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“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

So Much To Think About

George 1 Comment

Becoming “a People”
Persons don’t become a “people,” through buying more books and learning more information and trying harder to be a better version of their old self. We become a people by sharing deeply in one another’s lives, learning to love one another and be loved by one another into our true selves and our real lives. This is the chosen people, the royal priesthood, the holy nation, and God’s special possession. Indeed, this Church Jesus is building is God’s special possession in all the world, for this is how God saves the world. 
J D Walt

Confirmation Bias
The most reliable cure for confirmation bias is interaction with people who don’t share your beliefs. They confront you with counterevidence and counterargument. John Stuart Mill said, “He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that,” and he urged us to seek out conflicting views “from persons who actually believe them.” People who think differently and are willing to speak up if they disagree with you make you smarter, almost as if they are extensions of your own brain. People who try to silence or intimidate their critics make themselves stupider, almost as if they are shooting darts into their own brain.
Jonathan Haidt

apokatastasis
A number of Church Fathers during the first four centuries of Christianity believed in what’s called apokatastasis, or “universal restoration” (Acts 3:21). [1] They believed that the real meaning of Christ’s resurrection was that God’s love was so perfect and so victorious that it would finally triumph in every single person’s life. They were so sure about this that their thought partially gave rise to the idea of purgatory as a place. In the dying process or even after death, God’s infinite love can and will still get at us! They felt no soul could resist the revelation of such infinite love. 
Could God’s love really be that great and that universal? I believe it is. Love is the lesson, and God’s love is so great that God will finally teach it to all of us. We’ll finally surrender, and God will win in the end. That will be God’s “justice,” which will swallow up our lesser versions. God—Love—does not lose!
Richard Rohr

Student Loan Forgiveness
About 43 million people in the U.S. have a combined total of $1.6 trillion in federal student loans, according to government estimates. 
An analysis published by the left-leaning Brookings Institution found nearly a third of all student debt is owed by the richest 20 percent of households, compared to just 8 percent held by the poorest 20 percent of households. 
Large-scale student debt forgiveness would represent a massive cash infusion to America’s wealthiest households, and a comparative dribble for the rest.
The average federal student loan debt balance last year was about $37,000. The most burdened borrowers are already eligible to be helped by certain income-based repayment programs, which cap monthly student debt payments at 10 percent of their discretionary incomes and eventually forgives the remaining balance, typically after 20 years. Since the debts can eventually be forgiven for these high-need borrowers, the benefits of even partial debt forgiveness would still go disproportionately to high-income borrowers.
According to a DataStream analysis of Labor Department data, the cost of a college education has increased 1,200 percent since 1980, compared to overall inflation of 236 percent.
The Dispatch

Religious Experience
Among the more pernicious ideas that inhabit our contemporary world is the notion that we are all isolated, independent, and alone. Even when we gather, we think of ourselves as but one among many. Among the most glaring exceptions to this form of thought, however, are sporting events. People attend a football game and declare when it is finished, “We won!” or “We lost!” We feel genuine joy at the first and sadness at the second. We do not say, “They won” (unless we mean the opposing side). This is not actually strange. Sport has, from its earliest beginnings, been a religious experience. That said, it is an experience that we fail to consider or understand. It is also a shallow, meaningless, religion.
The mystery of sport is that we have some sense not only watching, but participating in what takes place. The team’s victory is my victory. The emptiness of this mystery is that what is being “participated” in has no substance or true being. We feel robbed when a referee blows a call and the game ends with the wrong winner. At such a moment the emptiness of the game is revealed. It had no more meaning than a mistake.

This meditation on sport is a very vacuous way to get at the notion of true participation (of which it is but the least shadow).
Fr Stephen Freeman

Gospel
While the gospel is a message, it cannot be confined to messages. While the gospel is the truth, it cannot be captured by a series of propositional truths. Before the gospel is anything else, the gospel is God. Gospel means “good news,” and the good news is God. The good news is not that God loves us. The good news is that God is love. The good news is not that Jesus saves. It is that Jesus is himself salvation.

