Hearing problems

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When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death…

 

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

          James 1

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There are times

I have trouble hearing.

 

It is not because I need hearing aids (although I do)

It is because my head, my heart, my soul, are crowded

My inner self is noisy and chaotic

 

To the point that there is little room for newness

Little room, honestly

For Jesus

 

I started thinking about this

About what I allow to dwell in my inmost being

 

About how I allow some things to become big, really big

My resentment over this.

My fear about that.

 

I’m like a hoarder

Who has bags of stuff I can’t let go of

Useless, putrid, smelly stuff

 

Piled everywhere

 

My TV is blaring, spewing narratives

Designed to create fear

Intended to offend

 

The influencers on my computer

Feed me half-truths

And outright lies

 

It is stifling

And I can barely breathe.

 

It is my upper room

And if Jesus suddenly appeared

Would he find a place to sit down

 

Would I be able to hear his words of love?

 

Others come with their narratives of fear

With their attempts to make me afraid,

With their desire to shame me

 

They add to the debris

But nothing more

High and deeper

 

They send me running to bar the door, shut the windows and

Pull down the shades.

 

I am left more entrenched than ever.

 

Ah, but the risen Jesus.

That is another story.

 

But I have learned that the Spirit can free me from this prison of my own making.

The Present God can open the windows

And let the wind blow

 

Can open the doors, and let the light in

Can burn away the piles of fear, misinformation and hate

 

Love can set me free

Love alone

 

Why do I think it is different for others?

Why do I think that somehow I, armed with what I believe are “the facts,”

That I, with brilliant arguments

That I, impaired as I am with resentment and anger,

 

Can create understanding,

Dispel untruth

Heal heart and soul?

 

I have been doing it wrong.

I have to lead with love

I have to see myself simply as a conduit through which

Hopefully, prayerfully, God’s love can flow

 

Clearly telling people they are wrong (and I am right)

Doesn’t work

Clearly leading with anger

Doesn’t work

Nor does ridicule

 

I am not going to change any hearts

Only God can do that

And God can only do that

If I am not in the way

 

I am going to have to learn

What it looks like to be a conduit

And not a dam

 

I am going to have to learn what it means

To overcome evil with good

 

And sadly, I am a slow learner.

 

Come, Lord Jesus,

You have a lot of work to do

Starting with me

Choose love

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Jesus never once quotes from nineteen of the books in his own Hebrew scriptures. In fact, he appears to use a very few favorites: Exodus, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Hosea, and Psalms.  Jesus appears to ignore most of his own Bible, yet it clearly formed his whole consciousness. That is the paradox. If we look at what he ignores, it includes any passages that appear to legitimate violence, imperialism, exclusion, purity, and dietary laws—of which there are many. Jesus is a biblically formed non-Bible-quoter who gets the deeper stream of God’s unconditional love, the spirit, the trajectory of his Jewish history and never settles for mere surface readings.

When he does once quote Leviticus, he quotes the one positive mandate among long lists of negative ones: “You must love your neighbor as yourself” (see Leviticus 19:18)… Jesus reduces the 613 clear biblical commandments down to two: love of God and love of neighbor (see Matthew 22:34–40).  

He omits troublesome verses with which he does not agree, as when he drops the final half-verse from the Isaiah scroll when he first reads in the Nazareth synagogue (see Luke 4:18–19). As if to make the point, he “rolls up the scroll, hands it back to the attendant and sits down.” We can imagine them glaring at him for adjusting the Scriptures. They know the final line of Isaiah 61:2b is “to proclaim a day of vengeance from our God.” Jesus ends with verse 2a, which “proclaims the Lord’s day of favor,” and better portrays the God he knows.

Generally speaking, Jesus makes use of his own Scriptures to teach a message of radical inclusivity, mercy, and justice, and to negate the predominant religious messages of exclusion, religious righteousness, and oppression of the underdog, the impure, and the sinner.

Richard Rohr

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We used to call them “Bible thumpers”

Those people who would zealously pound their Bible

THIS is what God says

This is the WORD OF GOD

I always loved

And love still

Their passion for God

But my problem is that many of these

Intense, well-meaning people

Not only thumped the Bible, but thumped others with the Bible

Weaponizing it

Making it a book of rules and wrath

Making it about obedience and merit

Even grace becomes merit. 

The tension between a religion of obedience and wrath

And a religion of grace and forgiveness

Is inherent in the Bible

Jesus saw it,

And he dealt with it his own way

Defaulting to love

Always

Love 

That is the beginning and the end

The alpha and the omega

The world was birthed in love

And it is not going to “end” 

However we think of “end”

In hate and punishment

In flames

Although there may be hate and flames

Cruelty and violence

Created by humankind

Along the way 

To paradise

When we are asked to choose

Between merit and grace

We must choose grace

I have often thought about 

The time Jesus told the Bible thumpers of his time

You will come to me and point to your zeal for God

And I will say, “I never knew you”

Sounds pretty harsh 

And he tells them away from me!!!

