So Much To Think About

metanoia 
is the word translated as “repentance” in the Bible. The root concept of the word means “to turn,” associated with a “change” or “turn” of heart and mind. For Peterson, metanoia is a sign of humble fallibility–a willingness to admit error, to learn, to grow. That’s a really healthy posture when life hits you with some hard truths, especially truths about your own failings and limitations. Here’s Peterson:
The devil, traditional representation of evil, refuses recognition of imperfection, refuses to admit “I was in error, in my action, in my representation”; accepts as a consequence of unbending pride, eternal misery–refuses metanoia, confession and reconciliation…
Such refusal–the inability to say, “I was wrong, I am sorry, I should change,” means the death of hope, existence in the abyss…
The act of metanoia is adaptation itself: admission of error, founded on faith in ability to tolerate such admission and its consequences…
Richard Beck

A spiritual discipline is 
…a repeated practice that nourishes one’s soul and expands one’s sense of the grandeur of God and the connectedness of creation. Dallas Willard
Well done. Willard sometimes spoke of the disciplines as creating openness to God and to grace and to the Spirit.

Dissent
Inherent to all traditional religion is the peril of stagnation. What becomes settled and established may easily turn foul. Insight is replaced by clichés, elasticity by obstinacy, spontaneity by habit. Acts of dissent prove to be acts of renewal.  
It is therefore of vital importance for religious people to voice and to appreciate dissent. And dissent implies self-examination, critique, discontent.  Creative dissent comes out of love and faith, offering positive alternatives, a vision.
Self-criticism is quite rare in the history of religion, yet it is necessary to keep religion from its natural tendency toward arrogant self-assurance—and eventually idolatry, which is always the major sin for biblical Israel. We must also point out, however, that mere critique usually deteriorates into cynicism, skepticism, academic arrogance, and even post-modernistic nihilism. So be very careful and very prayerful before you own any self-image of professional critic or anointed prophet! Negativity will do you in.
Richard Rohr

Followers of Jesus are the light of the world…a city set on a hill…a lamp so that others may glorify God, unless you’re a really cool band of Christians, and then you can just sing about a vague spirituality of love which cannot be distinguished from any other positive way of thinking.
Matt Redmond

Living in Community
Until and unless Christ is experienced as a living relationship between people, the gospel remains largely an abstraction. Until Christ is passed on personally through faithfulness and forgiveness toward another, through concrete bonds of union, I doubt whether he is passed on by words, sermons, institutions, or ideas.  
Living in community means living in such a way that others can access me and influence my life. It means that I can get “out of myself” and serve the lives of others. Community is a world where kinship with each other is possible. By community I don’t mean primarily a special kind of structure, but a network of relationships. Sadly, on the whole, we live in a society that’s built on competition, not on community and cooperation.  
Richard Rohr

Modesty Phenomenon
David Brooks dives into the false modesty phenomenon, and why it’s found such a natural home online. “If you’ve spent any time on social media, and especially if you’re around the high-status world of the achievatrons, you are probably familiar with the basic rules of the form,” he writes. “The first rule is that you must never tweet about any event that could actually lead to humility. Never tweet: ‘I’m humbled that I went to a party, and nobody noticed me.’ Never tweet: ‘I’m humbled that I got fired for incompetence.’ The whole point of humility display is to signal that you are humbled by your own magnificent accomplishments. We can all be humbled by an awesome mountain or the infinitude of the night sky, but to be humbled by being in the presence of yourself—that is a sign of truly great humility.”

Gender Gap
Derek Thompson, writing in The Atlantic:
American colleges and universities now enroll roughly six women for every four men. This is the largest female-male gender gap in the history of higher education, and it’s getting wider. Last year, U.S. colleges enrolled 1.5 million fewer students than five years ago, The Wall Street Journal recently reported. Men accounted for more than 70 percent of the decline.
The statistics are stunning. But education experts and historians aren’t remotely surprised. Women in the United States have earned more bachelor’s degrees than men every year since the mid-1980s—every year, in other words, that I’ve been alive. This particular gender gap hasn’t been breaking news for about 40 years. But the imbalance reveals a genuine shift in how men participate in education, the economy, and society. The world has changed dramatically, but the ideology of masculinity isn’t changing fast enough to keep up. (Emphasis added.)

Reading
“Lest we approach our reading with a disposition of humility, hospitality, and receptivity, our reading will not of its own accord form us into ever-expanding, morally sharpened human beings we seek to become.”
…if you read a book to assert your superiority to the book you will do more damage to yourself than good. No one is wrong all the time, and if you think they are, don’t read them until you have acquired sufficient humility to receive their writing as a gift.
Scot McKnight

Reasoned Solutions
We could find reasoned solutions to many of the issues we face if we were willing to treat those who differ with dignity and grace and find solutions for the common good…but we would rather succumb in the fire and think we are noble in doing so…
Generally speaking…if you ask me a theological question, I’m going to refer you to sources to read so you can make your own conclusions…if you have no interest in doing the work…don’t ask the question…it’s obviously not that important to you, so don’t waste my time…
 I have never lived in a time when people were more intellectually lazy and more convinced of their knowledge…and we wonder why things are circling the drain…
Phoenix Preacher

The Body of Christ
During the apostle Paul’s lifetime, the church was not yet an institution or structural grouping of common practices and beliefs. The church was a living organism that communicated the gospel through relationships.  
Paul’s brilliant metaphor for this living, organic, concrete embodiment is the Body of Christ: “For as in one body we have many parts, and all the parts do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually parts of one another. Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us exercise them” (Romans 12:4–6). At the heart of this body, providing the energy that enlivens the community is “the love of God that has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5).  
Richard Rohr

STILL ON THE JOURNEY