Greatest Luxury

I'm wondering...if the greatest luxury is…storage. 

Not really; but, kinda.

A Prayer

Lord Jesus, 

 Many of us are weary. 

 We are weary of hypocrisy. 

 We are weary of cruelty 

dressed up as righteousness. 

We are weary of seeing your 

name used to justify fear, 

exclusion, and the pursuit of 

power. 

 Some of us carry wounds 

from churches. 

 Some carry wounds from 

leaders. 

 Some carry wounds from 

communities that once felt 

like home. 

 Meet us in those places of 

pain. 

 Remind us that you 

understand betrayal. 

 Remind us that you 

understand rejection. 

 Remind us that you 

understand grief. 

 When we are tempted to give 

up, help us see you clearly. 

Not the distortions. 

 Not the idols. 

 Not the counterfeit versions 

of faith. 

 You. 

 The One who welcomes the 

stranger. 

 The One who lifts the 

burdened. 

 The One who heals the 

wounded. 

 The One who lays down his 

life for others. 

 Teach us your way of love. 

 Give us courage to resist what 

is harmful. 

 Give us wisdom to pursue 

what is true. 

 Give us compassion for those 

who are suffering. 

 And help us become people 

who leave healing wherever 

we go. 

 May your love keep us 

grounded. 

 May your mercy keep us 

humble. 

 May your hope keep us 

moving forward. 

 And may we trust that your 

Kingdom is still coming, even 

when the darkness feels 

overwhelming. 

 Amen.

-- Benjamin Cremer

Christian hope is not a sedative. Christian hope gets us up and out the door. 

-- Debie Thomas

3 Observations & A Question

Bravado is so…childish.

 

Many people are too busy to pay attention. 

 

Love, like water, flows down stream — never returning in equal measure….but, always more abundantly in ways you often wouldn’t expect.

 

Let's be honest, aren't we are all contending with a deep sense of insecurity, in one form or another?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question…

Another, Seriously — This Is Our President?

Another, Seriously — This is our President?:

Donald Trump ousts election commission members in latest push to reshape US voting process

  
Scott MacFarlane Reports

As if that weren't enough:

Trump denies disaster aid to four blue states after approving aid to six red states

Crypto Brought Trump a Huge Windfall, Even as Many Investors Lost Big 

ICE is now even WORSE

Most Bad Days Can Be Reversed by One Mental Shift—Almost Nobody Learns It

At 8:17 a.m., your phone lights up with an email you weren’t expecting.

A client cancels.

Your boss sends a message that begins with, “Can we talk?”

Someone leaves you on read.

You spill coffee on your shirt. Traffic is worse than usual. Your mind starts replaying yesterday’s mistake.

Nothing catastrophic has happened.

And yet, by lunchtime, you’ve already decided:

“Today is ruined.”

Here’s the strange part.  

Psychologists have spent decades studying stress, emotions, and cognitive biases. Again and again, they arrive at a surprising conclusion:

The event itself usually isn’t what destroys your day.  

Continue...here.

-- The Mind Under Pressure

What Is True

Regarding truth, a more honest rendering is that our understanding of what is true is highly related (even correlated) with our experience of what we think is true. 

That’s about all we can really say.  Because we don't really know very much about things we've never experienced (so, perhaps, we should stop acting like we do...).  For most of human history, current knowledge about what goes on in the depths of the ocean or in the far reaches of space was never known, largely because it wasn't able to be experienced.  Even now, it is substantially limited.  The more we discover about either, the more apparent this is.  

This is true in human dynamics, too.  We don't know much about another person's experience, if we've never walked in their shoes.  We have very little idea of what they're going through, if we've never experienced it.  And, accordingly, our understanding is thereby limited...sometimes significantly. 

Now, that understanding can be felt or embraced at a variety of levels. But, at the most basic level, the best we can say about what is true is limited by our understanding of it.

In some likely unexpected ways, that should really free us up a bit...as we journey on in our encounter with what is true. 