That doesn’t sound like mercy.

But…

I think what Jesus was saying

To these people who were very much alive,

Was this

What have you done with yourself?

I don’t even recognize you.

I can’t see the person of love and mercy you were created to be

You are not reflecting the image of God

Go get yourself together.

Because right now you are hurting a lot of people

Am I playing fast and loose with scripture?

Yeah

Just like Jesus

Just like every Rabbi ever (who is worth his or her salt)

But I think Jesus’ goal was not expulsion

But transformation

From His birth to his death

Jesus was always about radical love

About expansive inclusion

He read the Torah and the law and the prophets through

The lens of radical love

He lived the scriptures through the lens of radical love

He saw the tension

And he resolved it by choosing radical love.

I want to be like that!

the harder we try

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“Just keep your eyes on Jesus”

They say

“Be BOLD Christians”

They implore

 

God has this

God has your back

God will take care of you

 

Trust and Obey and it will be OK!

 

All those aphorisms that are true

Not True

 

I personally think it makes a difference to believe

That God is

That God is love

That God is woven into the fabric of the universe,

The planet

 

That God is somehow present in me

The secret of joy, hope, peace, and love

 

But what does it mean to live that out?

Cause damn!

 

There are those people who say that Jesus saves

but live as if they have to save Jesus

 

Who insist that if they don’t put God back

In the schools

The government

The bedroom

 

The world will be Godless.

And we’ll all go to hell.

 

(they could write a song about that – when we all get to hell…..)

 

Who insist they must set up a bunch of laws

Elect a bunch of control freaks into office

Grab all the power and wealth,

 

and then control, coerce, and punish people into obedience

so as to create a “Christian Nation”

 

Oddly, the harder they try to create a Christian Nation

the less like the Kingdom of God that nation seems

 

I appreciate the zeal of the overachievers

I just wish they would take a Xanax

 

There are also those who spend all of their time

Trying to connect with the Sacred

They pore over the Bible

And fill their head with words they arrange

 

To fit their preconceived notion of God

 

They pray and worship

And look to the heavens,

Trying to “see” Jesus

 

Maybe I have it wrong.

But I think Jesus told us.

That if we want to see God,

All we have to do is look at flowers

And children

 

All we have to do is look in the face of every person we meet

(Hi Jesus)

In the face of the homeless man,

The immigrant

The person living in poverty

 

All we have to do is look in the mirror.

 

I think Jesus said that being a bold follower

Is not about beating people over the head with our Bibles

Or oppressing and suppressing people in the name of faith

Or conquering and subduing

(or eradicating an entire civilization with our missiles)

 

But about trusting God enough

To share what we have with those around us

To welcome those who are different from us

To listen to those we disagree with

 

To see every person we meet as a child of God

As full of the Sacred as we are

As loved by God as we are

 

Maybe I have it wrong.

I probably do

But I’ll keep on keeping on

Trying not to tire of doing good

 

I’ll keep looking in the mirror

And trying to see Jesus in this face.

 

And I’ll keep working to act justly, to love mercy,

and to walk humbly with my God

 

Love is messy

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Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount is not about maintaining the status quo. “Bad” people didn’t kill Jesus; conventional wisdom crucified him. Jesus taught an alternative way of being instead of the maintenance of the social order. When we can weep, when we can identify with the humble ones, when we can make peace, when we can be persecuted and still be joyful—then we are doing it right. The Beatitudes are describing what holiness looks like in the kingdom of God.

          Richard Rohr   Daily Meditations 7/16/2026

_________________

 

Who are the “bad” ones?

It is interesting that it wasn’t the radical left

That killed Jesus

 

It was the conservatives.

The ones determined to preserve the status quo

The law-and-order folk

 

Make Israel Great Again

Make Israel a Holy Nation!

 

There was no room in that time, in that place

For a radical

Not even one whose message was radical love

Especially not one whose message was radical love

 

Radical love is messy.

It is inconvenient

Maybe even risky

 

Love the lepers?

Love the Romans?

Love the Tax Collectors, and the women of ill repute

The poor?

Love the “lazy moochers?”

The women?

 

That is not good for the bottom line

That is not how you amass power

 

Love often meets resistance from power.

It should be expected, really.

 

And the question is, what do we do

When we try to love

When we try to resist injustice and inequity

And the system resists us!

 

We can get angry

We can feel offended

We can respond in kind

With name-calling, harshness, personal attacks

 

I do

All too often

 

And we should resist!

