Sorry, but most of the things you ‘choose’ are random

 

Let me blow your mind a bit: When you choose things, you’re not choosing based on personal preferences. Your choices are somewhat random, and you’re wired to like them.

Every day you choose between nearly identical sodas and sunglasses and seats. Psychologists have long known that over time those choices lead to biases, such as always reaching for a Sprite or Dr. Pepper or Coke. Now researchers at Johns Hopkins have found the same behavior in babies, whom they watched (over and over and over again) as they randomly chose a block from a room full of identical ones—and then stopped liking all the others.

This suggests that we like things because we chose them, which is very different than what we think we’re doing, choosing things because we like them.  Continue here....

-- Arianne Cohen

Make Up of the US Supreme Court

AXIOS

Aunt Chloe’s Politics

'Poem for the week' -- "Aunt Chloe’s Politics":

Of course, I don’t know very much
    About these politics,
But I think that some who run ’em
    Do mighty ugly tricks.

I’ve seen ’em honey-fugle round,
    And talk so awful sweet,
That you’d think them full of kindness,
    As an egg is full of meat.

Now I don’t believe in looking
    Honest people in the face,
And saying when you’re doing wrong,
    That “I haven’t sold my race.”

When we want to school our children,
    If the money isn’t there,
Whether black or white have took it,
    The loss we all must share.

And this buying up each other
    Is something worse than mean,
Though I thinks a heap of voting,
    I go for voting clean.

-- Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Must First Have It

Before you speak of peace, you must first have it in your heart. 

-- St. Francis of Assisi

Empathy Is Taking The Time

Empathy is taking the time to understand the path that someone else has walked.

-- Mrs Murphy, Idaho Falls teacher

Both individually and collectively, we could all benefit from extending and receiving more empathy right now.  

What might be hidden here is the observation that it takes time to do this.  We so often feel that we don't have the time to truly do this well.  Why is that?  Time is really all we do have.  Perhaps, it would be helpful to consider what is it that I'm letting compete for my sense of time.

Besides this being just good theory, what can I do more specifically empathy-wise for someone else?  For myself?

Something Else

If you find that you can't seem to give yourself to something, it usually means that you are giving yourself to something else. 

What are you giving yourself to?

One Week to Election Day or...

"Times are a changin'", regarding how we do things.  As of just a few days ago:

 

AXIOS

So many are hoping that in just one week, this will finally be over.

If only that would be true....

Speed of Time

I've had an 'I’m wondering...' mini-series going on here for some time now (follow the link by the same name, if interested).

Lately, I've been wondering about time.  I’m wondering...does the speed of time change?  Scientifically, the answer seems like an easy ‘no, of course not’.

But, you don’t have to talk to very many to hear a common refrain, life at times can feel like it really speeds up.

This weekend, I spent some time with my 2 1/2 yr old grandson.  We went on a walk.  He found lots of things that interested him — sticks, seeds, water, mud.  He used a stick to hit the trunk of a tree (dozens of times).  He saw some workers digging a hole; and watched and watched, and watched some more.  He found a mud puddle and sat down in it, rubbing his hands in the mud.  And, then he four a unique-looking seed pod and pushed it around in the puddle...for what felt like a long time to me, but not to him.  

Time had no pace.  He had no place to go.  I really didn't either.  

I made a mental note; how different this pace is than that of most of my days.  

When I talk to my parents, who are in their late 70s, I get the impression their sense of time is more like by grandson's.

In other words, on the edges of life — in the beginning and perhaps towards the end — time seems much slower than it does in the middle.

When time feels fast to us, what is happening?  Does it really have anything to do with time?  Or, is this about something else?

If time is constant (is it?), what is the difference in our experience with it?  Why can it feel like it changes, at different points in our lives?  And, what about the moral quality we can so often attached to the use of time?  I'm wondering....

You Still Dream

'Poem for the week' -- "You Still Dream":

Here, poem meets prayer.

We are exceedingly comfortable

with posturing and self-defense

that masquerade as apology.

But what’s needed in this moment

is unmixed confession

of our nation’s sin,

deep and indefensible.