Beautiful Lives

There are infinitely many kinds of beautiful lives.

-- Maria Popova

If only we could respect this more....

Take Responsibility

We take responsibility for our actions at the time we perform our actions, not at the time we get caught.

 -- Simon Sinek

At The Beginning

I’ve noticed…that often what I want at the beginning of my day is so different from what I want at the end of my day.

So, what happens in between? 

Grief Is a Form of Patriotism, Too.

True patriotism isn’t celebration without conscience. It’s not about believing we are greater than all other nations. It’s about holding our nation accountable to its highest ideals. It’s about refusing to settle for freedom for the few while millions are pushed aside, unheard, and unseen. 

It’s praying, protesting, speaking, and serving until justice is no longer the exception, but the norm. Continue...here. 

-- Benjamin Cremer

We are not blessed to the exclusion of others; we are blessed to be a blessing to others, so that through us, others can be included in the generous circle of divine blessing. 

-- Brian McLaren

Home of Democracy

LIVING the QUESTIONS

We're slowly working our way past the endless rhetoric of what we're collectively against and back towards the harder work of what we are for — which is the essential work of democracy.

 
Letters from an American

4 Observations (from Others)

The measure of a country’s greatness is its ability to retain compassion in times of crisis.

-- Thurgood Marshall

 

All of us are standing on someone else’s shoulders. Someone else that opened the door and paved the way. 

-- Ruby Bridges

The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the President.

-- Albert Ellis 

 

The world of the future is in our making. Tomorrow is now. 

-- Eleanor Roosevelt

 

 

Prior 4 Observations (from Others).

Never has so much been stolen from so many by so few

As noted by billionaire entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and civic activist Nick Hanauer, who, together with Jeff Bezos, started Amazon.com. The socioeconomic sleight of hand performed by the rich, aided and abetted by government, shows that the top 1% have effectively taken a 50% haircut from the wages of every American worker over the past half century. This is the underlying source of the unsustainable and obscene wealth inequality we inherit today. Hanauer has gone on to become, some would say, a billionaire with a conscience after having had a number of successful business ventures.

His simple premise is that everything we are taught about economics is, in his words, “A pack of lies” and that if you use this flawed economic model as the foundation on which to build economic policy, the only possible end result is either a police state or a revolution. I believe he is absolutely right, and we are, as we speak, at that fork in the road. This is why we are beginning to see the rise of Democratic Socialism in response to what is fast becoming a police state. You only have to listen to the visceral response from the right to progressive candidates breaking through to understand that the battle lines in the upcoming revolution are already being drawn.

We can talk all day about the monsters in this regime and those that are bankrolling them, but they really don’t care. These are people who would, and are, burning this nation to the ground for personal gain. They have no social conscience; indeed, I doubt many of them have a conscience or a beating heart at all...continue here.

 

-- Martin McSweeney, TRUTH MATTERS

Scott MacFarlane Reports

 

Donald Trump is Looting the Presidency

Losing Things

Whether it's your car keys, a key client, a job, or a friend; we all lose things in life.

There are the things you lose, and then there is the reason that you lost them.

And, more often than not, it’s not in fact just one reason. It’s multiple reasons. But, you can’t just say that you lost something for no reason. Because that’s rarely true.

The point might feel, though, like you need to make sure that you know the reasons (or the reasons), so that losing things doesn’t happen again. That’s not a particularly bad idea...especially if it's your keys, but probably for the other more significant things, too.

But, the more simple reality is that things are lost — if nothing else, things just change (few things stay the same forever) and it often feels like loss.

And, while it makes sense to try to figure out how to mitigate that, the greater opportunity might be to simply accept the reality of it.

Because it’s in the accepting of things that we actually become more capable of what we really need to learn from them. Many times, what is lost becomes an opportunity for something else to be gained. Life, after all, isn’t as much about learning how to desperately hold on and prevent losing things, as it is about acceptance and learning. The sooner we learn how to embrace things, as opposed to resist things, the sooner we can move into the more organic and healthy flow of reality. We can spend an awful lot of time (or waste a lot of it) trying to prevent something from happening and forfeit the much greater opportunity to be constantly growing with different and new things.