There is no question about that

Paul didn’t say, “be an observer.  Look at evil from a distance”

Paul said, “overcome evil with good”

 

So we have to stay in the mix

But we have to stay in the middle of the hate

Chaos and conflict

 

As people who feel deeply

Care deeply

Act compassionately

But keep our joy

 

When we are resentful, retributive

When we see ourselves as victims

When we carry a sense of affront

 

Our resistance turns into something other.

Than resistance. 

We become

Part of the problem

 

I am not sure I can do it

But I am sure I am called

To be joyful

always

Becoming what we despise

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You will always become the thing you fight the most.

          Carl Jung

 

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

          Friedrich Nietzche

 

We become what we hate. The very act of hating something draws us to us. Since our hate is usually a direct response to evil done to us, our hate almost invariably causes us to respond in the terms already laid down by the enemy.

          Walter Wink

________________________________

 

I made a mistake today

I make mistakes most days, I fear

But this was one that struck home

 

I became what I detest

I read a comment (wrong)

And responded vindictively

 

You hypocrite, I wrote

I should have been looking in the mirror

 

This is the thing about fighting people like Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, and Stephen Miller.  It becomes too easy to become what we despise

 

It is a Catch-22

We must call out evil

But when we engage with evil, it gains power over us

We can pretend it doesn’t

But it does

 

I don’t know how Jesus did it

He got angry

At those who hurt others

As for those who hurt him?

He forgave, he blessed

He did exactly what he taught his followers to do

Bless and do not curse

Love your enemies and pray for them

 

I believe we must resist evil

I know that racism and prejudice against my LGBTQI+ friends is wrong

I know that what ICE is doing is not OK

I know that it is not acceptable to lie and steal

And that sexually preying on children is wrong

 

And I know that somehow we must resist

But how?

How do we fight monsters without becoming monsters

 

I don’t know

I do know that it is important to

Stop

Breathe

Then think

 

It is important to seek to understand

To listen

 

That we must make sure we have it right!

 

I do know we must start with humility

And lead with love

 

And I know we have to ask for help!

Come, Holy Spirit, come

I am grieving

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I am grieving today for things lost

For symbols and terms that have lost their meaning

Or that have become toxic in the hands and on the lips

Of the evil

And the manipulated and deluded

 

I used to see an American flag flying

And this

Oh, a patriot

Now I think, Oh, a white nationalist

 

I hear the word Christian, and think of Jesus

Now I hear the word and think of MAGA Christianity

Rallying around the flag

And bowing at the feet of a person who is

The antithesis of Jesus

 

I used to hear traditional values

And think of generosity, kindness, inclusion, compassion, and honesty

Now I think of people who are biased and rigid

And dislike everyone who is not

Just like them

 

I used to hear the word conservative

And think of people who were careful, perhaps cautious

Who were OK with change, but were happy to take it slow

Of people who doubled down on the truth

And needed to gather all the facts

 

Now I think radical, stuck, fearful, controlling

And worse

 

 I used to see the cross and think of sacrifice

And radical love

Now I see it wrapped in a flag

And used to promote domination (abusive power)

And wealth

 

It has become weaponized

And turned back into a symbol of oppression

 

I want them all back.

 

I want to celebrate the flag

See patriotism as good

 

I want to argue and then work with

Real conservatives

 

I want the cross and Jesus

To reflect the love of God

 

I want to think of traditional values

And think of the Statue of Liberty

Of a Constitution upheld

Of a President who carries herself with dignity

And treats others with respect

I want to think of love, compassion, and generosity

 

I want to be able to claim that I am a Christian

Without that being seen as a red flag

To all too many people

 

I am grieving

But I am in the market

For hope and joy

No disposable people

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I felt as if I still mattered to God, and I needed to know that … Anne Frank mattered to him, too.  I needed to know that every person behind every pair of shoes recovered from every concentration camp mattered, that God had not forgotten them, that he loved them, and that he knew each of their names.  I needed to know that God does not make disposable people.

          Rachel Held Evans

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

          Declaration of Independence,  July 4, 1776

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Do I matter to God?

Does this aging, somewhat beat-up

Increasingly impatient

Soul

 

Who has done good things,

And terrible things

Who is kind, cruel, intelligent, and incredibly stupid (at times)

Impatient and cranky.

Who is opinionated and yet probably has gotten a lot wrong

 

Do I matter?

Do you?

 

Who matters to God?

 

Do some matter more than others?

Do those who have muttered some formula about Jesus

Matter more than those who haven’t?

 

Do those who are cis matter more than those who are queer?

Do white people matter more than brown people, black people,

Than those who are olive-skinned?

 

Do males matter more than women?

 

Do the beautiful matter more than the common,

The rich more than the poor?

