Discover, Rather Than Save

My sense, after being a priest for over fifty years, is that we would have done much better to help Christians discover their souls instead of “save” them.

-- Richard Rohr

3 Observations & A Question

Focus on what you are, not on what you’re not.

Many times our circumstances just set in motion what was already there. 

You have to decide what kind of life you want to live…and, then, what you are going to do about it.

 

Can't we tell the difference between those who can repeat the theory and those who actually believe it?

 

Prior 3 Observations & A Question…

National Park Service, Vaccines, ICE Shock-Gloves, etc.

So, NOT privately funded after all (surprising NO ONE) — the real priorities are obvious:

  
Scott MacFarlane Reports

Scott MacFarlane Reports

Oh, and just when you thought…:

ICE plans to give officers gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks

HISTORY: Social Security Act

Another history:  The Social Security Act is so embedded in the core expectation of the government by the American people.  But, how many even know how it started, not to mention why it continues?

Trying Not To Fall

Sometimes you can try so hard not to fall...that you actually end up falling. 

In other words, sometimes trying to keep something from happening actually makes it happen. 

I’m 63 years old now, and I’ve noticed that my awareness of the possibility of falling has been increasing of late. Maybe this is normal. But, even if it isn’t, it struck me the other day after attempting to ride my grandson’s skateboard, at his behest (who, by the way, uses the word behest?), that my sense of balance was in play and that I probably needed to consider who’s favor that balance was most likely to serve. So, while I still wanted to do it, I knew I should really think about some possibilities (ok, likelihoods).

I suspect that while this one was fairly happenstance, it was being informed by a recent hike in Hawaii that involved some rather treacherous terrain. Certain spots specifically seemed to prompt me internally to go slow and be careful. A couple, in fact, were much closer to something like 'I’m not sure I can do this'.

I was aware, at the time, that other hikers seem to breeze through some of these spots (not pausing to shuffle-slide their way through them). I’ve noticed in other similar situations that sometimes the very pace of your movement seems to help with any precariousness that seems to be involved. Moving quickly, without waiting to test every possibility first, can be a preferred approach. But, here I was staring it down, inching my way forward…poised to turn back at any moment.

I was also becoming more keenly aware that the prospect of weighing out moving forward or not, was wearing me out. I wasn’t even enjoying the hike anymore (for all the reasons that a good hike typically supplies). If nothing else, the effort was starting to feel like a significant waste of energy.

As I reflect on these two situations now, I wonder how true that is in a number of domains of life, not just the physical ones. Besides, most of the time, learning to respect your limitations is not an unwise posture overall.

But, trying not to fall in life seems to (though still logical) create an unintended endgame. It tends to lead to a general stance of risk-avoidance and mitigates both the option to consider alternative approaches and opportunities to experience things you otherwise never would…when simply trying not to fall becomes your goal.

When we were younger, we didn’t seem to anticipate falling as much as we do after a lifetime of experience. We just fall, skin our knee a few times, and then get back up and keep going. I'm guessing that some of this disposition could continue to serve us well. 

Perhaps a happy medium is a little bit of both — acknowledge our limitations and take a few risks now and then.

Either way, simply trying not to fall is not a particularly complete strategy for living our lives.

Make Your Life Meaningful

You make your life meaningful by applying meaning to it.

-- Sheila Heti

Success

One problem with success is what you end up believing about why it’s sustainable.

In Retrospect

Ever noticed...that we often don’t comprehend much of what is happening to us, until in retrospect?

To Be Our Teachers

God didn't give us neighbors to be our projects; He surrounded us with them to be our teachers.  Love you neighbor.

HISTORY: first president in U.S. history to resign

Another history:  today was the first time a President of the United States resigned from office.

Déjà Vu?   

Probably not.  The difference between then and now?  Apparently, the public's tolerance....

I Should Have Seen This Coming, by David Brooks.

3 Observations & A Question

You love what you care for (yes, sometimes in that order). 

 

How you set up the game determines a lot about how it is played. 

 

It seems easier right now to say what you’re not, than to say what you are…but, that leads to problems, too.

 

Can you imagine what it would be like to… (how would you fill in the blank)? 

