Category: Notes Anthology

Here’s the truth, I am a front porch snob. My admission will not surprise many and will generally be met with relief. …Maybe he’ll stop talking about it…Not likely.
When I become ruler of the world, or better yet, president , I will require all new home construction to include front porches. Maximum setback from the street will be 50′. No hedges, fences or other obstructions to personal interactions will not be permitted. All decks, patios and other distractions from the front porch will be permitted only with binding commitment to prioritize front porch usage.
All new developments will be required to be neighborhoods designed for pedestrians.
Yes, I know it sounds un-democratic, but if it will solve our societal woes, why not?
Future editions of “So much to Think About” will include a “Front Porch View” segment.

“A critic is someone who comes onto the battlefield after the battle is over and shoots the wounded”   unknown 
Bird by Bird -Anne Lamott

Disagreeing
When we disagree on theology or politics, we need a category of, “I am not where you are on this issue but I can see why you would believe that and that is a reasonable position to take.”
Matt Redmond

Little lords
…there is no lordless place. Everyone serves. The only question is whom you serve. We moderns, however, in light of our political freedoms, tend to see ourselves a free agents, obedient to no one but ourselves. We do not serve, only command, even if that command is only over ourselves. We are world full of little lords.
Richard Beck

Chris Christie
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has recovered from his bout with the coronavirus, and he’s written about the missteps that led to his  contracting it in the first place. “It is never comfortable to deliver real criticism that includes yourself,” he writes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. “But it was a serious failure for me, as a public figure, to go maskless at the White House. I paid for it, and I hope Americans can learn from my experience. I am lucky to be alive. It could easily have been otherwise.”

Answer to the poor
The culture’s answer to the poor is to raise them to the middle-class through income and education. It is assumed that, somehow, poverty is like a disease and needs to be eradicated. The English held this idea quite strongly during the 18th and 19th centuries and urged the poor to leave England and go to America and Australia. It did not end poverty in England.
Fr Stephen Freeman

What young people think about Christians
…people between the ages of 19 to 29, they are now in their late 20s and mid 30s.
1) Hypocritical 
2) The only thing Christians talk about is “getting saved” and could careless about anything else in the world. 
3) Christians are homophobic, indeed they “hate homosexuals”
4) Christians mistake their brand of politics for Christianity
5) Judgemental 
6) Christians are mean spirited people. 
unChristian: What A New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity. . .And Why It Matters

The first word
What is the first word? Is it not love! In every, in any, situation the first word, the first response, the first reaction, the first deed is LOVE. As the rock theologian Scott Stapp sang, 

“what would love do
If it were here in this room 
standing between me and you,
what would love do?“

Bobby Valentine

An independent mind
An independent mind does its imperfect best to seek truth wherever it is found, including intentionally seeking out the best opposing arguments.
David French

Simplism
simplism.” …defined it as “the unambiguous ascription of single causes and remedies for multifactored phenomena.”

For the simplist, “just saying the right thing, believing the right thing, is the substance of victory and remedy.”
First, the solution is always clear and debate is unnecessary.
Second, the opposition is stupid or evil. If they can’t accept your remedy, they must be too dim to understand or too malicious to comply.
Third, objecting means siding with the enemy. There can be no middle ground.
Fourth, political norms do not matter. Simplist proposals are so legislatively and practically unworkable, they require bypassing rules.
The Simpleton Manifesto

If you could choose, what would you want your obituary to say?
Scott McKnight

Effective political peacemaking
effective political peacemaker displaying characteristics like:
Truthfulness – Respecting common facts of reality, and transparency, not deceptiveness
Trust – Respecting others, dependability, earning other’s respect
Tolerance – Forbearing with diversity and differences
Tenderness – Empathetic, compassionate, gracious
Toughness – Perseveres wisely with courage, and stamina, not as a childish bully but after the manner of a true civil servant.
Jim Abrahamson

Recommended listen
“What could produce a Soul that Shallow…?
A great introduction to Stanley Hauerwas

Still on the Journey

Prophesy fulfilled?
2014
You may have missed it, but a new religion has started:”Yeezianity,”  the worship of Kanye West.  No, I am not kidding.  The Daily Mail  interviewed the founder, Brian Liebman, 23, of Westchester, N.Y.  Liebman believes West is a “divine being sent by God to usher in a new age of humanity…The idea of becoming like Jesus is intimidating, it is blinding. His perfection is so unbelievable, like looking at the sun. But Yeezus [West] is attainable. People can be like that, so Yeezus, I believe, is a stepping stone to Jesus. In other words, Yeezus is a realistic current day model of Jesus.”  Almost 1,000 people have claimed on Liebman’s website to be “