We think we truly comprehend God and the gospel because we have some comprehension of what God has done for us. This is good, as far as it goes, but it does not go anywhere near far enough. When our understanding of the gospel is limited to what God has done for us, our understanding of sharing the gospel will be limited to telling others what God has done for them.

To be sure, the gospel is the message of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ, but in a far greater sense, the gospel is who Jesus Christ is to us and in us and through us for the world. The gospel is not a body of knowledge about who God is and what God has done. The gospel is actually knowing God. Jesus prayed, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

We have lived through a period of world history wherein the measure of mastery consisted in knowing about a subject. The Christian faith is not meant for this paradigm. Real Christianity can never be reduced to knowing about God. We must go on to knowing God. To think one can master the subject of God is the ultimate idolatry. Real Christianity is about understanding oneself as subject to God and becoming mastered by Jesus Christ.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is not God’s solution to our sin problem. The gospel is that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting [our] sins against [us]” (2 Cor. 5:19). It is a reconciled relationship through which God lives in us and we in him. The gospel is not the knowledge but the knowing. The domain of knowledge is in a body of information. The domain of knowing is in the body of Jesus Christ.  And none of this is meant to eschew or despise knowledge, but rather to say that knowledge is a penultimate understanding. Ultimate understanding means knowledge about God must give way to knowing God.
J D Walt

Artificial Intelligence
Acusensus’ technology can also be used to identify “hot spots,” helping determine where officials may need to improve enforcement, make changes to infrastructure or adopt new legislation. In recent months, the company conducted demonstrations and evaluations for a number of local law enforcement agencies and state transportation departments.
During an 18-hour assessment in August of a high-risk corridor in Missouri that was averaging three and a half crashes a day, more than 11,000 vehicles drove by. At least 60 percent of the drivers were speeding; an average of 6.5 percent were using mobile phones, more than twice the national average; and just under 5.5 percent were engaged in two concurrent risky driving behaviors.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/19/technology/ai-road-car-safety.html?referringSource=articleShare

Cremation
So many ashes to ashes, so much dust to dust. Cremation is now America’s leading form of final “disposition,” as the funeral industry calls it — a preference that shows no sign of abating.
In 2020, 56 percent of Americans who died were cremated, more than double the figure of 27 percent two decades earlier, according to the Cremation Association of North America (CANA). By 2040, 4 out of 5 Americans are projected to chose cremation over casket burial, according to both CANA and the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA).

Tolerance
“I don’t like the word tolerate. Who am I to tolerate you? I prefer the word respect. I must respect you even if I do not agree with you. In fact, my disagreement may be an expression of my respect for you. If I truly respect you, don’t I own you my honesty?” Elie Wiesel
To understand others we have to understand the complexities and contradictions in our own selves. In learning our own complexity we form the possibility of learning from others. If we think we are always right, we have nothing to learn. The mark of learning is listening.
In discussing others we bring to the surface our bias. Wiesel thought the most inhuman person was still a human and we are called to the struggle to understand that person. It requires courage.
The “real tragedies” in society are not between right and wrong but between two rights. We cannot collapse the gap between us; in that gap is the possibility of creating a new peace and reconciliation. Differences express the gap; the gap is where the peace can take root.
Scot McKnight

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

Regret

George 0 Comments

When we feel the spear of regret, life is trying to tell us something. Pay attention. Wake up. Take notes.

Daniel Pink

This past Sunday, during a lunch conversation with friends, Ann shared her story from fifty plus years ago about coming to a faith of her own. It was a Sunday evening service. She and our three young boys had gone to church without me. Moved by the sermon, she was drawn to respond. Repentant, she asked for forgiveness and committed her life to following Jesus.

Listening, I had some vague remembrance, but no real recollection of what was obviously a very significant event in her spiritual life. After lunch, on our way home, I asked her about that evening.
Her remembrance is clear. She had gone to church with the boys. She asked me to go but I told her no. Coming home, I was sitting on the couch wearing a tee shirt smoking a cigarette. She told me what happened at church. My response was, “What’d you do that for?”

