Pain & Truth

We’ve all been hurt — many times at relatively early stages in our lives.  The point isn’t nearly as much whether that is true, as it is how it is true, what was set in motion because of it, and what conclusions we’ve reached as a result. 

Perhaps related, what does it mean when we can't accept a version of truth other than the one we have heard about? That the only version of truth which can be true is the one we've heard (especially as kids)? Besides, do we really think that what we have processed is all that can be...true? 

Fuse these two thoughts and you’ve got something to consider for a while. At the very least, the combination seems to result in a lack of real healing and, therefore, growth. And, without that, we are left with a rather stunted capacity to see anything other than the way we have constructed the world in our minds. 

This is particularly frightening when you consider how it impacts our ability to understand others (how can you, if you don’t really even understand yourself?), not to mention care for them.

The mixture of pain and truth can be a vital recipe for ultimate growth and sensitivity.  It can also be the exact opposite….

Start Giving Away

Whatever you want emotionally, you have to start giving.

 

-- Mary Karr

Enlarge The Box

Every problem, every dilemma, every dead end we find ourselves facing in life, only appears unsolvable inside a particular frame or point of view. Enlarge the box, or create another frame around the data, and problems vanish, while new opportunities appear. 

-- Rosamund and Benjamin Zander

What I’m Wondering About

I’m wondering…what I’m wondering about and why. 

Every 3rd Monday (unless something comes up on a Monday), I post something about what I’m wondering about.  Usually, it’s about a ‘why’ or an ‘about’.

Why does this (or that) happen?

What is this (or that) about?

Today, I’m wondering about why the things that make my list…make my list in the first place.  Isn’t something influencing that most of the time?

Or, what about this — why does it seem like I don’t wonder about certain things (at all)?

Surely, there have to be some implications here (if not ramifications)….

Distort Numbers to Push Ideological Agendas

Beauty, Gratitude, and the Divine

Some years back I hit a skid in my personal life. Though I knew objectively that I had much to be grateful for, it was hard to acknowledge a sense of gratitude. It was difficult to notice the positive that was out there beyond the slog of getting through every day. But now and then, I’d feel the impulse to take out my phone and capture a slice of beauty. These fleeting glimpses of splendor broke through my horizon of pain and lifted me up…. 

These photos, taken on my way to the gym in the morning as the light was coming up over the F train overpass, or as the setting sun glinted through the trees above the electric wires at the end of the day … were about stumbling upon unexpected splendor, savoring random moments of grace in the midst of an overfilled, overcomplicated life. These were moments to stop and actually see the wonder around me despite the swirl of so much else going on, time to stop and breathe and slow down…. 

In teaching that we are to say one hundred blessings a day, the Talmud encourages us to take notice and not simply lurch unseeingly through our days…. Bringing photography back into my life was a visual version of this urging to truly perceive and experience the beauty of the world and not take any of it for granted…. Making these small photos on my phone … helped me find my way back to gratitude and a connection to God…. 

These photos have become part of a spiritual practice that grounds me and reminds me that not all is difficult, not all is complicated — that joy and amazement exist — if I take a moment to look. 

-- Rabbi Hara Person

3 Observations & A Question

It is good to take an inventory now and then — it’s surprising to discover what all has accumulated. 

You should carry your own weight — so that you know what it takes and can help carry someone else’s, when they need it. 

Much of social media is more about insinuation than substance — we should see psychological trickery for what it is.

Does it seem like comfort is among our highest priorities (always trying to get something to make us a little more comfortable)?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question….

Sanctuary

‘Poem for the week' -- "Sanctuary":   

Sanctuary is 

as vital as breathing.

I find it in places 

secret to my soul: 

in the natural world, 

in the company of 

a trustworthy friend, 

in solitary or shared silence, 

in the ambience of 

a good poem or music. 

-- Parker Palmer

Stillness and Sanctuary

 

Within you, there is a stillness in a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time.

-- Herman Hesse

Looking

When is the last time you looked up for even a few minutes at a cloudless night sky?

When is the last time you looked endlessly at that portal in your hands?

Which do you feel better serves your needs?