What can I do?
We sometimes ask, “What can I, a single person, do to make a difference in the world?” Our power and influence seems weak to the point of uselessness and insignificance. But really, if you look at history and your life, the situation is quite the opposite. The history of the world and the course of your life turns on every choice. Everything matters. Everything is a small stone.
Richard Beck

Other people
“For most of us it is other people who make the necessary difference to our lives, guiding us, inspiring us, lifting us up and giving us hope. It is the quality of our relationships that more than anything gives us a sense of meaning and fulfilment. Most important of all, it is the ability to love that lifts us beyond the self and its confines. Love is the supreme redemption of solitude.”
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

apatheia 
In Orthodox tradition, there is a goal, expressed in Greek as “apatheia” (“passionlessness”). Yes, that’s our word “apathy.” It does not mean “not caring,” but being free from the bondage of the ever-nagging sound of desires hounding our lives.
FR. Stephen Freeman

Liminal Space
I need too be reminded I am living in a liminal space. 
Liminal space is an inner state and sometimes an outer situation where we can begin to think and act in new ways. It is where we are betwixt and between, having left one room or stage of life but not yet entered the next. We usually enter liminal space when our former way of being is challenged or changed
.The very vulnerability and openness of liminal space allows room for something genuinely new to happen. We are empty and receptive—erased tablets waiting for new words. Liminal space is where we are most teachable, often because we are most humbled. Liminality keeps us in an ongoing state of shadowboxing instead of ego-confirmation, struggling with the hidden side of things, and calling so-called normalcy into creative question. R. Rohr

Followers of the Way
Early Christians were called followers of The Way. By our love, folk will know we are followers of The Way, and what’s more, every step of that Way Jesus is with us, redeeming our solitude and sending us into the world as witnesses to that redeeming and renewing love of God,
Jim Gordon 

Wonder
With the heart of a poet St. Gregory of Nyssa asserts, “Only wonder understands anything.” The role of wonder is (among other things) to slow us down, make us quiet, and help us pay attention. The “flat-landers” sail prosaically through life and miss most of what is true, drawing only the most obvious conclusions, even when what is obvious is incorrect. It is the things that are “out of place” that are easily ignored (they’re so bothersome!), while they are most often the clues that reveal the mystery.
Fr. Stephen Freeman 

Telos
…when we are talking about material goods their telos–their purpose or function–allows the question of enough be raised and debated.
Money clouds this question. Money doesn’t have a telos like a house, car, or laptop. Thus, it’s impossible to say how much money is enough. Money erases telos, and without purpose or function all we are left with is raw desire. More money is always better.
Richard Beck

California wildfires
Environmentalists are right that, over the long-term, we need to cut carbon emissions to something close to zero. And conservatives are also right that, without radical changes to both land use and forest management policy, catastrophic wildfires will continue to plague the state. To engage these issues in good faith, protagonists on both sides of the debate will need to follow their arguments through to their logical conclusions rather than refusing to accept any inference that contradicts their ideological priors. To succeed in addressing either climate change or California’s wildfires, we will need to stop debates about climate change from degenerating into a stale culture war rather than imagining that we might win them.

A father said to his daughter “You have graduated with honors, here is a car I bought many years ago. It is pretty old now. But before I give it to you, take it to the used car lot downtown and tell them I want to sell it and see how much they offer you for it.”

The daughter went to the used car lot, returned to her father and said, “They offered me $1,000 because the said it looks pretty worn out.” 

The father said, now “Take it to the pawn shop.” The daughter went to the pawn shop, returned to her father and said,”The pawn shop offered only $100 because it is an old car.” 

The father asked his daughter to go to a car club now and show them the car. The daughter then took the car to the club, returned and told her father,” Some people in the club offered $100,000 for it because it’s a Nissan Skyline R34, it’s an iconic car and sought by many collectors” 

Now the father said this to his daughter, “The right place values you the right way,” If you are not valued, do not be angry, it means you are in the wrong place. Those who know your value are those who appreciate you……Never stay in a place where no one sees your value. #knowyourworth #authorunknown

We need a why
…we need a why. Why am I getting out of bed in the morning? Why am I here on this earth? Why does this matter and make a difference? Why keep pushing and struggling and fighting?
Richard Beck

RECOMMENDED LISTEN/WATCH from the past week

Still on the Journey

Modernity is married to violence and pleads that it is all in a good cause.
Fr. Stephen Freeman

On October 22, 1925, Mahatma Gandhi published a list of what he called “Seven Social Sins” in his weekly newspaper Young India. Gandhi’s social sins:
Politics without principles. 
Wealth without work. 
Pleasure without conscience. 
Knowledge without character. 
Commerce without morality. 
Science without humanity. 
Worship without sacrifice.

