is hard not to notice the amount of effort and energy we expend to prevent or avoid being disrupted.  And, yet, when it finally happens, we kind of knew it would...like it even needed to.

kintsugi

In Japan, when a valuable tea bowl or piece of pottery breaks, the owner doesn’t throw it out.

They take it to a craftsman who gathers the shards of the broken vessel and mends it with lacquer dusted with 24k gold powder in an art form known as “kintsugi.”

The result is an object that is imperfect but paradoxically more beautiful than it was before it broke.

What we can learn from kintsugi is what the Japanese call “the perfection of imperfection.”

When mended, the owner displays the kintsugi bowl in a place of honor in their home where visitors and guests can see and admire it. The display reminds them that imperfections are not only okay–they can even be made resplendent!

So the next time your Inner Critic tells you that you’re beyond repair, incapable, or even unworthy of love and relationship, turn to it and say, “No. God has made me perfect in my imperfection.” We can overcome the many forces that conspire to keep us from fully living our lives when we believe that God can make our damaged hearts beautiful.

-- Ian Morgan Cron

UM vs Rutgers, 2021

The pyramid keeps getting bigger...another beautiful day at the 'Big House' in Ann Arbor...more pics here.

Randoms...

Unfortunately, it seems difficult for people to care about things that don’t affect them directly — a lack of imagination for the experience of others.

While easier to envision a connection between the past and the present, it is often more difficult for us to see or imagine how our present circumstances are connected to our future reality — it obviously is, just not yet.

I believe in evolution. And, because of beauty, I believe in more than evolution.

Why do we seem to have to tell adults to be kind?

Prior Randoms...

Two Minute Morning Practice Will Make Your Day Better

Open-Handedness

You can cultivate a posture of open-handedness by asking yourself each day, "What do I have that I can share with others?"

-- Mark Scandrette, The Ninefold Path of Jesus

What You Do

Another lingering reflection (rumination), from a recent Randoms...:

What If...Christianity is much less about what you believe as it is about what you do?

When you really think about it, we believe all kinds of things, don’t we?  And, half of them might even be true.... How many times, over the course of your life, have you discovered that what you believed about something was simply wrong.  Wherever or however you got the idea, it just wasn't true.  Happens a lot, if we're honest.

And, this is not a confined phenomenon, like only to science or experience.  It works the same with things like politics and religion.  Even, dare I say it, with our beliefs about God.

But, why should that be such a problem — that our understanding of things related to God would be, at the very least, incomplete at any given moment, if not simply wrong?  Wouldn't it be a good thing for our understanding to grow?

How do we come to our beliefs, say, about God anyway?  We might think, "...from the Bible."  OK.  But, it is interesting that most people don’t actually read very much of the Bible.  More often, they get their beliefs from someone (or some system) who tells them what the Bible says or means.  Throughout human history, sacred texts have been used to substantiate belief.  And, we know that many times those beliefs really had very little to do with what the Bible says after all.  Those beliefs were much more deeply embedded in the social dynamics and politics of the day (and the Bible was simply used to fortify those beliefs).  Any even cursory review of history can provide example after example of this dynamic.  

And, now, it seems that much of what is fueling our social economies is outrage (particularly about beliefs).  In fact, it has gone so far in this direction that it really doesn't matter as much what you do, it just matters what you believe.  Who's belief is right; who's is wrong.  ...and, now we outrage about it (and worse, we sell outrage about it).  Does it really seem healthy when outrage is a premise for belief?

But, this has very little to do anymore with anything Christian.  Christianity is really about following Jesus, who seemed to be far more interested in how people were treated than about what they believed:  Love God by loving others — then they will know what they need to know about belief.  Believe in what I believe about the love of God and how that translates to others, particularly the disenfranchised — these are the things Jesus said…and did. And, when Jesus was critical of something, it was over what was being done — especially, how the believers were treating the unbelievers.

So, why does it seem like Christians are doing most of the yelling these days (especially, about what should be believed)?  

The problem is that believing, in and of itself, is not enough. What really matters is how believing informs the actions you take (or don't take) — in other words…what you do.  

It has been said that actions speak louder than words.  Because without them, beliefs are mostly just ideas (which, if only half are true...means what?).