 

On this Fourth of July, hundreds of men

Bedecked with khaki pants, blue shirts, tan caps, white face coverings, and sunglasses

Carrying the flags of domination and racism

Marched

 

Declaring

We matter more

People of color matter less

 

At Mt Rushmore, a man obsessed with power

And full of hubris

Declared that all who oppose him, all who are not like him,

All who do not worship him

Do not matter

At all

 

They are enemies

Dumcrats

Communists (I am not sure he knows what that means)

Enemies

They do not count, they must be excluded, controlled, destroyed

 

I matter, you don’t

That is the creed of Empire.

 

But God says,

Come, all

Come to the table

Come to the table of grace

 

Come, stranger and friend

Come, Jew and Gentile

Come, people from all along the gender spectrum

Come trans children

 

There are no distinctions.

 

You are all children of God.

You are all loved

You are all precious and valuable.

 

So come

From north and south

East and west

Come from Somalia and Haiti

From Syria and Sudan

 

Come

Human creatures may sow and nourish hate and fear

They may attempt to use prejudice

As a way to grab power

They may attempt to detain and deport

To commit ethnic cleansing

Even genocide

 

None of that is from God

At all

At all

 

God does not make disposable people.

 

So come

God loves you, God has not forgotten you

God has called you by name

You belong in this country

You belong at the table

You belong

 

And your presence is something to celebrate

Me too

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Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

 

Judging a person does not define who they are. It defines who you are

Kristen Stewart

 

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

Mother Teresa

 

Before pointing fingers make sure your hands are clean.

Bob Marley

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Sitting in a box

With thousands of precious souls

 

Seeking discernment and direction

For a flawed church

A church blessed and cursed with human creatures

 

I am gathered with people who love God

And embrace God’s way

But still manage to make a mess of things, as often as not

 

Who love each other,

Or at least try to

Wildly and imperfectly

 

We do not all agree

We are not all alike

 

There is every color of the rainbow here

Varying theologies

A full spectrum of genders (and yes, there is a spectrum)

 

There are liberals and conservatives

Farmers and bankers

Urbanites and people from towns so small

You’d miss them if you blinked

 

All seeking to hear

All desiring to be guided by the Sacred

All wanting to be the church,

 

The feet, the arms, the hands

Even the voice of Jesus

Now

 

But we struggle

 

Our problem is that we are convinced

Of our rightness

 

That we have a right view of Jesus

Salvation

Ministry

Gender

All of it

 

My understanding (we say to ourselves)

Is right!

 

Maybe

Maybe not

 

And we don’t know what to do

With those we think are not right

Whose views differ from ours

 

Because in our rightness

They are wrong

Dead wrong

 

And so we judge this person or that

For this stance or that

Because

 

We are right, and they are wrong

And meanwhile, they return the favor

 

So there we are

Divided

Judging (yes, we are)

 

As I sit in the middle of all this

Feeling more righteous at times than I should

 

Two thoughts come to me

 

I have to step away from my rightness

Because even if I am right and in some ways

It is likely I am not right in others

 

I need humility

I need to embrace unknowing

 

I might be wrong

 

I also need to leave space for grace

I am not sure how else to put it

 

But that person, who believes so differently from me

Got there by their own path

 

Would I be different if I had walked that path?

How would I believe if shaped by the parents, teachers, pastors, and life events that person has been shaped by?

 

Can I, even if I still strongly disagree, seek to understand

Seek to find a place of grace from which to

See that other

Who is, after all, as much a child of God as I

 

I am aware it is complicated

What do we do with belief and people who harm?

Who reject, exclude, and diminish?

 

I know I must stand for what I believe is right

And stand up for those who are minimized and oppressed

 

But how do I keep that

Awareness

Of my own fragility

Of the ways in which I, too, am “not right”

 

That keeps me humble and open

Full of love and compassion

 

It is going to be a long week

#GA227

 

Better or bitter

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All I am now going through

Will make me better or bitter,

Break down or break through

Learning this patience – it takes so much patience

It’s a great education

But why is the tuition so High?

Why God, why?

          Brian McLaren – Naked Spirituality

_____________________________________________

 

 

I watch as people like "Dr" Oz and RFJ Jr. spew inaccuracies.  While people like MarkWayne and Mr Mortgage Guy take over critical services they know nothing about.  I listen to tRump and JD and Rubio lie.  I suffer while Huckabee spews Zionist nonsense.  I read the comments of the MAGA faithful as they talk about "true American culture" (white, European-based) and about immigrant "trash."

 

I see America kill kids by shooting missiles at them, or denying them healthcare and food via funding (USAID).  I see us support genocide and apartheid.

