Prayer: God of every beautiful thing

God of every beautiful thing,

Make us people of wonder. Show us how to hold on to nuance and vision when our souls become addicted to pain, to the unlovely. It is far easier to see the gloom and decay; so often it sings a louder song. Attune our hearts to the good still stirring in our midst, not that we would give ourselves to toxic positivity or neglect the pain of the world, but that we would be people capable of existing in the tension. Grant us habits of sacred pause. Let us marvel not just at the grand or majestic, but beauty’s name etched into every ordinary moment. Let the mundane swell with a mystery that makes us breathe deeper still. And by this, may we be sustained and kept from despair. Amen.

-- Cole Arthur Riley

3 Observations & A Question

Being hard on oneself can be far less virtuous than it is simply self-protective.

Over the course of one's life, becoming increasingly certain is probably OK (maybe even good), IF it’s about just a few things.

Unfortunately, sometimes we're forced to make decisions simply based on the greater good or the lesser evil.

At the end of the day, don't we just have to accept another person for who they are... rather than who we want them to be?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question….

On the Lighter Side: Bad Luck

On the Lighter Side:

Not Simply Good

Aim above morality.  Be not simply good; be good for something.

-- Henry David Thoreau

Americans' on Social Issues

In light of tonight’s ‘debate’ (assuming that’s what it is):

GALLUP - Front Page

Prosperity

It would be hard to deny many of the ways in which I am a product of, among other things, prosperity. 

For example, as I observe the range of goodness that is involved in the lives of my kids (and their kids), I feel aware that a (significant) portion of it was set in motion even before me.

It is in that context that I wish for the opportunities of prosperity that I’ve had for other people — for groups of people, that have not benefited from that kind of prosperity. I simply cannot walk around with the conclusion that it must just be something that I did.  Yes, I participated in it and added to it; but, goodness is not located in that small of a frame. It, by nature and essence, is also ever expanding and inclusive.

It's not that there aren’t places that lack goodness, or even that badness doesn’t exist at profound levels. That is, in fact, a harsh reality of our world.  But, the combination — where goodness does and where it doesn't exist — simply makes me consider what I can do to extend it into areas where it is not as manifest.

In other words, I can’t (in good conscience) be indifferent to things that help me see the impacts of prosperity or lack of it.  I need to keep myself available both to its benefits and its liabilities, in order to see it accurately for what it is.  Even, for that matter, to see others accurately.  

Prosperity, after all, does not primarily exist simply for our ability to consume things for ourselves.  It exists so that the needs of the world can be met — not held and protected by a few, as if it were deserved. Prosperity is meant to be shared for the benefit of all, especially for those who have not even had the opportunity to enjoy its benefits (if not blessings).

...like I have, like my kids have, and like their kids are.

Like poverty sometimes, prosperity can have an effect that surprisingly seems to drift towards "who cares?"  So, we have to work at seeing it clearly.

I'm not sure this is exactly where James Baldwin saw his observation being applied, but I think it does nonetheless:

Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.

-- James Baldwin

Adage: Windfall of Money

I've always heard the adage that when someone comes into an unexpected windfall of money, "the poor spend it, the middle class save it, and the rich invest it." As I've navigated the process of inheriting money, I've concluded this is spot on, but it comes down to how each of those classes teaches (or fails to teach) their children financial competence.

-- Sarah Adams, My children and I inherited $741,000 from my aunt. I made one mistake with the money that I wish I could take back.

The Earth / Care

Ever noticed...that, in the end, the Earth absorbs everything and everyone...and that from it everything (and everyone) comes?

...seems like there could be some implications here.

‘Poem for the week’ — “Care”:

Perhaps I didn’t know how to care

until Mother Earth showed me

that every being is there

to give and to take in sacred

reciprocity, so that we are never

truly alone.

-- Kaitlin Curtice

Opposite of Fundamentalism

Maybe the opposite of religious fundamentalism isn't strident atheism or liberalism.  Maybe the opposite of fundamentalism is...humility.

-- Nadia Bolz-Weber

As the headlines this week illustrate yet again, the records speaks for itself....

3 Observations & A Question

If half our energy is spent ruminating on what other people think about us....

People are a function of their environment.

Anyone who claims that you need them to save and protect you (I am your savior), is not only arrogant and ignorant, but also often predatorial. 

We eventually discover that we have to monitor what we put into our bodies if we want to feel (be) well—why wouldn't that also be true of our minds?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question….

How Mentally Fit Are You?