Learn, Grow, Change

The adventure of life is to learn. The purpose of life is to grow. The nature of life is to change.

-- William Arthur Ward

Sleep

I've noticed...that often by the end of a day, I have accumulated a variety of feelings — everything from anger to numbness, with the largest amount in between.

For me, sleep often performs a kind of reordering — a settling in, a clarification, a recalibration, a reframing, even a reconfiguration — of things that seem to allow for a reintegration and reimagination of what otherwise might be unfortunate or unhealthy conclusions.

Religion

For many spiritual people there’s little doubt that organized religion, by turning to fundamentalism, is serving reactionary social forces and a dogmatic version of God. 

-- Deepak Chopra™

Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to the garage makes you a car.

-- Laurence J. Peter

A religion is not the church [one] goes to, but the cosmos [one] livestock in.

-- G. K. Chesterton

Randoms...

Some days are such that you just have to remember there will be a tomorrow and it will be different.

I’m not interested in perpetuating mythologies with name-calling and labels — if you really care, let’s have a real conversation.

Regarding government, it seems like governing is as much about managing the perception of the masses as it is helping make anything happen.

When people don’t pay attention to us, why is it so easy to believe that they don’t care?

Prior Randoms...

Changes in Annual Precipitation

The Morning

A Distant Song

'Poem for the week' -- "A Distant Song":

Whether awake or sleeping,

   I cannot rest for long:

By my casement comes creeping

  A distant song.

A song like the chiming of silver

  Bells which the breezes play,

Seeming to float for ever

  Towards an unseen day:

A song that is weary with sorrow,

  Yet knows not any defeat:

Through the past, through to-day, through to-morrow,

  It echoes on life’s long street.

Could I but make words of its power,

  Bring it from the future here,

Men’s souls would be waking, that hour,

  To the victory against fear.

But the vague sweet stanza befools me

  With its calm joy, time after time,

And no failure here ever schools me

  To cease from an idle rhyme.

That music afar, unspoken,

    ’Tis I have done it wrong:

I caught, and I have broken,

    A distant song. 

-- John Gould Fletcher

Old Part / New Part

Each new chapter of our lives requests an old part of us to fall and a new part of us to rise.

-- Jenna Galbut

I Am A Writer

I am a writer.

"No, you're not."

But, I write things down all the time.

"Well, a writer is someone who is published."

Oh....

...but, if I'm constantly writing things...I'm still only a writer if I create an audience in very specific formats?

"Well, yeah, that's right."

That doesn't sound right...

"You know what we mean, though, right?"

Yes, I do.  

And, that's exactly what is holding me back in this area — my co-existence with the requirement of an audience.  I've been writing things here and there for years.  But, I don't see myself as a writer (through the lens described above).

But, I am a writer (at least in a non-publishing sense).  And, if that's the case, why don't I just go ahead and write things that the publication question can address later?

Do I need an audience?  Have I ever?  But, I write anyway.  So, I guess that means…

I am a writer.

Truth About Yourself

If you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people.

-- Virginia Woolf

Light

Ever noticed…how light can be experienced in such different ways?

By Becoming Them

God loves things by becoming them.

-- Richard Rohr

9/11 Memorial Ceremony: George W. Bush

“In those fateful hours, we learned other lessons as well. We saw that Americans were vulnerable, but not fragile. That they possessed a core of strength that survives the worst that life can bring. We learned that bravery is more common than we imagined, emerging with sudden splendor in the face of death. We vividly felt how every hour with our loved ones was a temporary and holy gift. And we found that even the longest days end.”

“Many Americans struggled to understand why an enemy would hate us with such zeal. The security measures incorporated into our lives are both sources of comfort and reminders of our vulnerability. And we have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders but from violence that gathers within. There’s little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home. But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard of human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit, and it is our continuing duty to confront them.”

“On America’s day of trial and grief I saw millions of people instinctively grab for a neighbor’s hand and rally to the cause of one another. That is the America I know. At a time when religious bigotry might have flowed freely, I saw Americans reject prejudice and embrace people of Muslim faith. That is the nation I know. At a time when nativism could have stirred hatred and violence against people perceived as outsiders, I saw Americans reaffirm their welcome to immigrants and refugees. That is the nation I know. At a time when some viewed the rising generation as individualistic and decadent, I saw young people embrace an ethic of service and rise to selfless action. That is the nation I know. This is not mere nostalgia, it is the truest version of ourselves. It is what we have been, and what we can be again.”