 

I watch us dismantle systems that reveal the truth about what we are doing to the planet, like the Oceanic Observatories Initiative, to save 48 million a year, while we spend a billion a day blowing up things in Iraq (and losing).

 

I see our current government destroy the agencies that serve people while bankrolling the agencies that control and abuse people. 

 

I see all the ugliness that permeates our country from the top (Trump) to the bottom (the MAGA faithful on FB, Threads, and Truth Social).

 

And I hate it.

 

Brian McClaren talks about the fact that sometimes we end up in what he calls the “season of perplexity.”  Times when there is “no winning.  There are no solutions, answers, or consolations in sight…”

 

This may be such a time.

The words for perplexity are when, no, and why

 

When will it end?

No, this is not right!  No.  You should not allow this to happen, O Sacred One.  No, this person should not flourish.  What the…..

 

Sometimes we pray with Meister Eckhart, “God save me from god.”

 

Why?  I do not understand.  OK, perhaps I understand that some of these people who are causing this are those who, in order to gain the world, have lost their souls, who are no longer who they were created to be: people, children of God, creatures reflecting God’s image.  Trump.  JD Vance.  Lutnick.  Musk. So many of the MAGA leadership.  They know what they are doing is wrong.  They don’t care (IMHO).

 

There are those who have just been seduced by power and wealth and are being used by the evil ones.  Poor MarkWayne.  He doesn’t have a clue (IMHO, it's all just how I see it).

 

There are those who may actually believe the garbage they are spewing.  RFK Jr., maybe.

 

There are those who are misled, misinformed, ignorant, programmed, acculturated.  All those White Nationalist Christians programmed by intense White Nationalist preachers who have left the Gospel of Jesus far, far behind.  Those who watch FOX, and OAN, and all the others.

 

There are those who for whatever reason, perhaps fear, choose to see what they want to see.  That the butt naked Emperor has clothes, that Trump is strong, sane, mentally with it, effective, and the greatest President ever, like never before.

 

All I know is that it sucks the life out of me.  The joy out of everything.

 

I am tired of “no”

I want to get back to “yes”

 

I want to be in that place where, in the midst of the fury, doubt and feelings of abandonment, I sense that God is, and reach the point where even in the midst of it all,

I catch glimpses of sacred, of love

 

And so this morning, and every morning, I say the words from a 15^th century prayer book.

 

God be in my head, and in my understanding;

God be in mine eyes, and in my looking;

God be in my mouth, and in my speaking;

God be in my heart, and in my thinking;

God be at mine end, and at my departing.

 

God, be

 

 

 

Just out of reach

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I cannot reach up

Or rather I can, just not very well

And when I have stretched my arm as far as it will go

I can’t do anything with it

At all

 

That repaired supraspinatus

Just can’t bear the weight

 

And so I am left

Looking at that object on the shelf

And cursing

 

Then I ask for help

 

I hate it

Having to ask for help

Not being able to make that reach upward

Myself

 

Please

I’d rather do it myself!!

 

But that is the thing

I can’t

I can’t reach that file box, high in the closet

I need help

I can’t be the person God would love for me to be

I need help

 

Not just the help of the Holy Spirit

Although that, for sure

But the help of others

The encouragers

The ones who hold me accountable

The ones who have gifts I don’t have

 

Which is why I still believe in the church

Even though it is tainted

Even though, instead of being a servant church

It seeks power and wealth

 

Even though it can be dysfunctional

Fragmented

Judgmental

Exclusive

And self-absorbed

 

Because we need each other

 

And if we don’t do this faith thing together

Seeking (in the power of the Holy Spirit)

To be the presence of the Sacred

The hands, feet and voice of Jesus

In this world

Together

 

We will find so much

That is good

That is powerful

That is love

 

Just out of reach

 

Living "yes"

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I love the story of Jesus and Peter

Back at the lake

Besties who have had a falling out

Putting the relationship back together again, again

 

Peter, do you love me?!

You know I do?

Then tend my sheep, feed my sheep

Do you love me? Then

 

A trifecta of love and commitment

 

But that is not the end of the story.

 

Follow me

Jesus said

Follow me into the way of costly love

Follow me into this messy, ugly world

With it emperors and emperor-wannabes

With its inequity and injustice

Its fear and hate

 

And there

Tend my sheep, feed my lambs.

 

It will cost you everything.

Even your life

 

Peter did not say “yes.”

He said, “Look over there.”

“What about him?”

 

How often, Lord, do we want to

Pass the pain along.

Pass the cost along.

 

We don’t want to share the wealth

So we cut funding for the poor

And deport the immigrants

 

We don’t want to be uncomfortable.

So we demonize people who are trans.

 

Peter eventually lived “yes.”

