For the Joy of the Journey

So Much To Think About

George February 1, 2024 Notes Anthology 0 Comments

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.

Excerpts from David Brooks’ Atlantic Article

Humility

Humility involves the following:

Possessing an accurate assessment of yourself
A willingness to acknowledge your mistakes and limitations
An openness to the viewpoints and ideas of others
An ability to keep your accomplishments in perspective
Low self-focus
Appreciating the value other people

http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2024/01/a-peaceable-faith-part-6-cultural.html

Holiness

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.

https://aimeebyrd.substack.com/p/nothing-is-harder-to-make-real?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1879090&post_id=140945822&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=g50id&utm_medium=email

ART

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.”

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

The Presence of God (3)

George January 29, 2024 The Presence of God 0 Comments

The practice of the Presence of God is the most holy, the most all-encompassing, and the most necessary practice of the spiritual life. It trains the soul to find its joy in His Divine Companionship. Bro Lawrence

Having read the book some years earlier, plus considerable experience teaching and leading, I volunteered to lead a men’s group in a study of The practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. I developed a syllabus for the study complete with goals, expectations and topics for discussion. Diving into reading and study my confidence was immediately shaken.

You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
Psalm 139

There is no sweeter and delightful life than that of continual communion with God. Only those who experience this and practice it can comprehend it. Yet I do not advise you to undertake this practice from that motive. We should not seek pleasure in this exercise. Instead let us do it out of love and because God desires it.
Bro Lawrence

The spiritual life begins when one wakes up to the presence of God and experiences this reality for oneself. The omnipresence of God is more than a theological doctrine; it is experiential reality. The spiritual life begins in earnest when one wakes up.
This type of awakening is the heart of Christianity. It moves us from the realm of beliefs and ideas, emotions and rituals, into the Presence of God.
Marshall Davis

Mystery is not something you can’t know. Mystery is endless knowability. Living inside such endless knowability is finally a comfort, a foundation of ultimate support, security, unrestricted love, and eternal care. For all of us, it takes much of our life to get there; it is what we surely mean by “growing” in faith.
Richard Rohr

Grappling with —”knowledge too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain” — misconceptions about practicing the presence of God were unmasked.

First, assuming practicing presence of God to be an educational issue. Unfortunately, for a long time, I assumed diligent study and improved techniques would produce spiritual growth. Most of my efforts at spiritual formation have been overly, even excessively, education-based. In recent years that assumption was challenged and refuted but its resilience was apparent in preparing for the study. Ironically, serious inquiry into the practice of the presence of God revealed a another way of knowing; not discarding education/study but ‘ …an awakening of the heart. moving us from the realm of beliefs and ideas, emotions and rituals, into the Presence of God.”¹ — a game changer.
“He surrendered himself to an attitude of faithful devotion and insight rather than reasoning and thinking“. ²

A second misconception — the Practice of the Presence of God is self improvement.
American Christianity is a therapeutic culture, we approach faith as therapy. The trouble with this therapeutic milieu is that it is ego-centric and reduces the cross of Christ [the presence of God] to a feel-good, psychotherapeutic intervention (Jesus Loves Me!, 1 Cross + 3 Nails = 4 Given, and the Jesus’s footprints in the sand parable).³
That misconception was implicit in the goal of our study: Become better disciples of Jesus. Certainly, being in the presence of God produces better disciples, but “The change or transformation that God desires is not found in our improvement. Rather, it is our union with Him and our transformation into His image and likeness. Christ has not come to improve us, but to remake us from the inside out. ⁴ The presence of God produces humility and repentance, prerequisites to God’s transforming work.

Encountering the practice of the presence of God has proven to be a significant spiritual milestone. I am still seeking to understand the depth and breath of its mystery. Hopefully, you will join me in pursuit of the presence of God.
More to come.

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

1
Marshall Davis
2
Bro Lawrence
3
Richard Beckhttp://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2008/08/therapeutic-culture-of-american.html
4
Fr Stephen Freeman

Church and the Battle for Attention

George January 22, 2024 THE CHURCH 0 Comments

…the Church is not on the right path so long as it adapts itself to the present; nor is it on the right path as long as it holds fast to the past.
How do we know the Church is on the right path? — … the Church is headed in the right direction when, whatever the age in which it lives, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is its criterion..
Hans Kung – The Church

For years I’ve been concerned church is headed in the wrong direction. Church is an easy target, so it is not difficult find others willing to get on the bandwagon. We identify many problem but with no clear consensus on THE problem or WHY. I recently came across an essay entitled The Great Malformation: A personal skirmish in the battle for attention. Riffing on the article, I believe it connects some dots that help, in part, to explain why church is on not on the right path. Not THE problem, but a problem and perhaps insight to why.
In the article The Battle for Attention caught my attention (pun intended) and is the subject of this post. I encourage you to read the entire essay, however “The Battle for Attention” section is available below

The-Battle-for-Attention Download

Introduction
Western civilization, experienced a transformation in which economy, the pursuit of profits, engulfed and disfigured the culture. The church was also engulfed and disfigured. The engine for that cultural transformation has been: human attention.
Pursuit of profits has made attention exceedingly valuable and hotly contested. It is hard to think of any other “commodity”— that is as crucial to success in contemporary culture.
It is, then, a matter of no small consequence that human attention is now so heavily exploited.
Churches no longer enjoying “market” domination and compelled by FOMO; recognizing the power of attention and its crucial role in their “success”, joined the battle for attention.

