Category: Notes Anthology

Beyond fixing
…perhaps we have the same problem with the word solution as we do with the word moral. It sounds so fixative, and maybe we have gone beyond fixing. Maybe all we can do is to make our remaining time here full of gentleness and good humor.
Anne

Facing opposition
While the Bible promises Christians that they’ll face challenges and sometimes-fierce opposition in their lives, it is vastly better to face opposition for the things you actually believe and the values you actually hold rather than being forced to align with an ideological and political “package” you do not want to purchase. 
David French

the rational mind
The rational mind doesn’t nourish you. You assume that it gives you the truth, because the rational mind is the golden calf that this culture worships, but this is not true. Rationality squeezes out much that is rich and juicy and fascinating.
Anne Lamott

Reading Widely
Pat Moynihan was right when he said everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. But what that aphorism leaves out is that different groups can pay attention to different sets of facts. It’s not necessarily that one group has a “different truth” than another group (though that certainly happens)—it’s that each group emphasizes, includes, or excludes different information. Reading widely can simply help you discover facts that get lost in the narratives of your own side.
Jonah Goldberg

Hell
Hell is probably a social media site where everyone agrees with you…
Phoenix Preacher

Mustard
Mustard . . .  with its pungent taste and fiery effect is extremely beneficial for the health. It grows entirely wild, though it is improved by being transplanted: but on the other hand when it has once been sown it is scarcely possible to get the place free of it, as the seed when it falls germinates at once. 
via Richard Rohr

Meaning
Meaning depends on purpose. If the symphony has no sound to aspire to, then it hardly matters what notes the musicians play. If the game has no point, then no play can be called good or bad. We can only describe the action.
Daniel Jepson

Being non-political
There really is no such thing as being non-political. Everything we say or do either affirms or critiques the status quo. Even to say nothing is to say something. If we say nothing, we communicate that the status quo—even if it is massively unjust and deceitful—is apparently okay. This common “non-political” stance is an illusion, and the powerful have always been able to use it to manipulate people.
Richard Rohr

View from the Front Porch

I’ve run out of words.
Words are the tools we use to describe what we see, what we feel, what we fear, and what we believe.
I’ve used up all the words I have that fit those tasks and they are all inadequate for the moment we find ourselves in.
Phoenix Preacher

Still on the journey

Zugzwang
zugzwang is a German chess term describing the “compulsion to move.” If you could just skip a turn and not move any of your pieces, you’d be in fine shape. But moving any piece will worsen your position. But here’s the hitch: In chess, you have to move when it’s your turn; in politics, you don’t. In politics, like war, not moving is a move.
Jonah Goldberg

When young, all I wanted was moral certainty. With age, I must accept complexity.
Greg Everett

William Jennings Bryan said, “The people of Nebraska are for free silver, so I am for free silver. I will look up the arguments later.”

childishness
…populism often manifests itself as childishness. “Childish” has a slightly different connotation than “childlike.” Childlike conveys sweetness and innocence. Childishness is defined by a refusal to accept the rules. Childish people are quick to take offense. They are the Veruca Salts of the world, who want it now. They don’t care about the rules, and they think manners are for other people. They are reluctant to listen and eager to shout. Childish pranks are their own reward, and consequences for their actions are always unfair. Grownups think about consequences. They remember mistakes and adjust for them.
Jonah Goldberg

Going with the flow
The Gulf Stream will flow through a straw provided the straw is aligned to the Gulf Stream, and not at cross purposes with it.”
Bird by Bird – Anne

People of faith
People of faith should embody moral and intellectual integrity.One would hope that people of faith would act differently from members of political interest groups—that followers of Jesus would passionately defend human dignity, champion justice, and create the conditions for human flourishing, without being co-opted by any political party or power structure. …
Peter Wehner

Lamentations is the product of those who still believe
Bobby Valentine

I’ve watched a surge of people I love walk away from Jesus in the last few years… Just about ZERO have been lured away by marxism, liberalism or atheism 
Almost all have “shipwrecked” over the politicizing of Christianity & their church’s apathy(hostility) re: injustice. (unknown)

Friends of Jesus
We cannot hope to become the friends of Jesus apart from becoming the friends of one another. It takes the context of real friendship to lay aside our need to know it all and to be right and to be someone other than who we really are. Only friends can make this admission to one another, “We don’t understand what he is saying.”
J D Walt

Who we truly are
The longer I live, the more I realize that we simply don’t know who we truly are until we’re tested. We can vocalize our beliefs all day long, but when living those beliefs is hard—when upholding our principles carries a cost—that’s when we learn what we truly value.
David French

FRONT PORCH VIEW

While sitting on the front porch, a vaguely familiar car stopped at the curb. A lady got out, came up on the sidewalk and said, “I need help”. She went on to explain her husband had just gotten home from the hospital after suffering a heart attack and stroke and she needed $35 for medicine. “Why did you stop here?”, I asked. Shrugging, she replied, “Something told me to stop here.” I invited her to come up and have seat, We got acquainted as my mind swirled ..scam?..$35?…should I?…What if? Deciding to give her the money and having only two $20 and one $10 bill, I scrounged up $5 in coins. She willingly accepted the bills and the inconvenient coins. “I will pay you back next week”, she said, thanking me profusely. “That won’t be necessary.” I said, all the while thinking, yeah…sure.