He did follow

He did let go of things dear to him

He did give up his life

 

But it wasn’t easy

And it is not easy for us either.

 

So, help us, Lord

May our “yes” be “yes.”

May we worry most about the person in the mirror

May we be able to live into costly love

 

For we love you

 

 

 

   

 

 

The Path Jesus Chose

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It is easy to get hooked into talking about the evil I see happening around me

It feels important to point it out.  After all, we have a huge number of people who have decided to trust people who lie and twist the facts, who push hate in the name of supremacy (and even Jesus), and who carefully nurture fear.

 

We have a government that is extremist, controlling, and determined to grab all the money and power it can, no matter what the cost is to truth, freedom, compassion, and love.

 

And there is a side of me that wants to call out what I see as violating God. 

And there is a lot of that.  A frightening amount.

 

But I keep remembering that Jesus chose the path to the cross.

The path of love and non-violence.  And while he called people out, mostly those who were being oppressive in the name of God, he did not, for the most part, attack.

 

Instead he loved.  The dialogued.  He provided an alternative way of thinking, seeing, and yes, living. 

 

Paul picked up on this when he said, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”  A high calling.  I feel that all too often I am indeed overcome by the evil that flows like a never-ending stream.  And I respond in kind.

 

So how do we fight evil?  Perhaps we fight it by constantly putting out there what it looks like not to be evil.  What does it look like to be good?

 

To me, we have to be for those things that value each human being as a child of God

We have to be for those things that give all people a chance to live out their full potential.

We have to be for those things, then, that create equity, equality, justice, and people.

We have to be for those things that comfort the afflicted and set the prisoner free.

 

Being for those things is not always safe

It is not always beneficial to us.  Sometimes there is a cost.

But no cost we can pay would be higher than the cost paid by Jesus.

“No greater love is there than this, than to lay down one's life for one's friends.

 

And so we are called to love those around us, our neighbors

And who is our neighbor (remember the parable of the Good Samaritan)

 

Everyone

 

So I have to be for the immigrant.  The person born LGBTQI+.  The person who is poor, mentally ill, and aged.  To those who are vulnerable in any way.  I even have to be for those who have been programmed to believe that might makes right, and the one who dies with the most money wins.

 

So how does this work?

When I read that the administration that is has decided to dismantle all programs that monitor climate change, I have to respond by reminding people that creation is sacred.   It is the incarnation of Sacred, and that by encouraging people to support anything that protects our planet.

 

When a choice is made to arrest immigrants and put them in concentration camps, I have to keep bringing up the command of God to welcome the stranger.

 

I need to know WHY I am against what ICE is doing, and why I am against us supporting wars, and why I am against racism, and why I am against cutting programs that help the vulnerable.  I am against those things because they are a violation of the Sacred.

 

They are against the way God showed us in Jesus.

 

The trick is to do that by advocating for good, fighting for good, without slipping into hate.  It is OK, I think, to be angry, but not to get pulled into the endless cycle of enmity and violence.

 

I encourage us all to really think about what Jesus taught

I want us all to remember how Jesus lived and died

 

Jesus is an example of how we all should live

He embodies the values we all should have

We cannot abandon the way of good in our attempt to get rid of what is not good.

 

I know this sounds foolish.  But then the cross was foolish.

 

I am not saying I can do it, but I am saying I want to try

Because we know that if we fight fire with fire, everything is consumed

 

My beloved English Professor at Whitman, Thomas Howell, once said to us (this was in the early 70s, so think Vietnam, Civil Rights, et. al) 

 

“When civilization is working at cross-purposes with human nature (which he saw as good, we are created in the image of God after all), you have real problems.  Your generation knows this.  What remains to be seen is if you can keep your tempers long enough to do something about it.”

 

God, grant me patience and compassion.

Grant me the strength not to rely on the power of the system, the power of money, the power of power,

But to rely on the power of love

No matter how hard

No matter what it costs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting back to "Yes"

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All I am now going through

Will make me better or bitter,

Break down or break through

Learning this patience – it takes so much patience

It’s a great education

But why is the tuition so High?

Why God, why?

          Brian McLaren – Naked Spirituality

_____________________________________________

 

 

I watch as people like "Dr" Oz and RFJ Jr. spew inaccuracies.  While people like MarkWayne and Mr Mortgage Guy take over critical services they know nothing about.  I listen to tRump and JD and Rubio lie.  I suffer while Huckabee spews Zionist nonsense.  I read the comments of the MAGA faithful as they talk about "true American culture" (white, European-based) and about immigrant "trash."

 

I see America kill kids by shooting missiles at them, or denying them healthcare and food via funding (USAID).  I see us support genocide and apartheid.