In this moment
“This is an important thing, which I have told many people, and which my father told me and which his father told him. When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation.”
Marilynne  Robinson – Gilead

Victim
Whether someone is a ‘victim’ is a conclusion to be reached at the end of a fair process, not an assumption to be made at the beginning.
U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor 

the big problem with religion
…the big problem with religion. It’s not faith, but certainty. Certainty destroys faith by crushing anything that challenges it. In our fallen state we crave certainty because with it we can grasp at control. But truth will not be controlled. It can only be embraced. Faith embraces truth, while certainty tries to pin it down. Is not this the great irony—these bastions of religious certainty, the ones with a lock on the truth—would ultimately pin Jesus, the truth, down. . . to a cross.
J D Walt

Fight for Justice
Christians believe that we can fight for justice in the knowledge that eventually God will put all things right, but until then we can never expect to fully fix the world. Christianity is not utopian.
Timothy Keller

Christian Identity
The secure identity of Christians does not require shaming, othering, and denouncing (which is always a part of a highly performative identity). Also, the new Christian identity—that we are simultaneously sinful and infinitely loved—changes and heals former oppressors (by telling them they are just sinners) as well as former oppressed (by assuring them of their value). See James 1:9.
Timothy Keller

It is what it is
A saying among management experts today is, “Your system is perfectly designed to yield the result you are getting.” This is a profound though painful truth that must be respected by all who have an interest in Christian spiritual formation, whether for themselves as individuals or for groups or institutions.
Dallas Willard

Corporate sin
The reality of corporate sin does not swallow up individual moral responsibility, nor does individual responsibility disprove the reality of corporate evil. To deny (or largely deny) either is to adopt one of the secular views of justice rather than a biblical one.
Timothy Keller

For leaders
For leaders who need to be liked, they need to get a dog. Maybe two. They will always like you and are quick to forgive.
To all my friends in leadership of any kind, I have two pieces of advice. Number one, get a dog. I personally recommend a Teacup Poodle. My dog, Macy, jumps up to see me every time I come through the door. She does not grill me about masks. In fact, as far as I can tell, she has absolutely no opinion on masks. And she treats me the same, whether the sermon was the bomb or a bust.
—Chris Smith

Teaching
The two biggest lies about teaching are that one learns so much from one’s students and, so gratifying is it, one would do it for nothing. I had a number of bright and winning students, but if I learned anything from them, I seem long ago to have forgotten it. I always felt I was slightly overpaid as a teacher, but I wouldn’t have accepted a penny less. The one certain thing I learned about teaching is that you must never say or even think you are a good teacher. If you believe you are, like believing you are charming, you probably aren’t.
Joseph Epstein

Being a family 
….a line from the Italian-American novelist Don DeLillo: “Being a family is an art … and the dinner table is the place it finds expression.” 
What does your dinner table say about your family?
Michael Frost

Sign of the times
Some time ago, I was staying in the palatial home of a wealthy couple in California’s Orange County. They had all rushed off to work early that morning and left a note saying I could eat anything I wanted from their kitchen. I located the bread but I couldn’t find a toaster, so I thought I’d try grilling it. But when I opened the oven I found two or three expertly gift-wrapped presents in there.
I was a little taken aback and decided to cut my losses and buy breakfast out that day.
That evening I was talking to my host who asked whether I’d found everything okay, and I confessed that I’d been a little thrown by the gifts in the oven.|
“Oh, my gosh,” he erupted, “I totally forgot they were in there! I should have warned you.”
I reassured him I hadn’t cooked the presents, and he explained they were for his wife whose birthday was coming up.
“I hide them in there because we never use the oven,” he explained.

It turns out that never using the oven is becoming a more common thing for American families.
Up until Covid19 hit, Americans were spending more of their food budget on restaurants and food delivery services (50.3%) than they did on groceries (49.7%). It might be even higher since quarantines and lockdowns were instituted in various parts of the country.
For some perspective, back in 1970 only 26% of a family’s food budget was spent on eating out. In 2010 it was 41%.
In fact, the average American eats one in every five meals in her car; 25% of Americans eat at least one fast food meal every single day; and the majority of American families report eating a single meal together less than five days a week.
In fact, only 32% of American families typically have dinner together all seven nights per week.
Interestingly, when families do eat together the average dinnertime is 15 minutes. In the 1960, the average family dinnertime was 90 minutes.
Michael Frost 
http//mikefrost.net/being-a-family-is-an-art-and-the-dinner-table-is-the-place-it-finds-expression/