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Category: Notes Anthology

Weekly Rerun 8-4-2020

I use the iPhone Notes app religiously ( no pun intended). Most often I save quotes, quips, etc from daily readings. I save them, hoping to eventually post about them or share later. Mostly they stay hidden on my iPhone. There is no intended theme or thread, but they may give some insight into the drumbeat in my head.

Music
“Deep calls unto deep,” the Psalmist says (42:7). The sound of God echoes within us, because we are made in His image. The frequency of the voice of God calls forth a sympathetic sound within us. The Church teaches that bells are “icons of the voice of God.” In our prayers, it is possible to become lost in the words. It is important to remember to sing – and to do so often.
Fr Stephen Freeman

No such thing as life without struggle
I know that there is no such thing as life without struggle. There is no one, not anyone, who escapes the soul-wrenching experiences that stretch the mind but threaten to calcify the spirit.
There is no one who has not known what it is to lose in the game of life, to feel defeat, to know humiliation, to be left standing naked and alone before the cold and staring eyes of a world that does not grieve for your grief.
Joan Chittistier – Scarred by Struggle – Transformed by Hope

Root of all sin
..the root of all sin—the beginning of the knowledge of good and evil—is entertaining a lie about who God is. If our mental picture of God is skewed, our relationship with God, with ourselves, and with others will be skewed as well. Conversely, the root of all healing and growth in life is found in being rooted and grounded in the truth of who God is, and this truth is decisively disclosed in the One who is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14: 6).
Greg Boyd – Repenting of Religion

Holy discontent
Holy discontent is that sense of soul that says, “There must be more of God than what I presently know.” It is the size of the gap between the story the Bible tells and the story your life is telling. Holy discontent is the distance between the truth one knows and the reality one experiences. Holy discontent is the beginning of the movement from spiritual milk to spiritual meat; from infancy in Christ to mature faith.
J D Walt

Grace
Pete Alwinson has a great definition of grace. “Grace is doing good for someone when there is no compelling reason to do so and every reason not to.”
That’s it! That is the grace God has given to us.

Immigrants
Immigrants are far more patriotic and far more deeply invested in “American” values such as reverence for our founding institutions, than either side of the political spectrum believes.
As the Cato Institute showed in a 2019 study, for example, three out of four naturalized citizens say that they are “very proud” of being American; among natural-born citizens, the figure is notably lower. Conversely, 69 percent of native-born Americans say that they are “ashamed” of some aspects of America; among immigrants, just 39 percent agree.

Non-violence
At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love. The nonviolent resister would contend that in the struggle for human dignity, the oppressed people of the world must not succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter or indulging in hate campaigns. To retaliate in kind would do nothing but intensify the existence of hate in the universe. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can only be done by projecting the ethic of love to the center of our lives.
MLK

Speak out
Speak out, Hildegard says. And when you do, when you recognize that inner voice as the voice of God and say what it has taught you, the sickness in your heart will melt away. The fatigue you have lived with for so long that you did not even notice how weary you were will lift. Your voice will ring out with such clarity and beauty that you will not be able to stop singing. To speak your truth, Hildegard teaches us, is to praise God.
via Richard Rohr

Ill health of religion
It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion—its message becomes meaningless.
Michael Spencer

When All is well
How easy it is to not notice that we are unloving when our religious activities are going so well! Our religious noise drowns out the cry of God’s heart.
Greg Boyd – Repenting of Religion

SO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT

Weekly Rerun 7-27-2020

I use the iPhone Notes app religiously ( no pun intended). Most often I save quotes, quips, etc from daily readings. I save them, hoping to eventually post about them or share later. Mostly they stay hidden on my iPhone. There is no intended theme or thread, but they may give some insight into the drumbeat in my head.

