It seems like pain is required to keep our attention.
Coerced behavior is almost always short-lived — you may get the behavior, but not the heart behind it.
Put yourself in the best position you can — and realize that you don't hold all the cards (or, even many of them).
Is there anything more significant than a present and patient father?
Prior 3 Observations & A Question…
Really? Isn't controversy his brand?
This kind of white-washing and lying has to stop:
What has been happening here since 2010 is something that Goebbels or the North Korean leadership would admire. Not a single true word being spoken. This cannot continue.
-- Péter Magyar, newly elected Prime Minister of Hungary
Another lingering reflection, on a recent I'm Wondering...:
I'm wondering...about how we orient ourselves to face the future.
For one thing, how am I thinking about the future relative to how I thought about it in my 20s seems quite different. Obviously, the time-table has changed and that seems to affect things. When I was younger, my sense of 'my whole life in front of me' would often take the pressure off something. As I age, I would describe that pressure as shifting. I'm increasingly focused on a shorter term (like a window is closing — which relieves things in some ways, but adds things in other ways).
Another feature of how we orient to the future seems to be related to fear. I've noticed that fear in older people seems to increasingly dominate their perspective about the future. I've said I won't let that happen to me. But, I suspect I am a bit naive (if not arrogant) about that assertion (even if I don't watch FOX News).
And, then, there's the nexus of my own personal, little world and that of the larger collective that continues to evolve over time. How does what my grandparents remember about 'when they grew up' assimilate with what we're experiencing now in terms of things like social and environmental issues, politics, technology, and our sense of meaning in life? How does what my grandparents faced as children and what my grandchildren will face affect how I view things today?
Like it or not, a lot of the time, how I view things today is psychologically impacted by my sense of the future. Are we progressing or are we retreating? Gaining ground or losing it? Is the future bright with possibility and betterment or beset by the inevitability of dystopia?
So, in all of this, what do I turn to for a sense of my bearings? What gives me healthy perspective about the future? How does my perspective of the future inform what I focus on today (or, is it the other way around)?
Is the future just an abyss waiting for all of us to just fall into? Or, does it largely resemble the present evolution of the past (even as it is changing)? Is what I am really grasping at whether or not anything (or anyone) has control of the future…of where things are headed?
As much as things change, they also stay (largely) the same. Or, at least, the basics do. The sun rises every day. Gravity is always there. Air to breath is a given. Most days, we get up and do our thing — eat (by the way, a helpful way to do that...here), work, clean, etc. Sure we have nicer clothes, indoor plumbing and climate controlled temperature, the ability to communicate and entertain ourselves at unprecedented levels, to fly nearly anywhere in the world now (whereas before, many people never traveled out of their own community), not to mention outer-space. But how much has that capability altered the essential nature of my existence — of what matters most in any given moment?
In other words, what will be is more like what it has always been. If that is true, then most of my future is related to today — to what I do today. If nothing else, the past demonstrates that. And, that is a significant part of how I can face the future...today.
...not to mention the wisdom and faith I benefit from every day from those who have gone before me (both recently and long ago).
Besides the profound implications, in addition to the overall backlash (not to mention his pathetic back-pedaling or, perhaps even worse, the audacity of his VP's subsequent attempt to school the Pope), how do you reconcile this with:
You really can't and it may be catching up with him:
More...here.
This reminds me of something I've mentioned before:
Expose the good, in addition to the bad — using one to cancel the other isn’t in our best interest.
Human interaction is important to our well-being — notice what happens without it.
Not unlike your overall well-being, you have to work at your health — it helps to habitualize it.
What is it that I most want to solve for in my life? — If I don’t know, am I just on auto-pilot (or in a trance)?
Prior 3 Observations & A Question…
'Poem for the week' -- "Persuasion":
Man’s life is like a Sparrow, mighty King!
That—while at banquet with your Chiefs you sit
Housed near a blazing fire—is seen to flit
Safe from the wintry tempest. Fluttering,
Here did it enter; there, on hasty wing,
Flies out, and passes on from cold to cold;
But whence it came we know not, nor behold
Whither it goes. Even such, that transient Thing,
The human Soul; not utterly unknown
While in the Body lodged, her warm abode;
But from what world She came, what woe or weal
On her departure waits, no tongue hath shown;
This mystery if the Stranger can reveal,
His be a welcome cordially bestowed!