-- George W. Bush

Randoms...

Nearly anyone can be a critic (especially in retrospect) — it is much harder to have the will to think and work at making something better.

Habits are really hard to break,  because you’ve already signed-off on them.

You become what you consume.

What If...Christianity is less about what you believe than it is about what you do?

Prior Randoms...

College Enrollment: Gender Gap

AXIOS

Resetting the Planet Means Resetting Our Food

The way we eat has changed the planet. In this simple idea, which few of us consider when we go to the grocery store, lies immense hope for the future—if we pay attention. On the medical front a large number of people accept the notion, once thought of as a fringe belief, that “you are what you eat.” The decisions you make today about what you eat will have a huge impact in your future health. Food plays a decisive factor in modern lifestyle diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and all the damaging side effects related to the epidemic of obesity in this country.

The next step in our growing awareness expands on the same idea. The next bite you take adds to the health of planet Earth or pushes it a tiny step toward deterioration. Unconscious eating is bad for the environment. Conscious eating puts the planet on the road to renewal and wellness.

We can heal the environment by thinking from the ground up, quite literally. The health of soils around the world is essential to keeping the entire planet in balance. This truth has dawned with the rise of the word “microbiome,” which is gaining wide circulation. The microbiome is comprised of the genetic material of all microorganisms (bacteria, fungi and viruses) in a specific place, such as the human gut, in the soil, in water, or on the skin. Each local microbiome is intricately connected to other microbiomes, thereby linking all living organisms together.

New ideas are a motivation for rethinking old ideas, and this happened with a vengeance when the microbiome idea emerged. To give a short list of mental resets that have occurred:

Old idea: Germs are dangerous and exist to attack human beings to make them sick.

Rethink: The microbiome is hugely beneficial in keeping every living thing in a state of health and balance.

Old idea: Germs invade the body like enemies from without.

Rethink: Thousands of species of micro-organisms inhabit the body and work intimately to keep us healthy, beginning with the digestion of food.

Old idea: Humans are free to dominate and change Nature according to what we want to do.

Rethink: Human survival depends on remaining in balance with Nature, who is the great sustainer and healer.

That last rethink is the big one. Greenhouse gases told us that how we live has planetary consequences. The planetary biome tells us the same thing, and for much the same reason. The industrialization of human life gave rise to excess carbon dioxide in the air. The industrialization of food production, which has exponentially increased around the world, has proceeded with reckless disregard for the planetary biome, particularly the health of soils.

Here are the trends that pose the most worry, keeping in mind that we have the power to reverse them:

• The wide use of antibiotics in farm animals.
• Reducing a wide variety of plant life to a small handful of food crops, such as wheat, rice, and soybeans.
• Contaminating the soil with a huge range of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
• Turning wild lands such as rain forests into cultivated land or stripping them bare for logging.

On the one hand these measures have produced an enormous quantity of food and established a food delivery chain capable of feeding 7 billion people and counting. But as with our carbon footprint, there are immense drawbacks at the same time.

The speed and virulence of the spread of the novel coronavirus represents the kind of drastic disruption that can occur when one microbiome in Wuhan, China goes out of balance. There have been near misses, too, notably the SARS outbreak in Asia in 2003 and the 2013 Ebola outbreak in Africa. Someone has grimly called COVID-19 a “starter pandemic.”

It is now being dealt with on an industrial level with a global vaccination program, but we can’t afford to slip back into two old outworn ideas, that microbes are our enemy and that we should fight them with all-out war. The planetary biome is what keeps microbial life in balance, and Nature is the only force large enough to do the job. For billions of years a biome consisting of billions of species at the microscopic level has existed in balance.

However long it takes, humans will learn to think about the planetary biome. It’s part of the same planetary thinking that climate change has motived. Awareness is the first step toward change, and here we are concerned with changing your awareness. But action follows. The individual consumer holds the levers of power, and if you eat consciously, you are nudging the food supply system in the right direction.