 

I watch us dismantle systems that reveal the truth about what we are doing to the planet, like the Oceanic Observatories Initiative, to save 48 million a year, while we spend a billion a day blowing up things in Iraq (and losing).

 

I see our current government destroy the agencies that serve people while bankrolling the agencies that control and abuse people. 

 

I see all the ugliness that permeates our country from the top (Trump) to the bottom (the MAGA faithful on FB, Threads, and Truth Social).

 

And I hate it.

 

Brian McClaren talks about the fact that sometimes we end up in what he calls the “season of perplexity.”  Times when there is “no winning.  There are no solutions, answers, or consolations in sight…”

 

This may be such a time.

The words for perplexity are when, no, and why

 

When will it end?

No, this is not right!  No.  You should not allow this to happen, O Sacred One.  No, this person should not flourish.  What the…..

 

Sometimes we pray with Meister Eckhart, “God save me from god.”

 

Why?  I do not understand.  OK, perhaps I understand that some of these people who are causing this are those who, in order to gain the world, have lost their souls, who are no longer who they were created to be: people, children of God, creatures reflecting God’s image.  Trump.  JD Vance.  Lutnick.  Musk. So many of the MAGA leadership.  They know what they are doing is wrong.  They don’t care (IMHO).

 

There are those who have just been seduced by power and wealth and are being used by the evil ones.  Poor MarkWayne.  He doesn’t have a clue (IMHO, it's all just how I see it).

 

There are those who may actually believe the garbage they are spewing.  RFK Jr., maybe.

 

There are those who are misled, misinformed, ignorant, programmed, acculturated.  All those White Nationalist Christians programmed by intense White Nationalist preachers who have left the Gospel of Jesus far, far behind.  Those who watch FOX, and OAN, and all the others.

 

There are those who for whatever reason, perhaps fear, choose to see what they want to see.  That the butt naked Emperor has clothes, that Trump is strong, sane, mentally with it, effective, and the greatest President ever, like never before.

 

All I know is that it sucks the life out of me.  The joy out of everything.

 

I am tired of “no”

I want to get back to “yes”

 

I want to be in that place where, in the midst of the fury, doubt and feelings of abandonment, I sense that God is, and reach the point where even in the midst of it all,

I catch glimpses of sacred, of love

 

And so this morning, and every morning, I say the words from a 15^th century prayer book.

 

God be in my head, and in my understanding;

God be in mine eyes, and in my looking;

God be in my mouth, and in my speaking;

God be in my heart, and in my thinking;

God be at mine end, and at my departing.

 

God, be

 

 

 

Interupt injustice

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Peacemaking doesn’t mean passivity. It is the act of interrupting injustice without mirroring injustice, the act of disarming evil without destroying the evildoer, the act of finding a third way that is neither fight nor flight but the careful, arduous pursuit of reconciliation and justice. It is about a revolution of love that is big enough to set both the oppressed and the oppressors free.

          Shane Claiborne, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals

____________________________

 

I am sick of injustice.

If the creator wants anything for the created

It is justice

 

Love would be nice too.

And peace

We all want world peace

 

But there is no peace without justice

And justice is loved lived out

Institutionalized

Systemized

 

Justice is evasive

Perhaps rare

 

It is when all things are equal

When everyone is treated the same way

When things are fair,

morally right, and have spiritual integrity

 

It is complicated

Very

 

Aristotle more than two thousand years ago

Said that justice is the principle that

"equals should be treated equally and unequals unequally.”

 

Well crap

 

Apparently adjustments have to be made

Because some people have privilege

And some people have been systematically oppressed

 

And justice is not just about creating rules

That contain, control, and perhaps protect

It is not just about creating consequences for those who behave

Poorly

 

But it can also be distributive and restorative

Correcting wrongs

Adjusting for privilege, or the lack of privilege

 

Justice is about interrupting injustice

It is a society, a culture,

Looking at prejudice, oppression, and worse

And saying “this stops here.”

 

But interrupting injustice is a tricky thing

It must be done with care

 

Yes, we need to create relief for those who have suffered injustice

But we must do so without creating a new version of injustice

 

We so easily slide into a justice that is retributive

That seeks not just to relieve, but to punish

Then the oppressor becomes the oppressed and the oppressed the oppressor

And we have gained little (except a switch in roles)

 

True justice heals

It restores

It reconciles

Justice is embodied in the peaceable kingdom of God

Justice heals systems

It also heals souls, and relationships

 

True justice changes the rules,

It changes systems

But above all it changes people

 

Until the vision of Isaiah becomes more than a dream.

With Martin Luther King Jr., we must all have a dream

 

The dream of a world where,

 

“The wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid;

the calf and the lion will feed[b] together, and a little child shall lead them.

The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.

