Meaning Is Strength

In times of crisis, people reach for meaning. Meaning is strength. Our survival may depend on our seeking and finding it.

-- Viktor E. Frankl

Routine Disrupted

There appears to be a kind of comfort in routine.  So, it can be uncomfortable when routine is disrupted.  But, it seems, we invariably return to finding new patterns to re-establish routine, even if it is not the same.  While we like variation from time to time, predictability seems to be satisfying, too.

Are your routines changing during this COVID-19 period of disruption?  What other kinds of disruption have you experienced, that have led you to new routines?

How about this, what have your new routines allowed you to discover?

What They Want To Hear

Trust is built on telling the truth, not telling people what they want to hear.

-- Simon Sinek

This seems like a generally true maxim...and eerily timely for these days.

What Do You See?

Ever noticed...what's happening when one person sees a closed old gas station, while someone else sees a building with big doors to open and sell coffee and craft soda?

Seeing and vision can be two different things.  What factors influence the distinction the most?  Why do I see what I see?  What do you see?

Beat of the Sacred

Do we know that within each one of us is the unspeakably beautiful beat of the Sacred? Do we know that we can honor that Sacredness in one another and in everything that has being? And do we know that this combination—growing in awareness that we are bearers of Presence, along with a faithful commitment to honor that Presence in one another and in the earth—holds the key to transformation in our world?

-- John Philip Newell

Listening To The Youngest

When I was young I always deferred to people older than me and thought they knew better. And now, I feel like I'm learning more from people younger than me. It's like the whole idea of mentorship has been flipped on its head. I think we really have to be listening to the youngest members of our society right now because they do represent the future.

-- Bina Venkataraman

In April

'Poem selection' for the week -- "In April":

Again the woods are odorous, the lark 
Lifts on upsoaring wings the heaven gray
That hung above the tree-tops, veiled and dark, 
Where branches bare disclosed the empty day. 

After long rainy afternoons an hour 
Comes with its shafts of golden light and flings 
Them at the windows in a radiant shower, 
And rain drops beat the panes like timorous wings. 

Then all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep
By the soft sound of rain that slowly dies; 
And cradled in the branches, hidden deep
In each bright bud, a slumbering silence lies.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

Perspectives

It is just true that other people have perspectives that are just as good as mine—some are even better.

OK.  So, what's your point...?

Not acknowledging this, by putting myself (or keeping myself) in a position where I don't experience how this is true, tends to lead to the conclusion that it isn't—and that is a problem.

Earth Day 2020 - Nature of Economy

It's the 50th anniversary of Earth Day—the cause that drew 20 million people into the streets.

This was not an anti-litter campaign.  This was talking about fundamental changes in the nature of the American economy, in some ways much more profoundly radical than the anti-Vietnam War movement.  

-- Denis Hayes

Continue here...:

Hurt Feelings

Hurt feelings don't vanish on their own.  They don't heal themselves.  If we don't express our emotions, they pile up like a debt that will eventually come due.

-- Marc Brackett

In Others

I've noticed...sometimes I can see more of myself, when I see myself in others.

When The Ego Weeps

When the ego weeps for what it has lost, the spirit rejoices for what it has found.

-- Sufi Proverb

Visual: Between

Visual - "Between":

Winona Lake, IN

The Age of Worry

...a delightful cover that has musically captured some of our family imagination these days.

COVID-19: The Way Americans Spend Their Money & Restarting the Economy

A fascinating piece on some of the economic impacts of COVID-19:

An Adieu

‘Poem for the week' -- "An Adieu" (it looks like it will take one more day before April in Indiana will give up its Winter's Sorrow):

Sorrow, quit me for a while!
    Wintry days are over;
Hope again, with April smile,
    Violets sows and clover.

Pleasure follows in her path,
    Love itself flies after,
And the brook a music hath
    Sweet as childhood’s laughter.

Not a bird upon the bough
    Can repress its rapture,
Not a bud that blossoms now
    But doth beauty capture.

Sorrow, thou art Winter’s mate,
    Spring cannot regret thee;
Yet, ah, yet—my friend of late—
    I shall not forget thee!

-- Florence Earle Coates

Moving Through Us

Human Solidarity:

I am not alone in my tiredness or sickness or fears, but at one with millions of others from many centuries, and it is all part of life. 

