Selling Fear

Ever noticed...that it’s just too easy to sell fear, at least for the powerful?

Spain Wins World Cup

 
AXIOS

Believing In Jesus

Believing in Jesus, and believing in the way of Jesus, are not necessarily the same thing. 

This is pretty obvious sometimes when you observe what people say and do; not even so much from ignorance or habit as from intention.

3 Observations & A Question

There is a difference between a group of players and a team.

 

Many people are only interested in wisdom to the extent that they can profit from it, which.... 

It’s rare that someone becomes (or stays) really good at something without a lot of repetition.

What if we take ourselves out of the equation more often than anything else does? If we want to know why or how we do that, a decent look at our relationship with our fears will give us a lot of clues.

 

Prior 3 Observations & A Question…

Congress Remains Least Trusted

 
GALLUP - Front Page

Joy and Pain

Recently, I jotted down a couple of thoughts on the relationship between joy and pain.  I somehow lost my notes (including the story) on what prompted the notion, but this thought is lingering in my mind:  

Joy often seems linked to pain.

Perhaps this is part of how joy is different from happiness.  Being happy isn't necessarily linked to something else.  It's, if anything, the absence of something — anxiety, threat, fear.  And, the presence of something that feels enjoyable, pleasurable, good — like a state of being...peaceful, without worry, fun, free, etc.

Joy, on the other hand, seems characterized by relief, surprise, deeply heart-felt — an almost wordless...guttural expression of intense emotion.  And, often, because of something else, sometimes even a painful thing.  It captures something like, "Oh, so something good IS going to happen after all....  Wow, I'm SO glad...I was so worried!".  We can even burst out saying, "Thank God!".  

We might have given up, acquiescing to the inevitable outcome we were afraid of.  Resigned to that what we wanted didn't happen...and won't happen — hopes dashed.  And, then, something unexpectedly good happens and we are filled with...joy. 

When your team wins after being down the whole game....

When the birth happens or child succeeds, at something they felt unattainable, after all....

When the health condition is fully mitigated....

When the worst news turns out not to be the case....

When the truth finally comes out....

When the good is revealed after all....

When love prevails....

...pure JOY!

Elections Again? & Red Scare 2.0

 

Trump’s claims about the 2020 election have long ago become a form of “white noise”, that much of the public has tuned out.

I’ve heard a lot of public debate, legislative chatter and speeches about the 2020 election.

Perhaps no one articulated the reality better than David Becker, a former Justice Department official and election security expert.

The 2020 election was the most secure in history.

The election is not what Trump has long alleged, per Becker’s address in Washington earlier this summer.

Take a listen (click image above)...to how Becker described the current state of play to a group of state elections officials.

Scott MacFarlane Reports

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

-- Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY)

 

The only reason they do this is because they think we will fall for it...again.  There always has to be a boogeyman (or, in today's terms, enemy).  If you can't find one, then you create one (immigrants).  And, if that doesn't work, you just use an old one.  So, here we go again...back to communism — Red Scare 2.0 (do they really even know what communism actually is?).

No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.

-- Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965), American broadcast journalist

The only genius involved in all of this is the unrelenting nature of it — their last hope is that they will just wear everyone out.

Self-Compassion

A moment of self-compassion can change your entire day.  A string of such moments can change the course of your life.

-- Christopher Germer

Raise Your Words

Raise you words, not voice.  It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.

-- Rumi

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 much attention — and others are counting on that.

 

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