Conscious eating means whole organic foods, locally sourced and raised with consideration for healthy farming, healthy soils, and healthy livestock raised as close to Nature as possible. We know that this sounds like a dream. Groceries are dominated by processed food, chemical additives, and all manner of produce and meat that uses antibiotics, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides in their production.

One might say, with some justification, that balance is what lies in the balance. There is no reason why Nature should be the source of balance while humans are the cause for imbalance. But that’s the present reality, just as willfully extracting natural resources is the prevailing mindset. Humans are brilliant at solving problems. We are also notorious for waiting until the last minute before facing a big problem.

What makes a planetary issue like the biome different this time around is that it is really an awareness issue. Nothing like the discovery of penicillin is going to work. Only a shift in awareness will work, and such a shift occurs one person at a time until a critical mass is reached and the whole population clamors for change. Consider this moment a tipping point in the making. Changing your eating habits looks like a small step, but the change in your awareness has momentous consequences.

-- Rajnish Khanna, Ph.D. and Poonacha Machaiah, CEO of The Chopra Foundation and Deepak Chopra™ MD

Anxiety Over The Future

Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.

-- Khalil Gibran

Paid To Talk

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

People who talk for a living and truth are not mutually inclusive. 

Sometimes, in our society now, I really wonder if we realize this.  

In other words, if someone is getting paid to talk, we need to think about where the money is coming from and how that is influencing what is being said. 

After all, getting paid to talk requires an audience.  You can't not recognize that what gets said has to be of interest to listeners — without an audience to cultivate, the money stops coming.  Because that happens, a slippery-slope is nearly unavoidable; you have to keep finding things to maintain listener-base (controversy, drama, fear seem to work quite well)...even if you have to 'stretch' the truth — not to mention, make stuff up.  You likely won't stop there, though, because the money needs to keep coming or it will just move to the next thing.

Talking and real thinking are not the same thing.  A little of the latter, before the former, would really help.

But, that's probably not as much the issue...as the money involved.

A Little Braver

The willingness to show up changes us.  It makes us a little braver each time.

-- Brené Brown

A Little Disappointed?

I wrote this a while ago…

I’m wondering…is it a common fear that the more I really identify my true self, I will be a little disappointed?

Because this doesn’t seem like an obvious response to the excitement that often comes with self-discovery — what, then, feeds this fear?

I Pray…

I pray…believing that there is some thing, if not someone, that I am praying to. Otherwise why pray?

I pray…believing that there is a God in one form or another, that God is active in the world, and that God has agency in my life. 

I pray…believing that I need access to that activity and agency for my life, knowing that I need help. 

I pray…believing that my true prosperity (not the financial wealth kind) as a human being, and as one who can help offer that prosperity to other human beings, needs access to the source of that prosperity. 

And I pray…knowing that I need help avoiding the things that inhibit my access to that source, even to my sense of need for access that source. 

I pray…

Randoms...from Others

Genius, like humanity, rusts for the want of use. 

 -- William Hazlitt

Liberalism is weak tea when up against men with rifles who operate on divine guidance.

-- Garrison Keillor

Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.

-- Albert Camu

Forgiveness is just another name for freedom. 

-- Byron Katie

...find the thread?

Some Information

The Call to Duty

'Poem for the week' -- "The Call to Duty":

The morning breaks upon the shore, 
     The day from slumber doth awake, 
     Bestir, ye ships of life, and shake
The drowsy anchor for the oar.

Let Indolence with night retire,
    Spread out Industry’s swelling sail,
    Let Commerce catch the morning gale,
And cheer her hearth and trim her fire.

Let Journalism ope the strife,
    And wield her unembarrassed pen,
    And paint the daring deeds of men, 
With all the tints and taints of life.

Let Science with her aspect bold
    Resume her firm, unflinching march,
    In undiscovered fields to search,
The hidden treasures to unfold.

Philosophy of mind profound,
    With doubting step now take the field,
    And strive to break the mystic shield,
The deeper depths of truth to sound.

Let Art uprear her stately head,
  Employ her brush and dye at ease,
  And fling her colors to the breeze,
And round her shaded influence shed.

Let Agriculture’s lowly train,
  With willing heart and nimble hand,
  Sweep onward like a learned band,
And spread profusion o’er the plain.

