LT: Right Now

Whatever you have just done is not nearly as important as what you are doing right now.

-- Mike Krzyzewski

How We Choose To View Things

Ever noticed...that how we choose to view things is often serving something within us?

Politics

May the Church see politics through the lens of Jesus and not Jesus through the lens of politics.

-- Rich Villodas

3 Observations & A Question….

Don’t impoverish yourself with worry.

There is so much beauty around...that you had nothing to do with.

People with resources can really influence, if not shape, the experiences of many others...of course, in bad or good ways.

One can reach certain conclusions under the cover of darkness — the question may be, how do they then stand in the light?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question….

It Can Give You A Lot

AXIOS:  Finish Line

Tonight's photo — which comes to us from our colleagues at Axios Portland — was taken by an 18-year-old in Oregon who's recovering from drug addiction and is two months sober.

The teen, who is part of Collective Roots, a family recovery group, says there's joy in "appreciating the world."

"Like embracing the realization that the world doesn't owe you anything, but it can give you a lot — and it does."

In light today’s earlier post, isn't there always a great tension in knowing about the co-existence of profound beauty (joy, sunsets, mountains, etc.) and unspeakable terror (Maine, Gaza, Ukraine, etc.)?  Sometimes even that seems like too much...but, it is necessary (see Barbara Holmes reflection here).

Burning Bushes

'Poem for the week' -- "Burning Bushes":

It’s fall here, so all the bushes are burning:

engulfed in red and cool to the touch.

Proud and sentimental and safe. 

But the world is burning with unholy fire,

and I watch crimson flood the canvas through the screen.

These are no happy little accidents.

This is the history channel in real-time,

unsanitized by temporal distance.

Freshly orphaned babies, limp in the arms of bewildered strangers.

A soccer ball, tearfully unreturned to a now-dead friend.

The beeping pulse of life-support gone dark.

Screaming and blaming and weeping and terrifying silence. 

It’s a wildfire, unquenched by tears and prayer.

There is no flamed pillar of divine presence—

only waste and ash, apocalyptic devastation.

I hold a vigil in my yard,

stroking blood-red leaves as though lighting a candle,

projecting my burning pleas into the darkness.

There is only static.

Please don’t remain static.  

-- Emily Cash, Driftwood Prayers

Create The Fact

Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

-- William James

Disillusionment, Moral Integrity, and the Beauty of the Ordinary

My friends, we are on the way to becoming a two-tiered society composed of a few winners and a larger group of Americans left behind, whose anger and disillusionment are easily manipulated. Once unbottled, mass resentment can poison the very fabric of society — the moral integrity of society — replacing ambition with envy, replacing tolerance with hate. Today the targets of that rage are immigrants and welfare mothers and government officials and gays, and an ill-defined counterculture. But as the middle class continues to erode, who will be the targets tomorrow?

-- Robert Reich, 1994

Heading towards 30 years later now, have things gotten any better?

Well if this headline is any indication...not much (perhaps worse, due to today's actors):

Trump pledges to turn away those who don’t like ‘our religion’

We know what this means, don't we (if we can't tell by now, we may never recognize things for what they are)?  Such dynamics are built on a cultivated appetite for the threatening and sensational.  If it isn't sensational (or threatening), we are now just too bored to care very much.  Make me care...we say (inadvertently).  Except there is a logical limit to that kind of demand, and it appears we are now fully up against it.  Worry is its own kind of fuel and we are sucking in its fumes with our mouths wide open.

I was out walking last evening and a bit overwhelmed by a little different — the range and extent of the beauty of the Fall season now in full bloom all around us.  A thought wandered across my path:

Don't impoverish yourself with worry.

...and this corollary piped up:

...there is too much beauty around us, that we had nothing to do with.

I suspect there is something profound embedded in these hints that we can get from looking away from the populist raging that so dominates our attention.

What we notice is often a function of what we are looking at.  We are the ones who will have to decide what we're going to keep focusing on (obviously, those selling us things that change our appetites don't really care about what's truly good for us).  They just want us to keep buying and ratcheting up the things we end up thinking we need protection from because of their hysterics.  