-- William Wordsworth
If this doesn't make you mad, then what would?
Chevron's CEO made $104 million while America bombed Iran
This?
Or, this?
This administration has been fleecing the system (you and me) in so many ways from the get-go, largely under the banner of conservatism (if not Christianity). It's hardly conservative (or Christian), especially on the financial front — look up the numbers. Any 'greatness' coming from it is certainly not for you and me.
Are we really going to let these guys take us all down?
The Speech That History Will Remember as the Breakpoint in the Trump-Epstein-Russia Scandal
Put blinders on to those things that conspire to hold you back, especially the ones in your own head.
-- Meryl Streep
I’ve noticed…adjustments I need to be willing to make in my life.
I know I'm getting older. My compensation for that has been my failing assumption that I can still keep everything going IF I adapt — just find ways to do things differently.
But, there is more evidence that this isn't working. My body is telling me this, in a variety of ways. I suspect I'm not listening enough because, perhaps, I'm not accepting the reality of my increasing limitations.
Maybe what I need to adjust is more than I've thought....
No foolin'.
But, in some ways today, I wish I was.
In a week or so, I will be holding another grand-baby. So, I was sprucing up a bit at the barber today (for the inevitable pics). We got talking about how little humor there is these days, not to mention the fun we used to have playing April Fools jokes on people. "Everyone is so uptight right now...", he said.
Unfortunately, that seems a bit too true.
But, I'm not, right? Well, I did recently acquire (is that the way to say it?) shingles....
There is SO much not to laugh about right now. So much hanging in the balance. So much to not ignore. So many people suffering at the hands of systemic power (not to mention our own).
It feels like there's just not much mental or emotional space left for a little light-heartedness. We're worn out.
But, when we get to the point we are no longer able to laugh at anything, perhaps we should pause and reconsider a few things.
In these kinds of moments, we tend to become even more binary. It gets harder to hold more than one thing at a time — it's either all bad or all good. The reality is, though, that it's not. It's really both. It always has been both. We have to continue to learn how to be honest and hold...both.
Life can be terrible. And, it can be wonderful. And, if truth be told, often at nearly the same time. This is hard for us to reconcile, especially in our minds. And, that may provide the clue we need.
What we know and what we experience are not always in the same medium. But, both sources are kinds of intelligence and legitimate. Perhaps, our highly rational habits (even though they're really not as rational as we think) are often misleading, especially in terms of all that truly informs the quality of our existence. Too often, we are guilty of using one to cancel the other. But, that is mostly due to our general discomfort with duality. Something about one-or-the-other thinking is highly appealing, but it also truncates something in us. We have to hold bad and good simultaneously.
A joke, somehow, might be a part of doing that.
So, maybe we should April Fool someone today...and let them April Fool us.
We may need that more than we...think.
Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.
-- David Foster Wallace
The LORD is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
In grass meadows
He makes me lie down,
by quiet waters guides me.
My life He brings back.
He leads me on pathways of justice
for His name’s sake.
-- Psalm 23:1-3
Maybe this beloved psalm of consolation isn't only that — a meditation...here.
We do tend to have a fairly singular (and small) perspective of justice; one primarily focused on punishment for wrongdoing...especially for others.
God’s perspective on justice is much bigger.
We have never been (or ever will be) good enough — but, that has never been the point after all.
Things will happen to you — most of which, you can actually do quite little about, especially in the moment.
Anything that happens from here is all gift — acknowledging that makes one realize that’s always been true.
If you want to know what you’re really trusting in, ask yourself about your fears about the future?
Prior 3 Observations & A Question…
Don’t look only for confirmation of what you already think. On the other hand, recognize that you are not capable of being infinitely open.
So, what to do then?
Commit yourself to being alive. Be aware.
Being alive is something that you will have to actively work at. It, actually, isn’t easy.
It means that you know that you don’t live in isolation. That you have to do your part to cultivate good friendships. Neighbors are as good for you as you are for them — look out for and help each other. Love your family; not just in theory, but in specific ways.
You don't always have to be nice, but be kind (including to yourself). This enables the above more than we know (at the very least, the opposite is true).
Get outdoors. Look around you, especially up. What you see there is God.
Attend to your surroundings with care.
Do physical work. Don’t eat too much crap. Get sleep.
And, stop doing things that you know deaden your aliveness.
Don’t forget that you also need to play, to laugh, and to feel the deep Yes of live music and art (these often say things for you that you don't know how to say otherwise).