I’m doing an experiment.  Like everyone else (I’m assuming), I don’t think I am addicted to one form of social media or another.  But, I am noticing the ease with which I rotate back to Instagram, for example, just to see the latest…skuttlebutt or anything else that might be entertaining.

I’ve decided to test myself a little bit on this by deleting the Instagram app on my phone.  What will I feel when I have that extra minute? Or, what will I feel in the evening when I’m too tired to do anything else, but am not ready for bed?  If I don’t have that to turn to (because it is so easy), what will I turn to? What if I have simply deluded myself into thinking that I’m not into something more than I think I am?

I know there is something psychologically appealing about keeping track of controversy. It feeds something in us.  Perhaps, we think we’re more in control of something, if we’re aware of it.  But, it’s hard not to notice how easy it is to go looking for it as well. 

Besides how it feels, what does it really feed? Is that something constructive or good or is that something else?

I know myself well enough that sometimes I have to build in things to check myself.

At the very least, I know that what I feel, based on what I’m looking at, can be quite different things (night sky versus social media, etc.). I think I need to find out if what I’m looking at is creating something in me that I’m not aware of.

Maybe you’ve already performed an experiment like this — what did you discover?

Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better.

-- Flannery O’Connor

What You Scroll

You become what you scroll. Choose accordingly. 

-- Shane Parrish

The Pain Around Me

I've noticed...that I absorb the pain around me.

Tool of Oppression or … ?

I have a feeling it should look more like this:

3 Observations & A Question

Full experience almost always seems to include (require?) the physical. 

When we don’t have some awe in our life, we are in more trouble than we know. 

In the end, you don’t ever really get away with anything…because the mark you left is the mark you left.

We do know that we have to care for more than ideas (you know, like our neighbors), right?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question….

You Think You're the First Person...?

Demonization

When I feed the hungry, they call me a saint. When I ask why people are hungry, they call me a Communist. 

-- Dom Hélder Câmara

Given the diet of our current public discourse, these labels hardly even register any more.  They seem tepid by comparison.  The ones in play now are far more…you fill in that blank.

And, yet, we are more aware than ever that nearly anything we say can (and will) be used against us in the court of…public opinion.  Ironically, demonization is alive and well. 

Fashionable or not, though, at some point we have to ask ourselves why demonization exists where it exists and what are the purposes it serves because, like a cancer, it is eating away at both the objects and subjects of it.

For one thing, it’s just so easy. It doesn’t involve real thinking. It doesn’t involve real work. It’s just far easier to point out what appears to be wrong than it is to do the work of promoting what is right (especially in the context of what may be wrong). Even if “what is right” is the pretense for it, what is right and being (or doing) good is clearly not the same thing right now.

Moral superiority inevitably seems to require the demonization of whatever it tries to subordinate. In other words, the bar is not the bar — the bar is simply the separation between us and others. Demonization is just a super handy way to do that and it lets us off a fairly serious hook. Part of what is insidious about it is its deception that makes us believe that it, in and of itself, is virtuous. If someone else is bad (now we use the term evil), it is simply easier to run with that conclusion than it is to work out what to do about it (not to mention remedy it).

Demonization is a beast that can never be fully satisfied — you just have to keep feeding it...because it feeds something in us.

Do we even need to say, then, that it is unhealthy...and unproductive?  Apparently, we do.  Because now it is so normalized that we’ve moved beyond the rhetorical nature of it to the manifestation of it.  Just a little historical review will indicate what a dangerous path this is, for all involved (the perpetrated upon AND the perpetrators).  It clouds both the mind and the spirit, so much so that it can become easy to no longer even detect it.

Demonization leads one to believe that the devouring will only continue in the intended direction.  It misses the nature of its beastliness — that it doesn't really discriminate that well and that it will simply turn on the feeders themselves, in the end.

Be aware of what you are really hungry for, lest you end up eating something that will in turn eat you.

Just one example to consider...here.

Your Instincts

I learned you have to push away the demand people’s expectations by believing in your instincts.

-- Stefano Pilati

Work Doesn't Work

Work doesn't work without play.

-- Shonda Rhimes

Musculature for Grief

Ever noticed…how little musculature we have as a society for grief?

And, we can’t figure out why we’re so anxious….