-- Etty Hillesum 


It can be tempting when we are afraid, in grief, in stress, or ill, to experience our bodies as a liability, a vulnerability, or the place of pain.  But we have a choice in those moments to also experience our bodies as the place of divine "yes".  To see creation taking form as we move our hands across a page to make an image, pick up an instrument, write a poem, dance in our living rooms or on our balconies, or bake bread, we are reminded that God is moving through us, this flesh, in every moment.  While fear closes us up, makes us freeze or flee, creativity and expression keeps us open, soft, receptive.  When we are open, we can say Yes to the Holy moving through us, but we can also find a way to release things that could otherwise stay stuck inside.  Whatever you do today, may you feel God moving through you. And if that isn't the case, may you know that others can experience you that way, and believe it for you, even if you can't seem to feel that about yourself.

-- Hillary McBride

Knowing some about her holocaust diaries, adds dimension for me to Etty Hillesum's observation above.  Hillary McBride brings into perspective what I think it takes to survive (anything) in a healthy way.

Experience

Experience is our best teacher—the question is, what are we learning?

What are we learning, right now?  Time (or times like this) is not something just to get through, to some imagined better state in the future.  Time is something to be in right now.

If we aren't present to now, our teacher is ineffective, because we aren't actually experiencing this time—we are simply rushing through it (or, just waiting for it to be over).

Not Our Abilities

It is not our abilities that show who we really are, it is our choices.

-- Albus Dumbledore

Andrea Bocelli: Music For Hope

...sometimes music just shoots right through (whether you understand the words or not).

Easter: Jesus’ Resurrection

The larger-than-life, spiritually transformed people I have met have all died before they died.

It is true that you are going to die, and yet:

“neither death nor life . . . nothing can ever come between us and the love of God.”

-- Romans 8:38-39

Every small death in my life, has enlarged me.


Nothing is the same forever, says modern science. Ninety-eight percent of our bodies’ atoms are replaced every year. Geologists, with good evidence over millennia, can prove that no landscape is permanent. Water, fog, steam, and ice are all the same thing but at different stages and temperatures. “Resurrection” is another word for change, but particularly positive change—which we tend to see only in the long run. In the short run, change often looks like death. The Preface to the Catholic funeral liturgy says, “Life is not ended, but merely changed.” Science is now giving us helpful language for what religion rightly intuited and imaged with mythological language. Myth does not mean “not true,” which is the common misunderstanding; it actually refers to things that are always and deeply true!

God could not wait for modern science to give history hope. It was enough to believe that Jesus “was raised from the dead,” somehow planting the hope and possibility of resurrection in our deepest unconscious. Jesus’ incarnate life, his passing over into death, and his resurrection into the ongoing Christ life is the archetypal model for the entire pattern of creation. He is the microcosm for the whole cosmos, or the map of the whole journey, in case you need or want one.

Nowadays most folks do not seem to think they need that map, especially when they are young. But the vagaries and disappointments of life’s journey eventually make us long for some overall direction, purpose, or goal beyond getting through another day. All who hold any kind of unexplainable hope believe in resurrection, whether they are formal Christians or not, and even if they don’t believe Jesus was physically raised from the dead. I have met such people from all kinds of backgrounds, religious and nonreligious.

Personally, I do believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus because it affirms what the whole physical and biological universe is also saying—and grounds it in one personality. Resurrection must also be fully practical and material. If matter is inhabited by God, then matter is somehow eternal, and when the creed says, we believe in the “resurrection of the body,” it means our bodies too, not just Jesus’ body! As in him, so also in all of us. As in all of us, so also in him. So I am quite conservative and orthodox by most standards on this important issue, although I also realize it seems to be a very different kind of embodiment post-resurrection as suggested by the Gospel accounts.

-- Richard Rohr


Christianity can help us realize that death and resurrection are part of the evolutionary path toward wholeness; letting go of isolated existence for the sake of deeper union. Something dies but something new is born—which is why the chaos of our times is, in a strange way, a sign of hope; something new is being born within. Out of chaos, a star is born. Breakdown can be break through if we recognize a new pattern of life struggling to emerge.