“Now I lay me down to sleep”

must make way for

something more muscular:

sack cloth and ashes,

prayer and fasting,

naked prostration.

Daniel understood

radical repentance begins

with this unvarnished profession:

You are righteous,

and we are not.

Please heal our nation.

Cleanse our stubborn hearts.

Show each of us what part to play.

Broken as Judah and Jerusalem,

we cry and come bending our will

toward the good

you dream for us still,

no matter our sin,

no matter what skin

we’re in.

-- Nikki Grimes

From the author:

“Confession is the first step towards meaningful change, but when it comes to the sin of racism, many Americans skip this all-important step and jump straight to a pious posture of prayer for the nation. I believe absolutely in the power of prayer, but not when it’s hollow. This poem is a response to that hollowness.”

Current Events

The secrets to a healthy life

In the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study, patients who adhered to healthy dietary principles (low meat consumption and high intake of fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain bread), never smoked, were not overweight, and had at least 30 minutes a day of physical activity had a 78% lower overall risk of developing a chronic disease.

This included a 93% reduced risk of diabetes, an 81% lower risk of heart attacks, a 50% reduction in risk of stroke, and a 36% overall reduction in risk of cancer, compared with participants without these healthy factors.

That’s really mind-boggling. Type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes are pandemic, already affecting almost one-half of all Americans. United Health Care projected that if current trends continue, annual costs from these will be more than $3.3 trillion over the next decade, which is clearly not sustainable.

And yet the EPIC study showed that type 2 diabetes is completely preventable for at least 93% of people today. We don’t need a new breakthrough; we just need to put into practice what we already know. Also, lowering blood sugar with diet and lifestyle is more effective at preventing premature death and disease than getting it down with diabetes medications.  Continue here....

-- Dean Ornish

Visual: Fall Tree Of The Day, 2020

Visual - 'Fall Tree of the Day, 2020"

Winona Lake, IN

More Fall 2020 pics here....

Preferred Future

New actions will be guided by a preferred future that embraces:

• resilience in place of growth
• collaboration in place of consumption
• wisdom in place of progress
• balance in place of addiction
• moderation in place of excess
• vision in place of convenience
• accountability in place of disregard
• self-giving love in place of self-centered fear . . .

-- Jim Antal

It Is That Serious

When you judge people that are different from you, you’re killing them.

Yes, it is THAT serious.

You're killing part of them and, any time that happens, it feels (to them) like you're killing all of them.

When you reach conclusions about people; when you don’t engage with them and instead foster your conclusions about them (privately or in the groups you belong to), you are judging them.

When you spend more and more time building a case against people — or, even worse, let other people do it for you — especially people that you’ve never even talked to; you are reaching for conclusions, you are judging them.

IT is that serious.

And, if you need moral authority here, remind yourself of the Scriptures which say “Judge not...lest you be judged”.   Did you read the last part of that (or just the first part)?

If that's true and if judging kills, your very life hangs in this balance, not to mention theirs.

It is that SERIOUS.

When you’ve not been curious enough to talk to actual people that you are judging; when you’re not personally engaging with the systems that you are using to judge those people, then you really are just interested in conclusions (judgment).

...not in curiosity, not in love.

It IS that serious.

When can we talk about our systems?

Your team is down by a few points and the game is almost over. What play should you call?

[When can we talk about the system of drafting and training that got your team to this situation in the first place?]

Your back hurts and you think you need surgery to help with the pain.

[When can we talk about the technique you use when you go running every day?]

Your employee shows up late regularly. How can you get them to care more?

[When can we talk about your hiring and leadership approaches?]

There’s racial injustice and unfairness all around us.

[Can we talk about persistent indoctrination around caste?]

You just had an argument with your brother. What’s the best way for him to see that you’re right?

[When can we talk about the narratives your family has developed for generations?]

Universities and local schools are in crisis with testing in disarray and distant learning ineffective…

[When can we talk about what school is for?]

It’s comfortable to ignore the system, to assume it is as permanent as the water surrounding your goldfish. But the fact that we have these tactical problems is all the evidence we need to see that something is causing them, and that spending time on the underlying structure could make a difference.

