Category: Notes Anthology

GOOD NEWS

Loneliness
…mass loneliness is a perversity. If a bunch of people are lonely, why don’t they just hang out together? Maybe it’s because people approach potential social encounters with unrealistically anxious and negative expectations. Maybe if we understood this, we could alter our behavior.
My general view is that the fate of America will be importantly determined by how we treat each other in the smallest acts of daily life. That means being a genius at the close at hand: greeting a stranger, detecting the anxiety in somebody’s voice and asking what’s wrong, knowing how to talk across difference. More lives are diminished by the slow and frigid death of social closedness than by the short and glowing risk of social openness.
David Brooks
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/25/opinion/social-life-talk-strangers.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20220826&instance_id=70280&nl=the-morning&regi_id=98699252&segment_id=102419&te=1&user_id=979ff7ea8eb24fcd7abe710b579081f5

Celeberity
…we need to shift from a culture formed by “success” to a culture formed by “character.” The word success has too often transformed churches and organizations and institutions and seminaries from formation locations into launching pads for entrepreneurial types who want to use the church’s platform to build their brand. Maybe everyone of these types needs to spend two months a year in a church in rural America and do what the majority of pastors are actually doing.
Scot McKnight

Gospel
The gospel proclaims the presence and power of God in our lives through the indwelling gift of the Holy Spirit. The actual spiritual union we experience with God in the Holy Spirit goes well beyond a declaration that God loves you. Again, love is an affection, a feeling. And while feelings are important, something more is available to us in the Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit God is with us and empowers us. Presence and power. These gifts are available to all who believe the Good News.
To be sure, Christians display a lot of diversity about what sort of “power” we have access to through the Spirit. But for this post, we can keep it simple and stick to what all Christians believe, that the Holy Spirit gives us a strength to carry the burdens of our lives that we would not otherwise possess on our own. The gospel is more than a message of God’s affection. The gospel is the offer to share in God’s very own life.
Richard Beck
http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-gospel-minus-x-equals-part-7.html

Contempt (https://amzn.https://amzn.to/3PN7ioB )
We are dwelling in an age of contempt.
Contempt for others forms a death-dealing cancer in our culture, in our churches, and in our society – but also in ourselves, the ones contempting others (if that’s a verb).
We dwell today in a world of hot hate and cool hate, and surely more in the cool hate than in the hot hate. Hot hate turns into road rage and sudden outbursts; cool hate seethes and foams and goes indirect and passive. It turns into snark and sarcasm and verbal putdowns.
Kim cites John Gottman’s four horsemen of negative interaction – criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. He thinks contempt is the deepest problem. It creates a world of the superior and the inferior, a world of us vs. them. Contempt kills. Others and ourselves.
What Kim knows is that this contempt has invaded the church in “motive attribution asymmetry” (we know we love others but others hate us). So we misunderstand and misattribute. Motive attribution asymmetry is made worse by “online disinhibition effect,” words Orwell would despise, but we can get by the stodgy words to the truth: when we get online it’s much easier to express hatred and contempt and to attribute motive to those we don’t even know.
God has always had a very hard time giving away God: No one wants seems to want this gift. We’d rather have religion, and laws, and commandments, and obligations, and duties. I’m sure many of us attend church out of duty, but gathering with the Body of Christ is supposed to be a wedding feast. Do you know how many times in the four Gospels eternal life is described as a banquet, a feast, a party, a wedding, the marriage feast of the Lamb? There are fifteen different, direct allusions to eternal life being a great, big party. 
Richard Rohr

“It is not your business to succeed (no one can be sure of that) but to do right: when you have done so the rest lies with God,” C S Lewis

View From the front porch
A bit of poetry:

From where does my praise come?

…from the bounty of my circumstances?

…from the strength of my health?

…from freedom and liberty?

…from my goodness and rightness?

Hallelujah!

So dear God, keep from me

…poverty

…sickness

…imprisonment

…failure and sinfulness

If not, where then would my praise come from?

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

On Tuesday, Sugar, the Crockett’s 17 year old pet (our grand dog)was euthanized. Surrounded by family, she was mercifully relieved of her painful daily reality. As that reality vanished, another appeared, love for Sugar and memories that will assuage pain and grief in the days and years ahead.

My understanding of God has changed over the course of my life, one result of that change is how I view animals, pets, dogs and cats in particular. Thankful for a Creator who knows when a sparrow falls.