YOU'VE SHATTERED your cardio PRs, dragged a rake over your abs, and biohacked every move from sexy time to slumber. But how do you become more mentally fit? How do you become the man you want to be on the inside, too? The guy who can power through a breakup, disappoint a partner or friend without shame-spiraling, and get what he needs from an infantile coworker without snapping like an angry parent.

That’s where mental fitness comes in. The hard-to-grasp, often awkward, and sometimes painful work that you can’t track with an app. Spending time on a hearty mental-fitness practice can create more long-term benefits for your mind and life than virtually anything else you do. And no, meditation isn’t required.  Continue here....

60 years ago today, they murdered my protector

Maybe this is why we need the advice posted earlier today on anger by Thich Nhat Hanh—because of our (at least my) fury over it:

60 years ago today, they murdered my protector

Anger

Your anger is like a flower. In the beginning you may not understand the nature of your anger, or why it has come up. But if you know how to embrace it with the energy of mindfulness, it will begin to open….

You need to sustain your mindfulness for a certain amount of time in order for the flower of anger to open herself. It’s like when you cook potatoes; you put the potatoes in the pot, cover it, and put it on the fire…. You have to keep the fire burning for at least fifteen or twenty minutes in order for the potatoes to cook. After that, you open the lid, and you smell the wonderful aroma of cooked potatoes.

Your anger is like that — it needs to be cooked. In the beginning it is raw. You cannot eat raw potatoes. Your anger is very difficult to enjoy, but if you know how to take care of it, to cook it, then the negative energy of your anger will become the positive energy of understanding and compassion.

You can do it. It is not something only a Great Being can do. You can do it, too. You can transform the garbage of anger into the flower of compassion.… The secret is to continue the practice of mindful breathing, the practice of mindful walking, generating the energy of mindfulness in order to embrace your anger.

Embrace your anger with a lot of tenderness. Your anger is not your enemy, your anger is your baby. It’s like your stomach or your lungs. Every time you have some trouble in your lungs or your stomach, you don’t think of throwing them away. The same is true with your anger. You accept your anger because you know you can take care of it; you can transform it into positive energy.

-- Thich Nhat Hanh

Smallest Deed

Too Much Information?

Is it possible to fill up your head with so much information that there’s no room left?

...for other information that comes from things like listening to your heart (which, I suspect, is where most of our sustained agency comes from), your body, etc.

Information is slightly above data.  It is organized data.  It points at something.  It isn't knowledge, it's just...information.  Out there; pointing at something, drawing our attention.  But, especially when there is too much of it, relatively meaningless.  It just is.

Knowledge is the accumulation of information and the organization of it, at a higher level.  A more meaningful level.  It understands the connections in information and identifies what is significant.  It can lead towards application.  But, it falls short of it.  You can know something, but still not do anything with it.

Wisdom is the application of knowledge, the appropriation of it.  It is awareness of what is needed where, when, and how it might be useful.

So, what happens when any one of the pieces along this spectrum take on the elements of caricature?  In other words, when it explodes and takes over the rest?

Like the problem we now seem to have—too much information.  When it simply feeds on itself and gets bloated, but doesn't go anywhere.  When it sucks us into itself and we spend hours and hours each day digesting it, to the point where it no longer occurs to us what the point of it really is any more.  It appears that we can forfeit the value in information because there is so much of it that we fall into a trance of simply being entertained by it.  When this happens, we not only lose track of what is meaningful, but also the skills needed to make that determination.  We just consume it, until we fall asleep, rather than identifying much of anything that could be done with it (not to mention the actual doing of it).

There are, perhaps, seasons of life where we don’t have the information that we need to do what needs to be done. But, there is also a point at which we don’t really need any more information. We have more than enough already. We just need to...continue here.

LT: You Will Be Miserable

You will be miserable to the degree that you are hung up on the notion that things should—must—go a certain way.  If you have no fixed view, you remain elastic.

-- Alan Watts

Tolerences

I’ve noticed…that my tolerances are lower when I get less sleep — both in terms of quantity and quality.

Fathers Day: A father speaks, after the day has passed

On this Fathers Day, here's to a much funnier writer than me:

A father speaks, after the day has passed

God's Soul

‘Poem for the week’ — “God's Soul”:

God’s Soul is the wind rustling plants and leaves,  

the dew dancing on the grass,  

the rainy breezes making everything to grow.  

Just like this, the kindness of a person flows, touching  

those dragging burdens of longing.  

We should be a breeze helping the homeless,  

dew comforting those who are depressed, 

the cool, misty air refreshing the exhausted,  

and with God’s teaching we have got to feed the hungry: 

This is how we share God’s soul.

-- Carmen Acevedo Butcher

W

Couldn’t have been a more beautiful day at Wrigley and a ‘W’ to top it off!  

