So Much To Think About

“Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind.”
Mary Schmich

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Two Worlds

There are always two worlds. The world as it operates is power; the world as it should be is love. The secret of kingdom life is how we can live in both—simultaneously. The world as it is will always be built on power, ego, and success. Yet we also must keep our eyes intently on the world as it should be—what Jesus calls the reign of God. 

Richard Rohr

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Forgetting God

The Russian writer, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, when asked about the terrible evils of the Soviet Gulag, and other nightmarish manifestations of modernity, offered a very simple explanation of all that had befallen our world: “We forgot God.” I would add to that the observation that every time we remember God, we allow ourselves to step into the truth of our existence. The secular delusion disappears.

Fr Stephen Freeman

Miracle

After lecturing learnedly on miracles, a great theologian was asked to give a specific example of one. “There is only one miracle,” he answered. “It is life.” 

Have you wept at anything during the past year? 
Has Your heart beat faster at the sight of young beauty? 
Have you thought seriously about the fact that someday You are going to die ? 
More often than not do You really listen when people are speaking to you instead of just waiting for your turn to speak?
Is there anybody You know in whose place, if one of you had to suffer great pain, You would volunteer yourself? 
If your answer to all or most of these questions is No, the chances are that You’re dead. 

Fredrick Buechner

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Readers

Earlier this week, a new Reading Agency survey, The State of the Nation’s Adult Reading, reported that half of U.K. adults do not regularly read and 15% have never read regularly for pleasure, while 35% used to read but have stopped. Attention is an issue overall, with 28% of U.K. adults saying they have difficulty focusing on reading for more than a few minutes.
Comparing this data with a study conducted in 2015, the Reading Agency’s research found that these figures mark not just a notable decrease in the number of U.K. adults reading regularly, but also a stark increase in the number of non-readers. With only 50% of the nation now saying they read regularly, down from 58% in 2015, the decline has gathered momentum in recent years, with 15% of the nation now saying they do not currently read for pleasure and have never done so regularly. That’s a rise of 88% since 2015, when just 8% of U.K. adults were non-readers.” 
The research also indicates a potential for this trend to continue growing, with younger adults being less likely to read than all other age groups. One-quarter of young people across the U.K. (aged 16-24) say they’ve never been regular readers, while an additional 44% already identify as “lapsed readers.” 
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=4776#m64565

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Sports (Olympics)

Sports, like other art forms, are potential channels of transcendence. It’s why we watch and admire athletes. It’s why athletes sometimes can’t tell you why they made some choice on the field or what they were thinking in the moment. They were so in the flow, so self-forgetful, so present to teammate and circumstance that they lost themselves. The beauty that results, for them and for us, is marvelous. Our breath catches in our throat. David Foster Wallace called watching Roger Federer “a religious experience.” In a sense, he wasn’t wrong.

Brad East

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Momento Mori –
These lyrics hit a lot harder at 60 [82] than they did at 16…..

And you run and you run
to catch up with the sun 
but it’s sinking…
Racing around 
to come up behind you again.
The Sun is the same,
in a relative way,
but you’re older…
Shorter of breath 
and one day closer to death.

—Pink Floyd

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Clocks

“Sometimes it really upsets me—
the way the clock’s hands keep moving,
even when I’m just sitting here
not doing anything at all,
not even thinking about anything 
except, right now, about that clock
and how it can’t keep its hands still.
Even in the dark I picture it, and all
its brother and sister clocks and watches,
even sundials, all those compulsive timepieces
whose only purpose seems to be
to hurry me out of this world.”

– Linda Pastan

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Consciousness 

Consciousness is not the seeing but that which sees me seeing. It is not the knower but that which knows that I am knowing. It is not the observer but that which underlies and observes me observing.We must step back from our compulsiveness, and our attachment to ourselves, to be truly conscious. 
… take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.  
Wisely, [this step] does not emphasize a moral inventory, which becomes too self-absorbed and self-critical, but speaks instead of a “personal inventory.” In other words, just watch yourself objectively, calmly, and compassionately. When we’re able to do this from a new viewing platform and perspective as a grounded child of God, “The Spirit will help us in our weakness” (Romans 8:26). From this most positive and dignified position, we canlet go of, and even easily admit, our wrongs. 

Richard Rohr

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Holiness

Someone taught me long ago that there’s a difference between “gifted” and “godly.” Ideally you need both, but godly is always better than gifted and a jerk.

• Holiness is both gift and demand. Something we are given and something we prosecute.
• Holiness is not moralizing, not separatism, nor self-deprecation.
• Holiness is the attempt to be consumed by God and to reflect Jesus to others.
• Christian leaders are held to a higher standard in terms of language, financial dealings, relational integrity, and scrutiny. One must be beyond reapproach.
• In effect, your walk must match your talk. You can’t have a private life without recourse to holiness.
• Now, importantly, holiness is not perfection or sinlessness. 
• Holiness always means dealing with the flaws in your character, mistakes of judgment, and seeking reconciliation when you are in the wrong.
  In fact, learning how to faithfully resolve your own mistakes rather than deny them or cover them up is a mark of holiness.
  
  Michael Bird

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Truly Human

While it is true that “God became man so that man could become God,” it is equally true that God became man so that man could become man – truly human. To be truly human we must sing and dance, create art and tell stories. We engage in commerce and build cities. All that is human life and existence is a gift from God and has a God-given purpose and direction.

Fr Stephen Freeman

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STILL ON THE JOURNEY