 

Prior 3 Observations & A Question…

[the river]

 
The Crucial Years

 
'Poem for the week' -- "[the river]":

the river                   the blood
the branches           the trees

the blood                the duck
the oil                     the goose
the sea             the greed

the brief
the break
the decree
the one who held the key

           grief broke the tree
           so the oppressor could
           never break the free

-- Marwa Helal

You Can Pretty Much Assume

GALLUP - Front Page

You can pretty much assume right now that if someone is saying the other guys are doing it, it's to cover the fact that, actually, they're the ones doing it.  

It seems distraction works better than ever:

Looking the Other Way: How Wall Street Banks Enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s Sex Trafficking

Until it doesn't:

We are watching Donald Trump implode

The price of the incompetence involved in so many domains, that the American people now see, has only begun to be paid:

The U.S. has used “virtually all” of its highly accurate long-range missiles

Unfortunately, at least to some extent, such things seem to always be (in the past, now, and likely again in the future).  It comes from a deeply flawed understanding of the true nature of our existence.  And, it is fed by the unavoidable consequences of living out of that misunderstanding.

An alternative has always been an option (and it continues to be one):

With Hands Behind Your Back from A.J. Swoboda describes some of it and many along the way have ended up taking it.  It obviously is a better one than the lead referenced above and it is, in fact, much closer to something both real and good.

And, many times, just how we look at things makes all the difference:

Feed My Sheep 

Formidable Mixture

Courage and grace is a formidable mixture.

-- Marlene Dietrich

LT: So Goes The Leader

So goes the leader, so goes the culture.

So goes the culture, so goes the company.

-- Simon Sinek

Laziest

I'm wondering... if we’re the laziest when it comes to what we give our attention.

Whatever Way

Barbara Brown Taylor looks back on a time when she was discerning God’s will for her life. After a time of lamentation and prayer, she recalls: 

The answer I got was the deep conviction that I was loved, and what I was called to do was to love back in whatever way allowed me to love the best and most.... The specifics did not seem to matter to God…. 

That sort of answer does not sit well with most of us…. We want a definitive word. We want specific instructions and clear guidelines…. The vehicle most of us use in this search is the Bible. I have been surprised by how many people have come to ask me what the Bible says about this romantic predicament or that job offer…. Some of them want to know if they should let the Bible fall open at will or close their eyes and point to a passage for the answer to their questions…. 

The motives of these people are entirely honorable. They are seeking the will of God for their lives, but what surprises me is their willingness to put the answers they find in the Bible on a pedestal above the answers they find in their own minds and hearts, in the counsel of their friends, and in the world around them. 

Brown Taylor insists that the Bible is not an oracle or a “how to” book, but a collection of stories that model God’s love in people’s lives: 

In addition to lots of laws, a few genealogies and some sound advice, what the Bible contains are many biographies. Abraham and Sarah, ... Hosea and Habakkuk, John the Baptist, Mary and Joseph, Peter and Mary Magdalene.... It contains the stories of all their relationships with God and the particular things God had to say to each of them, how [God] loved each of them. 

 

What all those stories tell us is that God’s word, God’s will for their lives, did not come to them in a printed manual, with specific answers to be found on page 536…. God’s will for them, which was [God’s] love for them, came in the form of a living relationship that they were free to embrace or flee.... 

Reading about their relationships cannot be a substitute for seeking our own. We are called to live out our own stories, to search for the unique shape our own lives will take in communion with God, and find [God’s] particular word to us.

-- Barbara Brown Taylor

Supreme Court

 
AXIOS

Saturday Morning Rain

Sometimes, there is just nothing better on a Saturday morning than sitting on the porch watching it rain.

4 Observations (from Others)

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

--  Aristotle

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.

-- Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder

 

Nature is one of the only places where you don’t have to perform. When you’re outside, your brain isn’t being asked to respond to emails, alerts or decisions. It can simply be present. 

-- Susan Albers, How Nature Can Improve Your Mental Health

 

Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for they speak with the voice of God.

--  George Washington Carver

 

Prior 4 Observations (from Others).

Why Most People Stay Stuck — Because They Ignore These Two Simple Words

Most people believe their lives are difficult because they lack something.

More money.

More opportunities.

More recognition.

More confidence.

More time.

They spend years chasing external solutions to internal problems — believing that when their circumstances finally change, they will finally feel at peace.

But what if the opposite is true?

What if the reason you feel trapped is not because your life is missing something…

…but because you are holding onto something you were never meant to control?  

Continue...here.