Among other things, we don’t want to take the time to grieve — opting, in effect, for retribution and revenge instead.

We even elect leaders who will do that for us now.

Let’s stop blaming them and look in the mirror.

Through Friendships

It was only later, through friendships with Christian men and women who truly embody the spirit of understanding and compassion of Jesus, that I have been able to touch the depths of Christianity.  

-- Thich Nhat Hanh

Be honest — what of Christ has really impacted you outside the context of deep Christian friendship?  We aren’t changed by information (theology) as much as we think.

It is in relationships that reality is embodied, where truth is experienced…where Christ is truly revealed.

3 Observations & A Question

Prayer, for me, is increasingly like on-going dialogue.

Good power seems to be far less something that you have than it is something you access.

Ultimately, we have to accept that healing is something we can't rush.

In a number of ways, isn’t a warrior mentality primarily juvenile in nature (if not in substance)?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question….

Options for the future

From Michiana Chronicles: 

We stood on the beach skipping stones into Lake Michigan, the Beach House Blowout at our backs. A steady wind in our faces, rolling waves singing across the pebbled apron at Indiana Dunes State Park. 

A timeless and irreplaceable jewel, this day stretched out in lazy solitude under a white-blue sky. Across the lake, at 10 o’clock, silhouette stalks of the Loop on the horizon. 

But then a disorienting sound – faint but closing fast and now exploding everywhere all at once. The heavy thwap of helicopter rotors, dozens of them, the swelling, deafening sounds of violins, trumpets, French horns! 

From behind the dunes they burst over the trees – ancient, olive drab Hueys – so close we could see the faces of the door gunners, the glint off pilots’ aviators. 

This howling swarm moved in a menacing...continue here.

-- Brett McNeil

Our Conscience

My longer posts each week seem to rotate between something happening in the world around us (more often political stuff lately) and something more sublime (why do we have to force ourselves away from our media-diet of controversy (which we say we hate, but do we really? — after all, we all know by now that we actively perpetuate it…).  Given that cadence, I guess it's time for...the former (ugh).

Honestly, I've not been immune from what the sucking-us-down has been doing to all of us.  It does, ironically, seem conspiratorial (conspiring against us).  How do we engage, and not stick our head in the sand (pretending what is happening isn't), without becoming incapacitated by it all?

The range and depth of issues is confounding; impossible to both enumerate or itemize.  Why should we even have to?  But, what happens if we don't (maybe the exact opposite of what we tend to think; but, who knows?)?

It’s like watching a ship take on water.  But, you feel it a little differently if you’re on that ship.  You feel stupid, angry, and most of all…helpless. “Do something!” we scream (at ourselves in the mirror).  We know panic doesn’t help, but we’re increasingly desperate for an effective alternative.  And, if we’re honest, we all have this sinking feeling that we’re aiding-and-abetting things somehow. 

How does one, then, resist what truly needs to be resisted?  We don’t know how, in part, because we still haven’t collectively re-agreed on the what.  So, what should be resisted?  We need a better answer than the easy one of simply saying, “the other side”.

We have to find out though.  We must find a way to identify it.  The ship is going down and we’re going with it.  Our very survival is being pressed now into differentiating between a basic understanding of what is good and bad and what is being co-opted as being so (yet another horrifying example here…yes, go ahead, add 1 more thing to the controversy column).  In other words, we are having to rediscover what really is at the core of our individual and collective conscience.  Perhaps the silver-lining is that this is long overdue...and is now happening (or starting to).  What do we really want collectively?  What do we really need collectively?

Our resistance is not predicated on how likely it will be to alter the conscience of the oppressor. We resist to retain our own conscience. And to awaken all others who are still in possession of their own souls.  

-- Cole Arthur Riley

Loyalty To

Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world — and never will.

-- Mark Twain

Smartest Person In The Room

The smartest person in the room, I’ve learned, is usually the person who knows how to tap into the intelligence of every person in the room.

-- Scott Kelly

AI

I’m wondering…about AI — mostly about where meaning and morality fits in (or doesn’t).  

Just because LLM’s can make new connections to an unfathomable degree and at an unprecedented rate doesn’t mean that they're real (or substantive).  None of this happens without a rate of an investment that we’ve never seen before.  Investment is predicated on the possibility of return.  Perhaps we need to evaluate more carefully what that return actually is — we are, after all, funding this through our societal choices.