More pics…here.

3 Observations & A Question

Sometimes I’ve found that I have to move physically before I can move in other ways.

You can document, narrate, and curate life all day or…you can live it (what was life like before you could record so much of it?—I'm guilty as charged).

We are born with everything we need (even at the DNA level )—life is not nearly as much about becoming someone new, as it is about becoming who you already are.

We all know people who struggle with depression—why don't we become one of those who gets a lot better at reaching out to them?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question….

Other People Like Us More Than We Think, Research Finds

Are you the type to lie in bed at night dwelling on conversations from the day — perhaps reliving an awkward moment at a dinner party or wondering if you said the right thing during a Zoom call with a colleague? It’s a common practice, and unfortunately, it can lead to the common conclusion that people don’t like us as much as we hope they do. 

Thanks to robust research on the subject, however, we can happily report that this interpretation is — in most cases — likely incorrect. 

That’s according to a team of psychologists who spent nearly a decade investigating the accuracy of individuals’ beliefs about the way others perceive them, specifically looking at whether humans are correct in their predictions of whether or not someone else likes them.  

After tens of thousands of observations, the researchers determined that not only do we underestimate how much people like us, but also that this...continue here.

-- Rebekah Brandes

Not The Absence of Fear

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not the absence of fear.

-- Mark Twain

Respect

How many people, on most days, feel respected?

I’m guessing the number is relatively small. Which kind of begs the question, is respect something we feel?

Perhaps we feel we need it more than we really do, especially if it’s not actually that readily available.

The desire for respect seems almost innate, but not necessarily natural. That desire seems to be activated most when we feel disrespected.

Further, do we really respect someone who goes around demanding it? We might give public fealty, but privately in such situations, I suspect respect is not something we really have for such people.

Perhaps being respected comes from working with life without particular regard for it. Perhaps it isn't something we command (like it is something deserved), but rather something that is attributed.

Another way to say it may be that respect is not really a goal (even if it is a desire) as much as it is a by-product.

Which leads to a question, what is truly worthy of something like respect? When we say we really respect a person, what are we effectively saying?

We appreciate what someone accomplished. What they stood for (whether they accomplished it or not). Or, who they were in a challenging context.  Does is always need to included a kind of success (even if it often does)? What about those who live quiet respect-worthy lives?  

What makes you respect someone?

This doesn’t seem to leave a ton of room, then, for respect being something that you feel. It is not something demanded (and, if it is, it’s not respect—it’s compliance).

Respect is something given and, thereby, received…mostly because it is given.

LT: Competence & Character

Competence is how good you are when there is something to gain. Character is how good you are when there is nothing to gain. People will reward you for competence. But people will only love you for your character.

-- Mark Manson

Want More

I’m wondering…why do we always want more?

We almost seem to be afraid of enough....

Wisdom Begins in Wonder

Conservative Evangelicals

 

And we wonder about the rise of the 'nones'...?  

Moralism and values are not the same thing.  

It seems like an approach much closer to this would be far more useful, not to mention Christian.

 

3 Observations & A Question

The sooner you can dive in, the sooner you can make a difference — mistakes, by the way, are mostly irrelevant.

We have to learn how to stay centered — but even then, it's still not over...we have to actually do those things.

Don’t let what you’re against overshadow what you’re for, especially in practice.

Why do law-and-order people too often seem perfectly fine breaking certain laws themselves?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question….

The big lie about sleep

BUSINESS INSIDER

Sleep is the great unifier. Everyone needs it to repair cells, store memories, and balance emotions. It also helps us solve complex problems — ever need to just "sleep on it"?

Hustle culture tells us sleep is for the lazy. CEOs such as Apple's Tim Cook and Robinhood's Vlad Tenev tout their limited sleep schedules. Gordon Ramsay attributes his success to long workdays and little sleep. One woman told Business Insider she had saved tens of thousands of dollars by juggling two full-time jobs and sleeping for just three hours each night.

But while different people tend to feel more alert at different times of day, the science is clear: Everyone needs at least seven to nine hours of sleep each night in order to function properly. Teenagers need a full eight to 10 hours. And there is emerging evidence that women, who historically have been largely excluded from sleep studies, need more rest than men. When we don't get enough sleep, it can influence everything from how much money we make to our likelihood of developing dementia, heart disease, and diabetes.