Other Opinions
“Every man should periodically be compelled to listen to opinions which are infuriating to him. To hear nothing but what is pleasing to one is to make a pillow of the mind.” – St. John Ervine

Why New Testament Worship Is More like a Potluck than a Production
Who knew? Worship is a potluck and everybody brings a dish. Picking up an earlier analogy, worship is a team sport and everybody plays.
When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation.
Somewhere along the way the situation got flipped. These days it’s more like, “When you come together, each of you take a seat and focus your attention on the gifted leaders who are up front leading the worship service.”
JDWalt

“Nones”
The growing number of “nones” represent not the collapse of Christianity, but the inadequacy of secularized Christianity.
Fr Stephen Freeman

Intentions
…the stuff of social and economic life—cooperation, creativity, innovation—requires both risk and trust. For our institutions to function well, we must believe that the people working or learning alongside us are generally decent (until shown otherwise). If wariness and suspicion are our default attitudes, and if each of us knows that one misunderstood word or action might be used against us even if it was motivated by the best of intentions, then we won’t need a virus to keep us socially distanced.
Emily Yoffe 

Zero Tolerance
Over the past thirty years, America has become a hyper-punitive society, and our zero-tolerance mindset has led to an addiction to punishment. This has resulted in mass incarceration, causing the destruction of millions of lives and of entire communities. But many of the same people who abhor the excesses of our criminal justice system applaud this new form of social ruin.
Emily Yoffe

Sense of Worth
To some extent, we get our sense of worth from attaching worth or detracting worth from others, based on what we see. We position ourselves as judges of others rather than simply as lovers of others.
Greg Boyd – Repenting of Religion

God’s Essence
Love is God’s essence. Nowhere else does Scripture express God’s essence in this way. Scripture says God is just and merciful, but it does not say that God is justice itself or mercy itself. It does say that God is love, not just a lover. Love is God’s very essence. Everything else is a manifestation of this essence to us, a relationship between this essence and us. This is the absolute; everything else is relative to it.
Peter Kreeft (Repenting of Religion)

God’s Sovereignty
God’s sovereignty relieves me of a great responsibility—the responsibility of assuming the role of God. No matter what I do, say, or think, no matter if I succeed or fail, no matter if I do it right or wrong, God is still in charge, things are under his control, and in the end, “every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Philippians 2:10).
Steve Brown

Good & Evil
There is no absolute good, for decent institutions always contain flaws, and evolve in a laborious process of trial and error. But evil—the disregard for the values of human life and individual freedom—is often clear and present. Where it is appropriate, we should not be afraid to use the term.
Gary Kasparov

Horseshoe Theory
As horseshoe theory predicts, the extremes are often united in their opposition to the foundations of a free society. Much as they dislike each other, their real enemy is the moderate majority that, should it stand up for its values, can relegate them to the fringes, where they belong.

Yep!
In an age of insanity, the sane seem like oddballs.

Nothing quenches the flame of rebellion more than the cold water of victory. 

Everyone’s a dog on a mission to catch a car, but no one knows how to drive. 

Victimhood and rebellion have a symbiotic relationship, after all. Why rebel if you haven’t been victimized?  

The primary problem today is …that they want to define happiness for others and turn that definition into an orthodoxy. But don’t you dare say they’re not on the side of freethinking and free speech. And don’t even think of suggesting they’re not the rebels they think they are. We’re not The Man, you are!
Jonah Goldberg

Christian Nationalism
Christian nationalism is idolatry/apostasy. While Moses, the true prophet, is with God on Mt. Sinai, people clamor for a visible god. Aaron, the priest, makes the Golden Calf, a Yhwh substitute; that’s the god who led them out of Egypt & will lead them into the Promised Land.
Miroslav Volf

Virtual mob
Largely driven by social media, that virtual embodiment of the mob, there has been a rush to expand the range of unacceptable opinion. A misplaced word won’t result in the KGB knocking on your door at midnight. But Twitter never sleeps.

Sometimes if you just step back and take the long view, things look a lot better.

SO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT!

Weekly Rerun (formerly Notes Anthology)

I use the iPhone Notes app religiously ( no pun intended). Most often I save quotes, quips, etc from daily readings. I save them, hoping to eventually post about them or share later. Mostly they stay hidden on my iPhone. There is no intended theme or thread, but they may give some insight into the drumbeat in my head.