They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11)

 

May we be the ones who faithfully and arduously

Interrupt injustice

So that justice

May roll like a river

And righteousness like an everlasting stream (Amos)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good people, bad choices

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 Mark Twain described his mother as a genuinely good person, whose soft heart pitied even Satan, but who had no doubt about the legitimacy of slavery, because in years of living in antebellum Missouri, she had never heard any sermon opposing slavery, but only countless sermons preaching that slavery was God's will. With or without religion, good people can behave well, and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion.

          Steven Weinburg

_________________________

 

Some people ooze hate and vitriol.

Some people are divisive and violent

Some people live their fear and anger, their racism

As naturally as they breathe

 

You can see the enmity in their eyes

Arrogance, like a foul fog, rolls off of them

 

Their values, beliefs, words, and actions

Are a symphony of malice

 

Jesus had the affrontery to look down from the cross

At his tormentors and murders

And say

 

Forgive them

 

Yet people like Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump,

People like Elon Musk and the rest of the oligarchs

Aren't people I can easily forgive

I struggle to “wish them well.”

 

Honestly, that bothers me only a little

(perhaps it should bother me more)

These people are doing such harm to so many

They are abusing the kind of people on whom Jesus lavished his love

 

Let the little ones come to me

Welcome the stranger

Feed the hungry

 

I see such souls, and I am angry

My anger is not for myself as much as for others

And Jesus (I think) got angry FOR others

Angry at the vulnerable being neglected

The little one’s being harmed

 

The people I really struggle with are the basically good people

(yes, they are good)

The people who would, in fact, help their neighbor, give to the food bank

And be kind and compassionate

 

Who have chosen to support people who are hateful and destructive

Who somehow have no problem voting for a serial adulterer

A person who has committed fraud

A person who is racist

A genuinely bad person

 

Who are willing to embrace leaders, and a movement

Whose values violate their own values

 

WTH?

 

Does charisma blind them?  (Halo effect)

Are they myopic?  Putting so much weight on one issue (like abortion) that they can’t see anything else? 

Are they programmed into toxic patriotism (my country right or wrong)

Is it bad theology that allows them to be manipulated and used?

 

But these people are my greatest challenge.

How to work with them?  Talk to them? 

How does one embrace what is good about them

and not support what seems so very” off”?

 

Most of the time, I try to listen and seek to understand

Sometimes I have to embrace silence

Sometimes I try to correct misinformation or add information

 

I always try to return

To the perspective of the cross

 

Everything looks different from the cross!

 

It is a conundrum

I am not comfortable being silent, which feels like acceptance.

But I want to reconcile and change, not condemn and repel

(some WILL feel judged, and will balk at the attempt to “change their mind”)

 

I want to stay in community with them

I want to radiate the love of Christ

I want to be a good teacher

I want to help people embrace the way of Jesus

 

What do I do with the good people who right now,

Are embracing what (I believe) are bad things?

 

For me, this is the challenge of these times.

Tired of waiting

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“Wait on the Lord,” we are told.  Don’t slide back into anxiety and anger.  Don’t rush ahead in a rush to judgment.  Don’t demand a quick solution…  Don’t assume the worst… do not presume that an answer is forthcoming.   No, wait. Relax. Rest. Don’t feel the situation has to be fixed.  Hold on, and keep your eyes open, and you will eventually BEHOLD what you do not see now.

          Brian McLaren

_____________________________

 

Wait.

Wait?

Wait!

 

For what?

Sometimes I wonder

How long can we wait?

 

We watch the world unravel around us

We see hate in high places

We see immigrants caged worse than animals

 

We see villages in Lebanon destroyed

And politicians taunt prisoners

 

Wait?

While desperate people in detention centers kill themselves?

While the BIPOC community loses the vote, and hope?

While UFC fighting cages go up on the White House lawn?

While our leaders push performative religiosity, but abandon the core principles

Of the religion they push (like a drug)

 

Yes.

Wait

Stop, for a moment

Breathe

Let Sacred surround you, embrace you, fill you

 

Don’t let this world

With its horrors

Squeeze you into its mold

But be transformed by the renewing of your mind

By presence

 

Behold

Behold God

Behold a God who is too big for our minds, and hearts, to contain

 

There is no thought we can have of God

That is too good

Everything good about God is true

 

This God we behold

With awe

 

This God, who if we wait

Will give us new minds

New hearts

New eyes

 

God can help us see people, in a new light

God can help us see God’s presence in creation

God can keep us from rushing in blindly

And flailing madly

 

God can help us choose love

 

If we wait

And Behold

 

“All shall be amen and alleluia

We shall rest and we shall see

We shall see and we shall know

We shall know and we shall love

We shall love and we shall praise.

 

Behold our end which is no end”    St. Augustine