Category: Notes Anthology

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As much as possible, refrain from judging others. Assume that they are struggling secretly as well. Remember that our battle is with the passions.
Fr Stephen Freeman

Today is there is much to think about but unlike my usual ramblings, the focus is on the yesterday’s events. There is no shortage of opinions, observations, commentaries on one of the most disturbing experiences in my memory.

As I watched the scene, as expected, video captured the most vocal and extreme rioters, insurrectionists. But I also noticed footage of the margins of the crowd. Unlike those those leading the violent breech of the capital, people on margin, casually walking about, looked familiar. They looked like …friends, family, acquaintances … encountered over the past few years, and with whom in the course of conversations discovered our differences, resulting mostly in silence or avoidance of the subject.
I am struggling with the temptation to paint everyone in the crowd with same brush, or worse, all 70,000,000 sympathizers. No question there are some that should and, hopefully, will be prosecuted.
But people on the margin were familiar for another reason… they look like me. They, like myself, are struggling with their passions. My immediate challenge is to refrain from judging them. I believe the best restraint from judging others is a look in the mirror. I am not optimistic about my ability or willingness to see myself truthfully but, I was encouraged by a few members of congress yesterday.

The Message paraphrase of the “Do not judge..” passage in the Sermon on the Mount is helpful:
““Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults—unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.”
Matthew 7:1-5 MSG

A nagging question in all of this has been “how”. How could they …???
When that question arises I remind myself of my own experience which I have written about and shared a lot.

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Some time around 1970, Ford Motor Company in Louisville, Ky initiated a program to hire hard core unemployable people to work as assembly operators. At that time I was a General Foreman in production assembly. Because of the dramatic challenges of integrating the hard core unemployable into the existing culture, a series of training sessions were conducted to better equip management employees. It was in one of those sessions that I encountered a life altering experience.

There were approximately 40-50 salaried employees participating in the training session. We were subjected to a variety of lectures and exercises designed to help us understand and deal with the cultural differences we would face as we managed what seemed to be unmanageable people.

The instructor told us we would be doing a problem solving exercise. We could not take notes but were to listen carefully to the problem and determine individually the correct answer. The problem was simple enough. It involved the sale of a mule between two farmers. There were three or four purchases and repurchases for different prices. The problem to be solved was who finally owned the mule and how much did the seller profit?

Given a few moments to think about our answers, the instructor asked us to share our answers. I thought that was unnecessary since it was such simple problem and I had determined the correct answer almost immediately. Expecting that everyone else would have the same answer, I was surprised that there were four or five different answers. At that point I was feeling some satisfaction in having the correct answer.

Next we were instructed to form groups based on our answers. Four or five groups emerged. The number of people in the groups varied from 10-12, 7-8, etc and my group with 4. Again, I was a bit surprised how few had gotten the answer correct. Once we were grouped, the instructor told us to discuss our answer within our group. Following that discussion, we were told that we could change groups if we so desired. The largest group gained some members, one of whom was
from my group.

The next step involved each group sending a representative to the other groups to convince them that their answer was correct. Following some passionate argument and pleas, once again we were given the opportunity to change our answer and join the agreeing group. I was pleased that none of my group departed but mystified that none joined us.

The final step involved each group sending a representative to work out their answer in writing on the white board. I represented our group and was pleased at how clearly I was able to illustrate the correct answer. Confident that people would finally realize how mistaken they were, I welcomed the final opportunity for people to change their minds and join my group. I watched with disappointment as another of my group departed for the largest group. No one
joined my group. There were now three groups. My group with myself and one other, a second group with 4-5 people and the large group with everyone else.

At this point, it is important to understand how invested I had become in the exercise. My mind was racing and my emotions were deepening. I was truly flabbergasted at the results of the exercise. It had become personal.

To conclude the exercise, the instructor chose two people to represent the farmers and provided money for the transaction. I should not have been surprised that he chose me to be one of the farmers. To assure that there would be no question about the outcome, we methodically acted out the transactions. Carefully we passed the money with each exchange. At the conclusion, I possessed the money and was asked to count it for everyone to see. Convinced I had calculated
the answer correctly, I gladly complied.

WRONG! I was wrong. There was no doubt.

The impact of that moment for me cannot be overstated. I was embarrassed and shamed. My arrogance and self-righteousness were exposed. How could I have been so deaf and blind? Any thought of humble acceptance escaped me. Thankfully the obvious outcome spared me the unfamiliar words: “I was wrong”. Almost immediately, the thought crossed my mind,

“If I was wrong about this, what else am I wrong about?

http://www.georgeezell.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Echo-Chambers.pdf

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Peter Kuzmich once said, “Hope is the ability to hear the music of the future. Faith is having the courage to dance to that song today.”