I was dumbfounded. “That’s all I said ?” “I didn’t offer encouragement or appreciation?” “I didn’t ask anything?”
“No.”
The image of me as young husband and father, I had refined over the past fifty years, did not comport with her story. In that moment, I was confronted with a truth about myself. I am not what I believed myself to be.
In that moment, I was filled with regret.
Regret for treating Ann badly.
Regret for missing an opportunity to be the husband and father I should have been.
Regret for being an insensitive jerk.

The regret I experienced in reaction to Ann’s story was painful and curious. There is no question I should regret my conduct, but 50+ years later? Learning I had never apologized, I gave Ann a belated apology.
In the days since regret has been on my mind. Having read Daniel Pink’s book “ThePower of Regret” while in Florida, the subject is somewhat fresh in my mind.
Numerous questions arose in the intervening days, stimulating me to write this post.

Why would regret be so real and fresh hearing Ann’s story?
Was an apology really necessary after 50 years?
Why isn’t regret a usual part of today’s vocabulary?
How is regret different, if at all, from sorrow, grief or lament?
If regret is an integral part of our human experience, why is there an absence of sermons or lectures on regret?
Should regret be a part of a Christian’s life?

Some beliefs operate quietly, like existential background music, Others become anthems for a way of living. And few credo blare more loudly than the doctrine that regret is foolish— a toxin in the bloodstream of happiness.

The Power of Regret

In a culture obsessed with happiness, it should come as no surprise that regret is in the penalty box with grief and lament and other negatives. “Why invite pain when we can avoid it?” “Why rue what we did yesterday when we dream of the limitless possibilities of tomorrow?”

No regrets they don’t work
No regrets they only hurt
Sing me a love song
Drop me a line
Suppose it’s just a point of view
But they tell me I’m doing fine.

No regrets by Robbie Williams

Since my recent encounter with regret, I’ve been thinking how regret differs from sorrow, grief or lament. All of those experiences are painful. Unlike the pain of sorrow, grief or lament, which is deep, protracted and chronic; pain of regret is is sharp and piercing, a wound demanding attention.

The thing about regret is that it hurts. And it hurts for a reason; it’s conveying a particularly strong signal. The fact that I feel a spear of negative feeling called regret makes it much more likely that I’m going to be awake to the possibility of learning from that mistake, if I treat it right.

Daniel Pink

The soul-depth of sorrow, grief and lament demands answers, a struggle that challenges our faith and can lead to despair. With regret the answer is unambiguous, we are responsible, in that moment we understand “We have met the enemy and he is us.” (P0go). There is no one to blame except ourselves. As Pink says, “It clarifies, It instructs.”

“No regrets”, a mantra in our culture and companion of the cult of happiness, has infiltrated western Christianity. Regret and lament are unwelcome intrusions into a “live happily ever after” delusion. Walter Brueggermann understood the costly loss of lament and there is a similar cost with the loss of regret.

Without regret we become —Eve, “the devil made me do it.” or worse — Adam, blaming God, “the woman you gave me…”

Where there is lament [regret], the believer is able to take initiative with God and so develop over against God the ego strength that is necessary for responsible faith. But where the capacity to initiate lament is absent, one is left only with praise and doxology.
A community of faith which negates laments [regrets] soon concludes that the hard issues of justice are improper questions to pose at the throne, because the throne seems to be only a place of praise.

The Costly Loss of Lament – Walter Brueggermann

Regret like suffering is an attribute of our humanity, and thus our Christian life. There is value in both, but their benefit is not enjoyed by dwelling on or seeking them. “No regrets” denies reality and robs us of opportunity for redemption and growth.

You let the distress bring you to God, not drive you from him. The result was all gain, no loss. Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets.”

2 Corinthians? ?7:9-10? ?MSG

I have only skirted the edges of understanding regret and its power for good or ill. I highly recommend Daniel Pink’s “The Power of Regret” . I labored to write this post. A few days ago heading out for a walk and perusing my podcasts, I was pleasantly surprised to see a sermon by Josh Graves at Otter Creek Church of Christ entitled “No Regrets”. He had some helpful insights and for those of you who want to dig deeper you can listen HERE.