By the way, just so you know, it isn’t nearly as important how well you do these things as it is that you do them.
The impact of all, especially in aggregate, will keep your head out of the sand.
We become instruments of violence precisely by trying to protect ourselves from it.
-- Jason Miller, When The World Breaks
Heather Delaney Reese, The President Can’t Walk This One Back
Seriously? (This is our President.)
Speaking of character (because, in the end, I think that is, largely, what we are talking about here), if you haven't read about the kind of man Robert Mueller was, you need to (one option...here).
It's a free country, so we all get to decide who we want to lead us to the future.
He tends to be naive about how things can happen. If he says it and keeps saying it, there’s always a hope that what he says will come true. But that’s what kids do. It’s not what presidents do.
-- Leon Panetta
We need to look at Jesus until we can look out at the world with his kind of eyes. The world no longer trusts Christians who “love Jesus”, but do not seem to love anything else.
-- Richard Rohr
Choosing Relationship, by Rachel Held Evans.
Sometimes we just don't want to see things.
Believe it or not, America, our highest good is not our productivity.
Our surroundings give us everything — we should treat them with respect and care.
What are we really trusting in?
Prior 3 Observations & A Question…
...from the very beginning of this war, we got a sense that there wasn’t a great deal of serious thought put into it by the president of the United States about how it might end, what our objectives were, what needed to be done to protect Americans who are in the Middle East, what might happen to oil in the Strait of Hormuz.
-- E.J. Dionne, New York Times
A Top U.S. Counterterrorism Official Resigns, Citing the Iran War
Trump's 45 minute phone call exposed EVERYTHING
How much of all of this is simply about the pure, unadulterated aggregation of personal power...primarily for the purpose of accumulating unprecedented wealth (not to mention avoiding jail)?
I’ve noticed…that I have to choose to let go.
In other words, it doesn't happen automatically.
Another history...this time of the state of Maine.
Who cares? Well, maybe we should. You know what they say about history....
Bravado doesn’t make something true — you can’t fake competence for long.
We tend to fear the unknown; what we don’t understand.
If we're not careful, we can end up caring more about the administration of the thing, than the thing itself.
Why is it that there is always enough money for what we want to do (unlimited funding of bombs, while begrudging the poor)?
Prior 3 Observations & A Question…
'Poem for the week' -- "The Means to Attain Happy Life":
Martial, the things that do attain
The happy life be these, I find:—
The richesse left, not got with pain,
The fruitful ground; the quiet mind;
The equal friend; no grudge, no strife;
No charge of rule nor governance;
Without disease the healthful life;
The household of continuance;
The mean diet, no delicate fare;
True wisdom join’d with simpleness;
The night dischargèd of all care,
Where wine the wit may not oppress;
The faithful wife, without debate;
Such sleeps as may beguile the night:
Contented with thine own estate,
Ne wish for death, ne fear his might.
-- Martial, translated from the Latin by Henry Howard
I am a morning person. What I mean by that is that much of my inspiration for being alive comes from what happens in the early morning.
As the sun slinks its way through the wooded trees, the call of the cardinal warming itself in the emerging light prompts me to notice both the cool on one of my cheeks and the warmth from the sun on the other. Its sprinkling light across the still shadowy ground speaks a language of peace to me.
The receding sorting and rinsing of sleep drops me off at the door of the waiting morning a little more poised. It asks me what I want to do in the new day with what it gave me. The welcoming sun sits patiently, wondering what I have come up with. As I lean back against the question, it gives me the chance to dispose of the chaff in my attention and consider, across the landscape of what is in front of me, what I want to respond to.
Not every day, of course, is like this. But I have noticed, over time, that the opportunity to embrace this beckoning is often there when I make the choice to awaken to it.
A honking goose overhead backgrounds notion to the things that are already being done, regardless of my participation. The ecology on display in early sunlight reminds me that all is well in the systems that ultimately matter. The trees are awake and doing their thing — existing, sharing, working, providing for all that lives among and below its branches.
I can’t help but feel a more proper kind of aliveness when I step out from the confines of my slumber and into the gentle easing-into of the coming day.
Surely it will bring its normal demands (on top of the ones that I tend to already have). But the morning pause to consider what I’m actually seeing, hearing, and feeling at the cellular level sets something right within me. It makes me want to linger, for just a moment longer, to absorb what is really happening, before I race off to my ever-present list of gotta–get–dones.