Let Justice spread her gilded wing
  O’er each oppressed race of man,
  Bid slavery lose her deadly ban,
While all the bells of freedom ring.

Let Knowledge with her myriad plumes
    Bespangle all her prosperous land,
    Let Love and Truth go hand in hand, 
And lay the tracks with sweet perfumes.

Let pompous Pride with tuneful ear,
    And wanton Wealth with piercing eye, 
    Search o’er the vale of Poverty,
Where dwell the creatures of Despair.

Let Charity with liberal hand
    Spread far and wide her ample store,
    Possess the rich, anoint the poor,
And heal the sufferings of the land.

Let sweet Religion lift her voice,
  And bid melodious anthems swell, 
   Jehovah’s praises forth to tell, 
Till all the world His name rejoice.

Let Music with bewitching sound
    Her full-grown symphonies employ,
   Proclaim the genial burst of joy,
And charm the toiling host around.

Let Poesy from sleep awake,
    And touch her strings and rouse her lyre,
    And roll celestial balls of fire,
Till all shall act for Duty's sake.

Let dove-eyed Peace with balmy breath
    Exhale and waft her influence far, 
    And lull the brazen notes of war,
And soothe the bitter pangs of death.

Let each act well his chosen art, 
    In perfect concord with the whole,
    Let streams of progress onward roll, 
Back to the Source that gave them start.

-- George Reginald Margetson 

Don't Blame The Lettuce

When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce.

You look into the reasons it is not doing well.  It may need fertilizing, or more water, or less sun.  You never blame the lettuce.

-- -- Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step

What If: Full Lives

Live life to the fullest.

Are we called to live full lives?

It would appear so, at least going off of our cultural-religio DNA (life-liberty-happiness / life of abundance motifs).

But, we have some controvertible data, too, to contend with.

For example, how much time do we spend managing for the resources we think we need to live full (often, we mean powerful) lives?

Does God call us save up our resources so that we can feel the power of doing what is right and good? Or, are we called to live by something else, like the power of God's Spirit?

Can we really do this, though, without first exhausting our own resources (otherwise we remain unconvinced that we actually need to let go of them)?

If we're honest, when has our effort to save up our resources actually worked...especially, in terms of achieving the goal of fully-lived lives (by the way, isn't it a bit conspicuous by now that when we try to do this, our addictions also seem to be more activated)?

Don't we end up mostly feeling more owned by all the fullness we've achieved, rather than freed by it?

Giving things up, rather than saving things up, seems to more often lead towards the freedom and fulfillment we desire. Being empty, of all the things that we tend to think we need, seems to produce more full life because we are so much more able to embrace (and be embraced) when we are giving of ourselves, rather than keeping for ourselves.

What If...emptiness is the pathway to fullness, to true power? What if release, rather than determination, gives us access to it?

And we can't know this is true, until we live it.

Everywhere

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

-- Albert Einstein

Still Don't Work

I've noticed...my anger is more existent (often even instantly) about things that still don't work, even after I've made specific, conscious effort.

Not A Constant High

The Christian life is not a constant high. I have my moments of deep discouragement. I have to go to God in prayer with tears in my eyes, and say, 'O God, forgive me,' or 'Help me.'

-- Billy Graham

What a relief; despite the oft slant-eyed-ness from our culture towards anything less than 'high' — nothing incompatible at all about highs and lows...all are part of the fabric of the human experience of life.

 

Randoms...

There are certain chairs I like to sit in — some because of how they make my lower back feel, others because of the view of the morning light coming through a tree. 

We often seem to imagine that lives lived before us we’re not as developed, interesting, or fun.

The assembly of humans who are manifesting desire for God can be a powerful thing (honoring of one another by trusting in the presence of God).

We believe what we believe primarily because of what we have experienced (how we grew up, life-altering events, etc.) — what does it mean when we encounter people with a different experience?

Prior Randoms...

Visual: Busy

 Visual - "Busy":

Winona Lake, IN

Icy Hot

When my wife Anne and I turned 40, we decided to run a marathon to celebrate reaching middle age.

Unfortunately, three months into race training, I pulled a hamstring. But rather than rest for a few days, I applied a generous layer of Icy Hot--(a mentholated ointment that heats up and soothes sore muscles) to my thigh and went out for a run.

