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“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

So Much To Think About

George 1 Comment

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

So Much To Think About

George 1 Comment

Lovell Richardson
Lovell Richardson, age 86, of Louisville, formerly of Hardyville, passed away
Thursday, August 4, 2022. He was a native of Hart County. He was a
member of the Okolona Church Of Christ. He retired after 42 years from
Ford Motor Company in Louisville, Ky. He so loved his wife and his girls; was
proud of his grandchildren and enjoyed his great-grands! He loved a tractor
pull and talking old tractors, cars, and UK basketball.
He is preceded in death by his wife of 62 years, Frances Walton Craddock
Richardson; his parents, Henry and Mary Richardson; one sister, Joyce
Pennington; two brothers-in-law, Jimmie Pennington and John Taylor.
He is survived by three children, Mary Suzanne Lehring (Doug) of Bowling
Green, Anita Carole Fuqua (Ron) of Louisville, and Leigh Ellen Vize (Patrick)
of Louisville; eight grandchildren, Erika Donahue (Chris), Jenna Malcolm
(Zac), Kent Lehring (Faith), Jacob Fuqua (Katie), Micah Rogers (Jonathan)
Hayley Palmer (CT), Trey Vize, Jackson Vize; five great-grandchildren,
Kyleigh and Kollyns Donahue, Barren and Harlow Malcolm, and Landen
Palmer; along with two more great-grandchildren due later this year, Avery
Lehring (due in October) and Henry Rogers (due in December); two
brothers-in-law, Bill Craddock (Mary Ellen) and Barry Craddock (Cathy);
and sister-in-law, Carole Faye Taylor.

We attended the funeral of our dearly loved good friend lovell on Tuesday. It was a beautiful tribute to a good man. He and his wife Frances along with Bob and Carla Dadisman were our traveling buddies and fellow Christians for many years.
We visited to say good bye at his home on the previous Friday. He was blessed in his final days to be at home and surrounded by family.

Innocence
We come to God not by doing it right, but by doing it wrong. And yet the great forgiveness is to forgive ourselves for doing it wrong. That’s probably the hardest forgiveness of all: that I’m not perfect, that I’m not unwounded, I’m not innocent. “One always learns one’s mystery at the price of one’s innocence.” If I want to maintain an image of myself as innocent, superior, righteous, or saved, I can only do that at the cost of truth. I have to reject the mysterious side, the shadow side, the broken side, the unconscious side of almost everything.  
Richard Rohr

God knows me
This is a God who knows my humanity inside and out. God has counted every hair on my head (Matthew 10:30) and bottled up every tear I have shed (Psalm 56:8). Not simply because the Word formed us (Genesis 1:27), knit us together in our mothers’ wombs (Psalm 139:13), was there from the very beginning . . . but because God wore our skin.
Kare Bowler

State of religion in America
Reports of religion’s decline in America have been exaggerated. You’ve heard the story: Churchgoers are dwindling in number while “Nones”—those who tell pollsters they have no religious affiliation—are multiplying as people abandon their faith and join the ranks of atheists and agnostics. Headlines declare that the U.S. is secularizing along the lines of Europe. From Britain’s Daily Mail in 2013: “Religion could disappear by 2041 because people will have replaced God with possessions, claims leading psychologist.”
These conclusions are based on analyses that are so flawed as to be close to worthless. In a new study with our colleagues Matt Bradshawand Rodney Stark, we seek to set the record straight.
Data from five recent U.S. population surveys point to the vibrancy, ubiquity and growth of religion in the U.S. Americans are becoming more religious, and religious institutions are thriving. Consistent with some previous studies but contrary to widely held assumptions, many people who report no religious affiliation—and even many self-identified atheists and agnostics—exhibit substantial levels of religious practice and belief.
The religious landscape in the U.S. is changing but not in the ways that draw headlines. Hundreds of new denominations have quietly appeared, as have thousands of church plants (new congregations) and numerous non-Christian religious imports. These more than make up for losses from mainline Protestant denominations, which are indeed in free fall and have been for decades. But the decline of established institutions is easier to track than the formation and growth of new ones.
Religion is constantly evolving, but it isn’t in decline in the U.S. More Americans attend and support more religious congregations than ever before. Social scientists can’t count them unless they know where to look.
WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/religion-is-dying-dont-believe-it-nones-others-surveys-faith-institutions-atheists-agnostics-practice-minority-11659017037