-- ThePsychologyReset

Your suffering is often created not by what happens to you, but by your judgment of what happens to you.

-- Marcus Aurelius

Another, Seriously — This Is Our President?

Another, Seriously — This is our President?:

Trump Asks Supreme Court to Allow Order Restricting Mail Voting

Because if they don’t (allow it):

In one year, the country will be absolutely bankrupt. You’ll live in squalor. 

-- Donald Trump, this week at a General Motors facility in Michigan

The Atlantic

Letters from an American 

And, then, this one isn't even…adolescent (again, the activity of the President of the most powerful country in the free world?): 

The President of the United States has lost his mind 

The activity of the highest office in the land should represent the highest ideals of our country, rather than the personal insecurities and political whims of its inhabitant.  Besides the kind of 'work' that appears to be going on in the middle of the night, the real effort is having to be fought during daylight hours:

Presidential 1776 Award competition and Saving America’s Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage 

And, regarding the latest of Trumped-up charges: 

Charges Dropped in Reflecting Pool Case as Prosecutors Say Work Was ‘Botched’

If You Live According To...

If you live according to nature you will never be poor; if you live according to opinions, you will never be rich. 

-- Seneca

The Prepared Mind

Chance favors only the prepared mind.

-- Louis Pasteur

Susceptible

I’ve noticed…it’s easy to think that some people are just more susceptible when, in fact, we all are.

Ruth, Hagar, Joseph

When we open ourselves up to friendships with immigrants and take intentional steps to know and be known in mutuality, we widen the circle of our affections. Suddenly, immigrants are no longer a burden or a drain on our economy, but a Ruth, a Hagar, or a Joseph to be loved. 

-- Karen González

 
Jesus himself seems to leverage this with his parable of the Good Samaritan.

I learned that a friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face.

-- Maya Angelou

3 Observations & A Question

For a few, style seems to be their substance — for the rest, substance is their substance.

Our sense of self is enriched by our participation in some form of community.

 

Just because we learned something once doesn’t mean we don’t have to learn it again.

 

How do you view setbacks — as evidence or as opportunity?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question…

Immigrants

 
James (HVR)

It's not just about immigrants, it's about our relationship with empathy and cruelty.

If it's really retribution (especially when it's grift), then it really ISN'T about ‘waste and fraud’ after all...or immigrants.

I Used To Think: Soullessness

I used to think...technology was benign — its downsides limited to man’s use of it. 

But, now, I suspect that what is a real problem is the soulless nature of it. Everything is part of the soul of existence (including humanity) — collectively and individually. Technology, including man’s use of it, often removes the soul from things (more on what soul even is later, but here is one example...).

For example, while more recently technology has created unprecedented opportunities for connection, it doesn’t create much sense of belonging. People want connection, but they need a sense of belonging. Technology doesn’t work at that level of things. In fact, it seems to undermine it, in part because it can only offer a facsimile of it...rather than the real thing.

The strange thing is that when humans are so desperate for belonging they will gravitate to nearly anything that simply appears to offer it. Whether it is a genuine (or even a good) version of it or not. The extent to which people will pursue it is nearly terrifying. Not only because of the substitutionary versions we seem willing to accept, but also because the predatory context it creates for those willing to appeal to it. We can even accept a version that simply describes who we don't want to connect with as means of falsifying a sense of who we do connect with (whether we actually do in any substantively human way or not).

Technology enables the proliferation of these realities.

We can try to bifurcate things by distinguishing between the mechanism and the content, but in the end they really just go together. Throw a profit motive into the mix and you can have some pretty nasty stuff that really isn't offset by the non-nasty stuff.

Profit and technology are too often complicit in their respective and mutually inclusive goals.  Because true goodness can't really be monetized (even if facsimiles of it can), it remains independent. But, it is not too hard to observe that technology tends to mitigate the experience of what is truly good.

We don't really even need to get into what happens when we lose our soul, do we? Or, do we (because from the looks of things, maybe we do)?

We love technology that makes our lives easier. But, what if we don't need much more of easier right now. What if we need what is actually better? Especially things that technology is painfully incapable of delivering

...like the kind of goodness that only soul can identify.

Pebbles

My life is full of mistakes.  They're like pebbles that make a good road.

-- Beatrice Wood

Self-Pity

Self-pity feels like medicine and works like poison.

-- Shane Parrish

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