Growing is often not easy (thus our learned resistance to it). But, in spite of how it often feels, it also is what keeps us alive in healthy ways.

Change

The only lasting truth is change.

-- Octavia Butler

Not Many Words

It does not require many words to speak the truth.

-- Chief Joseph

Muscle of Condemnation

Ever noticed...how well developed our muscle of condemnation is?

It Is Christ Himself

The Church, like a mother, accompanies those who are walking. Where the world sees threats, she sees children; where walls are built, she builds bridges. She knows that her proclamation of the Gospel is credible only when it is translated into gestures of closeness and welcome. And she knows that in every rejected migrant, it is Christ himself who knocks at the door of the community. 

-- Pope Leo

3 Observations & A Question

When you maintain superiority over others, you end up with distance from others. 

Giving without demand or expectation of return opens the possibility for the joy of true receiving. 

 

You really do have to get used to not knowing…especially about the future (to what any new day will bring).

 

When do we become aware of the perception that other people have of us (is prior to that point what we call the age of innocence)?

 

Prior 3 Observations & A Question…

ICE Spent $700M & ...

New York Times

AXIOS

The problem isn’t elections. We won the damn elections!

-- Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY)

Healing Also Means

Healing also means taking an honest look at the role you play in your own suffering.

-- Unknown

Legislating Morality

Legislation is not very effective when it comes to morality; it is much better suited as a supplement.

I was thinking about this after noticing a sign on a recent morning walk. The sign was for a conference by the Association of Christian Librarians.

For a minute or two, I thought that was a rather novel concept. Until I considered that something about books has been used for a long time to organize thought around areas like morality (among other things, of course). And, the very idea of having a conference for Christian librarians reflects this reality. My mind went, of course, to the current efforts, by our government, to control what books are available in the public sphere (often under a banner of something called Christian). Like many things, it feels like such identities emerge, when something feels threatened, whether we’re talking about something governmental or Christian.

Published material plays an important part in culture (or at least often it does). And, therefore, in morality. Often, organized efforts around something like morality beg the question of what it actually is in the first place. And, while I’ve discussed this before, it seems that when it comes to morality, there are many common themes throughout time and spaces where people exist. I think it must be noticed, however, that there are also some significant divergences (which again should beg the question about the existential nature of it). And, because morality seems to be a construct of larger notions about what it means to live together as human beings, it would appear that those are hard to completely capture in something that can be legislated. In other words, the idea would seem to be that morality is larger than something than only words can describe (although I think we should be grateful, in most cases, for the attempts those words make).

Back to the question of legislation. It appears that legislation is often an attempt to codify something at the very least and, in particular, in relation to morality. Because it not only tries to describe what it is or what it should be, but it also reaches towards trying to dictate what it is or should be. And, invariably it seems (especially in this context), it is difficult to avoid being dumped off on the doorstep of censorship. Somebody or something (or a group of either) is often attempting to determine what needs to be included in the space the words take up as a means of controlling for the things that should be included, as well as the things that should be excluded.

This dynamic is not particularly confined to something like morality, as it is involved in many scopes of reality. The Bible, for example, was largely constructed from this dynamic as men (and some women) debated what was the most appropriate to include and what to exclude. Perhaps, this is just a human thing we do and it, in and of itself, is not inherently bad. But it can be. Ostensibly, legislation is often an attempt to distinguish when it is and when it isn’t.

The legislative enterprise is as constructive and fraught with dynamics that exist in nearly any enterprise. But, the making of law is something that should be carefully understood, especially given the range of dynamics involved.

So, am I talking about libraries or books? Or, morality or censorship? Or, legislation and the range of what is true that cannot be codified (but is commonly understood in some innate way by the scope of human experience throughout time and space)?

Yes.

Unexpected

If you do nothing unexpected, nothing unexpected happens.