In a crisis, there’s maximum attention. And in a crisis, we often discard any pretense of caring about systems and resilience and focus only on how to get back to normal. This is precisely why normal is what normal is, because we fight to get back to it.

Changing the system changes everything. And it might be even less work than pouring water on today’s tactical emergency.

-- Seth Godin, When can we talk about our systems?

Strengths & Surroundings

Ever noticed...how often people’s strengths, good or bad, are often a function of or correlate with their surroundings?

Character, Compassion, Vulnerability

 

Instagram: mariashriver

I want to remind you of your decency, of your character, of your compassion and your vulnerability.  I want to remind you that these qualities are strengths, not weaknesses.  Use them this week to sow love when you see hatred.  Use them to calm when you detect fear.  Be a beacon of understanding.  We need you!

-- Maria Shriver

Sell Things

I'm not against Christian hope, just using it to sell things.

-- Barbara Brown Taylor

What Makes Some People More Resilient Than Others

A few years ago, an unimaginable thing happened in my life. I wanted to help someone I cared about, someone who was sick with an illness he was hiding. I went to his house, intent on a rescue operation that would end, I thought, with a trip to the emergency room. Instead, it ended with a trip to the morgue. What I found when I arrived was my ex-husband, dead on his bathroom floor. The hidden illness? An intravenous drug addiction.

It was, without question, the most traumatic event of my life, but not only mine. I had two teenage children at the time, who had unknowingly been given a front-row seat to their father’s slow suicide. It took two years for me to settle my ex-husband’s estate, which was thrown into probate, and meant a kind of suspended traumatic animation for me, as I continued to live in what felt like a constant state of emergency.

Back then, I thought we would never really recover, that our lives would always be stained with this terrible sadness. But now, nearly five years later, we’re doing well — really well. Or we were, until recently, when along with the rest of the world we began living through the current convergence of crises. 

...

The tools common to resilient people are optimism (that is also realistic), a moral compass, religious or spiritual beliefs, cognitive and emotional flexibility, and social connectedness. The most resilient among us are people who generally don’t dwell on the negative, who look for opportunities that might exist even in the darkest times. During a quarantine, for example, a resilient person might decide it is a good time to start a meditation practice, take an online course or learn to play guitar.

Research has shown that dedication to a worthy cause or a belief in something greater than oneself — religiously or spiritually — has a resilience-enhancing effect, as does the ability to be flexible in your thinking.

“Many, many resilient people learn to carefully accept what they can’t change about a situation and then ask themselves what they can actually change,” Dr. Southwick said. Conversely, banging your head against the wall and fretting endlessly about not being able to change things has the opposite effect, lessening your ability to cope. Continue here....

-- Eilene Zimmerman

Third Rock from the Sun

'Poem for the week' -- "Third Rock from the Sun":

That streetlight looks like the slicked backbone
            of a dead tree in the rain, its green lamp blazing
like the first neon fig glowing in the first garden
            on a continent that split away from Africa
from which floated away Brazil. Why are we not
            more amazed by the constellations, all those flung
stars held together by the thinnest filaments
            of our evolved, image making brains. For instance,
here we are in the middle of another Autumn,
            plummeting through a universe that made us
from its shattering and dust, stooping
            now to pluck an orange leaf from the sidewalk,
a small veined hand we hold in an open palm
            as we walk through the park on a weekend we
invented so we would have time to spare. Time,
            another idea we devised so the days would have
an epilogue, precise, unwavering, a pendulum
            strung above our heads. When was the sun
enough? The moon with its diminishing face?
            The sea with its nets of fish? The meadow’s
yellow baskets of grain? If I was in charge
            I’d say leave them there on their backs
in the grass, wondering, eating berries
            and rolling toward each other’s naked bodies
for warmth, for something we’ve yet to name,
            when the leaves were turning colors in their dying
and we didn’t know why, or that they would return,
            bud and green. One of a billion
small miracles. This planet will again be stone.

--Dorianne Laux

Visual - "Veins of Color":

Pierceton, IN

Curators

At the end of the day, we are all mostly curators.

Sometimes a thought needs description; context that enhances the quality of its truth.

At other times, a thought is enhanced most by lack of anything that distracts from it.