The real sensations from my walk reminded me that it is often the ordinary that deserves our attention (see Sarah Bessey's reflections on this here ) and that a more realistic rhythm with the naturalness of life is a beautiful wisdom.

...one that, quite possibly, could off-set some of the vagaries of our times' poisons, if each of us is willing to adjust our appetites.

LT: By Compassion

God leads by compassion, never by condemnation. God offers us the grace to weep over our sins more than to perfectly overcome them, to humbly recognize our littleness rather than to become big.

-- Richard Rohr

Quality of Life

I'm wondering...what, in the end, are the better (good) standards of quality-of-life?

Clearly, as a culture, we haven’t nailed it…as much as we like to think we have.

Sin, Crime, and Justice

In the Old Testament, justice and sin were both relational realities, and justice was not about upholding individual rights, but protecting the well-being of communities.…

Crime is never merely an individual breaking the law; it is always a communal transgression that fractures shalom.

God’s justice moves toward restoration, reintegration, and redemption. God’s justice is inherently connected to healing the harmed, restoring what has been lost, and reconciling those who are estranged from God and community. God’s heart and justice are inherently restorative.

-- Dominique DuBois Gilliard

Clearly sin has more relational componentry than many of our religious traditions have ended up with today, which makes it hard to disconnect from the idea of evil.  More on sin…and evil here.

Work Really Hard

 

3 Observations & A Question….

Some people sure seem to have a lot of opinions about how other people should be living their lives….

No one really likes to be managed — they want to be heard.

Life is largely a matter of availability; what we have done and how we are living it — to make ourselves available to it and to those who live with us in it.

At what point does it dawn on you how much you have spent of your life trying to manage your future?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question….

On the Lighter Side: It's People I Can't Stand

 On The Lighter Side: 

The Daily Cartoonist

Something Else

Often when you think you're at the end of something, you're at the beginning of something else.

-- Fred Rogers

A Beautiful Thing

…happened 60 years ago today:

See some of what she has done since...here.

Oh, and:

Chaos

At some point, you could no longer avoid the conclusion that chaos is not only the result, but the strategy.

...how immediately resonant is this observation?

It seems nearly the whole political world has bought into it.

...unless the media version of the world is not the whole world.

Which it isn't.

But, still, we are so preoccupied by chaos...because at some level it does work (just not constructively), especially in terms of requiring our attention.

But, it’s a damn shame for those who peddle (or worse) in it — as it is for those of  us who just keep clicking away at their conspiracies like…voyeurs. 

Do I sound a little angry?  I’m not sure who to be more mad at — our leaders for not working at anything other than maintaining their power or us for not demanding any better.

We can do better – we have to do better… maybe even for the sake of our very own survival.

Work Worth Doing

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. 

-- Theodore Roosevelt

Interests

I’ve noticed…though I have a deep respect for both, I’ve typically had more psychological interests than mechanical ones.

If nothing else, this gives me some clues about what I have to work a little harder at (and what I don't).

Evidence

We're not an advertisement for Jesus; we're supposed to be evidence.

-- Bob Goff

3 Observations & A Question….

When we’re doing something bad (or harmful), we have to stop doing it — we can’t just try to do something good, too, to offset it…but, then, keep right on doing the bad thing.

Sometimes life requires little more than just a great amount of patience.

You really have to pay attention to your life (especially since no one else really will...or can) — to look out for things that affect the quality of your self.

How many terms have we invented for the primary purpose of casting disparagement (in other words, the significance of their meaning is more evocative than it is substantive)?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question….

Israel: Why?

I had queued another 'On the Lighter Side' for today.  But, I just can't do it, in light of the horrific world events this week (maybe I can try it again tomorrow...) — it would seem, somehow, disrespectful of the impacts of what appears to be the nature of our prevailing human condition.  