-- Fay Weldon

Who You Are

One day, if you have a little bit of talent and a lot of hard work, you're going to find out who you are.

-- Massimo Bottura

Gives Us Our Gift

I'm wondering...if what comes most close to killing us gives us our gift to the world.

They Will Know We Are Christians By...

On this Fathers Day, we have an opportunity to reconsider the role fathers have on setting the pace for this:

 

What if we as Christians were known more for our feet washing than our sin bashing?

-- Carlos A. Rodriguez

…because like it or not, we have been (setting the pace) for much of patriarchal human history (in both good and bad ways).

3 Observations & A Question

Every time you say ‘no’ to something (especially if it is unhealthy), you are in a better position to say ‘yes’ to something else.

 

I know that whatever you're doing right now isn't the only thing that is true about you.

  

Our choices affect other people — we can’t just make them and then pray they don’t…we have to make them in the first place because they do.

 

What if you don’t walk at the same pace as someone else?

 

Prior 3 Observations & A Question…

MOU, U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and Working Parents

 
New York Times

 
AXIOS

AXIOS

Juneteenth, 2026

Nobody’s free until everybody’s free. 

-- Fannie Lou Hame

Dr. Karida Brown, a sociology professor at Emory University whose research focuses on race, said there's no reason to feel awkward about wanting to recognize Juneteenth because you have no personal ties or you're not Black. In fact, embrace it. 

"I would reframe that and challenge my non-Black folks who want to lean into Juneteenth and celebrate," Brown said. "It absolutely is your history. It absolutely is a part of your experience. ... Isn't this all of our history? The good, the bad, the ugly, the story of emancipation and freedom for for your Black brothers and sisters under the Constitution of the law."  Continue...here.

Also:

Juneteenth stands as DEI retreats

Able To Do

The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do.

-- Amelia Earhart

No one is autonomous.

No one is autonomous.

Who said Elon Musk is the one who gets to decide anyway? 

"Well, no one specifically, but he is…".

He is what?

"Well, you know — smart, innovative, a status quo breaker, brought us more things that have changed the world than any other human being, etc.".

So, how do we respond?

The systems driving our economies reward him with unprecedented wealth. And, therefore, power. 

But, why Musk?

Question: is what he has done, good? Answer: well....

Question: is he a good person? Answer: well…based on what we tend to know, probably not.

So, why have we bestowed so much power on him?

Because the right kind of person (Trump), at the right moment and time, can give an Elon Musk unprecedented access (DOGE) to nearly unlimited resources, if that would benefit that person.

One person.

Is that what we really want? One person, with the majority of the power (because he has the majority of the money) getting to decide how that power (money) will be used to organize societies around the world? (What, by the way, does it tell us when that person appears to be developing an exit strategy from the Earth itself? What does he think he knows?)

Is this a good thing? Is that what the rest of us really want?

"Oh, c'mon, he’s just a smart guy. It's just capitalism; he's made lots of money – give him a break."

Really? Our response to the upshot of these realities is…give him a break?

No one is autonomous.

What he is doing is impacting all of us, whether we know it or not.

We need each other. He may not believe that he does; but, we do. The concentration of power / money in one person‘s hands who doesn’t recognize that he needs us should be a frightful thing.

But, it isn’t…for too many of us.

It must be that we think that it's OK somehow, as long as we benefit from an Elon‘s smartness (and money). Perhaps there are some ways that we do. But, after you listen to him talk for a while, and after you look into the ideologies that have shaped what he believes, you start to wonder whether the endgame for him is what we’ve imagined it to be…just more money (doesn't feel like it)?

It has been said that (the love of) money is the root of all evil. That can be understood to mean a lot of things. But, in the frame of what I’m presenting here, we could wonder if the evil involved is the kind of power hidden behind the money.

$1 trillion is more than just a little bit more money. $1 trillion is more than the whole economies of 170 countries. $1 trillion worth is a notable fraction of the whole US economy. (What is a trillion of anything, anyway?)