Which is best for the original statement above?

Being Present

The other day, a beautiful sunrise was taking place right in front of me, and yet there I was fiddling with my phone so that I could get a picture of it.

How much time do we spend recording life, rather than being present to it?

It seems really hard to be present at times or, to put it another way, really easy not to be.

Being present will cost you something — mostly though, only to the ego.  But in the end, I suspect not being present will cost you more.

Great Insights

Great insights come through interacting with people, gaining experiences and letting your mind make connections. 

-- Scott Barry Kaufman

Hurt You

I've noticed...you have to be willing to be hurt by the ones you love — it is the only way.

The alternative — being unwilling to be hurt by them — never works for the reason that make sense to you because it is the belief that I can only love when I’m not being hurt that is the true illusion.  This is based in the fear that I am only loved when I deserve to be loved, which is a fatal flaw in our perception of what love is, both in terms of receiving and giving it.

This is the way all those who have loved greatly have taken — willingness to let yourself be hurt by those you love...by the way, the very thing that makes you even more capable of love.

Instagram: mariashriver

Loathing Will Numb Us

We must pray "Search me & know me" more than "Convince & convict them."  To loathe our enemy more than we look at our brokenness will numb us to grace & deaden our hearts.  An unexamined heart rarely leads to life & healing. In the pursuit of justice, submit your life. Go first.

-- Ashlee Eiland

Unless we find concrete ways to weep over the brokenness, we will use the brokenness to break others. And ourselves. 

-- Aaron Niequist

...you cannot heal what you do not acknowledge; and what you do not consciously acknowledge will remain in control of you from within, harming you and those around you, particularly those you love. 

-- Richard Rohr

Humiliation is the way to humility. 

-- Thomas Keating

So confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, and this will cure you. 

-- James 5:16

Survey finds we worry about the wrong risks

A new global risk poll surveyed tens of thousands of people in 142 countries to determine what people worry about when it comes to risk and safety.

Why it matters: The poll offers a telling snapshot of how people around the world perceive the risks they face, which often turn out to be different than the risks they are actually experiencing.

By the numbers: The poll, which was carried out by Gallup and the Lloyd's Register Foundation (LRF), found that people around the world were most worried about the effects of severe weather, violent crime and food.

Be smart: The survey found that what people around the world thought was a major risk didn't always line up with the risks they were actually experiencing, notes Sarah Cumbers, director of evidence and insight at LRF.

• That was especially true of violent crime, where nearly twice the percentage of respondents reported being very worried about violence as those who had actually experienced it.
• 43% of Americans were worried about violent crime, even though the U.S. murder rate in 2019 — the year the survey was done — was lower than it was in 1960.
• By contrast, respondents tended to underplay less dramatic but more common threats like malfunctioning appliances and mental health.  Continue here....

-- Bryan Walsh

Why Conspiracy Theories Are So Addictive Right Now

The other night, as President Trump convalesced at Walter Reed, I took a spin through social media to see the latest news on his health.

Instead, what I found were a bunch of paranoid partisans posting grainy, zoomed-in photos, analyzing video footage frame by frame, and people straining to connect the dots on far-fetched conspiracy theories involving a cabal of nefarious elites staging an elaborate cover-up.

No, I didn’t stumble into a room for QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory. In fact, many of the people sharing bogus and unverified claims on my feeds were die-hard Democrats. Some of them were speculating, with no evidence, that Mr. Trump was faking his bout with Covid-19 to engender sympathy and boost his re-election chances. Others claimed that Mr. Trump had died and been replaced by a body double (nope), that he had gotten a secret vaccine from Russia and was quarantining until it took effect (also nope) or that he had deliberately contracted the disease to distract the public from a New York Times article about his taxes (creative, but doubtful).

None of these theories passed the smell test, but they were retweeted and shared thousands of times anyway.  Continue here....

-- Kevin Roose 

Visual: Wood Eye

Visual - "Wood Eye":

Winona Lake, IN

First Time in 208 Years

A too-simple answer to a complicated problem

The problem: how can we get people what they want and need?

It turns out that the simple short-term answer is the market.