O Love, that will not let me go…
Living Wittily / by Jim Gordon / August 13, 2022 at 04:03AM
Yesterday in the supermarket, a dad with two children and a trolley.One child started to scream and shout in distress. It sounded like a tantrum – but only if we lack imagination, compassion and some understanding. The second child didn’t seem too bothered. Dad spoke firmly and took and held the hand of the distressed child, who refused to be calmed or comforted, and continued to be very upset. Dad held on to his hand. Then Dad stood in the queue with his trolley, speaking calmly to the child, ignoring the responses of some others around him, and eventually the lad settled and walked with his family out the doors.Sensory overload, heat exhaustion, familiar and safe routines interrupted, just too much to process by one highly sensitive mind – any combination of these or other causes. And a dad whose behaviour over the ten minutes or so of his son’s distress, was gentle, calm, firm and there, just there, the reassuring, patient presence that wouldn’t turn away, or let go.What that costs, day and daily, in the loving and caring for a child who feels and sees the world differently? Who knows.  But in those ten minutes we watched a lived out parable of the love of God in the love of a father holding firmly the hand of his child.

A Prayer for the Irritated
I bring to you Lord, my momentary irritation, 
that you might reveal the buried seed of it—not 
in the words or actions of another person, but
in the withered and hypocritical expectations 
of my own small heart. Uproot from this
impoverished soil all arrogance and insecurity that 
would prompt me to dismiss or distain others, 
judging them with a less generous measure that
I reckon when judging myself. 
Prune away the tangled growth
of my own unjustified irritations, Jesus,
and graft to my heart instead your humility, 
your compassion, 
your patience, 
your kindness, 
That I might bear good fruit in keeping 
with your grace.
Amen.
Thérèse of Lisieux

Power of Dissent
In a famous 1951 experiment, the psychologist Solomon Asch showed how easily humans can be manipulated by social pressure to conform. If everyone else in the room affirms even the most blatant falsehood, we will very often affirm it ourselves, even denying the clear evidence of our own eyes.
But a variation of the Asch experiment gives hope. If only one other person in the room—a single reality ally—tells the truth, the pressure to conform drops sharply and we become much more willing to buck the lie. That is why authoritarian regimes work so furiously to stifle opposition voices, even seemingly weak ones. It is what the Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was getting at when he said, “The simple act of an ordinary brave man is not to participate in lies, not to support false actions! His rule: Let that [lie] come into the world, let it even reign supreme—only not through me.”
https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-reality-ally-347 utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Suffering
Suffering, of course, can lead us in either of two directions: (1) it can make us very bitter and cause us to shut down, or (2) it can make us wise, compassionate, and utterly open, because our hearts have been softened, or perhaps because we feel as though we have nothing more to lose. Suffering often takes us to the very edge of our inner resources where we “fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31), even when we aren’t sure we believe in God! We must all pray for the grace of this second path of softening and opening. My opinion is that this is the very meaning of the phrase “deliver us from evil” in the Our Father (Lord’s Prayer). In this statement, we aren’t asking to avoid suffering. It is as if we are praying, “When big trials come, God, hold on to me, and don’t let me turn bitter or blaming”—which is an evil that leads to so many other evils. 
Richard Rohr

Adolescence
“I have no qualifications for speaking about adolescence with anything like authority except in one respect. I am sixty four years old. I have fathered children. I have written books. I have letters after my name and an ecclesiastical title before it. But to call me an adult or grown up is an oversimplification at best and a downright misnomer at worst. I am not a past participle but a present participle, even a dangling participle. I am not a having-grown up one but a growing-up on, a groping up one, not even sure much of the time just where my  growing and groping are taking me or where they are supposed to be taking me. I am a verbal adjective in search of a noun to latch onto, a grower ins earch of  a self to grow into…I speak about adolescence with authority because in many ways I am still in the throes of it. This is my only qualification for addressing myself to the subject here. I am a hybrid, an adult adolescent to whom neither term alone does full justice…” (The Clown in the Belfry, 84-5) Fredrick Beuchner

A political columnist one wrote this:
Whenever A and B are in opposition to one another, anyone who attacks or criticizes A is accused of aiding and abetting B. And it is often true, objectively and on a short-term analysis, that he is making things easier for B. Therefore, say the supporters of A, shut up and don’t criticize: or at least criticize “constructively,” which in practice always means favourably. And from this it is only a short step to arguing that the suppression and distortion of known facts is the highest duty of a journalist.
Scot McKnight

 “we are not saved by information.”
Matters of prayer, of pride, of shame, of love, of forgiveness, of generosity, and suffering, are much closer to that place where we live. The rest of the world (and theology) are true, but, like Quantum Mechanics, it’s not always what we need. It is said that Orthodox Christianity is a “way of life.” This is true, and means that it cannot really be read. It can be sung. It can be prayed. Mostly, it can be stumbled around in so that we learn what it means for it to be the way.
Fr Stephen Freeman

View from the front porch
My enchanted life...