The likes of $1 trillion got Elon access to our government ostensibly for the purpose of reducing spending (ironically, in a way that would enhance the possibility of Elon‘s particular $1 trillion...which was probably the plan all the way along). Not to mention, among other things, how that money was being used to aid other societies around the world, to aid research that allows the US to aid other societies around the world (not to mention our own society).

No one is autonomous...because nothing is autonomous.

A Long Way Away

MORNING BREW

They Don't Scare You

Most success comes from 50 small things moving in the same direction, not one big thing.

... 

One way to beat fear is with steps so small they don't scare you.

As you get closer to fear, you realize there was never anything there to be afraid of.

-- Shane Parrish

Required Of

I’ve noticed…that I often feel required of.

And, perhaps more importantly, why I can tend to frame it that way. 

Hoarding

If there’s one thing Jesus is opposed to, it’s hoarding—and it’s not just about physical possessions. The ego is the ultimate hoarder. It hangs on to everything. We hoard our entitlements: I am rich, I am educated, I am a person of authority. We hoard our principles and ideologies; we hoard our self-justifications and our resentments. We use all these things to line the nest of our fragile sense of selfhood.  

But Jesus sets himself against any kind of hoarding. He teaches a path of radical non-clinging. He says in effect, “Don’t clench your fist. Open your hands.” The world is abundant and provident beyond belief, and what flows through it is a coherence, a beauty, a life force that is a direct expression of the heart of God.  Continue…here.

-- Richard Rohr

3 Observations & A Question

At the end of the day, you can’t require anyone to take care of you.

 

At some point, we have to acknowledge how our compulsions set us back.

 

Much of the time, just keeping yourself in a position for something to happen is the most important thing you can do.

 

We tend to think if we had more money, we would be able to be more free — but, seriously, how often have you observed that to be the case?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question…

Social Security & Solar vs Coal

 

Robert Reich

 
AXIOS

I Do Not Live By Being Right

I will live by the best I can discern today. Tomorrow I may find out I was wrong. Since I do not live by being right, I am not destroyed by being wrong.

-- Verna Dozier

Another, Seriously — This Is Our President?

Another, Seriously — This is our President?:

If You Thought Tulsi Gabbard Was A Problem:

 

The law that creates the DNI position specifies that the nominee “shall have extensive national security expertise.” Pulte lacks any expertise, let alone extensive experience, which one might think a president would want at a time of international tension and outright war. But he is loyal to Trump, which, apparently, is the only criterion that matters here. Continue...here.

-- Joyce Vance

The Senate Should NOT Confirm This Person

How much more is needed for the obvious, Trump continues to fleece America for his own greatness (as he perceives it anyway)...not America's:

Trump’s interest in profiting off the presidency remains clear. Jonathan Edwards of the Washington Post reported today that 14 of the 27 known donors to Trump’s $400 million ballroom project have won new or expanded federal contracts totaling over $50 billion since they made their donations. Continue...here. 

-- Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American

There is no democracy without journalism.

-- Scott  Pelley

I Rose To It

I didn't fall in love, I rose in it.

-- Toni Morrison

Prescription: Against My Position

I have what I call an iron prescription that helps me keep sane when I naturally drift toward preferring one ideology over another. And that is I say ‘I’m not entitled to have an opinion on this subject unless I can state the arguments against my position better than the people do who are supporting it.’ I think only when I reach that stage am I qualified to speak. 

-- Charlie Munger

If only there were more of us who were willing to take this medicine....

Ineffective

Ever noticed...how ineffective trying to out-yell someone is?

Inflation & Data Centers

 
GALLUP - Front Page

 
GALLUP

Wholehearted Spirituality

Wholehearted spirituality in the freedom of the Spirit gives us courage, courage to bear witness to God’s grace against all odds, courage to speak despite efforts to silence us, courage to act authentically and in ways that encourage and empower the weak and the vulnerable. 

-- Rebecca Button Pritchard

4 Observations (from Others)

We have this habit of thinking that our “current” self is the permanent one.