Too often, we throw up our hands on such things and say, in effect, “but what can we do about it?”  Well, other societies aren’t caving in as easily.  They are doing something about it, by getting at the values they have as a group.  So, why aren’t we?

Just because you can make money at something, doesn't mean you should.  Sometimes I wonder how much our love of money has stunted our growth and development as a society (no to mention as individuals).  

Many of our leaders have just caved in to our appetite for consumption, regardless of the implications.  Given the amount of money involved now, is AI just one more example?

Small, Dark, and Negligible

While I am looking for something large, bright, and unmistakably holy, God slips something small, dark, and apparently negligible in my pocket.  

-- Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark

4 Observations (from Others)

A crowded mind leaves no space for a peaceful heart. 

-- Christine Evangelou

It is more important to find the truth than it is to know the truth. 

-- John Cleese

If something is true, no matter who said it, it is always from the Holy Spirit. 

 -- Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate

If the truth will set us free, why are we so committed to trying to control for it?

Prior 4 Observations (from Others).

Wealth Transfer

The Wall Street Journal explained that there were 927 American billionaires in 2020 and 1,135 in 2024. Together, they are worth about $5.7 trillion. The 100 richest of the set control more than half of the total at about $3.86 trillion. As the number of billionaires grew, “supply side” economic policies in the U.S., designed to concentrate wealth at the top of the economy among investors rather than on the “demand side” made up of consumers, hollowed out the middle class. From 1975 to 2018, at least $50 trillion moved from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. 

-- Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American

On The Lighter Side: Dead Yet?

 On the Lighter Side:

Stars, Love, God

I looked up early this morning at the still nighting sky.  

The stars were stunning.

I was reminded that they always are and that the only thing that really changes is my perception of them.  They're sitting there all the time; shining or doing their thing (whatever that is).

Invariably now, when I put myself in a position to see them and then contemplate their significance, my thoughts drift towards…love.  Is that cultural conditioning?  Or, is that something innately existential?  Many have debated the question over time.  So, if nothing else, I'm not the first to wonder about it (not to mention what really changes whatever I end up concluding?).

Something (Someone?) put such things in place, even as the nature of their 'place' is always evolving.  The span of time involved so far exceeds both my experience and understanding of it, my conclusions are somewhat irrelevant (at least on that scale).  It makes a lot of sense (even beyond rationality) to me that such a thing means something.  The traditions of understanding that nature is the primal representation of spirituality is not hard for me to accept (even if I tend to forget it at times).

Further, the connection between nature and that Being described as love does not feel inappropriate or even a stretch.  It would seem that Being would have a motive when creating something beautiful — true at both human and divine levels, isn't it?  A motive to do that would be what we might characterize as...loving.  The meaning involved would seem to necessitate communication;  portrayal, offering, invitation, acceptance.  

Doesn't nature seem to do this?  Obviously, there are deviations from a constant state of this (how else can you fit things like earthquakes or other 'natural' disasters into this equation of understanding?).  But, the overall pattern seems to be beauty, harmony, inter-relatedness, dependence, care, respect, work, enjoyment...and on and on.  This all could be described in a variety of ways (and has been), but it holds water for me to also describe it as love.

I'm going to a funeral today.  Why (am I going)?  

I suspect it is related to all this because the life lived, in the context above, was caught up in the meaning of this beauty.  He tried to capture it.  He wanted to embody it.  Many benefitted because of it; we were drawn into each of the three dimensions I'm describing here.  Nature, love, God.  I want to honor that and the person who was involved and who lives on, despite his physical passing.

Perhaps my body lifted my head this morning (usually I'm looking down, trying to avoid falling in the dark).  Perhaps it said something like, see what persists (and surrounds) in all the living and dying we do on this earth.  Notice it.  Appreciate it.  Perpetuate it.

Nature does it, in my opinion, because it represents Something (God) who does it, so that we can do it, too.  

Better To Hope

In all things, it is better to hope than to despair.

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The Good Life

The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination.

-- Carl Rogers

Physical Activity

I've noticed...physical activity helps orient me to my emotions.