The marketplace makes it possible to buy a nail clipper made of hardened steel for just four dollars, but only when you’re ready. The marketplace offers some people a solid brass set of the cups and balls magic trick and other people a hand-blown glass vase.

The marketplace is hyper-alert and never tires of finding overlooked corners of desire.

But the marketplace is not wise.

It’s blind, short-term and fairly stupid. Because it has no overarching goal. The market is nothing but billions of selfish people, trading this for that, without regard for what’s next.

Left alone, capitalism will devolve into corruption, bribery and predatory pricing leading to monopoly. Left alone, capitalism will pollute rivers, damage our health and create ever greater divides.

Capitalism gets us an opioid epidemic, the dark patterns of social media and doom scrolling.

Because the market isn’t wise. It has no sense of time or proportion.

The only way for the simple answer to solve our complicated problems is for it to have guardrails, boundaries that enable it to function for the long haul.

That’s something we need leadership to get done. And it’s more likely to get done if we acknowledge that we need to do it.

-- Seth Godin, A too-simple answer to a complicated problem 

What are we going to do to make things better?

Our question needs to evolve from what’s wrong, with this or that, to what are we going to do about it?  

    What are we going to do to make things better?

Being the critic, or simply trolling to reinforce my position, on what's wrong is not enough.

    What are we going to do to make things better?

Nothing...is not an answer.

    What are we going to do to make things better?

Details matter.

    What are we going to do to make things better?

Who's job is it (can't keep saying, "It's not my problem"), is the fundamental question.

    What are WE going to do to make things better?

Otherwise, things won't get better...I suspect that is already obvious enough.

Integrity

Integrity is when our words and deeds are consistent with our intentions.

-- Simon Sinek


Another thing we could use a little more of these days....

Connection

Ever noticed...that connection to ideas seems to go only so far without connection to people those ideas impact?

This betrays the fact that at the center of good ideas are people.  People are the energy for ideas, both for them and from them.  

In other words, if you take people of out of the picture, ideas start to wither in terms of their import, their energy, their efficacy and they begin to become something else.

People are connected thru ideas.

Authentic Spirituality

Authentic spirituality is about finding true freedom. It offers us freedom from our smaller selves as a reference point for everything or anything.

We become ever more free as we let go of our three primary motivations: our need for power and control, our need for safety and security, and our need for affection and esteem.

Powerlessness is the beginning of wisdom.

-- Richard Rohr

Something Deeper

In the end, we need a purpose for our existence...some reason (or driver) that compels us thru the meaninglessness of many things about life.

We all have awareness that there is something deeper in us to trust; something deeper than the political winds of our lives which are vying for our attention (often successfully), by appealing to what we think we need to do to survive.

Some refer to this as common sense.

But, it’s deeper than that; what we can trust is something innate within us—a love...of self, of another, of creation...of God.

Red Brocade

'Poem for the week' -- "Red Brocade":

The Arabs used to say,
When a stranger appears at your door,
feed him for three days
before asking who he is,
where he’s come from,
where he’s headed.
That way, he’ll have strength
enough to answer.
Or, by then you’ll be
such good friends
you don’t care.

Let’s go back to that.
Rice? Pine nuts?
Here, take the red brocade pillow.
My child will serve water
to your horse.

No, I was not busy when you came!
I was not preparing to be busy.
That’s the armor everyone put on
to pretend they had a purpose
in the world.

I refuse to be claimed.
Your plate is waiting.
We will snip fresh mint
into your tea.

--Naomi Shihab Nye 

Couldn't we use a little more of this right now?

Un-Presidential Debate

Maybe next week the Vice-Presidential candidates can return things to something more...Presidential (our children are watching how our leaders treat people, you know).

Unfortunately, to say the least, this week's debate was so...un-Presidential (not at all an adequate presentation of the ideals of leadership in the free world), including characteristics like:

• Chaotic and distracting
• 'Just making things up' (including numbers)
• Hyperbolization
• Self-aggrandizement
• Pot-calling-the-kettle-black — law-and-order, violence, Russia, etc.
• Disrespectful — no listening to observations (experiences) of other people
• Name-calling — what grade are we in again?