Fruit of the Spirit
…the fruit of the Spirit isn’t about us being perfect, but about God’s work in us conforming us to the image of Christ, bringing us to maturity, or to put it in our own casual terms, the fruit of the Spirit become signs that we are growing up!
Jim Gordon

Facts
There is something profoundly amiss with the moral core of a society when an eminent Doctor comes up against individuals in whom invincible ignorance is rooted in self-interest, which in turn thrives in a culture where ‘ought’ has been dissolved into self-assertion, and in which the common good is an irrelevance, even an obstruction to the claimed rights of the individual.
Jim Gordon

I know you
The conviction that we know others better than they know us—and that we may have insights about them they lack (but not vice versa)—leads us to talk when we would do well to listen and to be less patient than we ought to be when others express the conviction that they are the ones who are being misunderstood or judged unfairly.
We think we can easily see into the hearts of others based on the flimsiest of clues. We jump at the chance to judge strangers. We would never do that to ourselves, of course. We are nuanced and complex and enigmatic. But the stranger is easy.
Talking to Strangers

Self-examination
As an exercise of faith and bold self-examination, I want to ask you to insert your name in every blank below. Read it aloud inserting your name in each blank.
____ is patient, _____ is kind. ____  does not envy, ____ does not boast, ____ is not proud.  ____ does not dishonor others, ____ is not self-seeking, ____ is not easily angered, ____ keeps no record of wrongs.  ____  does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  ____ always protects, ____ always trusts, ____ always hopes, ____ always perseveres.
Okay, if you skipped the challenge exercise, go back and do it now! Say your name in every single blank and do it aloud.
“This is impossible!” you say. And you are right, if it is solely up to you and me to become these things. Here’s the big secret. Go back and insert the word “Jesus” in all the blanks. If these things are true about Jesus, and we know they are, and Jesus is in you, what does that say about you?
J DWalt

Christ in Us
God does not “help” us in the manner of encouraging us or simply arranging for things to work out. Rather, He is in us, working in union with our work. The mystery of ascesis (the practice of prayer, fasting, self-denial, etc.) only makes true sense in this context. 
The “works” that a Christian does, are properly done in union with Christ, such that the works are not those of an individual, but of our common life with and in Christ. When we fast, it is Christ who fasts in us. When we pray, it is Christ who prays in us. When we give alms it is Christ who gives alms in us.
Fr Stephen Freeman

Passing By
…as a Christian theologian, minister and public citizen, it becomes clear to me that something is deeply wrong when significant numbers of the community for reasons of their own, choose to ignore medical evidence, scientific consensus, and their own responsibilities to protect public health. In other words choose not to care for others.
Of course many such folk will have their reasons. Fair enough. I suppose those who passed on the other side of the man who fell amongst thieves on the Jericho road, they too had their reasons. Leave it to the Samaritan to demonstrate why it is important to care for other people. Amongst the nudge, nudge clues Jesus embedded in that parable is the Samaritan “seeing the man”, a word always freighted with meanings – paying attention to, being considerate of, having compassion for. And if that sounds like too much freight, just listen to the further nudges towards loving our neighbour properly. Just read slowly the underlined phrases, each of them an act or attitude of caring for the other: 
“…and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. “Look after him,” he said, “and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.”
Jim Gordon

Knowing God
The constant is that God isn’t through with me, and the older I get, the more excited I am about Jesus. The more I come to see glimmers of what it really means to know him and be known by him. I now have few doubts that God is at work in my life for his glory and my benefit, but the journey won’t be a standstill. It will be new discoveries and new adventures.
In the midst of knowing God through his Son, I’m discovering that I am a member of the human race, deeply connected to all other persons in my humanity and my sinfulness. I’m discovering I don’t need to make a demonstration of what I know about anyone else’s life or how God works. I simply need to learn humility and understand that God is surprising us constantly in Jesus. I need to be open to Jesus and not turn him into the sum total of my idea of what it means to be a Christian.
Michael Spencer