3 Ways Seeking ‘Awe’ Is The Secret To A Sharper Mind—By A Psychologist

Imagine standing at the edge of a vast canyon, gazing at the endless expanse of stars in the night sky or hearing a piece of music that moves you to tears. In these moments, something remarkable happens—you feel humbled and uplifted. This powerful emotion, known as “awe” has the ability to shift your perspective and awaken a sense of wonder about life itself.

Fortunately, awe is not only reserved for life’s grand events. It can be found in the mundane, like in the kindness of a stranger or the laughter of a loved one.

As Dacher Keltner suggests in his book, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life, this emotion offers far more than a pleasant, fleeting experience—it holds the potential to profoundly shape our mental and physical well-being.

What you might not realize is that awe also brings significant cognitive benefits that can positively impact your brain function and how you interact with the world. From enhancing creativity to improving decision-making, awe has the unique ability to sharpen our minds and transform the way we think.  Continue here….

-- Mark Travers

3 Observations & A Question

A long enough walk can resolve surprisingly many things.   

Seeing and doing are not the same thing — though each can contribute to the other. 

A lot of American masculinity is toxic; not the least of which is evidenced by the claim of that masculinity that it is femininity that is toxic.

When will we again see that our personal well-being is only as good as our collective well-being — that we’re only in this together?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question….

Correlation & Causation

So, how about we just ignore science altogether and systematically undermine public confidence…unbelievable.

Soften Into What Is

I am continually challenged to stop arguing with reality and instead soften into what is. Over time, I learned to find beauty, meaning, and wholeness in the heart of reality. Unpredictable, ever-changing, humiliating, and humbling reality. 

-- Mirabai Starr

“Anything I Want…”

I have the right to do anything I want to do. I'm the president of the United States.

-- Donald Trump, this week

In honor of the many freedoms I enjoy, I would like to fly the American flag, like I used to. 

However (assuming anyone even noticed), I’m afraid that would be completely misunderstood..  As much as I would like it to be about patriotism, the community I live in would tend to read it, especially right now, as nationalism.

There is a distinction between patriotism and nationalism. 

And, I think it's pretty obvious who is leveraging the difference — someone who doesn't care about the distinction in the first place and believes he can do anything he wants...to anything (and to anyone).

This piece was not intended to be a mantra about the virtues of patriotism or diatribe against nationalism (though both are certainly needed).  It is about the vagaries of arrogance or, even worse, conceit.

The degree of meddling in all aspects of society is not only stunning, it is deeply disturbing.  Is this what a President is (not to mention, should be)?  I think we have another word for it. 

"Oh, he's just a businessman" seems to be the favored retort.  No, I don't think so.  He is far more than that.  An attempt to itemize that detail would stunt our senses (and certainly truncate the reading here).  He is dragging our collective down, hoping we won't notice (or get too excited) until it is too late.  

Historically, there has only been one thing that can stop this kind of power-grab — the people.  

Will we?  Or, are we just done with freedom as a broad concept for people other than those who happen to share my experience of it?

Typically, I recognize and resist the urge for simple ranting.  The harder part nearly always is what to do about it.  What is needed is now so vast, that more often than not, we just feel overwhelmed and don't do much of anything.  But, how bad will it have to get before we do something?  I'm afraid we are finding out.  If it hasn't hit home yet, perhaps we just need to wait a little longer until the loyalty spot-light shines more fully on us, too...and whether we are flying the flag or not. 

If only it could look more like this....

My Sensitivity

I happen to know that my sensitivity is my strength.

-- Hannah Gadsby

Do you know yours?

Question Yourself

Question yourself, yes, but don't doubt yourself.  There's a difference.

-- Charmaine Wilkerson

How Much Changes

Ever noticed…how much changes when you are aware of how and why you matter?

Sense of Astonishment

In the end, what I’m supposed to walk away with from reading the Christian Scriptures is a sense of astonishment about God’s love. If they’re not coming across as astonishing, then I need to take another run at it.  

-- Carmen Acevedo Butcher

3 Observations & A Question

Sometimes the stories are as important as the truth they represent.

 

You have to take ownership of your own health — it’s not somebody else’s job. 

