Dealing with things that cannot be cured

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I have done what was mine to do.  May Christ teach you what is yours.

St Francis of Assisi

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.

Friedrich Nietzsche

What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday

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Old bones creak

The pain is moderate, but unremitting

The lilac on the porch

Nursed through many a summer’s drought

Looks dead

My country is gone, washed away by a flash flood 

of abused power, corruption, hate, racism, and greed

destroyed

the pain in the world is no moderate, but is unremitting

the grief in Nepal and Tibet, where over 6000 souls

are dead or missing

and communities lie buried in mud

destroyed

while the world moves on, already forgetting

forgetting as they also forget Gaza

and the tens of thousands killed

as they forget the 20,000 children gone

As they forget the children killed by the US

In Iran

And the children in Ukraine

My pathetic sufferings are nothing.

Nothing

Nothing

Compared to the pain caused by those

Addicted to wealth and power

As the devastation created by those empty shells

Who cannot figure out

That more money and more power will not ease their soul pain

Which is unremitting

Trump, Hegseth, Putin, Netanyahu, Kim

And there are others.

Smaller tyrants

Abusive spouses, rapers, 

The corrupt rich like Russel Vought, Peter Thiel, Howard Lutnick

I suspect their pain too, if they allow themselves to feel it

Is greater than mine

And pain, untransformed

Is transmitted

Passed on

So what do I now do

With this life

What is mine to do?

Do I shrivel up, like my lilac

Do I let the hate defeat me, and make me small?

Trump small?

Hegseth small?

Or do I believe in spring?

In resurrection?

In love?

What is my job?

Perhaps, perhaps,

It is to create a free and friendly space

To be a person who passes on

Not the hate and the need for domination of MAGA

But the love of Jesus (the Christ)

A love that extends to all

A love that transforms

That seems foolish and puny.

Even as I write it

But then Jesus on the cross

Seemed foolish and weak too

God’s ways are truly not our ways.

So let me live this day,

Not angry, not cruel

Not filled with hate

Not retributive

Not hopeless

Let me live hope

For hope is only truly hope

When it is lived (thank you, Mitri Rahib)

For that is what

That is perhaps all

I can do

Hope is lived

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“Hope is living the reality and yet investing in a different one.”

          Mitri Raheb

 

I’m tired

Madeline Kahn

“I'm tired, Tired of playing the game

Ain't it a crying shame, I'm so tired, God dammit I'm exhausted!” tired.

 

Tired of waking up every morning, wondering what a narcissistic President has done this time to draw attention to himself or deflect attention away from his sins and his failures.

 

I am tired of hate

Tired of lies

Tired of greed

Tired of racism

Tired of corruption

Tired of ICE abusing people

Tired of regulations being ended, ensuring the end of the planet

 

I am tired of Trump, Hegseth, Rubio, and Huckabee

Tired of Netanyahu

And genocide (because that is what it is)

 

I am tired of people saying Trump has done more good than bad

Really?

By what standards!?

 

Ah, there we have it.

 

I have been wondering lately what the problem is.

Why do the GOP faithful just keep plodding along, supporting

Trump, Tuberville, in Oregon, Drazan and Bentz

Abbot and Paxton

 

And what I now believe is that the reason is this.

The starting point

 

What is the starting point for the policies and behaviors

Of MAGA GOP?  The President, the Congress, the SCOTUS (that right-wing majority is bought and sold), the supermajorities in Red States

 

What is it that shapes their thinking and drives their behaviors?

 

Their starting point is money and power

Everything is about money and power.

Will it make us money? Will it help us make more money

Will it help us keep our money? Will it make it so we don’t have to share our wealth?

(After all, we earned it!  Or daddy or granddaddy did)

 

Will it give us power, the ability to shape the world the way we want it?

Will it give us the ability to make America White?

Will it give us the power to get retribution on those we don’t like?

Or the power to imprison them in concentration camps, or expel them?

Or kill them?

 

Will it give us the power to make all the rules?

To impose our will on a diverse world, on diverse and unique people?

 

The starting point should be

Love and service

 

How do we love all the people

How do we serve people

How do we make sure everyone has enough to eat

A roof over their head?

Healthcare.

Water

Safety

 

How do we find ways to welcome people into our country

Who are coming from danger and terrible, deadly poverty?

How do we welcome them?

 

It is not that the Democrats are stellar

They too have a relationship with money and power that taints

 

But they also have a clue about love and service.

And of the two parties, they are more likely to actually design and enact policies.

That help the people, not just the GDP

 

You start in the wrong place.

You have the wrong goals.

You have the wrong goals

You have the wrong strategies

You have the wrong strategies, and you have the power to implement them

 

And people, real people

Old people,  young people

People who have physical health issues

People whose bodies and minds don’t work quite right

People who are strangers

People who are poor

People whose skin is not white

 

Get abandoned.  Ignored.  Left behind

Worse, they get demonized

Minimized

Marginalized

 

You have the wrong goals, and you think ICE is a good idea

You cheer when mining companies tear apart what used to be a national monument

You turn a blind eye to the needs of real people

You rejoice in domination, and control, and YES

Cruelty

 

Jesus could have started from the wrong place

The tempter certainly wanted him to.

But he rejected the starting point of power and wealth

And embraced the starting point of love and servanthood

 

That is what drove his ministry.

And if we want to be followers,

We too must embrace the way of love and servanthood

 

The Jesus path is not easy.