I need to know that I need this time. Because when I forget it, I quickly become lost in things of little substance, and lose my sense of aliveness from which I experience life. The slow dawning of my daily merging with it sets a pace consistent with most of the natural order of things and gives me a chance to align myself with it.
The unheralded questions about the nature of my participation in the broader realities of existence can go a little less answered against the mysteries of the enjoyment of this simple start.
Whatever is sublime about the cohabitation of visceral morning realities and these mysteries strike me as the stuff of the divine. Many things have been organized around what that exactly is. And, it occurs to me that those exact requirements are among the things that deviate from it.
So, the genius of such simple things as a cool sunlit morning, with all of its accessories — like a red-flash of flying feather across my path — is that it is there every day. And, much of all I have to do, is to get up and open my door to it.
The sooner I get started each day, the better.
Picking up from last week....
Character informs values and values inform character. In combination, they manifest behaviors resulting from decisions. Not unlike other critical moments in history — and again now more than ever — we need leaders of strong character and the values that drive it to make critical decisions (especially those that transcend the simple interests of money).
Sometimes, it is only in the midst of the “tempest,” in the heart of a storm of circumstances which we can’t control, that we come finally to realize something of the wonderful mystery of God.
-- Paul Murray
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
-- Carl Jung
-- Vincent van Gogh
The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.
-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Shalom is communal, holistic, and tangible. There is no private or partial shalom. The whole community must have shalom or no one has shalom…. Shalom is not for the many, while a few suffer; nor is it for the few while many suffer. It must be available for everyone. In this way, shalom is everyone’s concern…. Shalom produces change for the good of all….
On a day of memorial for Rev. Jesse Jackson, a brief history that Keeps Needing To Be Told
Balance.
That's what we need right now, right?
Unless our head is in the sand of all our TV shows, we are collectively struggling with how to balance our sense of being right now against the backdrop of what is happening around us.
The headlines are overwhelming us, because of their implications:
Exclusive: The Trump-Netanyahu call that changed the Middle East
A Dire Warning From the Tech World
Not to mention Epstein, immigration, the coming elections...it just never stops. And, it won't because too much money is being made off this machinery of chaos and fear (but we still love our capitalism, don't we?).
The question then is, is balance going to cut it for us?
Balance is often a means to mitigate certain realities by trying to keep other realities in play (work, life balance, etc.). When we have anxiety, we try to do things to off-set it (prayer, meditation, mindfulness, etc. — not saying things like this aren't good). But, the concern here feels more significant than tweaking our dials by adding 10 minutes of...something that might help, doesn't it?
What if balance isn't what we most need right now?
If not, then, what? What do we really need?
Most kind of know we need something closer to a complete reset. And, that is half the problem anyway; we're trying to keep things going (as much as we can), without tipping over into something far worse.
So, maybe it's the question that should be real our catalyst.
Seriously. If we don't know very much about what we really need, we're not going to be able to do much about it.
In theory, at least, a balanced approach should open us up to consider more than we usually do. So, what should WE really be considering then?
How did we GET here?
Who did we let INFLUENCE us?
How are we COMPLICIT (it's lazy to just blame whoever we think the bad guys are)?
What do we want to DO about it?
Just asking ‘balancing’ questions isn’t enough, though — doing the hard work of answering them is.
All to say, we need way more than just balance.
I'm wondering...about the role of character in our lives.
Because how, as a society, will we survive without it?
For good or bad, people create and sustain values. What character-traits, then, most influence the more significant decisions in front of us?
Given the small-minded agenda (get DEI out of the military — is that really the biggest problem our military needs to address?) we have seen from him so far, I'm not thinking this guy knows (or represents) what we want, not to mention need, especially on this front:
What really you care about is more evident than you think.
One of your greatest opportunities for joy, is to join someone in what they love.
At some point, we can only pay attention to so much — which is why making conscious choices (like this) about that is important.
Are there very many things you don’t have to work at, at least a little, to enjoy?
You have to know more than just what the FOX News echo-chamber is saying (I force myself to watch it, just so I know). At the very least, just consider another perspective:
State of the Union was a national embarrassment
And, to add insult to injury (which is even the larger point):
The State Department will let lifesaving projects expire because there is no strong nexus between the humanitarian response and U.S. national interests.
-- Trump Administration