More than half of Americans between ages 16 and 74 read below the sixth-grade level. Video, however, requires only eyes on screens. But … passive media cannot communicate a civilization defined by ideas. Our creedal nation, Stirewalt says, “requires written words and a common culture in which to understand them.”

Take up your cross
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”
I asked the class this question: “What would have this sounded like–this call to ‘take up you cross and follow me’–to the people standing there that day listening to Jesus?”
We’ve so moralized this text that I don’t think we appreciate what Jesus was asking. Crosses littered the landscape. People carrying crosses on the way to crucifixion were driven through city streets. The roads leading into cities were lined with bodies hanging on crosses.
The cross was a tool of Imperial terror and control. Its shadow of fear fell over every aspect of colonial life in the outposts of the Roman Empire. Crucifixion was was a bully demanding obedience and compliance.
And in the face of that threat and terror Jesus says, “take up your cross and follow me.” It was a call to radical fearlessness for a people living under the shadow of Imperial torture.
And yet, the day Jesus said these words no one knew about Easter Sunday. Without the resurrection the fearless call to “take up your cross and follow me” would have sounded suicidal. But with Jesus raised from the the dead the Imperial threat had lost its grip upon the political imagination of Jesus’ followers. They had been emancipated from fear. Just as Jesus had been in the face of Pilate’s threats. And the outcome of this liberation was twofold. First, no threat of violence could sway or deter the followers of Jesus. They had became fearless. They now existed outside the bounds of Imperial control. Without fear they had become unmanageable. Second, they had joy. In the face of beatings, torture and imprisonment the followers of Jesus would sing.
Richard Beck

celebrity
…is “social power without proximity.” … there’s a thinness of not being really known, constantly chased by adoring persons who think they know the person and want to know more, in celebrity.
Evangelicals have aped culture in its celebrity culture, celebrities who are produced by “visual appeal, slick marketing, and personal branding.” Celebrity then is a product formed intentionally on the basis of the tools that make someone into a celebrity. Branding is at work in celebrity-dom, branding that apes what happens with the genuinely famous.
Evangelicals have aped culture in its celebrity culture, celebrities who are produced by “visual appeal, slick marketing, and personal branding.” Celebrity then is a product formed intentionally on the basis of the tools that make someone into a celebrity. Branding is at work in celebrity-dom, branding that apes what happens with the genuinely famous.
Am I being seen?, is one of the celebrity’s preoccupations. Instead of simply doing the work and not being seen, the celebrity wants to be seen (as) doing the work.
Scoot McKnight/ Katelyn Beaty