It did nothing to exemplify why a debate contributes to the kind of discourse that is needed in and a feature of a healthy democracy.  And, it robbed the people of an opportunity to listen to how facts are viewed from different (even opposing) perspectives and make an intelligent decision (vote).  A reality-TV show model for living real life does not serve this or us well.  

Though I'm not a huge fan of many of the Democrats' ideas; at the very least, they seem to try to address the people's issues.   But, I despise how Republicans run things.  They look so chicken-shit scared of losing power (to either the Democrats...or Donald Trump) that they just don't say anything (ex, taxes, among many other even more things) and pretend as if nothing is happening.

I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing — not from the right wing....

-- Donald Trump

'Everything I see...'—it can be frightening to not admit that what we so often see is precisely limited to what we are already looking for.

When we are content and satisfied on the inside of any group, we seem to suffer from a structural indifference.

-- Richard Rohr

From the stats above, 30% of Americans said they were 'entertained' — humans are better than this, or should be.

Let's work against de-humunization wherever it is, but especially in the service of public office...starting at the highest level.

Wielding the Political Sword

If you create dis-trust in everything but yourself, it may come back to bite you.

How does the saying go?  "You reap what you sow."

You live and die wielding the political sword.

We All Have Choices To Make

The only thing we can't do is nothing.

-- Simon Sinek

We all have choices to make.

An easy slide appears to be into the belief that I can't choose because of the variety of things that have been done to me or that are going on around me; because I am a victim and, therefore, impoverished to the point that I can no longer choose.

We all can still make choices...and, in fact, do anyway.

Granted, awful things DO happen—consequences of other people's choices, consequences of my own, and sometimes of neither (...whatever happened just happened, as far as we can tell).  These realities can make choosing extremely challenging.

But, we all still have the power of choice.

And, we all have choices to make.

Society—which meant pagan society, limited by the horizons and prospects of life “in this world”—was regarded by them as a shipwreck from which each single individual had to swim for their life. . . . These were people who believed that to let oneself drift along, passively accepting the tenets and values of what they knew as society, was purely and simply a disaster. The fact that the Emperor was now Christian and that the “world” was coming to know the Cross as a sign of temporal power only strengthened them in their resolve.

-- Thomas Merton, re: Desert Fathers and Mothers after Edict of Milan, 313 A.D.

Keeping Score

I've noticed...when I start keeping score, something needs attention within me.  Something is anxious.  Something is looking for an object, or an outlet.  Something wants to blame others.

Something is appealing to my desire to keep track of what others are or are not doing.

Noticing is one thing.  Keeping score is another.  I've learned to pay attention to that.

As Jesus Did

Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.

-- 1 John 2:6


"Oh, sure I do that. ...not perfectly, of course, but hey none of us are perfect right?  At least I try!"

Do I...really?

I suspect we are nowhere even close to truly living how Jesus did; it's too uncomfortable.  In fact, we seem pretty content to have 'let him do it'.

...if we claim to live in him, we must live as he did.

Um, this IS getting uncomfortable now....

The art of asking the right questions

Visual: Skyter II

Visual - "Skyter II":

Winona Lake, IN

Power

Power seems to be a blood-lust for nearly all political endeavors. 

The current Republican ideology seems to be preoccupied with power, as if they believed in nothing else other than their own ability or need to preserve themselves.  It will use any rule it can to its own advantage, even if it has to contradict itself to do so. 

You can smell it on Democrats' breath, too (they want it, too...more than ever).  Ideologically, it seems to me, Democrats seem closer to the plight of the common man (you know, those the economy uses up for the benefit of the wealthy).  Unfortunately, their vision too often seems confined to the powers of government; which, in the end, appears to be a self-serving thing...more than it is a people-serving thing.

Power seems to be the king (rather than things like integrity) of the political process right now; when it rules, nearly anything will be done to retain it...or get it.

I don't like much of what either political party is about right now—which seems mostly like confronting the evil of the other party, rather than the people it should be serving. 

So, the irony is, for all the power-seeking going on, both groups seem to have largely lost their real power...which comes from serving the people.

I predict, a third way will emerge—the question is, how long and painful it will have to become for it to happen?