What feels good and what is good are not always the same thing — the trick is to find out what is both.

Whatever happened to the question, "Can you tell me more about that?"?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question….

“Nope” - More MAHA Conspiracy

Sufficient

'Poem for the week' -- "Sufficient":   

Citron, pomegranate,

     Apricot, and peach,

  Flutter of apple-blows

     Whiter than the snow,

  Filling the silence

     With their leafy speech,

  Budding and blooming

     Down row after row.

Breaths of blown spices,

     Which the meadows yield,

  Blossoms broad-petaled,

     Starry buds and small;

  Gold of the hill-sides,

     Purple of the field,

  Waft to my nostrils

     Their fragrance, one and all.

Birds in the tree-tops,

     Birds that fill the air,

  Trilling, piping, singing,

     In their merry moods, —

  Gold wing and brown wing,

     Flitting here and here,

  To the coo and chirrup

     Of their downy broods.

What grace has summer

     Better that can suit?

  What gift can autumn

     Bring us more to please?

  Red of blown roses,

     Mellow tints of fruit,

  Never can be fairer,

     Sweeter than are these

-- Ina Donna Coolbrith

Chaos and Isolation

How chaotic does the world seem to you right now?

How about in your own life — how chaotic does it feel?

Where does this lead you? Do you feel like you just want to isolate yourself from it all?

I know people who try to literally move away from what they feel is chaotic — to insulate themselves from the outside world. . It feels like an almost natural response (after all, why would you want to stay in chaos?). But, moving away from it doesn’t really deal with it, it is mostly just an attempt to avoid it, often with only short-term effect.

When I am disrupted by something, I feel like moving away from it. Others respond in the opposite way, they confront it. Disruption is not always a bad thing. But, chaos usually is, especially when it is persistent.

Chaos makes you feel like something is out of control. It makes you feel like you have to do something about it — that you can't handle it, if you don't.

Chaos disables connection.

Chaos enables isolation.

Isolation enables the impacts of chaos. It is an attempt to control it, when in fact it actually contributes to perpetuating it.

Even in its most legitimate form, isolation is simply a method to reposition how one enters the chaos. And, sometimes that is needed. But, isolation is mostly ineffective and, in the long run, an illusion.

Working on something collectively (together) is often the greatest antidote to chaos.

Going it alone, whether at a personal or national level, betrays a fundamental flaw in one’s understanding of what it means to be in a healthy relationship with the dialectic of order and chaos. Isolation only tips the scale further away from a more constructive and healthy engagement with chaos in life.

We should be both aware of and vigilant against, then, those who use chaos to divide and isolate us. Ironically, chaos when use this way is even more about power at times than order is (which can also at times feel just as heavy handed).

Disruption is one thing. Monetized chaos is another.

Given what and how these things work, we need to come together.

Nor A Problem To Be Solved

The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved; it is a reality to be experienced.

-- J.J. van der Leeuw

A Compass

Curiosity isn't random; it's a compass. 

The single most effective habit is the willingness to change your own mind. 

-- Shane Parrish

Entertaining Ourselves

I’m wondering…if we’re entertaining ourselves to death.

Your Diet

3 Observations & A Question

Few things are quite like ‘live’ experience.

Stories crack us open — your story gives me access to mine.

There are 100s of things (1000s?) that pull us in different directions — the key is to find what best centers us.

Is it just me or are we all just refining our working conclusions and summary judgments?  

Prior 3 Observations & A Question….

UPDATED: Why you might not know that 2024 was America's safest year since the 1960s

An overwhelming majority of Americans, 64 percent, believe that crime increased across the country in 2024, according to a Gallup survey conducted late last year. An overwhelming majority of Americans are wrong.

On Tuesday, August 5, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released its comprehensive report on crime in the United States for 2024. As crime data expert Jeff Asher noted, not only did the report reveal that overall crime was down substantially in 2024, but crime "fell in 2024 across every category and population group." Specifically, it "was down in all seven categories of crime across all 10 population groups that the FBI measures."

Moreover, the new FBI data shows that both violent crime and property crime are at their lowest level since the 1960s. Continue here....

-- Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby

These stats, by the way, are also (verifiably) true in Washington DC.