Consider the following:

• When I get up each morning a steaming cup of coffee appears at my side.
• Mysteriously, our bed is made up every morning, with the sheets perfectly tucked and pillows flawlessly arranged.
• I never run out of toothpaste.
• I never run out of toilet paper.
• Dirty clothes magically disappear, only to reappear neatly folded (underware) or hung in their proper place.
• Dust and debris disappear without explanation.
• Each day I find the window blinds raised.
• The refrigerator and cupboard never seem to be wanting.
• The cats are fed without fail. 
• My prescriptions get refilled without prompting.
• Our vehicles are never left unlocked.
• Misplaced articles magically appear in their proper place.
• Unnecessary lights inexplicably turn off.
• Family/friends birthday cards appear for my signature.
• Somehow, meals appear most days at 5:00pm.
• I never run out of cheerios.
• Fingerprints on the storm door always temporary.
• Our bed always has the proper amount of cover.
• My distilled water never runs out.
• Best of all, bruises, cuts, wounded feelings and unspoken needs are always treated with just the right medicine.

Indeed my life is enchanted. And to that I say: 
THANK YOU- Ann Watson Ezell

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

“I love mankind! It’s people I can’t stand!”A character in a Peanuts cartoon once declared.
The statement accurately describes our problems with the particular. It is easy to love almost anything in general – it is the particular that brings problems.
Nowhere could this be more true than with God. Speaking about God in the abstract is extremely common – after all – He is “everywhere present, filling all things.” He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good-  all, all, all. The very nature of such speech is generalized and generic.
However, it is impossible to experience anything in general. For the great scandal or stumbling block of particularity is not so much God but us. We are inescapably particular – it is an inherent part of being human. We are circumscribable; we are limited; we are local. And we chafe at such limits. We prefer that the ego of modern man become the measure of the world itself. That which does not interest me does not exist.
The abstract, generalized God is the god of modernity. The generalized God cannot offend – there is nothing offensive about Him. But just as He cannot offend, neither can He be known because there is nothing there to be known. We only know particulars.
Everything by which we know God is particular. The ultimate particularity is Christ Himself – the God who can be circumscribed, drawn, pictured, nailed, spat upon and crucified. 
Fr Stephen Freeman

Being honest with God
Ryan continued. “I just kept running faster and faster until I just couldn’t run anymore. Then all my anger exploded out of me. I began yelling at God—actually cussing at God.”
I involuntarily giggled—not good form as a listener, but Ryan laughed too. Cussing at God seemed so uncharacteristic of this ministry leader. “Did it feel healing?” I asked.
“It was! Suddenly I felt the presence of God and was deeply impressed that God was thanking me for finally being honest. Right there on the path, I began crying and collapsed to the ground. God wanted me to be honest. It was life-changing and the beginning of what has become a remarkable ongoing conversation with God. Now I understand there isn’t anything that can’t be expressed.”
From “Trauma in the Pews” by Janyne McConnaugehy

Crime
Hardly a day goes by without the media telling us that voters are concerned about crime, worries second only to inflation and the price of gas (which is going down). Just yesterday, NPR reported that former president Trump said “”Our country is now a cesspool of crime … We have blood, death and suffering on a scale once unthinkable because of the Democrat Party’s effort to destroy and dismantle law enforcement all throughout America.” These concerns regularly show up in opinion surveys as people worry about crime, whether rampant or not. In 2020, Gallup reported that more Americans thought crime was going up than have since the 1990s.
The FBI data always corrects incident reports (actual crimes) into crime rates. Basically, you divide the population figure by 100,000 and then divide the incident count by that figure. If a town of 200,000 people had 24 violent crimes, you’d divide the 24 by 2 and have a crime rate of 12.0
The US violent crime rate peaked in 1992 at just under 778 violent crimes per 100,000 population. The figure for 2020 (the last FBI data available) is 398.5, which is up from 380 in 2019.
The gap between these two charts is telling. From 2003 on, the majority of the public believed that crime was increasing year over year. While there is a minor increase between 2005 to 2007, it’s a steady story of general decline through 2014. Part of the answer for this mismatch is the constant stories (real and fictional) about crime across the country. The actual data tells a very different tale.
By the way, here is data relative to the subtitle above. It is common for politicians and law enforcement types to point at Chicago and say, “why doesn’t somebody do something?”. When you control for population size, you find that Chicago had a homicide rate of 18 per 100,000. That’s bad, for sure. But if you do the same analysis for all reporting municipalities in Illinois, Chicago comes in 21st. On aggravated assault, they finish 30th.
Scot McKnight