On Police Funding, Which Position Do You Support?

 
Does anything here surprise you (in light of mainstream media narrative)? 

What factors are important to you?

"Is that the most important thing?"

If you want to have an argument, to raise tempers or to distract, the easiest thing to do is start bringing up things that are easy to argue about.

Not the things that are important.

Because the important things require nuance, patience and understanding. They require an understanding of goals, of the way the world works and our mutual respect.

If someone keeps coming back to an irrelevant, urgent or provocative point instead, they’re signaling that they’d rather not talk about the important thing.

Which is precisely what we need to talk about.

-- Seth Godin, “Is that the most important thing?”

Starts With Listening

Any worthwhile conversation starts with listening.

-- Simon Sinek

God Told Me To

Ever noticed...something odd when people say, "God told me to..."?

I don't question the possibility (well, actually, I do...a little).

But, I am suspicious when it feels like this phrase is used to legitimize something, shut down a conversation or close something off.  Not to mention the rather selective nature of when this does (does not) get used.  ...which is what makes me wonder about the objectivity the statement seems to claim.

It often feels like an announcement; and, not an invitation.

Lot of Crap, But...

Instagram: nakedpastor

Regarding the church, half of what it believes is a lot of crap...simple religious socialization (not that all socialization is bad); but, the other half...can save your soul.

Perhaps, some of life's spiritual journey is learning how to know the difference.


And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change . . . you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
‭‭
-- Matthew‬ ‭18:3‬

Some Pro-Life Activists Think Twice About Supporting Trump

A pro-life spokeswoman quit her job rather than endorse Donald Trump for another term in the White House.

Trump has called himself the most pro-life president in history. But Stephanie Ranade Krider, executive director for Ohio Right to Life, decided she couldn’t support him and couldn’t keep working for the prominent pro-life group as it prepared to help him win re-election.

She resigned June 30. The next morning, she woke up and felt like she could finally breathe again.

“You learn to hold certain things in tension, and for me it came to a point where I couldn’t anymore,” Krider said. “I’ve been grateful for the things Trump has accomplished and skeptical of his pro-life views.

Always, there has been this undercurrent where he just does not respect women and he does not like black and brown people. I can’t look at any of his behavior and see evidence of the Holy Spirit in his life. Nothing about his words or actions are kind or gentle or faithful or full of self-control.”

It wasn’t an easy decision to quit...continue.

-- Daniel Silliman


For additional consideration on what pro-life should mean, see here:

For some, treating the 2020 election as a referendum on abortion is a way to live with Trump’s moral ugliness. If there is only one issue on the ballot, then only one policy position counts, not Trump’s character as a man and a leader. This has the virtue of simplicity and the drawback of complicity in grave wrongs.

-- Michael Gerson

Diabolic

'Poem for the week' -- "Diabolic":

“Their colour is a diabolic die.”

            —Phillis Wheatley

What they say they are

And what they actually do

Is what Phillis overhears.

It’s like she isn’t there.

It’s like she’s a ghost, at arm’s length, hearing

The living curse out the dead—

Which, she’s been lead to believe

No decent person does in a church.

How they say they love her

And how they look at her

Is what Phillis observes;

Like she’s the hole in the pocket

After the money rolls out.

God loves everybody—even the sinner,

(they say)

Even a mangy hound can rely

On a scrap of meat, scraped off the plate

(they say).

What they testify

And what they whisper in earshot

Is as dark as her skin, whistled from opposite sides

Of a mouth.

Is she the bible’s fine print?

--Cornelius Eady

From the author:

“‘Diabolic’ is part of a cycle of poems I’m writing on Phillis Wheatley, concerning the complication of the slave learning their captor’s language. The quote at the top of the poem is a line from Wheatley’s poem ‘On Being Brought from Africa to America.’ In it, Wheatley challenges a common dilemma, which is still a problem today—the distance between white, ‘progressive’ Christian beliefs about race, and resistance by those same progressives to actively examine those problems in their own house. ‘Diabolic’ is such a hurtful term, a term of difference and distancing—I wonder how many times she heard it, while she sat close by in a room, and my poem tries to imagine how she turned that word in her head—a child of God, yet always to be considered a devil—certainly, always ‘less than’—before she wrote it down in one of the most American poems I think we have.”