-- Ilia Delio

Holy Saturday: Smashing Idols Through Pain

On what might have to (symbolically) be the darkest day of the year, Holy Saturday; a metaphor for the times in our lives when all hope seems dashed. There is, though often undetectable, something still very much alive—something we can only learn through what seems like death.

Divine Solidarity:

Instagram: aaronieq

If I will trust that what comes to me in life is for me, not against me...it breaks my idols, my isolation, my sense of independence.

-- Barbara Brown Taylor

Holy Friday: Suffering

On Holy Friday (original meaning of the 'good' in Good Friday), a reminder—even as much as we try to avoid it...suffering IS the path to transformation:

For more on the thoughts referenced above for each day noted, click here....


And then, there is T.S. Eliot's version...The Sharp Compassion.

"Take your time...it's not your fault...there's no rush."

Dear friends, look at the real heroes who come to light in these days: they are not famous, rich and successful people; rather, they are those who are giving themselves in order to serve others.

-- Pope Francis

Instagram: kellycorrigan

"Take your time...it's not your fault...there's no rush."

Unwelcome

About a year ago, I experienced a little of what it feels like to be unwelcome.

I have to admit, I’d never known what that feels like, at a pervasively social level.  ...that says something, in and of itself (about me or, at least, my experience).

Unwelcomed-ness comes in many forms, but one of the most demoralizing is when it comes from those in power.  Because power, theoretically, should be the resource that is needed to enable the good that should be happening.  Too often, though, it is used for the opposite effect.

Often, institutions have power.  And, people often use power given to them by institutions.  And, sometimes those same people used to be friends.

Power can be maintained in a number of ways—based the color of your skin, the way you act, the way you talk, or just the way you look. But, perhaps most significantly—often in religious contexts (spiritual or otherwise)—it is maintained based on what you believe.

Does God make us feel welcome because of what we believe?  Didn't God love us 'while we were yet sinners'?  Why, then, would introducing 'unwelcome' based on belief after-the-fact feel like a necessary thing to do?  But, it often is.  And, unfortunately, the church often simply borrows the same methods of control, as society does, through the use of power—through the use of the social-power of a group.

I am sure that my experience of 'unwelcome' pales in significance compared to its many more brutal forms.  And, I am also sure that I have been complicit at times by extending it to others myself.  The memory of my experience of unwelcome towards me still lingers today...affecting how I view myself and impacting how I think about (treat) others.  Recognizing this, I am trying to allow it to reveal to me how I perpetuate unwelcome-ness.

Because, you are 'Unwelcome' here...is not the way of love.

LT: Dirty Hands

Leadership is a not a fancy quote, an academic understanding, or something you just talk about; it is something you actually do...on a daily basis.

Leaders don't just show up once in a while, for a few minutes when it's convenient.  People not only see leadership, they feel it—it is something they know because the leader is in the fray...doing the work of it, with them.

If there's dirt involved, a leader's hands have mud all over them.

More True

Ever noticed...that volume doesn't make things more true?

...neither does repetition.

...neither does passion.

...though, all of these can be used to drawn attention to what is true.

Completely Worth It

Instagram: sarcasticlutheran

And this is it.  This is the life we get here on earth.  We get to give away what we receive.  We get to believe in each other.  We get to forgive and be forgiven.  We get to love imperfectly.  And we never now what effect it will have for years to come.  And all of it...all of it is completely worth it.

-- Nadia Bolz-Weber

Epic Cell Phone Choir

Some Good News

Moods and Actions

The way we feel can be triggered by outside events.

And that can change how we act.

And the way we act can reinforce how we feel.

Of course, the opposite is true as well, and far more in our active control.

How we act always changes how we feel.

This is a perfect moment for upskilling. For a sprint in learning something that’s difficult to learn. Not because a teacher or a boss made us do it, but because we chose to. Not only do we get to keep that skill forever, but the act of taking control and expending the effort will change our mood.

And this is the perfect moment for generous connection. Going way beyond the news of the day, we have the chance to create intimate digital interactions that last.

It’s a significant posture shift, one which might change who you see when you look in the mirror.

We might not be able to do anything about external events, but we have control over our actions. Sometimes, it’s hard to stare right into that opportunity, because it comes with a lot of responsibility.

What will you learn today? Who will you teach?

-- Seth Godin, Moods and actions

...emphasis added.

