Category: Notes Anthology

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Unlearning
I’m learning to be grateful for unlearning. What misery it would be if we had to retain what we learn as certainty for our lifetimes! Unlearning is a part of learning. And this gives us freedom and humility, then, to explore who you are, Lord, and your world with your people.
Isn’t repentance also a form of unlearning? Dallas Willard paraphrases Jesus’ words in Matthew 4:17 like this: “‘Rethink your life in light of the fact that the kingdom of heaven is now open to all.’”[1] Because repentance is just that. It is a rethinking, seeing what’s real, turning towards it, shedding the counterfeit, and walking through the door. There’s an unlearning involved.
Aimee Byrd

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Scott Erickson on Instagram:
“It’s painful to outgrow the form you’ve called your home for such a long time. We all go through some form of this. Hometown. Perspective. Even religious practice. And religious practice is hard because all religious practice is about identity and where we feel like we belong.
So when you feel the claustrophobia and the tightness… it’s overwhelming to think you don’t fit anymore and you need to change in some way.
But the wonder and the gift of transformation is this:
Awakening to the truth that your shell was never your home…
The ocean is.

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Satisfaction and human flourishing
…satisfaction is central in how many contemporaries think of human flourishing. Satisfaction is a form of experience, and experiences are generally deemed to be matters of individual preference. Everyone is the best judge of her own experience of satisfaction. To examine whether a particular experience fits into a larger account of the world is already to risk relativizing its value as an experience.
Miroslav Volk

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Better a Liar than a Bullshitter?
It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may pertain to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose. (pp. 55-56) On Bullshit

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The Importance of Sharing Wisdom
…one important feature of sharing wisdom: it is more like playing a musical piece for a
friend than treating her to a meal. When I serve a meal to a friend, what she eats I no longer have; in contrast, when I play music for her, she receives something that, in a sense, I continue to possess. When I share wisdom, I don’t part with what I give; to the contrary, I may come to possess it in a deeper way.
Miroslav Volk – A Public Faith- How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good

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Aging
John Perry, the main character in the novel “Old Man’s War”, describes the aging process in a direct and little bit coarse way, which only a senior citizen can get away with: “The problem with aging is not that it’s one damn thing after another—it’s every damn thing, all at once, all the time.”

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Simplicity 

Just as all higher mathematics depends on learning basic arithmetic, and just as all more sophisticated music depends on mastering the basics of tempo, melody, and harmony, the spiritual life depends on learning well the essential lessons of this first season, Simplicity. If these lessons aren’t learned well, practitioners will struggle in later seasons. But if in due time this season doesn’t give way to the next, the spiritual life can grow stagnant and even toxic. Nearly all of us in this dynamic season of Simplicity tend to share a number of characteristics. We see the world in simple dualist terms: we are the good guys who follow the good authority figures and we have the right answers; they are the bad guys who consciously or unconsciously fight on the wrong side of the cosmic struggle between good and evil. We feel a deep sense of identity and belonging in our in-group…. This simple, dualist faith gives us great confidence.

This confidence, of course, has a danger, as the old Bob Dylan classic “With God on Our Side” makes clear: “You don’t count the dead when God’s on your side.”

Brian McClaren

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DEDICATED FAN

John Adams, Guardians drummer, provided the soundtrack to Cleveland baseball for nearly 50 years.

Adams died Monday morning at the age of 71. He had dealt with numerous health complications in recent years.

His drumbeat was the heartbeat of every Cleveland baseball season for the past half-century, year after year, through miserable slogs during chilly evenings on the lakefront to those magical moments that only October can deliver. That ballpark memory you clutch onto dearly? Adams’ steady beat was its soundtrack.

https://theathletic.com/4139219/2023/01/30/john-adams-cleveland-guardians-drummer-dies/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=The+FBI+Eyes+One+of+Its+Own&utm_campaign=The+FBI+Eyes+One+of+Its+Own

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Hall of Fame /Shame

Hockey legend Bobby Hull died Monday…he was a Hall of Famer on the ice and (at times) a hall of shamer off it…we aren’t supposed to celebrate the gifts he gave us because of the latter…I don’t accept this way of thinking…it encapsulates us all in our worst moments without recognizing any good…it’s a nasty way to live…and die…

We should acknowledge the dark sides of those we admire…it prevents idolatry. Acknowledging only the dark side leads to nothing but shame and a false sense of holiness…

The time to give a full overview of someones life is not an hour after they died…

Phoenix Preacher

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Four movements in the faith journey

There are four major movements in the overall journey. They are :

• moving from forgiveness to acceptance, 
• from taking in to giving away, 
• from fear to inner peace, 
• and from responsibility to simple response. 

They generally follow naturally as faith and trust deepen, as we can relinquish that which we cling to and release ourselves into God’s arms. 

The Critical Journey

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Absence of God
“Once the creator was removed from the creation, divinity became only a remote abstraction, a social weapon in the hands of the religious institutions.”

Wendell Berry

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RISK

The French poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1919)

“Come to the edge” he said.

“No” I said, “I’m afraid.”

“Come to the edge,” he said.

“No” I said, “I can’t. I will fall.”

“Come to the edge,” he said.

So I came. And He pushed me

And I flew.

 via Steve Elliott

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Spiritual Mentorship
David Brooks in his book “Second Mountain” describes how he was mentored in his faith journey:
Anne [Snyder] answered each question as best she could. She never led me – She never intervened or tried to direct the process. She hung back. If I asked her  a question she would answer it, but she would never get out in front of me. She demonstrated faith by letting God be in charge. And this is a crucial lesson for anybody in the middle of any sort of intellectual or spiritual journey: Don’t try to lead or influence. Let them be led by that which is summoning them. 

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View from the Lanai

So I am thinking about this woodpecker that shows up on the street lamp and bangs away on the aluminum cover. What ever is he thinking? Then I think maybe I’m a lot like him sometimes. Just making noise? So much to think about!

STILL ON THE JOURNEY