Sitting on the porch one week later, her car pulled up, she got out and brought me $35 in cash (no coins). Surprised but pleased, I refused to accept her payment, she thanked me and departed.

Anytime I am on the front porch and she drives past she always waves.
In retrospect, that encounter left me with some questions I am still pondering:
Why didn’t I give her two $20’s ?
Why was I so suspicious and doubtful?
Something…told her to stop?

Listen for the week

Still on the Journey

---

Trust
Trust isn’t a virtue—it’s a measure of other people’s virtue.

Distrust
Distrust sows distrust. It produces the spiritual state that Emile Durkheim called anomie, a feeling of being disconnected from society, a feeling that the whole game is illegitimate, that you are invisible and not valued, a feeling that the only person you can really trust is yourself.

Vetocracy
vetocracy. Power to the people has meant no power to do anything, and the result is a national NIMBYism that blocks social innovation in case after case.

Pointless
Few things are more pointless in the church than raving against “critical race theory” and other fad ideologies that most have never heard of and fewer understand. Teach the kingdom of God every week and fads won’t matter…
Phoenix Preacher

He is us…
…should be careful about our righteousness. For Trump wasn’t some evil alien interloper foisted upon us by external forces who was finally defeated by the forces of right and light. He is us—or at least is a genuine product of our system and our society as it stands today. We can, and should, try to be better. But we should never delude ourselves into thinking we can be good.
— Damir and Shamir

No great accomplishment to be young..
It is no great accomplishment to be young. Every non-young person still alive managed to pull off this feat. The great stuff about being young that we jaded oldsters take for granted or no longer enjoy—high energy, passion, childlike discovery of new things, fast metabolisms, ease of urination, the ability to sleep really late, etc.—do not amount to profound or unique wisdom. We are all born amazingly ignorant. At birth not only do we not know the difference between shit and Shinola, we have to be taught—carefully taught—not to crap our pants. Broadly speaking, this ignorance has only one reliable remedy: getting older. 
Jonah Goldberg 

True morality
The nature of true morality does not consist in our sentiments – how we feel or imagine ourselves to think about right and wrong. It does not even consist in how we act. Rather, true morality consists in who we are. Another way of describing this is to understand true morality as the acquisition of virtue, the forming and shaping of our character in the image and likeness of Christ. Mere moral rules and norms in the hands of a person whose character is flawed is similar to a child with an AK-47. The outcome is always predictable.
Fr Stephen Freeman

Unprepared
The pandemic caught us unprepared — logistically and medically, but also morally unprepared. It arrived at a time of deep polarization and partisan rancor. Four decades of deepening inequality have driven us apart. Resentment of the elites whose policies produced these inequalities led to a populist backlash. The pandemic arrived at just the wrong moment — amid toxic politics, incompetent leadership, and fraying social bonds.
Michael Sandel

the Partisan mind
“avoid the partisan mind.”
The partisan mind creates an identity around party affiliation. Yes, you might join the party because it agrees with you on a key and important idea (such as opposing abortion or defending religious liberty), but when one adopts the partisan mind, the health of the party becomes inseparable from—and often, as a practical matter, superior to—the value of the idea.
David French 

Father of lies
Satan is called “The Father of Lies.” The devil traffics less in lasciviousness than in falsehood. I think this is so because life is, fundamentally, about moral navigation. And if you can’t see the world and yourself truthfully and accurately there’s no way to chart a course. 
This seems to be one of the reasons why our world is so lost and sick. No one knows what is true anymore.
Richard Beck

Shame
a definition of shame, I would say it is the lack of courage to see ourselves as God sees us. 
Archimandrite Zacharias

Math of politics
Politics has a math of its own. Whereas a scientifically minded person might see things this way: One person who says 2+2=5 is an idiot; two people who think 2+2=5 are two idiots; and a million people who think 2+2=5 are a whole lot of idiots–political math works differently. Let’s work backwards: if a million people think 2+2=5, then they are not a million idiots, but a “constituency.” If they are growing in number, they are also a “movement.” And, if you were not only the first person to proclaim 2+2=5, but you were the first to persuade others, then you, my friend, are not an idiot, but a visionary.
Jonah Goldberg

Sacred cows
Anything considered above criticism will soon become demonic. Remember that the first exorcism of a demon in Mark’s Gospel is found not in a brothel or bar but in the synagogue (Mark 1:23–28).
Richard Rohr

Effective political peacemaking
effective political peacemaker displaying characteristics like:
Truthfulness – Respecting common facts of reality, and transparency, not deceptiveness
Trust – Respecting others, dependability, earning other’s respect
Tolerance – Forbearing with diversity and differencesTenderness – Empathetic, compassionate, gracious
Toughness – Perseveres wisely with courage, and stamina, not as a childish bully but after the manner of a true civil servant.
Jim Abrahamson

Recommended listen for the week

“I Don’t Know if I Should Say It, but, well…”: A Conversation with Charlie Strobel
https://omny.fm/shows/tokens-podcast/i-don-t-know-if-i-should-say-it-but-well-a-convers