Unbeknownst to me, however, as I was pulling up my running tights, a gob of Icy Hot came loose from my thigh and smeared itself all over the inner lining of my shorts.

Yes, this would end in tears.

Three miles into my run, I felt a sharp, burning pain in a highly sensitive region of my body. It felt like someone had dropped napalm into my shorts!

I started panicking! I had no way to wipe off the Icy Hot, and so I turned around, hit the hyperdrive switch, and started sprinting toward home.

Now, if I had read the product description on the jar, I would have known this was a huge mistake. The effects of Icy Hot only intensify as your body temperature rises! Soon, I was in blinding pain so, what did I do? I ran even faster, which, of course, only increased my suffering. I wouldn't wish this experience on my worst enemy!

That said, my Icy Hot story taught me an important lesson. It’s a metaphor illustrating how all of us deal with problems in our lives.

When we experience emotional or psychological pain, we often double down on our personality type's old childhood strategies to make the suffering disappear.

But the strategies we used as kids to protect ourselves and cope with our pain backfire on us in adulthood. We try to outrun them, and it only makes the situation worse!

Here's the deal, friends: we can't outrun our difficulties and expect things to improve. On the contrary, they will only increase.

The real solution is to stop running and face them. To see the truth of what's happening in the moment and do the hard work of disentangling ourselves from our personality's unhelpful behavior patterns.

Notice and question your personality type's antiquated strategies for dealing with life's problems, and see if you can't find new ones. Then, stop running and ask whether your behavior is helpful or rooted in the shadow aspects of your personality. This is how we use the Enneagram to realize freedom and become the best expression of ourselves.

-- Ian Morgan Cron

Backwards / Forwards

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

-- Søren Kierkegaar

Not Win or Lose

Our character isn't defined by the battles we win or lose, but those we dare to fight.

-- Robert Beatty

So, what determines what is worth fighting for?  

Is it character?

What is character anyway?  Is it content?  Is it agency?  Some combination of both?

Character addresses what is needed.  What is needed may be for the good that enriches life or the things that are wrong that need to be resisted.  Character strikes me as the substance within us that a) informs, and b) enables what is needed.  It may be represented by the disposition that is consistent with what is good.  It may be a response demanded by the moment.  It may be strategic; it may be an impulse.  

Either way, things seem to require both vision and fortitude to work for or against something that is needed; in other words, these things benefit from something we might call character — something that includes content, constitution, and courage.

Without such elements, we can often confuse things like the means with the end.  We can become focused on things like the result (winning & losing), rather than what is needed.  Character, on the other hand, will inform and enable something different.  

It is, after all, what distinguishes what should be fought for and what shouldn't.

Two Train Illusion

If you’re at the station, sitting on a train about to leave, you might notice that the train next to you is moving.

But, perhaps, that train is sitting still and you’re moving. It’s hard to tell. Without the lurch of sudden acceleration, the only clue we have is that our relative position is changing.

For most of us, it’s disconcerting – we know something is moving, but we’re not sure exactly what’s happening.

Do we stay where we are… does anyone?

Whether or not we commit to movement, the world never stays precisely as it was. Insisting that it does is simply a waste of time and a source of frustration.

-- Seth Godin, the two train illusion

Where Are The Insects?

Ever noticed...where all the insects have gone?

25 years ago, an after-dark drive in the summer would result in the front end of your car being covered in bugs. Not so much these days....

Pesticides have depleted all kinds of insect populations.

Some people may not mind (including myself at times — after all, who enjoys mosquitoes or scrubbing bug guts off your bumper?).

But, insects are a vital part of our ecosystems.

...another thing we seem to be too willing to the roll the convenience-dice on.

Reimagines and Expands

Jesus does not replace. Jesus reimagines and expands, inviting an alternative and often innovative reading of Jewish tradition. 

-- Diana Butler Bass

So, IF Jesus were here today (but, he is, isn't he?), what would this mean for those who are trying so hard to hold on to the old?

Bass' observation is so freeing; not disregarding, but expanding...something that takes imagination— even to see something timeless (and, therefore, both new and old at the same time).