Researchers have found that stress is one of the strongest indicators of poor sleep. Economic stress, in particular: Americans in poverty report getting the least amount of sleep. In a 2022 survey, 87% of Americans polled said they lost sleep worrying about their finances. And in a 2020 study, 13% of newly unemployed people said they got four hours of sleep or less a night, half of what the average employed person gets. In counties where about half the population doesn't get enough sleep, many of which are in Alabama, unemployment rates are twice as high as the US average, and median household incomes hover around $35,000.  Continue here...

-- Jeremy Ney

Callen Michael Flack Joins The World & D-Day

And then, it happened:

Pics…so far.

On this day of honoring yesterday’s new life, we should also honor the many who died on D-Day so our sons and daughters could be born into freedom.

Clarity

As I write early this morning, my daughter is having a baby...maybe even right this minute.

Last night, waiting for things to more fully kick into gear, I walked around the hospital looking for the typical things you look for when you're killing time in a hospital (coffee and candy).  

I ran across a little room called a Clarity Chapel.  I was intrigued.  It didn't strike me as terribly different than other hospital chapels I've seen, but there were a few unique things — enough to get me thinking...about clarity.  

What is clarity, after all?  Why does it seem to resonate easily with us that clarity is almost a universal desire (when we're sober enough to acknowledge it).  And, it does seem a bit hard to deny that spirituality seems to appeal to that desire.

In a hospital, the situations often involved seem to beg for clarity.  Whether death (or the threat of it) or birth, we often are face-to-face with something that we desperately want — understanding of what is happening.  Even if we're not religious, prayer is often closer to our consciousness as we encounter the reality of how out of control we feel.  Hospitals recognize this and consider it an important component in the care they offer.

In our case, the breaking of your daughters 'water', engaged our clarity spectrum immediately.  All that has been anticipated for months was now on high alert.  Something has started that won't be reversed and that will have a result in fairly short order.  We came to be with her for this time, knowing it was going to happen soon.  But, now, there were no further questions about when, how much longer, etc.  It was happening...NOW.  It was perfectly clear what needed to happen next and we got busy about it.

And, this, seemed to only usher in the next version of clarity we want.  How will it go?  How long?  Will there be complications?  Will everyone be OK?  We really want to know.  There is my version, having gone through it with my wife.  But, that was mostly observational (as a man).  There is the experiential version of actually giving birth (which I deeply admire and still have a hard time fathoming).  And, then, there is another version of this happening for your own daughter.  Similar, but different.

Mostly, for each of us, all we can really do is simply go through it, accepting the next thing as  it comes...fully aware of both the fright and the wonder of the whole thing.

Clarity, along the way, is something we desire in a mode that we believe will clear things up by having it.  But, often, clarity is only really achieved because we went through it.  There was the focus it required in the moment and there is the understanding that is realized in retrospect.  Both are kinds of clarity.  

I'm (anxiously) waiting for an update.  My wife is in the delivery room with my daughter, helping in all the ways that only a mother can.  My daughter is actually doing this unbelievable thing.  Her husband is trying to figure out how to simultaneously encourage her and stay out of the way.  And, our new grandson largely doesn't know what the heck is going on.  

We're all primarily aware of only one thing right now, because of clarity about what is happening to us today.

LT: Bigger Than Themselves

The best leaders are also the best followers. They follow a purpose, cause, or belief bigger than themselves.

-- Simon Sinek

Stop Praying

Ever noticed...why you stop praying?

Isn’t it typically when you have lost track of why it matters?

It isn’t nearly so much that we shouldn’t have, as it is all that we’ve missed on.

From Stranger to Neighbor

What does it take to shift our collective consciousness from ‘stranger who is unwell’ to…my ‘neighbor, created in God’s own image’? Continue here….

Perhaps this is what participating in our own transformation looks like.

Fill The Jars First

Before the water turned to wine, someone had to do the ordinary, tiresome task of filling the water pots.  We want the new wine to just appear, but Jesus call us to fill the jars first.  In short, God often wants us to participate in our own transformation.

- Rich Villodas

4 Observations (from Others)

The more comfortable you are with yourself, the less you need the approval of others.

The price you pay for doing what everyone else does is getting what everyone else gets.

-- Shane Parrish

Yet before you can love your neighbor—your brother or sister—as yourself, you must first love yourself. And to first love yourself, you must know that God loves you now and loves you always.

-- Archbishop Desmond Tutu, God Has a Dream 

The biggest embrace you’ll ever make is the full, absolute, and complete embrace of your humanity, exactly as it is. 

-- Adyashanti

Love is the force that challenges us to move towards justice and wholeness. 

-- Grace Ji-Sun Kim

Prior 4 Observations (from Others).

Hardline Conservatives' Response to Trump Verdict

AXIOS

...anyone who doesn't agree with us is a danger to you and your family.