Regarding why Israel was unprepared for the Hamas attacks:

“Israel has been governed by a populist strongman … who is a public-relations genius but an incompetent prime minister. He has repeatedly preferred his personal interests over the national interest and has built his career on dividing the nation against itself. He has appointed people to key positions based on loyalty more than qualifications, took credit for every success while never taking responsibility for failures, and seemed to give little importance to either telling or hearing the truth.

The coalition [he] established has been by far the worst. It is an alliance of messianic zealots and shameless opportunists, who ignored [the nation’s] many problems — including the deteriorating security situation — and focused instead on grabbing unlimited power for themselves. In pursuit of this goal, they adopted extremely divisive policies, spread outrageous conspiracy theories about state institutions that oppose their policies, and labeled the country’s serving elites as “deep state” traitors.”

-- Yuval Noah Narari, Israeli historian

This assessment sounds eerily similar to populism some place not as far away....

Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply. 

-- Reinhold Niebuhr

...at least consider this perspective from Diana Butler Bass, which echos some of this one by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  Without at least some of Niebuhr's perception, we are left with the consequences of interminable iterations of revenge, instead of the healing opportunities that could come from grieving. 

Unbecoming

Instagram: mariashriver

The path of awakening is not about becoming who you are.  Rather it is about unbecoming who you are not.

-- Albert Schweitzer

Misinformation

Headlines such as this need (of all things) attention:

X is flooded with Israel–Hamas war misinformation

Obviously, misinformation is not a new thing (no, Donald Trump didn't invent it...he's just the latest peddler to come along — although, this perspective makes it less benign).  Conspiracies have been en vogue...from the beginning.

We can assail the vagaries of misinformation all we want (and, we should), but I suspect it will have little effect, given how most of us seem to manage our attention (or don't) and how the technology involved facilitates not only the perpetuation of un-truths, but the expansion of them.

We have a truth problem.  

I want to put it that way, because the problem doesn't seem to be the truth itself, but rather our estimation and appropriation of it.  Sometimes I'm not so sure we're only half interested in it anyway.  We're more preoccupied with our own self-interests.  As long as it doesn't directly impact us, we don't seem to care too much about the larger good.  This may be, among other things, the curse of relative affluence — it leads us to believe we don't have to.

But, we can't just say (after the fact), well how did we get here?  We are getting there right now.

I'll give you that it's pretty hard to keep up with.  Deluge is a word often used to describe information these days.  Which kind of means that we have to become selective.  But, I'm sure how that actually relieves us, because we still have to determine what our selections will be.  This is quite apparent in the surrounding echo-chambers that have, therefore, developed.

All to say, this is an uphill battle at the very least.  To what can we turn to help ourselves help each other?

For one thing, we need to become more cognizant of what our values actually are AND the way they are (or are not) working themselves out in the daily choices we make about how we live.  We can't just continue to defer to our trance-like state of existence and then blame those in charge.  We are the ones consuming everything they are producing, so they keep producing it (one of the real down-sides of a market-economy).  We actually need to do some of the work here...perhaps a lot of it.  The system is just making too much money (off us) to regulate itself.  And, by the way, simply asking for a bigger piece of the pie isn't a real solution either....

Are we ending up with what we really want here?  Is this a healthy situation, for all involved?

If we can't just continue to feed-the-beast, how much of what is involved here is our use of information?

The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is.

-- Nadine Gordime

Trust Them

 The way to make people trustworthy is to trust them.

-- Ernest Hemingway

Done It Before

Ever noticed...that when we really need something, we turn to those who have already done it?

What Am I Looking For?

Regarding the Christian Bible (though I would be surprised to learn that similar dynamics don’t occur regarding sacred texts from other religious traditions, too):

If you are looking for verses with which to support slavery, you will find them. If you are looking for verses with which to abolish slavery, you will find them. If you are looking for verses with which to oppress women, you will find them. If you are looking for for verses with which to liberate or honor women, you will find them. If you are looking for reasons to wage war, you will find them. If you are looking for reasons to promote peace, you will find them. If you are looking for an out-dated, irrelevant ancient text, you will find it. If you are looking for truth, believe me, you will find it.

