If you were based at Camp Lejeune between 1953 to 1987, for heavens sake PLEASE call 1-800-750-9511. Stop the madness.
Touchdown moments
There is nothing ordinary about the key claims of biblical faith. Indeed, there is almost nothing about biblical faith that can be understood according to our usual analytical, scientific, objective, or commonsense control of life. The Bible is, rather, organized around the explosive moments when the holiness of God touches down in our midst and changes everything. Such touchdown moments are not sweet and romantic. They are not pious and religious. Rather, they are moments of threat and risk, when our worlds are shattered and everything is changed (Collected Sermons, 65).
Walter Brueggemann
‘Tolerance does not mean the absence of debate and division, but the ability of people with differences to live side-by-side together without seeking to harm each other.” Michael Bird
Clichés
A glib “I have the answers” spirit makes us into protectors of clichés. Answers are wonderful when they are true and keep us on the human and spiritual path. But answers are not wonderful when they become something we hold as an ego possession, allowing us to be arrogant, falsely self-assured, and closed down individuals.
Only those led by the Spirit into ever deeper seeing, hearing, and surrendering—spiritual seekers and self-questioners—will fall into the hands of the living God. This will always be “a narrow gate and a hard road” that “only a few will walk” (Matthew 7:14).
Richard Rohr
Trust grows out of, and into, our relationship with God, forming bonds of love, trust, hopefulness and purpose. God’s mercy is not a guarantee against storms at sea, but of God’s presence in the boat.
“Lord, have mercy. The sea is so vast, and my boat is so small.”
Jim Gordon
How many of the world’s 1-year-old children today have been vaccinated against some disease?
A: 20 percent B: 50 percent C: 80 percent
I have tested a total of 12,596 people at 108 lectures over the last five years. This question gets the worst results.
Correct answer is 80%
You make this kind of false assumption when you have a “them” category in your head, into which you put the majority of humanity. What images are you using to imagine what life is like in this category? Are you perhaps recalling the most vivid and disturbing images from the news?
Rosling, Hans; Rönnlund, Anna Rosling; Rosling, Ola. Factfulness (pp. 148-149). Flatiron Books. Kindle Edition.
Prophesy
Christianity has given little energy to prophecy, which Paul identifies as the second most important charism for building the church (1 Corinthians 12:28; Ephesians 4:11). Too often, when Christians talk about prophecy, we think prophets make predictions about the future. In fact, prophets say exactly the opposite! They insist the future is highly contingent on the now. They always announce to the people of Israel that they have to make a decision now. You can go this way and the outcome of events will undo you or you can return to God, to love, and to the covenant. That’s not predicting the future as much as it’s naming the now, the way reality works. The prophet opens up human freedom by daring to tell the people of Israel that they can change history by changing themselves. That’s extraordinary, and it’s just as true for us today.
I’d like to put it this way: it is not that we go out preaching hard and difficult messages, and then people mistreat and marginalize us for being such prophets (although that might happen). Rather, when we go to the stories of the prophets and of Jesus himself, we discover the biblical pattern is just the opposite! When we find ourselves wounded and marginalized, and we allow that suffering to teach us, we can become prophets. When we repeatedly experience the faithfulness, the mercy, and the forgiveness of God, then our prophetic voice emerges. That’s the training school. That’s where we learn how to speak the truth.
Richard Rohr
Hypocrisy
Time and again, when our commitment to morality collides with our self-interest, then our self-interest wins. A religion of morality devolves to a religion of self. It’s powerless against our pride. But when a commitment to self collides with Jesus, then it’s our pride that’s powerless. We know exactly where our hope lies. David French
https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/frenchpress/how-hypocrisy-drives-unbelief/
View from the front porch
The recent news report about the rescue of 4,000 beagles revealed the troubling, heart-wrenching paradoxical nature of our culture.
On one hand, there was the horrendous for-profit dog breeding business:
Built in 1961, the breeding operation featured 27 long, low-slung metal buildings used for whelping and housing about 5,000 beagles in cages and cement runs. The campus had its own waste water treatment plant and incinerator, one full-time veterinarian and about 25 employees. It became the nation’s second-largest breeder of what the industry calls “purpose-bred canines.”
“Research on dogs has, and continues to lead to, life-preserving and enhancing treatments in the areas of diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, organ transplantation,”
…more than a hundred federal and state officials, law enforcement officers, rescue volunteers and veterinarians arrived at Envigo with a search warrant. Over five days, they seized health records, computers, and 446 beagles — about 10 percent of the facility’s dogs — who were suffering life-threatening illnesses or injuries.
On the other hand, there was the response of concerned people:
The public fascination with the Envigo beagles was instantaneous. Thousands of people across the country wanted them.
In Milwaukee, the Wisconsin Humane Society set off a frenzy when it announced that it would put a litter of Envigo puppies up for adoption on a Tuesday morning in early August.
Identical twins from Southern California were the first in line.
The 31-year-old sisters had flown to Milwaukee and shown up at the shelter at 3 a.m., carrying a new tent that they couldn’t figure out how to set up.
“We have been stalking all the rescue groups,” explained Christine Fan, who — like her twin Chrisdo — worked as a real estate attorney in Irvine, Calif., about 15 minutes from Disneyland. “We booked a one-way red-eye flight here.”
All of the beagles have been placed in over 120 rescue facilities across the country.