Thou shalt not lie
Westminster Larger Catechism
The duties required in the ninth commandment are, the preserving and promoting of truth between man and man, and the good name of our neighbor, as well as our own; appearing and standing for the truth; and from the heart, sincerely, freely, clearly, and fully, speaking the truth, and only the truth, in matters of judgment and justice, and in all other things whatsoever; a charitable esteem of our neighbors; loving, desiring, and rejoicing in their good name; sorrowing for, and covering of their infirmities; freely acknowledging of their gifts and graces, defending their innocency; a ready receiving of a good report, and unwillingness to admit of an evil report, concerning them; discouraging talebearers, flatterers, and slanderers; love and care of our own good name, and defending it when need requireth; keeping of lawful promises; studying and practicing of whatsoever things are true, honest, lovely, and of good report. (Emphasis added; footnotes omitted.)
via David French

Failure of churches
Unless the church can address its deep and more fundamental failure of moral and theological instruction in politics, many of its leaders and thinkers will continue to pay whack-a-mole with the symptoms of the underlying disease. And make no mistake, conspiracy theories represent one of those symptoms.
David French

SO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT!

Coronavirus Selfie

Something I wonder About.

Abraham had taken another wife, whose name was Keturah. She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah.
Genesis 25:1-2

How did I miss that miracle?

Notes Anthology 7-13-2020

I use the iPhone Notes app religiously ( no pun intended). Most often I save quotes, quips, etc from daily readings. I save them, hoping to eventually post about them or share later. Mostly they stay hidden on my iPhone. There is no intended theme or thread, but they may give some insight into the drumbeat in my head.

Slowing down
“In the name of Jesus Christ, who was never in a hurry, we pray, O God, that thou wilt slow us down, for we know that we live too fast. With all of eternity before us, make us take time to live, time to get acquainted with thee, time to enjoy thy blessings, and time to know each other. Amen”
Jim Gordon

Christian Power
As Christians seek to use their liberty to influence those in power (or to win power themselves), it’s incumbent that we understand that lost power is not an injustice— only lost liberty breaks the American social compact. Our liberty is unalienable. By contrast, we must constantly demonstrate that we’re worthy of power. 
David French

Stupidity
Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed—in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical—and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “After Ten Years” (Letters and Papers from Prison)

Job’s friends
Job’s religious friends and advisers have correct theory but no experience; thoughts about God, but no love of God. They believe in their theology; Job believes in the God of their theology. It is a big difference. The first is information; the second is wisdom.
Richard Rohr

Loss of Faith
The loss of faith isn’t a loss of belief, but a display of contempt. Contempt is another honor/shame word from ancient patronage. Rejecting the gift of the patron (in this case God’s gift of his Son upon the cross) brings dishonor upon the patron. It’s the greatest affront and insult, the worst thing a client could to to a generous and loving patron. Especially when you weren’t worthy of the gift in the first place!
Richard Beck

One Friend
One friend, one person who is truly understanding, who takes the trouble to listen to us as we consider our problems, can change our whole outlook on the world. —Dr. Elton Mayo

Lord’s Supper 
The Lord’s Supper is a most powerful yet humble means of the grace of God through the remembrance of Jesus Christ by the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit.
…in the act of celebrating the Lord’s Supper we witness the saving grace and miraculous mystery of the cross in the bread and cup: the one who was whole became broken so that the ones who were broken could become whole, and the one who was full became empty so that the ones who were empty could become full.
J D Walt

What I’m thinking
It has become our custom when we have something to give away we put in on the curb with a free sign. Normally, items are gone within minutes. Yesterday after cleaning out my storage area, I placed a very usable mop bucket on the curb. Nearly a day later it remains. I am thinking its rejection is a commentary on our society. I haven’t yet decided exactly what it says. Perhaps no one knows what it is? What do you think?

SO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT

Notes Anthology 7-6-2020

I use the iPhone Notes app religiously ( no pun intended). Most often I save quotes, quips, etc from daily readings. I save them, hoping to eventually post about them or share later. Mostly they stay hidden on my iPhone. There is no intended theme or thread, but they may give some insight into the drumbeat in my head.