Reformation – Losing Weight
In America, with few exceptions, we all want to know what we need to do in order to lose weight. And everyone is eager to tell us. From Keto diets to intermittent fasting to the management of macro-nutrients to cross-fit training to the whole thirty to any number of pre-packaged food products and supplements, there is no end to the weight loss systems and solutions out there. Some will tell us to weigh every day. Others will tell us to throw away the scales. Some tell us to count calories. Others tell us to count points. Some tell us to lift weights. Others tell us to run faster. And frankly, there is no end to our willingness to buy into one or more or twenty of these schemes across the decades of our lives. The truth is all of them work. The truth is, also, none of them work. 
All of them are built around a highly functionalized model of behavior management. If you will do these things and not do these other things you will experience the change you seek, i.e. weight loss. Through one’s behavior they essentially transform themselves. It works to the extent you work. This functional model works but its working is 100 percent dependent on you sticking with the program. The minute you stop working the program everything reverts back. There is a term for this kind of program in all of its forms. The term is reformation. It is the endless agenda and effort to re-form something to what it was before. 
On so many fronts (weight loss among them), we have all been seduced by and caught in an endless cycle of reformation. The same can be said of our churches. 
Reformation is not a bad thing. I just don’t think it is really what Jesus is up to. In other words, Jesus does not work by a functional model of change. He works by a transcendent model of formation. Jesus is about transformation not reformation. We are not reforming ourselves with God’s help. God is transforming us with our participation. 
See what happens when the two words come together: trans-form. Jesus does not bring a program of re-formation to people or the church. He brings a process of trans-formation. Reformation is an external change program. Transformation is a process of the transfiguration of our inner person; of becoming that which is presently beyond our ability to comprehend. It is not the recovery of a past form but the receiving of a future form in the present state. 
Reformation works—if you will work it. It is a hard fought outcome. It will require unrelenting, often slavish, effort. And when you stop working, it will stop working, and you will immediately begin reverting back. Transformation is of another order entirely. Transformation is a gift. In fact, it is a glory. It comes not by functional activity but by transcendent receptivity. 
JD Walt

“People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.”
George Orwell

Contemplation
The desert monastics are clear: Self-righteousness is cruelty done in the name of justice. It is conceivable, of course, that we might find a self-righteous religious. . . . It is probable that I might very well find myself dealing with a self-righteous friend or neighbor or even family member. But it is not possible to find a self-righteous contemplative. Not a real contemplative.
Contemplation breaks us open to ourselves. The fruit of contemplation is self-knowledge, not self-justification. “The nearer we draw to God,” Abba Mateos said, “the more we see ourselves as sinners.” We see ourselves as we really are, and knowing ourselves we cannot condemn the other. We remember with a blush the public sin that made us mortal. We recognize with dismay the private sin that curls within us in fear of exposure. Then the whole world changes when we know ourselves. We gentle it. The fruit of self-knowledge is kindness. Broken ourselves, we bind tenderly the wounds of the other. . .
Joan Chillister. 

View from the front porch…

Zach Meerkreebs recently wrote about Formation vs Efficiency (edited in length for this post)

In God’s story, His people’s formation takes
precedent over efficiency. I’ve come to be
convinced. Instead of snapping his fingers
(though He chooses to do so at times…) and
bing, bang, boom something is done, there are
many times that formation takes place over a
period time.
Formation takes time…

God’s deep formation in my life isn’t concerned
about my calendar, goals, or vision board.
When processing is hard, sitting without
answers is awkward (at best), and healing isn’t
complete….I’d like Him to speed up. In my spirit
God’s pace and lack of hurry is a sweet and
cool gift. In my flesh, it is annoying, pisses me
off, and I have 1827472 ideas on how we could
do it better. But even in that yuck, I sense the
Father slowly molding, removing, replacing,
asking, answering…forming me somewhat.. inefficiently.
My longing and prioritization for efficiency
impacts formation.
Could you imagine if God prioritized efficiency
over formational moment like I did this morning
when Eden and I were late to Kindergarten
“camp”. I rushed by a conversation about what
we could have done differently (not watched
two Bluey episodes) and how we can help
each other out. With a firm,”we’re late babe”
and “it’s raining E, let’s go” (like she couldn’t
feel the giant raindrops) stole moments of
connection and discipleship in the rush of the
morning.
My addiction to efficiency reveals my
“score card” around formation..
What would I prefer?
The conversation of proficiency and formation
is uniquely poignant as I hold my baby, Mercy,
who cannot do much more than stare, poo,
sleep, eat, and yawn.
Would I tell her to hurry up? Expect her to run
immediately like an animal on the savannah?
No! Of course.take your time grow babe.

I am tempted to fly through formation.
Rush refining….
Speed through sanctification
Get this done…not taking moments to notice,
contemplate, process, and celebrate…

Efficiency vs. Formation…you can pick which
one wins in your life
Which one are you cheering on?

That’s what I love about my front porch, it is a place for formation.

STILL ON THE JOURNEY