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

So Much To Think About

George 0 Comments

New Normal
One of the worst things we’ve normalized is always being reachable: making people think they deserve an instant response to texts, emails, comments, and voicemails. We’ve conditioned other people (and ourselves) that our promptness is some kind of virtue, that the more quickly we respond, the more responsible we are. The expectation this places on each of us is unrealistic and it is not sustainable. We cannot be perpetually available and still be fully present. 
We are inundated with requests and needs and news. Now, more than ever, we need to withdraw to silence and stillness and solitude and disappear for a bit. Doing so isn’t a betrayal of our work or the people in our path, but a way of preparing us to be fully present to it all. In those times when we pull away from the crowd (if we can) our minds are recalibrated and our reserves replenished, and when we return to the world we are better able to offer our undivided selves.
John Pavlovitz

…we should be careful of issuing judgments without knowing the facts. That mobs are poor diviners of truth. That institutions have a duty to transcend the passions of the moment.
https://www.thebulwark.com/the-oberlin-culture-war-of-2016-finally-comes-to-an-end/

“Disagreements can feel like a war in which the fighters dig trenches on either side of any issue and launch their beliefs back and forth like grenades. You wouldn’t blame anyone involved for feeling as if they’re under fire, and no one is likely to change their mind when they’re being attacked. These sorts of fights might give everyone involved some short-term satisfaction—they deserve it because I am right and they are evil!—but odds are that neither camp is having any effect on the other; on the contrary, the attacks make opponents dig in deeper. If you want a chance at changing minds, you need a new strategy: Stop using your values as a weapon, and start offering them as a gift.”
Arthur Brooks

“You are, on the one hand, the most complex thing in the entire universe, and on the other, someone who can’t even set the clock on your microwave. Don’t overestimate your self-knowledge.” 
Dr. Jordon Peterson

…there’s obvious danger in freely expressing your thoughts. Most of us have deep knowledge about a narrow set of topics and shallow knowledge (at best) about most everything else. Speak constantly and you will expose your ignorance. It’s guaranteed. 
David French

“Forgetfulness leads to exile, memory to redemption.” Morally deficient leaders want the past forgotten; the morally sensitive leaders want never to forget lest we end up there again.
Hasidic saying

In our world, disagreement is not about a difference of perspective, but a conflict between fundamental goodness and badness. With little room for forgiveness, it is easy to become narcissists of opinion. Our entire moral self-image becomes wrapped up in correctness, and anyone who disagrees with us must not only be wrong, but morally deficient. We so fiercely want to be “good” that even considering the perspective of another is itself a morally polluting act.
Emma Camp

Living in a fog
My retirement life has brought a metaphor from driving experiences into sharp focus. It’s noting the difference between life viewed “in the windshield” versus life viewed “in the rear-view mirror.” The first rushes towards you as you speed ahead, giving but a short vision of what’s to come. The second recedes slowly into the distance, accompanied by the memory of the long road that has gone before. Life in the windshield is, to my mind, particularly an experience of youth. The world and the future hurry towards them and seem to be, by far, the most important part of the road. The rear-view mirror is the world of the aging. What I remember (as I near 70) is far more important than what is yet to come – there’s so much more of it. In that light, the doctrine of divine providence often seems more obvious to the elderly than it does to the young. We stand at different points of observation.

There is, though, the problem of the “fog.” When driving into a heavy fog, both what is ahead and what is behind are obscurred. We drive at something approaching a state of blindness. I think there are moments in history (as well as our personal lives), when the fog encloses us and both the providence of the past as well as the way forward are hidden. …
Those concerns reveal the “modernity” in my own heart. Our deep habits, nurtured in so many ways, tend towards management. We imagine ourselves to be in charge of history’s outcomes. As such, we nurture within ourselves a “market” for information. News of the world, of events, and trends seem (to us) to be required reading and listening. We even think to ourselves, “How will I know how to pray if I don’t know what is going on?” The corrollary to that thought is, “How will God know what is going on if I don’t tell Him?”
Fr Stephen Freeman
https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2022/04/13/life-in-the-fog-of-the-world/

View from the front porch
It has been disappointing to not have opened the front porch yet. The weather has not cooperated and I have sorely missed mornings on the porch. Perhaps opening the porch this weekend will change the weather. Looking forward to some much need inspiration.

Still on the Journey