View from the front porch
post from the past

One of the most enjoyable aspects of our current home is the front porch. It is where I spend as much time as reasonable, weather permitting. It is my thin place.
Thin places are places of energy. A place where the veil between this world and the eternal world is thin. A thin place is where one can walk in two worlds – the worlds are fused together, knitted loosely where the differences can be discerned or tightly where the two worlds become one.
It is a venue that encourages reading, reflection, relaxation and observation. Opportunities for interaction and engagement with neighbors and others abound.
Coincidental to our location, numerous people walk down our street just a few feet from the porch. Over the years, it has become my habit to greet everyone or at least attempt to do so. Those encounters have produced varying degrees of relationship, ranging from casual greetings to extended conversations and some friendships. The demographic of those who pass by … age, gender, race, ethnicity, socio-economic and religion is amazingly varied. 
Additionally, our porch provides a wide view of our neighborhood. The coming and going, the routines and rhythms, traumas and joys are readily visible and, I might add, audible. As a result, I have a familiarity with my neighborhood that would not otherwise be possible. 
Beyond pedestrian traffic and neighborhood activity, there is also vehicular traffic. In recent years street patterns changed resulting in a significant increase in traffic. The demographic of vehicles is as broad as the people who walk by. Cars, trucks, vans, bicycles, strollers, skateboards, segways and handicap scooters. As with the neighborhood, observation of the vehicle traffic provides insight into the realities of people’s lives. (I would say that my ability/desire to develop relationships with people who drive by has been impeded by their propensity to ignore speed limits.) ?  The varied conditions of vehicles and their owners dramatically illustrates the existence of the increasing income gap in today’s society. From the vantage point of my porch I am able to see a microcosm of society in our community.  
Over the years, I have come to realize how important the front porch is to my spiritual health. I suspect, in the absence of the thin place of my front porch, my spiritual transformation would be significantly different, and not for the better. 
A front porch is not the answer, but it is a perpetual reminder of the reality of the world in which I live and the pressing need for hope and redemption.
Front porches provide questions. Questions so profound and perplexing, that I am humbled and forced to abandon self-sufficiency for submission. 


STILL ON THE JOURNEY

So Much To Think About

George 1 Comment

“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

So Much To Think About

George 0 Comments

LOVE
Love and ever more love is the only solution to every problem that comes up. If we love each other enough, we will bear with each other’s faults and burdens. If we love enough, we are going to light that fire in the hearts of others. And it is love that will burn out the sins and hatreds that sadden us. It is love that will make us want to do great things for each other. No sacrifice and no suffering will then seem too much.
Dorothy Day

Cost Benefit Analysis
…life is about more than just the sum of the day-to-day pleasures and pains that follow from our choices. Adding up costs and benefits — what I call narrow utilitarianism — may seem like the height of rationality. But it can easily undervalue the most important but less obvious aspects of a life well lived. 
Human beings want purpose. We want meaning. We want to belong to something larger than ourselves. The decisions we make in the face of wild problems don’t just lead to good days and bad days. They define us. They determine who we are, who we might aspire to become, who we might come to be.
… decisions look irrational only until we remember that the future is veiled from us and that life is about more than simple pluses and minuses. …daily happiness is less important than how we thought we should live his life and who and what we wanted to become.
Russ Roberts
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/21/opinion/how-to-make-decisions.html?campaign_id=39&emc=edit_ty_20220723&instance_id=67246&nl=opinion-today&regi_id=98699252&segment_id=99384&te=1&user_id=979ff7ea8eb24fcd7abe710b579081f5

What kind of friend do you want?
“Jesus said, “Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. . . . As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love.” —John 15:4–5, 9 

I want you to be honest: Would you rather have a friend who is always right or one who is in right relationship with you? I think I know the answer: We’d rather have someone who’s in right relationship with us. In fact, someone who’s right all the time can be pretty obnoxious. Would we rather have a friend who’s always correct or a friend to whom we’re always connected? Of course, we’d rather have the second.  
So why did we in the West seemingly change the rules for God? Many of us grew up thinking God wanted us to be right, to be correct, even to be perfect. What this passage in John’s Gospel is saying is that God wants people who are in right relationship, which means that we are open, and that we can listen to others with understanding and compassion. It means that we can admit when we’re wrong, which is almost every day for most of us. It certainly is for me.   
Richard Rohr

“the mind of Christ.”
The mind of Christ draws us to the power of God that shows up in weakness, great fear, and trembling. The mind of Christ doesn’t draw us to the top, but to the bottom. We know nothing except Christ and him crucified. That knowledge marks you as “spiritual.” 
By contrast, ambition and pride mark you as unspiritual, immature, lost and blind. And whenever you see Christians flying flags of support for various leaders–“I follow [insert name of leader].”–we are seeing “mere humans,” immature and worldly Christians, not the spiritually enlightened.
Richard Beck