The Battle for Attention – Marketplace examples of the battle for attention:

As marketers, we face a difficult task. It is up to us to ensure that the company’s brand awareness increases, that leads are generated and turned into sales and customers understand the products and services that the company provides.
At the same time, we have less opportunity to gain the customers’ attention as the amount of information increases.
Twenty years ago, Microsoft conducted a study that showed a person’s attention span, on average, was about 12 seconds before becoming distracted. 5 years ago, this time span was down to 8 seconds.
A study from DTU concluded in 2019 that people’s attention span will continue to decrease as we are bombarded with more and more information.
We have become accustomed to the fact that there are always new things, stories, and updates that we need to keep an eye on. It goes beyond our ability to concentrate and our ability to stay focused on what is right in front of us.
And that does not make our task as marketers any easier.
https://marketingplatform.com/resources/the-battle-for-attention/

How to win the battle for attention – despite distractions that bring instant gratification
Kirsten Back (MBA, MA)
Last week, I heard it again: “your audience has an attention span that only lasts a few seconds!”
Let me put that into context for you with regards to the content that you create and want your audience to read, remember, and act upon.
Your ideal scenario is that your ideal clients, notice your post, read it with focus and intention, remember the points you are making, and then reflect and act upon your content.
For that, you need to draw their attention, keep them engaged, understand your message, process your message, remember your message, take an action or get a positive outcome from your content that carries into their future.
That’s a lot that you expect from your audience (and that your audience expects from your content).
In this post, I am going to look into what your content is competing with and how you can win that competition with better content that your audience finds valuable and desirable enough to consume with their full attention.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-win-battle-attention-despite-distractions-bring-back-mba-ma-

Church and the Battle for Attention .

Churches’ decision to engage in the battle for attention carries significant risks and consequences:

Loss of capacity for sustained attention
Paradoxically, subjects of intense competition for their attention may suffer a loss of capacity for sustained attention. Because of increased screen time, it appears competition for attention contributes to increased diagnosis of ADHD. Eventually, people subjected to perpetual assault for their attention will disengage and zone out.

Risk of distraction / redirection/ backlash
Rather than addressing spiritual needs, leaders in a battle for attention assume responsibility for creating desire.
Commitment to a battle for attention inherently redirects priority for worthy goals to the task of creating better ad content to capture people’s attention. Creating desire, at a minimum, is a distraction, at worst, can become a substitute for the core mission— means become the ends.
Battle for attention influences every facet of church life
Some want mitigate the risk of engaging in the battle for attention by arguing if we can get people’s attention the gospel can be shared. Assuming “click bait” that grabs attention of post -modern people will make them open to the gospel is not wise. When “click bait” churches employ is in tune with secular desires, it can produce a ” bait and switch” backlash when the gospel is presented.

Unplanned enculturation of children and re-enculturation of adults
Churches engaging in the battle for attention should recognize the power of winning attention to shape the culture, children and adults. They need look no further than the effects of social media, smartphones, virtual experiences including video games on our psyches . There is potential to penetrate every passing moment of people’s lives. It is a bad bet for churches to place their money on winning the battle for attention; particularly when winning results in sated consumers not converts.
Subjects of the battle for attention face “a hydraulic insistence on conformity to majoritarian standards”. Campaigns to sustain unreflective allegiance of people to the prevailing form of religious life; interfere with parents efforts to pass along their convictions and way of life to their children; essentially limiting their free exercise of religion.

Consumerist proslelytism (i.e. battle for attention)
The nature of consumerist proselytism does not require true believers. It does require attention brokers willing to convey a message that consumption is a centrally important pathway to the happy life. Their task is to provide a picture of the good life and an ideological justification for seeking it. They can make their messages maximally effective, even if they do not believe what they are peddling to be good or on spite of any distaste they might have for the process. Increasingly, criteria for hiring church staff’ include qualifications of attention brokers.

There is a lot to think about and certainly debatable, bringing attention to the “the battle of attention” will hopefully generate thought and productive conversation. Future posts will address the implications of abandoning “the battle for attention” and what church might look like as a “loser”.
Feedback is appreciated.

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

This post is a continuation of posts on THE CHURCH from 2021 and 2022. Some earlier posts were added to the category. All sixteen posts can be read HERE.