There is, after all, nothing to fear with what appears to be new, especially with the perspective that Jesus had (which His whole imagery around wineskins reveals)..

A Peace of Steam

...the title says it all.

Randoms...

Avoiding something doesn’t make it go away, particularly emotions.

Not everything that can be (or needs to be) received, can be received all at once — in other words, time is an important element regarding what can be received.

Most political discussions are completely one-sided — which kind of makes them NOT discussions.

In the end, what is the primary function of belief?

Prior Randoms...

Be Kind

It Goes On

In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.

-- Robert Frost

2020 Census

AXIOS

Reporting dynamics aside, you can try to keep things from changing, but they do anyway. 

It is the nature of things, of reality.

Best of Yourself

You get the best out of others when you give the best of yourself.

-- Harvey S. Firestone

Endless Routines

I'm wondering...about another lingering reflection, from a recent Randoms...:

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

As we perfect all the little ways we go about things (even sub-consciously), sometimes it's not hard to describe it that way.

But, our routines are not the endgame.

While we need them, we also need the disruption of their being broken:

Living in a transitional age such as ours is scary: things are falling apart, the future is unknowable, so much doesn’t cohere or make sense. We can’t seem to put order to it. This is the postmodern panic. It lies beneath most of our cynicism, our anxiety, and our aggression. Yet, there is little in the biblical revelation that ever promised us an ordered universe. The whole Bible is about meeting God in the actual, in the incarnate moment, in the scandal of particularity. It is rather amazing that we ever tried to codify and control the whole thing.

Chaos often precedes great creativity, and faith precedes great leaps into new knowledge. The pattern of transformation begins in order, but it very quickly yields to disorder and—if we stay with it long enough in love—eventual reordering. Our uncertainty is the doorway into mystery, the doorway into surrender, the path to God that Jesus called “faith.” In her work on “crisis contemplation,” CAC teacher Barbara Holmes confirms what we and others have long suspected—that great suffering and great love are the two universal paths of transformation. Both are the ultimate crises for the human ego. Continue here....

-- Richard Rohr

 There's always more going on than meets the eye....

No Longer Opportunity For Faith

Where there is no longer any opportunity for doubt, there is no longer any opportunity for faith either.

-- Paul Tournier

My Benediction to the Beloved Storyteller, Walter Wangerin Jr.

This sounds like a guy I'd like to know (or be).

  

Last week, Walter Wangerin Jr. passed away, and a unique voice fell silent. His wife Thanne (short for Ruth Anne), his family, and a few close friends from Valparaiso University were with him when he died.

I first encountered Walter as a speaker at a conference in which we both participated. A slender man with a handsome, angular face and a shock of dark hair, he stalked the stage like a Shakespearean actor. I thought of the accounts of Charles Dickens sitting onstage in the great halls of England, reading his stories to a mesmerized audience.

Yet Wangerin was neither reading nor sitting. He was performing in the purest sense of the word, weaving stories and concepts together in erudite prose, directing our minds and emotions much as a conductor directs an orchestra’s sounds—now meditative and melodic, now electrifying and bombastic.  Continue here....

-- Philip Yancey

While the intellect must be addressed in communicating Christian truth, it will not be truth for the hearer until the hearer is also touched deep within himself or herself.

-- Walter Wangerin Jr.

Randoms...

People who talk for a living and truth are not mutually inclusive.

Certainty can be a kind of false comfort.

At the very least, observe yourself….

Why does so much of our lives seem to be comprised of trying to just get through the moment, rather than being in it?

Prior Randoms...

3 great untruths to stop telling kids—and ourselves

Goal of Education

The true goal of education is to make people able to do good.

-- Richard Mitchell

As another school year begins, I'm digesting the observation above...and the more I contemplate it, the more dense and rich it becomes.

Life

 'Poem for the week' -- "Life":

              1

A moment of pleasure,

    An hour of pain,

A day of sunshine,

    A week of rain,

A fortnight of peace,

  A month of strife,

These taken together

  Make up life. 

              2

One real friend

    To a dozen foes,

Two open gates,

  ’Gainst twenty that’s closed,

Prosperity’s chair,

    Then adversity’s knife;

These my friends

    Make up life.