It’s about sex
In the Old Testament, it is said that a man “knew his wife,” when making reference to their conjugal union. Modern thought tends to smile knowingly and think that what is being said is but a quaint metaphor for sex. But “sex” is itself the crude metaphor of an individualistic culture that has reduced “union” to a set of feelings. The Biblical phrase expresses the understanding that what is taking place between husband and wife transcends its physical expression. It is a true union in which the two “become one flesh.” Again, such a statement is treated as “mere metaphor” in our modern culture, when it is quite the opposite. It is an effort, in words, to give voice to an experience of knowing that is virtually inexpressible. The modern assumption is that the phrase, “knew his wife,” is an effort to avoid what is actually happening, when it is, in fact, an effort to actually express what is happening beyond direct observation.
Fr Stephen Freeman

In our cultural context, to use the word “love,” is to invite the entire world of sentimentality into a conversation where it does not belong. The contemporary world knows very little of love in its proper sense. For “love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God” (1John 4:7). 
Fr Stephen Freeman

Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you[?]
Paul does not say, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Look at your activity log over the last week and see if you did anything that would point to faith. Did you read your Bible or pray or love your neighbor or go to church or give money to a person in need?” This is the deep rut in which most Christians are stuck—the tired movement between aspiration and activation; between inspiration and application. It’s why the most common thing we hear people say when it comes to faith is something along the lines of, “I need to do better,” or “I need to try harder.” And there is no end to this cycle. In time, it leads to two equally soul-stunting outcomes: Easy believe-ism on the one hand and harsh legalism on the other; abdication or addiction. 
No, Paul is not looking for the presence or absence of activity as the mark of passing or failing the test. He is looking for a realized actuality:
Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you[?]
J D Walt

Deep listening …
is an act of surrender. We risk being changed by what we hear. When I really want to hear another person’s story, I try to leave my preconceptions at the door and draw close to their telling. I am always partially listening to the thoughts in my own head when others are speaking, so I consciously quiet my thoughts and begin to listen with my senses. . . . The most critical part of listening is asking what is at stake for the other person. I try to understand what matters to them, not what I think matters. Sometimes I start to lose myself in their story. As soon as I notice feeling unmoored, I try to pull myself back into my body, like returning home. As Hannah Arendt [1906–1975] says, “One trains one’s imagination to go visiting.” [1] When the story is done, we must return to our skin, our own worldview, and notice how we have been changed by our visit.  
Valarie Kaur 

View from the front porch
A post from the past:

I Can Identify with President Obama
 
If not comforting, it is interesting that I have come to identify with President Obama in his efforts to single-handedly solve most of our country’s problems. Let me explain.
In the mid-seventies I returned from an educational leave to a new job in labor relations at Ford. As a labor relations representative my first significant assignment was to conduct absentee hearings. The assignment meant that each day I would go to an interview room in the plant and conduct  hearings for employees that had been absent or tardy the previous few days. Typically, dozens of employees would line up for their opportunity, accompanied by their union committeman, to face my stinging interrogation regarding their absence/tardiness. Without a reasonable explanation supported by appropriate documentation, I would administer discipline which could be as little as a verbal warning or as drastic as termination depending upon their attendance records. We employed a progressive discipline system which meant that each penalty was more severe that the last. Within certain limits, I had the latitude to exercise discretion in what the penalty would be. For example, I could give a person a three-day suspension without pay and then their next discipline would be a week suspension, and so on. I might, because of mitigating circumstances, administer the penalty but waive the time off. Theoretically, the employee having been given a gracious gift and facing a next penalty of one week (appropriately threatened with such at the time of the gift) would see the error of his ways and come to work from that point on.