Change
The word change normally refers to new beginnings. But the mystery of transformation more often happens not when something new begins, but when something old falls apart. The pain of something old falling apart—chaos—invites the soul to listen at a deeper level, and sometimes forces the soul to go to a new place.
Richard Rohr

…the ways we view and treat other people. 
Do we view them through the lens of sacrifice — that is, with a purity filter that sets boundaries, excluding and even expelling those we deem “unclean”? Or, do we use the filter of mercy, which follows the impulse to welcome, leading us to cross boundaries, to set aside our natural “disgust” for that which is outside our bounds of “acceptable” and to invite the other to participate in relationship with us?
Chaplin Mike

Communications Technology
The communications technology that was to become the concourse and meeting of all the world, bringing the longed-for peace to all the world, becomes a weapon to break the world in pieces.
Sabbath Poems – Wendell Berry

Apple Store conversations
I look around the store, packed with products that promise connection, and remark that it looks and feels like a temple. Turkle nods. She surveys the airy space, streaked with sunlight, bustling with people, and thunderous with the din of human voices. “Everybody’s talking,” she muses. “And nobody’s talking about anything except what’s on the machines.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/01/the-eavesdropper/355727/

Feelings
I suspect that feelings always played a bigger role in policymaking than we might like to think. I mean, FDR set the price of gold based on what numbers he thought were lucky.
Jonah Goldberg

Sunflowers
The sunflower, that plant which in shadow turns its head relentlessly toward the sun, is the patron saint of those in despair. When darkness descends on the soul, it is time, like the sunflower, to go looking for whatever good thing in life there is that can bring us comfort.
Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope

Grasping
If we did not grasp so tightly, it would not be so difficult to let go, true, but in the end it is not the grasping that is the problem. It is the inability to relax, to detach, to disengage long before this present debacle that takes us down. We have centered our lives in impermanence and failed to call it fleeting. We make one thing the definition of the self and when it goes, the core of us goes with it.
Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope

Grief
twelfth-century Persian poet Jalaluddin Rumi put it this way: I saw Grief drinking a cup of sorrow and called out, “It tastes sweet, does it not?” “You’ve caught me,” Grief answered, “And you’ve ruined my business. How can I sell sorrow when you know it’s a blessing?”

Decline of Religion in America
By any measure, religiosity in America is declin­ing. As this report will show, since peaking in 1960, the share of American adults attending any religious service in a typical week has fallen from 50 per­cent to about 35 percent, while the share claimed as members by any religious body has fallen from over 75 percent to about 62 percent. Finally, the share of Americans who self-identify or report being affiliated with any religion has fallen from over 95 percent to about 75 percent. 
Promise and peril: The history of American religiosity and its recent decline.

Low Point
The lowest point in American religion, in terms of affiliation and church attendance, was in 1780.
Promise and peril: The history of American religiosity and its recent decline.

American Christianity
American Christianity makes salvation a personal commodity. It’s something you acquire through invocation–say the right prayer and you’re in. It places certain social and moral expectations on us, but it doesn’t infringe upon our liberty. No one can place expectations upon us. It’s an insurance policy we purchase that allows us to pursue the American dream without fear of our eternal future. 
Jayson Bradley

Patriotism
All that patriotism requires, and all that it can be,
is eagerness to maintain intact and incorrupt
the founding principles of the nation, and to preserve
undiminished the land and the people. If national conduct
forsakes these aims, it is one’s patriotic duty
to say so and oppose. What else have we to live for?
Wendell Berry

Opinions
We now have pocket-sized megaphones for our self-righteousness. The sheer number of opining voices confronting us on any given day is fathomless.
Around three billion of us globally are on social media. In the U.S., people spend an average of two hours per day on networking platforms — a total of one month a year, scrolling through catfights and cat photos.

Straw man Fallacy
The “Straw Man” fallacy is one where someone “deliberately misrepresents another person’s argument, re-frames it as something extreme and ridiculous, and then attacks that “Straw Man” instead.”

Winner of Sand sculpture contest

SO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT