“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
If you don’t learn to laugh at trouble, you won’t have anything to laugh at when you’re old. Mark Twain
The Sky is Falling
pessimism [is] a membership badge—the ultimate sign that you are on the side of the good. If your analysis is not apocalyptic, you’re naive, lacking in moral urgency, complicit with the status quo.
In 1964, 45 percent of Americans said that most people can be trusted, according to a survey by American National Election Studies. That survey no longer asks this question, but a University of Chicago survey asked the exact same question to Americans in 2022 and found that number is now 25 percent. Seventy-three percent of adults under 30 believe that, most of the time, people just look out for themselves, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center survey. Seventy-one percent say that most people “would try to take advantage of you if they got a chance.”
apoplectic rigidity becomes the default mode of seeing things. This damages the ability to perceive reality accurately. One of the great mysteries of this political moment is why everyone feels so terrible about the economy when in fact it’s in good shape. GDP is growing, inflation is plummeting, income inequality seems to be dropping, real wages are rising, unemployment is low, the stock market is reaching new peaks. And yet many people are convinced that the economy is rotten. These are not just Republicans unwilling to admit that things are going well under a Democratic president. The real divide is generational. In a recent New York Times/Sienna College poll, 62 percent of people over 65 who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 report that the economy is “excellent” or “good”—but of Biden supporters ages 18 to 29, only 11 percent say the economy is excellent or good, while 89 percent say it is “poor” or “only fair.”
Is this because the economy is particularly bad for young people? That’s not what the data reveal. As Twenge has pointed out, the median Millennial household earns considerably more, adjusted for inflation, than median households of the Silent Generation, the Boomers, and Generation X earned at the comparable moment in their lives; they earn $9,000 more a year than Gen X households, and $10,000 more than Boomer households did at the same age. Household incomes for young adults are at historic highs, while homeownership rates for young adults are comparable to previous generations’. All of which suggests that difference in the generational experiences is not economic; it’s psychological.
Buechner says that holiness is not a human quality like virtue is. “If there is such a thing at all, holiness is Godness and as such is not something people do but something God does in them…It is something God seems especially apt to do in people who are not virtuous at all, at least not to start with.”
If we are pursuing holiness by pursuing virtue itself, we are going to pursue the virtues as we see them. Yet it’s not only our behavior that is amiss, but also our seeing. And we miss the realness of virtue. “If you’re too virtuous, the chances are you think you are a saint already under your own steam, and therefore the real thing can never happen to you.” Holiness is all around us, but we have trouble seeing it. We cannot make holiness real. Holiness helps us to see the realness. In me. In you. In my oat cake with mascarpone cheese and the snow that I am crunching my feet on outside this week.
The best of the arts induce humility. In our normal shopping mall life, the consumer is king. The crucial question is, do I like this or not? But we approach great art in a posture of humility and reverence. What does this have to teach me? What was this other human being truly seeking?
David Brooks
Aging
In Rainer Maria Rilke’s novel “The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge,” the protagonist notices that as he ages, he’s able to perceive life on a deeper level: “I am learning to see. I don’t know why it is, but everything penetrates more deeply into me and does not stop at the place where until now it always used to finish.”
Do twins ever realize that one of them is unplanned?
Cognitive Overload
“Studies of cognitive overload suggest that the real problem is that people who are thinking about rules actually have diminished capacity to think about solving problems.”
Phillip K Smith
Gifts
From the viewpoint of a private property economy the “gift” is deemed to be “free” because we obtain it free of charge, at no cost. But in the gift economy, gifts are not free. The essence of the gift is that it creates a set of relationships. The currency of a gift economy is at its root, reciprocity. In Western thinking, private land is understood to be a of “bundle of rights,” whereas in a gift economy property has a “bundle of responsibilities” attached.
Braiding Sweetgrass
the kind of pastor every church needs
…the new pastor will need to be an excellent communicator, love senior adults and spend all their time with students. They’ll have to be able to manage the complex organization of the local church and raise money to accomplish all the church wants to do. They’ll need to spend 24 hours a day in prayer while going on visitation seven days a week. The new pastor will have to be able to lead a staff, perform funerals and weddings, handle social media, preach, counsel and teach. They will have to handle the intricacies of local politics and be an expert on the moral and ethical issues of the day.
Mike Glenn
Dealing with sin
I think it’s noteworthy how, in the Old Testament, there isn’t a whole lot of metaphysical mechanics involved in God’s forgiveness. No great theory of atonement is floated about how God needs to jump through some hoops to remit our sin. All that seems necessary is honesty and confession. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Ps. 51.17). Admitting our guilt. I think of David’s response to Nathan’s confrontation: “You are the man!” Once David owns his sin his relationship with God is restored. Yes, there are consequences, but honesty mends the relationship.
Perhaps it is that simple. The sin is easily dealt with, but it’s the hiding, lying, avoidance, denial, silence and obfuscation that is killing us.
Maybe all God wants from us is the truth.
Richard Beck
Difficulty of aging
If you depend on doctrine and dogma creating certainty more than the person of Jesus Christ, aging is going to be excruciatingly difficult for you…
Phoenix Preacher
Wise men
The wise men are not as wise in the wilderness as they are in the safety of their sanctuaries.
Michael Spencer
Contemplation
contemplation, the deliberate seeking of God through a willingness to detach from the passing self, the tyranny of emotions, the addiction to self-image, and the false promises of the world.
Richard Rohr
ONE THING FOR YOU TO THINK ABOUT
“I just want to be a normal person.”
Statistically speaking, a “normal person” is physically unhealthy, emotionally anxious/depressed, socially lonely, and financially in debt. ?
Mark Manson
Autobiography
“everybody wants an autobiography at the end of their life, a bestseller and [My Story] is a way to do it now.” So so so true. If we could but wait we’d learn our story is, like the rest of the billions of earth’s inhabitants, quite ordinary even if we are special to some and to God.
Being Real – Phillip Plyming
Social Media
..social media platforms are now a culture of presenting a “positive impression” of ourselves. Here’s a real helpful set of categories of how those impressions are framed:
First, ingratiation: “the art of getting others to like us, to hold a favorable impression of us as we appear on our front stage.”
Second, intimidation: “the art of getting others … to fear us” by way of comparison. “My kids all got straight A’s” leads to “That mother is impressive. I don’t stack up.”
Third, self-promotion. This one hits the bone for us who are authors because our publishers want us to market and promote our own books. And there is only a fine line between saying what we need to say and saying more than what we need to say. I just had a new book arrive at my doorstep this weekend — do I keep it to myself or do I post it on social media?
Fourth, exemplification: the art of being “seen as worthy and having integrity.” In other words, virtue signaling and grandstanding.
Fifth, supplication: the art of framing “one ‘s dependence in order to get others to offer help” and resources.
The big ones that Plyming sees most on social media are self-promotion and ingratiation.
It is easier to live in the world without being of the world than to live in the church without being of the church.
Henri Nowen – Where the night fell
View from the Lanai A quote from a recent sermon haunts me. I replayed the sermon and transcribed the quote attributed to Sophia Tolstoy. Sophia Tolstoy was married to Leo for 32 years, had 16 pregnancies, bore 13 children, eight who lived to be adults. She had this to say about the renowned Leo Tolstoy:
“There’s so little genuine warmth about him. His kindness does not come from his heart, but merely from his principles, his biography will tell how he helped laborers to carry buckets of water, but no one will ever know that he never gave his wife a rest, and never in all these 32 years gave his child a drink of water, or spent five minutes by his bedside to give me a chance to rest a little from all my labors.”
It is the phrase: “His kindness does not come from his heart, but merely from his principles.” that haunts me. As one who considers himself a man of principles, where does my kindness come from?
Serendipity was scarce in 2023 . Prognostications for 2024 are not promising.
In 2003, a NASA Investigation Board blamed the disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia in part on PowerPoint.
Useless
Oscar Wilde:
A work of art is useless as a flower is useless. A flower blossoms for its own joy. We gain a moment of joy by looking at it. That is all that is to be said about our relations to flowers. Of course man may sell the flower, and so make it useful to him, but this has nothing to do with the flower. It is not part of its essence. It is accidental. It is a misuse. All this is I fear very obscure. But the subject is a long one.
Sacramental Life
The sacramental life of the Church is not an aspect of the Church’s life – it is a manifestation of the whole life of the Church. It is, indeed, the very character and nature of the Church’s life. The Church does not have sacraments – the Church is a sacrament. We do not eat sacraments or just participate in the sacraments – we are sacraments. The sacraments reveal the true character of our life in Christ.
Fr Stephen Freeman
God is at work here
How many times have you thought or said this. I’ve said it too. “God must be at work here.” And what you and I are observing is something successful, something cool, something remarkable, something miraculous, something astounding. Which trains our eyes, ears, and senses to see God in the extraordinary and successful. More importantly, which trains us not to see God at work elsewhere.
What is so remarkable about Paul is that he states over and over, especially in 2 Corinthians, that he sees God most at work in his life when he is vulnerable and suffering and in pain and weak. This is the real Paul being real about the real Christian life. For him the Christian life is not about glory and success and money and prestige and honor. He does not look for the work of God in the forum of Rome or at the bema in Corinth or at the Acropolis in Athens or in well-known celebrities turning to Jesus (which is good, so too is the conversion of someone few know). He looks for the work of God in the ordinary person following the way of Jesus.
The Corinthians “Expected to see God at work in places of physical strength, material success, social achievement, human flourishing, lasting smiles and rhetorical brilliance.” But not Paul. Not the way of. Not cruciformity or Christoformitiy. In… “physical weakness, emotional brokenness and social humility” the apostle Paul “proudly witnesses to God at work in enduring and hopeful ways. https://scotmcknight.substack.com/p/look-elsewhere
Bull-headedness
If people refuse to change, what my mother used to call “bull-headedness,” the world will only get worse. We have to learn how to dialogue, how to forgive, and how to trust, and how to give people the benefit of the doubt. In the United States, our country has become very cynical about truth and love. We hear politicians take oaths to be fair and just leaders and we all know it doesn’t mean anything. We expect everybody to be for the truth of their group and their “kingdoms.” But Jesus tells us to change our minds and accept the kingdom of God, which is what’s good for the whole.
Richard Rohr
Grief, Lament and Spiritual Bypassing
“Spiritual bypassing is a tool used to sidestep complicated emotions, psychological issues, and unfinished developmental tasks.”
“Many HCR’s (High Control Religions) instill in their followers of fear that if they grieve for too long, even after a loved one has died, their emotions will take over. Instead, HCR’s offer platitudes to get people to look on the bright side so that others around them can avoid feeling their own discomfort with grief and loss. Focus is instead placed on seeing what people can learn through the experience or what God might be teaching them. Rather than dealing with difficult emotions or painful experiences, many are taught to instead look for how God can use the situation to bring glory to his name.”
Spiritual bypassing also explains the inability, or perhaps even the unwillingness, genuinely to enter into a period of lament and sitting in it, rather than finding release points, positive possibilities, and hope. The Book of Lamentations Simply does not take us to where many in the spiritual bypassing mode want to go.
The Book of Lamentations, then, “is both survivors’ literature and survival literature.” The story we tell about the past and the story that gives meaning to the present and hope for the future. “Trauma makes one mute and numb, and recovery is not feasible without the victim finding his/her/their voice and naming his/her/their suffering.” Lament in the book of lamentations avoids mentioning God while inveighing against God. “They do not wait for Yhwh to speak; rather, they expect him to listen.”
It is a fundamental mistake then to minimize lament and grief. Healing does not occur by spinning a narrative of victory, of triumph, and of hope. Healing occurs by facing reality and in the reality learning the language of healing and hope. It is too easy to call it lament, and then abort the lament by turning to stages of progress and development.
The reality is that the statement is far more limited. A few points will make this clear:
The document clearly retains the church’s position that Christian marriage is between a man and a woman.
Any blessing given to a same-sex couple cannot be given in a formal “liturgical” setting, which would mirror the kind of ceremony we associate with Christian marriage.
Any blessing given to a same-sex couple is not intended to extend moral legitimacy to same-sex unions.
The blessing the document envisions is what is known as a “spontaneous” blessing. It may not be fully appreciated by many Protestants, but it is very common for Roman Catholic priests (identifiable by their clerical collar) who may be found in malls, airports, places of pilgrimage etc. to be approached by someone asking for their blessing. The document now allows priests to bless same-sex couples in these “spontaneous” non-liturgical situations.
It is a season of wonder. Wonder is an interesting thing. Scot Erickson says that wonder is “the moment when all of our narratives and stories about life disappear in the rapturous experience of actually being here.” He says that wonder is “being present with the glorious now.”
A moment of Wonder is the moment when you are speechless, overwhelmed, and caught up in a mystery. In a moment of wonder, you momentarily develop a singular focus, and everything else stops.
I want you to bring to mind the last time you experienced wonder. Don’t you long for a life of wonder and mystery and surprise and joy?
According to the Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, 60 years ago just 20 percent of children born to parents with a high-school education or less lived in a single-parent household; now that figure is nearly 70 percent. Among college-educated households, by contrast, the single-parent rate remains less than 10 percent. Since the 1970s, the divorce rate has declined significantly among college-educated couples, while it has risen dramatically among couples with only a high-school education—even as marriage itself has become less common. The rate of single parenting is in turn the single most significant predictor of social immobility across counties, according to a study led by the Stanford economist Raj Chetty.
Three in ten Americans read digital books. Whether they’re accessing online textbooks or checking out the latest bestselling e-book from the public library, the majority of these readers are subject to both the greed of Big Publishing and the priorities of Big Tech. In fact, Amazon’s Kindle held 72% of the e-reader market in 2022. And if there’s one thing we know about Big Tech companies like Amazon, their real product isn’t the book. It’s the user data.
Major publishers are giving Big Tech free rein to watch what you read and where, including books on sensitive topics, like if you check out a book on self care after an abortion. Worse, tech and publishing corporations are gobbling up data beyond your reading habits—today, there are no federal laws to stop them from surveilling people who read digital books across the entire internet.
Reader surveillance is a deeply intersectional threat, according to a congressional letter issued last week from a coalition of groups whose interests span civil rights, anti-surveillance, anti-book ban, racial justice, reproductive justice, LGBTQ+, immigrant, and antimonopoly. Our letter calls on federal lawmakers to investigate the harms of tech and publishing corporations’ powerful hold over digital book access.
This investigation is an essential first step to revive the right to read without fear of having your interests used against you. Because unfortunately, that right is on life support when it comes to digital books.
Ironically, I keep hoping someone will read what I am reading.
View from the Lanai
Our stay in Florida has been very good. The weather has been unusual but I’m confident no one wants to hear complaints.
A special part of our experience is the community, neighbors and friends we’ve grown to know and love. Even the anonymous person who left a Christmas treat on our door.