              3

At daybreak a blossom,

    At noontime a rose,

At twilight ’tis withered,

    At evening ’tis closed.

The din of confusion,

    The strain of the fife,

These with other things

    Make up life.

              4

A smile, then a tear,

    Like a mystic pearl,

A pause, then a rush

    Into the mad whirl,

A kiss, then a stab

  From a traitor’s knife;

I think that you’ll agree with me, 

    That this life.

-- Carrie Law Morgan Figgs

Receiving & Rejecting

It seems like we are always now in a mode of receiving or rejecting information — maybe we have been doing that all the way along. 

What makes us capable of receiving new information?  Why do we reject what we do?

When we consider what information someone else needs, perhaps we should consider when and how we received information and why we were able to receive it (or reject it). 

Was it a function of age, development, circumstance, disruption?  

Was it a result of something within us?  Outside of us?

Was it because of thought?  Or, something that engaged our thinking in a different way?

Contemplation of such may serve us well, as we participate in the information we pass along to others; by the way we engage with it in our own lives.

What is good for the other person right now?  ...may be a good place to start.

Excitement vs ...

Excitement comes from the achievement. Fulfillment comes from the journey that gets us there.

-- Simon Sinek

Cry More Often

I've noticed…that I cry more often over beauty than sadness.

Child of God, Awareness

The awareness of being a child of God tends to stabilize the ego and results in a new courage, fearlessness, and power. I have seen it happen again and again. 

-- Howard Thurman

TOP 10 - Glacier Nat’l Park, 2021

Polebridge, MT

We had a wonderful time again this year hiking in Montana — an amazing and visually stimulating week in Glacier National Park.  Here are my TOP 10 - Glacier Nat’l Park, 2021 pics.

...or, if you're bored, the rest here….

Randoms...

Teaching is planting seeds in the human heart.

We are all swimming in the truth everywhere — maybe we should spend less time consuming it (or selling it) and more time discovering it.

Too many churches effectively use good to try to cancel bad — it isn’t an equation.

Is half of what we do for other people what we would like them to do for us?

Prior Randoms...

Mystery of Joy

Joy is a mystery because it can happen anywhere, anytime, even under the most unpromising circumstances, even in the midst of suffering, with tears in its eyes....

-- Frederick Buechner

Truth Doesn't Struggle

Truth doesn’t struggle against anything. It exists, and it knows. 

-- Deepak Chopra™ MD

Best Advice

LinkedIn asked its more than a million followers for the best advice they'd give their 20-year-old selves in order to inject a little of the experience of gray hairs into the Energizer-Bunny-like stamina of workplace newbies. 

The resulting thread was a goldmine of useful advice. Some of the tips were quirky and personal -- get tested for ADHD earlier, beware "reply all," eat less pizza. Others, like "believe in yourself!" and "don't procrastinate," were more inspirational than actionable. But among all this advice, one particular bit of wisdom kept coming up again and again. 

Action beats deliberation.  Continue here....

-- Jessica Stillman

What If: The Body

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

What actually most informs us, our mind or our body?

What If...it is the action of the body that most informs us (as opposed to just the mind)?  

What if activity creates more wholistic engagement than anything else?

What if the mind is not our primary informer after all and that remaining primarily in that way (rational) of knowing and being, we are under-serving ourselves and others?

Rather Than Before It

Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.

-- Madeleine L'Engle

Recognition

Ever noticed...how your recognition of something increases the more you experience it?

Fire & Ice

In the millennia since Christ walked with us on this Earth, we’ve often tried to box up the “wind” [of the Spirit] in manageable doctrines. We’ve exchanged the fire of the Spirit for the ice of religious pride. We’ve turned the wine back into water, and then let the water go stagnant and lukewarm. We’ve traded the gentle dove of peace for the predatory hawk or eagle of empire. When we have done so, we have ended up with just another religious system, as problematic as any other: too often petty, argumentative, judgmental, cold, hostile, bureaucratic, self-seeking, an enemy of aliveness.

In a world full of big challenges, in a time like ours, we can’t settle for a heavy and fixed religion. We can’t try to contain the Spirit in a box. We need to experience the mighty rushing wind of Pentecost. We need our hearts to be made incandescent by the Spirit’s fire.

-- Brian McLaren