Cynicism 
The cynic cloaks himself in the wise disguise of a realist. Truth be told, realism is just another name for a defeated idealism. Cynicism is the bitter fruit of a desecrated imagination. Cynicism treats the sickness of our hopelessness with the topical ointment of our thinly veiled anger.
J D Walt

Purity
Purity means embracing your unity with Christ and, in that unity, becoming free to open yourself fearlessly to others in ways that are safe and healthy and truly loving—in ways that draw others into fellowship with Christ too. Blessed are the pure in heart, Jesus said, for they shall see God. But such purity is not something to achieve through careful rule following. It is something to receive as the gift of God to you in Christ, and it is something that can never be lost.
Peterson, Amy. Where Goodness Still Grows (pp. 85-86). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. 

Hope
The existence of hope does not depend on us. It does not rely on our virtue or wisdom. It is a delivery from elsewhere.
Michael Gerson

More than Raw Matter
…it is possible to live honorably in revolt against a meaningless universe. But it is also possible to live dishonorably with the same justification. If raw matter is all that is, ideals such as justice are ultimately rootless. Consciousness would be a brief gap between oblivions. And death would always win in the end.
Michael Gerson

Fruits of Repentance
…the greatest prophet who ever lived said to “bear fruits worthy of repentance.” Fruits worthy of ­repentance—it is a fascinating concept. Fruit comes at the end of a process, not the beginning. Maybe checking the box of a donated coat isn’t the ticket. Fruit begins with breaking up fallow ground, and sowing, and cultivating, and watering, and more cultivating, and waiting, and finally by God’s grace, fruit. Maybe repentance can’t be reduced to a transaction at Goodwill. Maybe repentance takes sustained attention and effort. By the power of his Word and Spirit, Jesus wants to reach deeper than mere behavior and into our dispositions, desires, and affections. 
D Walt

Reflecting the image of God
…reflecting the image of God is more than passive reflection, like that of a mirror….Because of the plasticity of human nature, reflecting the image of God is active, developmental, and formational. Unlike a mirror reflecting back light, human nature is changed in the process of reflection, becoming a clearer and brighter reflection, a better and better mirror if you will. Alone in creation, only humans have this ability to reflect back the image of God to greater and greater degrees.
Richard Beck

Absolute Faith
Everyone talks about the importance of having faith. Well, these guys had faith, absolute faith. And there’s one really desperately upsetting…ideologically, there’s one desperately particularly upsetting moment where – in the book – where I talk about how Himmler and Hoss most admired, as prisoners, Jehovah’s Witnesses. They pointed to them and said, see that faith? That’s the kind of faith we need in our führer – absolute, unshakable faith. (from an interview with Laurence Rees, Auschwitz: A New History) Richard Rohr

The Circle of Life

Listen of the Week

Still on the Journey

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Kindness
…practicing kindness requires, at minimum, a willingness to see the image of God in, and to find a point of honest connection with, every person—even, and especially, those I dislike.
Amy Peterson

Beauty
…what draws us to the good is that it is also eternal beauty. God himself is beauty, that is, and in the end, for Christians, we are joined to him in seeking the beautiful as he has taught us to recognize it in Christ, and in therefore seeking in every circumstance, however unanticipated, to express that beauty always anew, in ever more novel variations on that original “theme”—that unique and irresistibly attractive manner. At times, a sense of style really is everything.
David Bentley Hart

Noetic Perception
“Noetic perception” is a phrase that describes the ability of the human heart to perceive that which is Divine. As such, it is our capacity for communion with God and the whole of creation.
Fr Stephen Freeman

Prayer for Biden
…my simple prayer for President Biden: May God bless him and grant him the wisdom to know what’s just, the courage to do what’s just, and the stamina to withstand the rigors of the most difficult job in the world. May his virtuous plans prevail and may his unrighteous efforts fail. And may God protect him from all harm.
David French

Luck?
People break down into two groups. When they experience something lucky, group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence. They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching out for them. Group number two sees it as just pure luck. Just a happy turn of chance…deep down, they feel that whatever happens, they’re on their own. And that fills them with fear. Yeah, there are those people. But there’s a whole lot of people in group number one…they’re looking at a miracle. And deep down, they feel that whatever’s going to happen, there will be someone there to help them. And that fills them with hope. See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, that sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? (unknown)

Pandemic
What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.

Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)

Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love–
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.

 Lynn Ungar (3/11/20)

Love your neighbor
Karl Rahner wrote,
“There is no love of God that is not, in itself, already a love for the neighbor; and love for God only comes to its own identity through its fulfillment in a love for neighbor. Only one who loves his or her neighbor can know who God actually is. And only one who ultimately loves God … can manage unconditionally to abandon himself or herself to another person, and not make that person the means of his or her own self-assertion.”

Disenchanted Life
We are captivated by the “surface” of things, failing to see what lies beneath. It causes us to be anxious and driven by things of insignificance. If there is a constant temptation for us in our present time, it is to lose confidence that there is anything unseen or eternal, at least in the sense that such things impinge on our daily existence. Our disenchanted, secular world is a siren song that promises the power of control while robbing us of the reality of communion. We “manage” the world when we should be in love with it.
Fr Stephen Freeman

Apart from me you can do nothing.
These are not the words of a good to great life enhancement guru to upper-middle-class minivan and SUV drivers. This is the piercing clarity of the Word of God. Actually, we can do something apart from Jesus. We can do a lot. It will just amount to nothing.
J D Walt

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