Why vs What

Those who know WHAT they do tend to work harder. Those who know WHY tend to work smarter.

-- Simon Sinek

Finish Line, Q1 2020 - Whew!

Remember all this?

Ninety days ago we stepped into a new decade arguing over whether it was actually a new decade. Today, we’re in a much different world. As Q1 2020 reached the finish line, let’s take a collective breath and rewind:

January 
President Trump ordered a strike killing Iran's top commander, Qassem Soleimani. Oil prices and geopolitical tensions soared then fizzled out.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said the asset manager is doubling down on confronting climate change, a watershed moment for the environment's role in business decisions.

Trump signed a "phase one" trade deal with China, calming two years of tensions, as well as a North American trade deal. The U.K. finally Brexited. And China locked down 56 million people as the coronavirus spread. 

Kobe Bryant's surprise death on Jan. 26 united grieving fans from all over the world. 

February
The Iowa caucuses were a technological disaster. Tesla went on a stock run for the ages. Feb. 7, the Fed said coronavirus could pose a risk to the U.S. economy. 

Facebook changed its political ad policies in the wake of Bloomberg memegate. Weinstein was convicted. And Bob Iger abruptly stepped down as Disney CEO. 

By late February, China was slowly getting back to work after many weeks of quarantine, while the U.S. prepared for an outbreak.

March
Joe Biden took the lead in the Democratic primary, while competitors like Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren ended their campaigns.

Saudi Arabia started an oil price war, and the U.S. began acutely feeling the coronavirus. Companies started WFH. Sports were canceled. Universities closed. Trump's Oval Office address sent travelers scurrying home from Europe. 

In an emergency move to save the economy, the Fed cut rates half a percentage point. March 9, a stock plunge tripped the circuit breaker. Two days later, the Dow entered a bear market. March 16, it logged an almost 3,000 point loss. 

By mid-March, the private sector had mobilized into a wartime economy. Nonessential businesses were closing. 3.3 million Americans filed for unemployment in a week. And the government passed a record $2.2 trillion stimulus package.

Looking ahead...with 2.8+ billion people around the world under some kind of lockdown, many of us will experience Q2 from our living rooms.

-- Morning Brew

USNS Comfort

The USNS Comfort sailed into New York Harbor on yesterdayin the best grand entrance since Willy Wonka. The Navy's hospital ship, home to 1,000 beds and 1,200 medical staff, will be used to relieve some of the COVID-19 strain on the city's healthcare system. It will be treating patients today.

-- New York Times

De-sensitized

I've noticed...that it is rare for me to be de-sensitized to just one thing.

Reach The Divine

It is not in perfection that we reach the divine, but through the gateway of our mistakes and our suffering.

-- Mirabai Starr

Forgive Us Our Sins (And Theirs, Too)

As much as we’d like to believe that Jesus is the author of our Right Christian and Wrong Christian distinctions, we can’t because it is simply untrue. By pursuing us with great tenacity in spite of our differences with him, he shows us that he doesn’t have need for those distinctions.

-- Christena Cleveland


It’s never been easy for followers of Jesus to embrace that we’re all part of the same big family. And today, Christians who strike us as exhibiting un-Christlike behavior have a constant public platform on social media and elsewhere online. The power of their voices in shaping society’s understanding of the church makes us want to distance ourselves and scream that WE are not THEM.

What do we do when we know we’re called to unity but feel justifiably outraged by our brothers and sisters? How can we keep the peace and our integrity at the same time? And how do we hold the tension of addressing the shortcomings of others while at the same time remembering our own?

Entire movements and countless church plants trace their origins to a moment when insurmountable differences seemed to call for breaking fellowship. Today, we are at another cultural flashpoint, where divisions within the faith are particularly severe. And God-fearing people of all persuasions are certain they hold the moral high ground.

...

You do not have to read very much of the text to recognize the prayer as a confession. Daniel finds just about every way imaginable to ask for forgiveness. And he fully identifies himself with his people: We have sinned. We have rebelled. We have not listened. We have done wrong. We have been wicked. We have transgressed. We have turned away. We have been unfaithful. We have refused to obey. We have not sought the Lord. We have not turned from our sins. We have not given attention to your truth.  Continue here....

-- Jeff Peabody

COVID-19: Miscellany

...the war between health and the economy is underway.