--  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

 

I want to become acutely aware of all I’ve taken for granted. 

-- Sylvia Plath

When we open up space for the Spirit and let the Spirit fill that space within us, we begin to change, and we become agents of change.

-- Brian McLaren

 

And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good. 

-- John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Prior 4 Observations (from Others).

On The Lighter Side: But Do Not

 On the Lighter Side:

What Would Emerge?

In an area that I routinely walk, someone recently cleared a bunch of the heavy foliage that had built up next to the path. Just a few days later there were three or four different kinds of flowers that I had never seen before growing in the cleared area.

Which got me thinking — what kinds of things would emerge in my life, if I were willing to clear out of the way some of the things that have grown up in front of them?

Don't Walk Away From

You have to pick the places you don't walk away from. 

-- Joan Didion

LT: Ideas From Others

A good leader is curious to hear ideas from others. A bad leader cares more that others hear their ideas.

 -- Simon Sinek

As A Society

I'm wondering...about what causes us as a society to fall asleep to what is going on around us (or, for that matter, to wake up).

HISTORY: Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear

MORNING BREW

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

June 1 is always an important day; per the above, now as much as ever.

An important historical reading...here. 

5 Truths About Sabbath

5 truths about Sabbath: 

1. Sabbath is not a reward for hard work 
2. Sabbath is a reminder that our work will remain incomplete 
3. Sabbath is a day that moves us from production to presence 
4. Sabbath reminds us that we are not God 
5. Sabbath points us to the deeper rest we need found in Christ

-- Rich Villodas

3 Observations & A Question

What brings them joy can bring you joy.

 

You’re either cooperating with a natural order of things or you’re making it harder to do so. 

 

Maybe we’re all on the spectrum…of a spirit of hoarding (or miserliness) on one end and a spirit of generosity on the other. 

Imagination often comes from context (we rarely wonder about things we’ve never seen) — wouldn’t that make context pretty important, even if simply from an imagination perspective?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question…

Wages vs Profits

AXIOS

The Other Shoe Doesn't Have to Drop

In case you need this today:

I’ve only been fired once.

Here’s the story. I was sixteen years old and worked about ten to fifteen hours a week at the local Dairy Queen. On most evenings during the closing shift, I was left running between the drive-through and the kitchen to cover the needs before closing down for the night. Which was when it happened. This was the point in the day when my friends from school would come through the drive-through to sneak in a hello or just make fun of me for working at Dairy Queen (I had great friends!). One Friday night, however, as my friends drove through, I made the ill-fated decision that would change my life forever.  Continue...here.

-- A.J. Swoboda

What Makes You Vulnerable

What makes you vulnerable makes you beautiful.

-- Brené Brown

Take The Space

One way to respect yourself is to take the space that you need — to make space. To be in silence long enough to hear what is really going on...in and around you. 

After all, it isn’t as much about how much you can take in as it is about the other space you have to create to do something with it.

But, you may have to choose it, intentionally.

Leave your phone some place, rather than take it with you. 

Plan and go for a hike.

Stop being productive for a minute or a couple of hours (...a couple of days would be even better for you).

Find a way to experience some silence.  Unending noise (especially the thinking kind) is not good for you. But, you will have to choose a way to get away from it, otherwise it will just keep you surrounded by it. You may actually have to relearn how to listen to yourself again, to get past the usual tape running in your head.

Taking the space you need is a matter of self-respect, as all care is. 

And, yes, you do need it. 

Ivins, Utah

…from a recent space-taking time for me that was the genesis of this thought.

Experience

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.

-- Oscar Wilde

Memorial Day

Memorial Day this year provokes so much we almost feel soul-numb to its import, at least on the political side of things.

Sometimes we just need someone else to verbalize for us what we're feeling...like this reflection on gardening and democracy from Diana Butler Bass:

A Victory Garden for Democracy

She reminded me why I plant flowers about this time every year...the joy of it comes from a kind of hope it represents.