Not A Straight Line

Healing is not a straight line, it is a weaving process.

-- from an NPR program


You cannot heal what you do not acknowledge.

-- Richard Rohr

Catalyzes

I’m not sure that anything catalyzes our ability (or willingness) to change more than our direct experience with pain. Or, being constrained; that also seems to catalyze desire for change.

If that's true for us, why would it not be true for other people; you know, those people who aren't like us?

Most Profound Message

The most profound message of racial segregation may be that the absence of people of color from our lives is no real loss. Not one person who loved me, guided me, or taught me ever conveyed the suggestion that segregation deprives me of anything of value.

-- Robin Diangelo


My work with the poor and the incarcerated has persuaded me that the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice.

-- Bryan Stevenson


If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

-- Jaime Schehr

None Of Us Will Succeed

I've noticed...if we don't all succeed; in the end, none of us will.

In other words, it is always about everyone—not just me, not just white people, not just the middle-class, not just Americans...like for Jesus—not just religious leaders, men, or Jews.

The nature of redemption is not singular.

Feeding the Poor

Why, when Jesus talks about feeding the poor, it's Christianity but when a politician does it, it's Socialism?

-- Lisa Sharon Harper

Something We Imagine

Love is largely something we imagine, until we actually have to do it.


This thought has been peculating in my mind, as I have approached this day—the great day that my son, Conner, got married.  What a privilege it is to experience love.

I'm so glad for Conner and Gina:

Basic Need

Our basic need for human acceptance (if not love) is primal, or perhaps another way to say it, God-given.

The irony is that full human acceptance is not possible…acceptance of all that we truly are can only be manifested fully in God.

And, because this is true, our ability to be accepted can only be completed within our own selves, because only God fully knows and inhabits us (image-bearing). Another person is not capable of that kind of in-habitation, that kind of full acceptance.

And so, though we crave it at a basic-need level, we can’t wait for or expect another person to provide the full acceptance we desire.

Add Another Risk Factor To Those Faced By Players In The NFL

Sports commentator Mike Pesca reflects on the beginning of the NFL season as some players opt out because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Players were already dealing with health concerns like concussions.

An interesting assessment, it seems to me, regarding health issues related to the sport:

• No uniformity in how seriously people take health warnings
• Wide variety in the public's willingness to curtail activities
• Accuracy related to belief systems
• No consensus on what the price may be

If You Want To Change

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

-- Marcel Proust


If you want to change, you have to see things differently.

In order to see things differently, you have to see different things.

And to see different things, you have to put yourself in different places, where you can see things you don’t normally see.

This will expand your vision.


Unless you don’t want to change….

But, that may be a bigger problem than you think because life is changing, with or without you.  It is not a fixed thing; it is dynamic—always moving, evolving...changing.

An example; you are not the same as you were 30 years ago, or even 10 years ago.  For one thing, you are getting older.  You are physically changing.  Hopefully, you are also becoming more mature, too; even wiser.

Some of this change, wasn't appropriate when you were younger.  But, now it is.  In fact, it is necessary.  We refer to this as growth.

After all, you get weirder and weirder if you try to act like you did in high school.  It is not only unbefitting, it is damaging to those around you.  This is true physically, but also emotionally, psychologically, spiritually.  In fact, all of these (and other) dimensions are working together, to the benefit (or neglect) of the other.

And, to the degree that this is true individually, it is also true collectively.  We can't continue to think together, like we 'used to'—when things like women's rights, slavery, and rapacious consumption of the earth with no regard for things like pollution were the norm.  That was a bad norm.  But, we had to recognize it first and then we had to learn how to deal with it.

This dynamic is not over, just because we did it once about this or that topic.  It is the nature of our existence.  We have the opportunity to learn from our mistakes—collectively and individually—if we choose to.

If we don't acknowledge this, though, we perpetuate the damage caused by our immaturity, insensitivity, neglect, lack of insight.

This is why this Baldwin observation about change is so true—devastating if we don't, liberating if we do.

Give us new eyes.