This is pretty cool!  Tonight is Earth Hour, a global movement that encourages people to switch off their lights from 8:30pm–9:30pm local time in support of the planet.  Would you join me—in participating?


Sunday night's iHeartRadio Living Room Concert for America is pretty legit, featuring Dave Grohl, Billie Eilish, Demi Lovato, and many more—hosted by Sir Elton John.


Because of the coronavirus, we might even start seeing some midshipmen with mullets. The Navy relaxed its hair length grooming standards for sailors “due to COVID-19 force health protection measures maximizing social distancing.”

Breathe

‘Poem for the week' -- "Breathe":

Breathe.

Go on and live your unexpected
life.

Inhale love. Exhale surrender.
Trust: all that’s in between.

“Behold, all things are become new.”

Really?

There is fear,
there is shock,
there is separation and
there is sadness.

On earth, there always have been, 
and always will be—unless, until
a man of sorrows
rides down the dawn on a white horse
with the jukebox turned way up 
blasting an unexpected song,
hopefully Satchmo himself 
in charge of
blowing the horn,
his cheeks bulging,
his eyes wide,
his lungs healthy.

But don’t hold your breath.

Breathe.

Go on and live your unexpected 
life.

Behold, we don’t know what the future
holds.

We never did. We never will. 

How much oxygen is there
in exhaled air?

All the best priests, pastors, rabbis,
and all the best friends
learn to leave elbow room for mystery.
Never trust anyone who is afraid of saying,
As far as I know.

Breathe.

Go on and live your unexpected 
life.

Does your favorite coffee mug still feel good in
your hand? Did the tree swallows return
limpid in the air? They did here.

Are people you love still near?

Breathe deep into your lungs
while you still can. Even in the best of times
the expiration date remains
unknown.

Breathe.

Go on and live your unexpected
life.

Inhale love. Exhale surrender.
Trust: all that’s in between.

-- Linford Detweiler

Tall & Deep

If you plan to build a tall house of virtues, you must first lay deep foundations of humility.

-- Anonymous

Virus & Freedom

Particularly striking, in light of what things looked like just a few weeks ago.

Today is the first day of our Governor's (Indiana) 'Stay-At-Home' order due to the coronavirus pandemic.  After a flurry of activity locally, we as a state now collectively sit in one place (at least that's theory).  This invocation, of course, runs counter to our psyche.  While there is some rush that comes from the change, I'm guessing it wouldn't be long before it feels like something else.

We don't like to be told what to do.

We don't like to have to stop.

We call the absence of such things freedom.

And yet, despite our misgivings, there is something baked into this that we intuitively know IS about our freedom.  In other words, we can't have complete freedom personally if we can't have it collectively.  My choices affect your freedom, as yours do mine.  So, when the circumstances converge in such a unique way as this (at least for us—many around the world suffer lack of freedoms all the time), we basically all have to agree that we will set aside some of our personal freedoms for the sake of our collective freedom (even if that still is mostly self-serving...so we can get back to having our own freedom again).

How will we use this twist on our sense of freedom?  What will it teach us?  Personally?  More importantly, collectively?

The Range Of Our Knowing:

Until recently, the range of our knowing has been limited by our experience, with the relatively small group of people that, for whatever reason, has been around us.

But no more—the range of our knowing going forward isn’t limited (at least in the same way), because the range of our access to the experience of others is now virtually unlimited.

Knowing

Ever noticed...that it is one thing to know about something and quite another kind of knowing to experience it?

Homily: Life Coming to a Focus

As we grow in the spiritual life, our life will become increasingly centered. Only a few things will really matter. Because of the coronavirus outbreak, I see a lot of people right now thinking this way. There’s a sense that we’re all in this together—every continent, country, class, religion, race, age, or gender. We’re all subject to this crisis. Suffering has an ability to pull you into oneness. 

Maybe you’ve seen such oneness emerge in your family. I went to Kansas last month for my sister’s funeral, and all of my family was there. We don’t have any big resentments or conflicts, but the suffering—and acceptance of that suffering in her death—brought us together in the most beautiful way. It was such an honor to have the funeral with my own family and for my own sister. 