Largely a belief issue and I think we all know why:

The Trump administration takes a very Orwellian turn 

At some point, the overwhelming evidence of what Trump is trying to do is at odds with the general purposes of government (debate can still be made, of course, about the extent of those purposes).

Why do we have government anyway and how has it evolved? A refresher on some of the evolution / role of government might be of use…here.

Opportunity To Do New Things

There is always opportunity to do new things.

I heard someone reflect once that they’re always learning new things. Other people have described some of these people as always needing to learn new things.

For me, the opportunity to do new things and the need to do so are not exactly the same thing. The latter often seems to come from a kind of drivenness. The former, comes from something more like curiosity.

Few things move me towards a sullen resignation or depression more than drivenness. Drivenness (again for me) leads to resentment. I don’t feel free under the clasp of drivenness. Opportunity, on the other hand, feels more free because it is like a beckoning. It’s like something is calling and offering an invitation. I have the freedom to decline or accept the invitation. Something about the posture of invitation allows for self-regulation and choice.

Needing opportunity stymies something in me. An invitation feels more like “Come if you want to, but you don’t have to.” I find this context for opportunity to make a lot of difference for me. I don’t have to do something. I get to do something…again, if I want to.

This can put me in a slightly different kind of bind, because it forces me to acknowledge (and address) what I want. Obligation is dismissive of what I want. It doesn’t care. Perhaps, this is why I am drawn to opportunity in one context and not in the other.

All of this can happen on the smallest and simplest of levels.

If I have to mow the grass, I invariably head towards the notion of “damn it, here’s just one more thing I have to do”. It leads me to feeling like a victim. But, if I say, I get to mow the grass, I get dropped off at the door of something closer to “so, how do I want to do it? Do I want make straight lines today? Do I want to use angles? Or, do I want to put a funky curve in the pattern? If I get to mow the grass, I get to ask how do I want to mow it? If I have to mow the grass, I fall towards a sullenness because of all the things that something is making me do.

At a more sublime level, when facing something that feels new or hard (or both), framing the question as something that I get to do provides me with more agency to ask how do I want to do that thing. Again, freedom.

In a relational context, obligation leads me towards thinking that this is just one more thing that I have to get right or figure out so that you won’t be upset with me. In the other frame, I am free to explore why you, as another person, feel the way you do. You may say that your problem is with me. And, that may be true. Or, it may not be (me) and that would be something you need to discover. I get to listen to you enables the opportunity to find out which it is. Doing it from the point of view of obligation makes me not want to find out (even if it turns out that I’m not the problem).

Many times this distinction seems to pivot on my interest in and perception of the potential outcome. More often than we would like to admit, we seem to let the potential outcome dictate to our interest in proceeding. This is pretty normal, actually. But, it can also be insidious. It can change our view of the smallest of things, not to mention the largest of things. It’s not bad to consider potential outcomes. But, managing for them often is, especially in the context of opportunities. On the one hand, this is one more thing I have to do. On the other hand, this is one more thing I get to do. One has freedom and agency aimed in an open-ended direction. The other does not; it shuts down those things.

Often, in writing, it is easier (than in other modes of communication) to go back to the beginning and confirm whether or not where you started is supported by where you headed. So, in this case, I return to my opening line.

There is always opportunity to do new things.

It seems strikingly non-committal, especially in light of where it ended up. That may not be a bad thing. I wasn’t sure, initially, how much I liked the thought. Having parsed it a bit, I feel some affection for where such an unfreighted statement could lead.

I think now I have a little more to work with as I face the opportunities in my life.

Hack Away

It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease.  Hack away at the inessentials.

-- Bruce Lee

Barely Know He Exists

A leader is best when people barely know that he exists. 

-- Laozi

Experiencing Nature

I've noticed...that experiencing nature is not simply a luxury or leisure — it is a necessity.

Love Mercy

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. 

   And what does the Lord require of you? 

To act justly and to love mercy 

   and to walk humbly with your God. 

-- Micah 6:8 

Why do so many Christians seem not only uninterested in mercy (not to mention, love it), but actually seem to ridicule those who need it? 

I’m assuming you have noticed that the mysterious merger of justice and mercy can only occur in the context of humility….