You must be thinking, what does this have to do with President Obama?
When assigned to the absentee hearings, I inherited all the documented absentee records of every employee. Those who came the hearings were most often employees that had a history of habitual absence/tardiness. I looked at the terrible attendance records and talked with the employees and heard their pleadings and hard luck stories and tears et al. I began to believe, that despite the failed efforts of experienced labor relations representatives to correct their behavior, I possessed qualities and skills that would succeed where others had failed. As a result, I launched a personal campaign to single-handedly solve the plant’s desperate absentee problems. It was obvious to me that my predecessors had not explained clearly nor used the tools of persuasion as I was capable of doing to turn this around. To make a long story shorter, in a short time disciplinary actions decreased and absenteeism began to increase. This did not go unnoticed by my superiors. I was informed that if I didn’t get on track I would be fired. So rather than be fired, I fired. My delusions of grandeur were burst and I learned a valuable lesson. The lesson wasn’t that I didn’t have some special or unique skills and/or qualities that may have very well improved the process. I learned that I could not ignore the reality of history and experience and succeed by the force of my personality. What success I ultimately achieved in improving attendance came because I recognized the reality of the circumstances around me and then began to apply whatever special traits I possessed to those circumstances.
There is, I believe, a basic human trait that leads us to arrogantly believe that we individually possess knowledge and understanding that transcends all others and as well as lessons learned from the past.

It is comforting(?) to know President Obama is human.

STILL ON THE JORNEY

So Much To Think About

George 0 Comments
Facebook post by daughter Melissa of great grandson Jesse

There was this guy pushing a peanut…
On Friday morning, 53-year-old Bob Salem became the fourth person to push a peanut to the top of Pikes Peak with his nose. It took seven days—mostly at night to avoid distracting questions and requests for selfies from passersby—and the peanut in question was actually about a dozen peanuts, as he lost and ate a few along the way.
There’s a lot we could say about this, but our first question is: fourth!?

So much for bingeing on Netflix…
…as media multiplies, so does competition for attention. And as competition for our attention multiplies, content is no longer optimized for beauty or art or even enjoyment—but rather for its addictive qualities. 
…we regularly mistake this addictive media for entertainment. There’s some psychological function deep in our brains that tells us, “Well, I just spent six hours watching this show, I must like it a lot.” When, no, its script is actually a mediocre piece of hot trash and you’re being manipulated by cliffhangers and bad writing for hours on end to keep watching. The same way you get hijacked into scrolling through social media way more than you’d actually like to, your brain gets hijacked to watch “just one more episode” to find out if so-and-so really died or not. 
When everything is measured in terms of engagement, content will be optimized for addictiveness. Not entertainment or artistic merit. Not intellectual substance or creativity. Pure, plain addictiveness. That means we, the consumers, get a higher quantity of more predictable, less innovative, less interesting art in our lives. 
Mark Manson

As Elie Wiesel said, “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” 

Saved by Pickleball?
Can pickleball save America? More than 1 million people picked up the sport—played with paddles and a Wiffle-like ball—during the pandemic, bringing the total number of pickleheads in the United States to 5 million. “Robert D. Putnam’s book ‘Bowling Alone,’ from 2000, mourns the loss of beloved community groups—a bridge club in Pennsylvania, an N.A.A.C.P. chapter in Roanoke, a sewing charity league in Dallas—which, for decades, fostered norms of reciprocity, trustworthiness, and general good will,” Sarah Larson writes in The New Yorker. “A craving for such feelings is a key part of pickleball’s popularity. At one tournament, a senior pro told me, ‘The most important thing about this sport is the friendships. I just lost my husband a week ago, and the only reason I’m here today is because of my pickleball community lifting me up.’ She got teary. ‘There’s no other sport like that. Tennis isn’t like that. You go to a tennis tournament, it’s them against you.’”
The Dispatch

Consent is not enough
Even when it goes well, sex is complicated. It involves our bodies, minds and emotions, our connections to each other and our deepest selves. Despite the (many, and popular) arguments that it’s only a physical act, it is clear to almost anyone who has had it that sex has vast consequences, some of which can last long after an encounter ends. Over the past several decades, our society has come to believe that consent—as a legal standard and a moral requirement—could somehow make our most unruly activity more manageable. But it was never going to be that easy. 
Christine Emba