We see an increasing centering take place with Jesus and the disciples in the gospel text from this past Sunday [Matthew 17:1-9]. Jesus is leading the disciples towards the Transfiguration experience. He is preparing them for the cross, and saying, “It’s going to come! Be ready. It’s probably the only thing that will transfigure you.”

As I said in yesterday’s reflection, there are only two major paths by which the human soul comes to God: the path of great love, and the one of great suffering. Both finally come down to great suffering—because if we love anything greatly, we will eventually suffer for it. When we’re young, God hides this from us. We think it won’t have to be true for us. But to love anything in depth and over the long term, we eventually must suffer. 

The disciples first respond to the Transfigured Christ with fear. In our global time of crisis, this is where many of us are today. The disciples mirror the itinerary of the spiritual journey: we start out with many concerns, fears, and worries. Our minds and hearts are all over the place. But Jesus comes, touches them, and says, “Get up and do not be afraid.” When the three disciples raise their eyes, they see nothing but one image: Jesus. Their lives have become fully focused and simplified on the one thing that is good, the one thing they desire, and the one thing that is necessary. What a moment of grace and encouragement!

But then Jesus leads them down the mountain, back into the ordinary world to continue his labor of love, healing and nonviolent protest against Empire. We can’t stay on the mountaintop forever. And then Jesus ends with a line that to me was always a disappointment: don’t tell anybody about what just happened. He might be saying, “Don’t tell this story to someone else, because they’ll think they understand it just by hearing about it.” Religious experience has to be experienced firsthand. We can’t believe it because someone else talked about it. Sooner or later, we have to go to our own mountaintop. We have to have our own transfiguration, and we have to walk down the mountaintop into the ordinary world, on the path of suffering, and the path of love—which are, in the end, the same. As we experience a suffering world together, I pray that this community will be drawn to center itself on the cross and bring Jesus’ teaching to life. 

-- Richard Rohr

On the Lighter Side: Probability Distribution, In Real Life

On the Lighter Side:

Witnessing the Birth of the Coronavirus Economy

New York was still making money a week ago. A few people wearing masks, some closings, but generally business as usual. And then we tumbled down a cliff. By Friday, commuters arriving at Grand Central Terminal paused as they entered the main concourse — stunned by its emptiness, the usual din quieted by stay-at-home orders from companies and the government. For the first time, the vast, star-covered ceiling seemed appropriate.

Earlier this month, I started to travel the city to document the onset of one type of economic activity — the anxious purchase of emergency supplies — and the collapse of many, many others.  More compelling photos here....

-- Ashley Gilbertson


What we are experiencing with Covid-19 is what most of the world experiences every day. Malaria, typhoid, meningitis and water-borne illnesses that endanger your loved ones. Except they have no power to resist it: scarce resources, no clean water, not to mention Purell or soap, to even fight against it. No way to cure, only to endure it.

May God grow compassion in our hearts as the enemy sows seeds of fear and scarcity, and may we give more, love more, and risk more to others in this troubled time. As you feel vulnerable, pray for and give to the most vulnerable. As you feel anxiety, praise God for what you have. As you are tempted to hoard, be generous and give away. There is freedom in this path of generosity and greater pain in the path of scarcity and fear. Even a small light is blinding in great darkness.

-- Matt Hangen, water for good

Outcast

Is this what it feels like without community & friendships?

‘Poem for the week' -- "Outcast":

For the dim regions whence my fathers came
My spirit, bondaged by the body, longs.
Words felt, but never heard, my lips would frame;
My soul would sing forgotten jungle songs.
I would go back to darkness and to peace,
But the great western world holds me in fee,
And I may never hope for full release
While to its alien gods I bend my knee.
Something in me is lost, forever lost,
Some vital thing has gone out of my heart,
And I must walk the way of life a ghost
Among the sons of earth, a thing apart;
For I was born, far from my native clime,
Under the white man’s menace, out of time.

-- Claude McKay

Community & Friendships

Sparked by some of the impacts of COVID-19, I've been thinking more about the nature of communities and the relationship between the ideas of communities and friendships.  What are some of the distinctives about a community and friendships?  How are our ideas about awareness, love, loneliness involved?

Among other things, it seems to me, friends are those who are actively interested in your life.  In other words, because it is personal, they pursue you.  They come to you (and you to them—you know, "To have a friend, you have to be a friend.").

Communities, on the other hand are more about them, something you join.  Sometimes, that reverses, like in times of crisis when communities come to you.  But, mostly, it seems that a community embodies something that you share a common ideal with, something that you are a part of, something you want to work for collectively.  In other words, something you go to.

If communities are something that you pursue, that you seek out; perhaps, friends are those that seek out you.  They want to know and be a part of what is happening for you.

There are times when these two concepts get co-mingled to the point that you don't really know anymore, which is which.  So, the more revealing moments are, when you and the community are not in sync.  Friends get closer—they want to know, are curious, want to become a part of whatever it is you are going through (succeeding, struggling, how you are growing and changing—rather than only in how those changes affect them), whether it is popular (with the community) to do so or not.  Community, however, tends to withdraw—they look at you skeptically, they grow silent, they distance themselves, they fear the needs of the group itself more than the loss of you.

But, sometimes, communities help create and foster friendships.

We are probably fortunate when we experience either one of these; lucky, when we have both.

Terrible Disease

...the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

-- Kurt Vonnegut

More Than Love?

I'm wondering...is there anything that shapes us, or re-makes us, more than love?

Implore You

We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. 

-- 2 Corinthians 5:20, 18-20


...arrangement and emphasis added.

How can this be done without healthy self-understanding?

Being Conscious

Through the lens of the Enneagram we have greater self-knowledge and the ability to let go of what only seems good in order to discover what in us is really good.

As long as we cling to our prejudices and identify with our preconceived views and feelings, genuine community is impossible. We have to get to the point where we can break free from our feelings and thoughts. Otherwise in the end we won’t have emotions or ideas; they will have us.

Sometimes we meet people who are free from themselves. They express what moves them, and then they take a step back. They play an active part in things, but they don’t think they have a corner on the truth market. Without this kind of “inner work,” of simultaneously putting ourselves forward and taking a step back, community is doomed to failure. Learning this is really hard work. I probably can’t expect it from politicians, but I do expect it from people who know God. It’s the work of detachment, self-emptying, and “fasting” from the need to be right—the disciplines taught by all great religions. This is what makes someone “conscious.”

-- Richard Rohr

COVID-19: Healthcare System Capacity

From:  COVID-19 #Coronavirus Data Pack

What seems to be really going on and the fight over it:

Italy’s Health Care System Groans Under Coronavirus — a Warning to the World

Inside the Oval Office, a Fierce Fight Over Trump’s Virus Speech

Shouldn’t leaders, like our President, embody the greatest features of vision for the spirit that make us all human, instead of those that make us more inhumane (fearful)? ...especially at times of crisis?  It's too late to 'show up' at that point and pretend to be decisive.  That's not leadership—that, among other things, is populist pandering....

COVID-19 at Least Partly Contributed to Dramatic Fall in Pollution Over China

Signatures

From Michiana Chronicles:

My daughter spent a lot of her spare time this winter wrapped up against the cold on the streets of downtown Brooklyn asking strangers for the signatures that are needed to get the fellow from her hometown on the presidential primary ballot in New York’s eighth congressional district. That’s Lily. Some of you know her, and I know the thought of her makes you smile. She has a positive spirit. Lily collected signatures from strangers on the streets of Brooklyn after work, after long, tough social worker days telling patients and their families the truth about what’s out there when they leave Manhattan’s Mt. Sinai hospital.  

"There was one lady,” Lily told me, “who said she absolutely would not sign a petition for Pete Buttigieg. She told me she had heard that the town where he was mayor, South Bend, Indiana, is a terrible place, especially for minorities, and he’s a bad guy who has done things to make life bad for people there.

“I told her, ‘I’m from South Bend,’” Lily said, “and I said, ‘I don’t think that’s true.’”

“Then the woman said, ‘Well, I have friends in South Bend, and I say it is.’”  Continue here....

-- Sid Shroyer


When can we move forward from the competition-only framework, that we've ended up with, and toward a collaborative-constructive one?  I think this resonates with those (young and old) who are interested in more than the current simplistic good-guys vs bad-guys win-at-all-costs mentality and actually want to solve problems positively, for the betterment of all.

You Will Have Been All Of These

...how far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.

-- George Washington Carver


The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.

-- Madeleine L’Engle

Disappointed

My recent knee surgery had a goal, at least in my mind.  It was pretty straight-forward:  to be able to run again, pain-free.

I have learned that the surgeon apparently had to take out about 70% of my meniscus to achieve the goal (the pain-free part, at least).  This leaves me with an inevitability—to run regularly again will only increase my chances of more significant knee problems.  In other words, no more regular running.

Devastation...is over-stating things a bit.  But, I am disappointed.

I've talked about disappointment before; but, this time, it is registering a bit more deeply with me.

You see, I love to run.  I think it has been one of my greatest sources of overall health.  Not just physically; it has also been one of my greatest therapies.

I am now imagining a world where fixing something (like surgery) is not possible—where living with less of something that I really want is perpetual.  I am tempted to think that this is more than simple disappointment.

But, in reality, that appeal to something more dramatic is probably just evidence of my sense of privilege—that most anything that isn't right, can be fixed or solved.  But, what if it can't?  Many people (and whole people groups) live with a lot of things that are way more disappointing than this—and with a perpetual sense that they will never have the something they really want, ever....

I can go a number of directions with this feeling.  But, the main one for me right now is to allow myself to just be disappointed.  To be fully present to it—not to get away from it or to re-position it, to feel victimized by it, etc.

This willingness, I suspect, is able to provide me with the capacity to experience something I otherwise would miss (in my rush to find other remedies).  Perhaps it is a means of knowing something I would not know, an experience of something that others experience that I know too little about, an awareness of something otherwise too long undetected.  And, perhaps it is a means of reconnecting me to something.

I don't like being disappointed.  But, I need to be able to be.

25% More

Employees who exercise regularly are 25% more focused, driven, and efficient than those who don't. 

-- Gary Sorrell

Unsuspected Joy of Slowness

I've noticed...though I too often tend to chafe against it, slowness can have its own kind of joy.

My recent knee surgery has slowed me down.  I've been a little chagrined at my frustration over how long it seems to take to get to the places I need to be.  I didn't think I was that committed to speed.  But, it turns out I am.  At the very least, I don't like to be slowed down.  That is a little sad.

For one thing, slowness can give us a chance to see things, we otherwise might not.  When we slow down or even stop, we can see what else is moving. Because of the surgery, I've had to spend time just sitting. But, being in one spot has enabled me to notice more of what is moving around me—a runner going by, the particularities of a bird winging itself across the sky overhead, leaves flittering in the wind, a man making a sign, and so on.
Life is in motion at so many levels beyond just the one I am on. There is a beauty to it that is independent of my participation, but that also invites it...even if that amounts to no more than just noticing it. I feel an unsuspected joy embedded in this reality—the one I've noticed because of slowness.

Recklessness

I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.

-- William Sloane Coffin

World's Worst Football Coach

Initiative

The only way to get initiative is to take it. It’s never given.

And some people hesitate to take it, perhaps because they’re worried that we’ll somehow run out.

We’re not going to run out. It’s a self-renewing resource.

From an early age, most of us were taught to avoid it. Do your homework. Take out the trash. Wait to get picked. Wait to get called on. Become popular. Fit in. Maybe stand out, but just a little bit. Failure is far worse than not trying.

The alternative is to take some initiative. On behalf of those you seek to serve.

Go ahead, there’s plenty to go around.

-- Seth Godin, Initiative

Not About the Here and Now

Believing that spirituality is just about transcendence, and not about the here and now, allows us to excuse ourselves from intervening in the ongoing oppression and marginalization of certain bodies.

-- Hillary McBride

Embracing Risk

Many people believe they cannot afford (to risk) change.  And, it seems even more believe it is just too hard to embrace its disruption, even when it comes to them anyway.

But the reality is that life (God?) is always pulling us forward—inviting us to change (to grow) because changing is simply cooperating with what is already happening, everywhere.   Holding on to things, especially beliefs in the way things used to be, is largely a futile effort because things will change anyway, with or without our approval.

Holding on to beliefs is often largely about something else anyway, like a desire for security.  But, in what (or in whom) are we secure?  Certainly not in the fact that things won’t change...because they will—because they do.

Static is a design feature that we might prefer, but it doesn't actually exist—change just IS.

So, the real risk then, it seems to me, is not embracing it.