This is why there are times when the most instructive question to bring to the text is not "what does it say?", but "what am I looking for?" I suspect Jesus knew this when he said, "ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened." If you want to do violence in this world, you will always find the weapons. If you want to heal, you will always find the balm.

-- Rachel Held Evans

Words That Subtract Grace

4 Observations (from Others)

I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.

-- John Steinbeck

There isn’t anyone you couldn’t love once you’ve heard their story.

-- Mary Lou 

So long as we live among men, let us cherish humanity.

-- André Gide

Never confuse kindness with weakness. 

-- Bindi Irwin

Prior 4 Observations (from Others).

Origin of Planets

‘Poem for the week’ — “Origin of Planets”:

In this version, the valley
lime green after rain
rolls its tides before us.

A coyote bush shivers with seed.

We hold out our palms as if catching snow—
our villages of circular tracts
overcast with stars.

We have been moving together in sequence
or thousands of years, paralyzed
only by the question of time.

But now it is autumn under bishop pines—
the young blown down by wind feed
their lichens to the understory.

We follow the deer-path
past the ferns, to the flooded
upper reaches of the estuary.

The channel snakes through horsetails
and hemlock as the forest deepens, rises
behind us and the blue heron,
frozen in the shallows.

The shadow of her long neck ripples.

Somewhere in the rustling tulle reeds
spider is casting her threads to the light

and we spot a crimson-hooded fly agaric,
her toadstool’s gills white
as teeth as the sun
                bleeds into the Pacific.

We will walk the trail
until it turns to sand
and wait at the spit’s edge, listening
to the breakers, the seagulls
as they chatter their twilight preparations.

What we won’t understand
about the sound of the sea is no different
than the origin of planets

or the wind’s crystalline structures
irreversibly changing.

The albatross drags her parachute
over the earth’s gaping mouth.

We turn back only for the instant
the four dimensions fold
into a sandcastle—before its towers
are collapsed by waves.

The face that turns
toward the end of its world
dissolves into space—

despite us, the continuum
remains.

-- Jennifer Elise Foerster

From the Author:

“This poem emerged from one particular version of a day when I had the gift of walking with a friend on the Point Reyes National Seashore. I say ‘version’ because the path this poem follows is inevitably different from the path we walked, and distinct, too, from the many paths in my memory of that day. What all my versions share is that we walked toward the beach, toward twilight, at which point I wondered what it really meant to ‘turn back.’ At which point I watched the waves, the wind, the endless endings and beginnings, the turnings of gulls and seashells, planets peering through dusk. I love that wonderment doesn’t require understanding. How brief we are, and infinite in our versions of being here on earth.”

Ultimate Luxury

The ultimate luxury in life remains nature.

-- Robert Rabensteiner

Sights (& Sounds) of Switzerland

A photo essay this week on ‘Sights (& Sounds) of Switzerland’…here.

My ‘Top 10’ (well 11...can't figure which 1 to drop)…here, not including this epic helicopter ride.

LT: The Selfless

The selfish fear change. The selfless lead it.

-- Simon Sinek

Would Do For Us

I'm wondering...if half of what we do for other people is what we wish they would do for us.

The search for a church that isn't a church

If you've been following this series, by now you've seen me write about the reason this whole project came about. I don't know what I believe. Don't misunderstand - I am a grown woman who has lived a lot of life at this point and I have learned some things and I have uncovered some deep truths about the world and myself for that matter. But when it comes to questions of faith - I don't have it figured out. The religion my parents brought me up with doesn't fit anymore but I still long for a spiritual community. According to the academic types who study social trends, there's a name for someone like me - a none. As in, when it comes to a religious identity - well, I have none.

According to a study by PRRI from 2022, almost 30 percent of Americans consider themselves to be "unaffiliated" from any religious institution. Compare that 1991 when only 6 percent of respondents said they were religiously unaffiliated.

So there's clearly something going on. America is getting less churchy. But is it getting any less spiritual? I don't think so. I think it just means our faith communities and institutions aren't giving people what they need anymore...continue here.

-- Rachel Martin