A glimmer of hope
…in every single argument and controversy under the sun, reality gets a vote. Culture wars are ultimately won or lost not by online arguments but through their real-world consequences, and the position that leads to greater human misery tends to lose. 
I don’t mean to claim that cultural arguments have no effect. We shouldn’t simply stand by while bad ideas do their terrible work. Good faith engagement can both mitigate the damage when a misguided cultural trend is ascendant and provide a robust alternative moral framework when frustrated and alienated citizens seek a different path.
The key phrase above is “good faith.” When human beings turn from the broken path, they don’t want to be greeted by a taunting crowd that’s drinking their tears, but rather by a compassionate community that humbly recognizes its own mistakes. Peak woke should be replaced by tolerance and pluralism, consent culture by love and respect. 
David French

 “the noetic effects of sin.”
The word “noetic” comes from the Greek word noein, “to perceive.” The noetic effects of sin concern how sin affects our perception.
Most of us think of sin in moral terms. Sin is a moral failure, missing the moral mark, disobeying God’s law. But the Bible and the Christian tradition also describes sin as having perceptual consequences. Sin affects our vision. Phrased differently, sin has epistemological consequences, affecting our ability to know and how we envision the truth. 
Simply, the noetic effect of sin is perceptual damage. Blurred vision. A wounded mind. 
This changes how we might think about being “lost.” Growing up in a conservative Christian tradition, “lost” has generally meant for me “damned,” heading to hellfire. But from a noetic perspective, lost can simply mean lost. As in, you have no idea where you are or where you are going. Maybe because it is dark and you can’t see. Maybe because you lost your compass and map. The issue is perceptual and epistemological. 
This is a helpful shift of focus. When I describe the world as being “lost,” I don’t have to think of people as being particularly depraved or going to hell. I can, rather, simply see people as lost, noetically lost–rudderless, confused, wandering, and directionless.
Richard Beck

To live is to stand before an endless sea of possibilities, and it’s your responsibility to choose a defining commitment and enter the anxiety that lies between who you are and who you might become. 
Ryan Snider

The single most important actions in the life of this world,
on any given day, are found in the various places where the people of God have gathered and the Divine Liturgy is being offered “on behalf of all and for all.” Our modern sensibilities have oftentimes reduced the Liturgy to a “filling station,” providing us with energy and inspiration so that we can go out into the world and do “our real work.” These are two competing visions – and the first one – the ancient one – is increasingly ignored in its proper role.
If we understood the true nature of prayer – our communion with God – we would find every possible occasion to pray. When we enter into prayer in the presence of God, we take our place among the righteous. We become God’s salt and God’s light.
Fr Stephen Freeman

Zero SUM- NOT!
There is no scarcity. There is no shortage. No lack of love, 
of compassion, of joy in the world. There is enough.  
There is more than enough.  

Only fear and greed make us think otherwise. 

No one need starve. There is enough land and enough food.  
No one need die of thirst. There is enough water. No one  
need live without mercy. There is no end to grace. And we  
are all instruments of grace. The more we give it, the more  
we share it, the more we use it, the more God makes. There  
is no scarcity of love. There is plenty. And always more.
Rachel Harding recalls her mother’s vision

View from the front porch…
July 23 marks another 60th anniversary. On that day in 1962, I was hired as an hourly employee at at the Ford Motor Company Nashville Glass Plant.
I wrote this post in 2009:

It was 47 years ago today that I walked into the Ford Motor Company Nashville Glass Plant as a new employee. It was both exciting and scary. Getting to work at Ford was a blessing. The opportunity did not come not because I had been recruited for my skills and talents. Joe Clark, a good friend of Ann’s family worked there and had the influence to get me hired. He literally sneaked into the employment office past others waiting for an opportunity to go to work. Ann and I did not have two pennies to rub together with a baby on the way. We were living with the Clark’s until we could get on our feet. I guess I couldn’t reach my bootstraps. 

For the next 36 years 5 months and 8 days my life was pretty much defined by “I work at Ford’s”. My work experience was rewarding both materially and personally. I am thankful for the opportunity that came my way and it is good to be reminded that it was only because of the graciousness of others that it was possible.

STILL ON THE JOURNEY