But we see, with people like Putin, Kim, Netanyahu, and Trump

What it looks like when we choose the way of power and wealth

 

It is not great

Not even close

 

So think about what your starting point is

Why do you support whom you support

Why do you admire whom you admire

Why do you vote for whom you vote?

 

In my book, right now, if we want to be faithful to the Gospel

The people like Trump, Drazan, Bentz, and all the rest

Abbott and Paxton

Are not viable options

 

But that is just me

With my understanding of the starting place

That God would have us choose.

The Big Story

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Richard Rohr talks about the Cosmic Egg, four domes of being.

It is kind of an ethical and spiritual matryoshka doll

With smaller, more limited layers of meaning nested within

Larger, more profound layers

 

The smallest “dome” is “My Story”

Each of us has our own story

This is me

 

Me, as differentiated from all other beings

And their story

 

Not all cultures allow people to have

“My story” the way we have

This story in America (and the West in general)

 

This is the individual and individualism

It can morph into

“It is all about me”

 

A place where “My Story” is all that counts

Choices about right and wrong

Good and evil are based on one primary criterion,

How does it affect me?

 

I want lower gas prices!

Therefore, I will support a person who promises those lower prices

Even if they are a person who lies, is corrupt, greedy, predatory, and cruel

If I don’t think that person’s negative qualities will impact me, personally,

All is good!

 

Our story is the layer at which we say,

“This is us”

USA, USA, USA

 

This is groupthink

This is group loyalty, group identity

My country right or wrong

My version of Christianity versus yours

My race, my ideology, against yours

 

There is nothing wrong with either

Of these layers of meaning

It is good to have a sense of self

And a love of country

 

IF

Those layers of meaning are connected to something

Greater

Something, or someone infinite

 

Because there are “Other Stories” out there

Other people who also have a story

That is precious

 

And other groups that have

Faith systems, countries, ideologies

Different from ours

 

If we cannot accept that there are other stories

And insist that only our story is the “right” story or the “good” story

If we see others as inferior, wrong, threatening

 

We end up with ICE

And Pete Hegseth, and Donald Trump

 

What could be good about us as individuals,

And as a culture

Becomes twisted and tainted

And no longer healthy

 

What we need to realize is that we

As individuals

We as a collection of individuals

We as a gathering of different “tribes”

All participate in

 

THE STORY

The story (according to Rohr)

Consists of “the patterns that are always true” (p. 21, Things Hidden)

 

Forgiveness heals

Hate destroys

God loves all

Those who have are called to take care of those who have not

(Welcome the stranger, feed the hungry)

 

Spiritually, we must take all four “domes” seriously

We need a sense of self

We need community

We need an awareness of and respect for others

And we need to understand how we participate in the holy

 

MAGA’s big error is that it doesn’t move beyond “our story”

 

Many religions try to move to “The Story”

But neglect the importance of the individual

And the power of culture

 

And toxic individualism creates

So many ills

 

I think Jesus was on to something when he said

Love God (the story)

Love your Neighbor (our story and other stories)

And love yourself (My story)

 

We are part of the big story

Living in a diverse world with a plethora

Of beautiful stories

Joined together in community

And aware

That we, as individuals

Matter

 

It doesn’t get better than that

 

 

Others don't have to lose for us to win

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Someone else’s belonging does not require my exile.

Scot Loyd

What is the opposite of abundance? It's not scarcity. It's greed. Greed is the belief that there is not enough for everyone, so you'd better grab yours now. What is the opposite of love? It's not hate. It's fear. Fear is the belief that someone or something can hurt you.

Robert G. Allen

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Most politicians make promises.

In 1920, Warren G. Harding promised a “Return to Normalcy”

In 1928, Herbert Hoover promised “A Chicken in Every Pot and a Car in Every Garage”

In 1956, Dwight Eisenhower offered “Peace and Prosperity”

In 1988, George Bush offered a “Kinder, Gentler Nation” 

Barack Obama offered “Hope,” and Trump said he would “Make America Great Again”

Promises, promises

And now we have a President promising that if we let him stay in power

He will give every American adult $5000

The check is in the mail!

If you think about it, what most politicians do is appeal to our sense of scarcity.

They promise us what we think we don’t have

Wealth.  Power.  Safety. Hope.

A chicken in the pot.

To put it another way, they often appeal to fear (or create it)

Trump spoke to those people spooked by the emergence of a “new America” that had dared to elect a black person to the Presidency.  To a nation of people suddenly realizing that white, Christian, heterosexual, and culturally conservative was not the definitive identity of the “true American.”

Trump promised to take us “back”

Make us “backward” is more like it

He has succeeded in some horrible ways

We are such malleable people.

So easily influenced, swayed, so easily controlled.

We are afraid of “not enough”

Not enough money, food, water, housing

Not enough health care

And every leader ever (with a notable exception)

Preys on that mentality

And promises to give us what we are afraid of losing, or what we think we don’t have.

Obama promised more equality and equity to a nation controlled by white conservatives for years.

Trump promised white evangelical Christians that they would regain control of American culture.

Biden promised less Trump.

Trump promised cheaper gas and more affordable groceries (and underneath it all, white supremacy)

We truly believe, I think, that if others gain, we will lose

We have been taught that there is not enough to go around

This, by the 10% who have (and are hoarding), who control 68% of America’s wealth

By the 1% who control more than 30% of America’s resources

Someone once said (often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi), "The [Earth/world] provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed." 

What do we do with the fact that our fear, our sense of scarcity,

gives people like Donald Trump so much power?

Maybe we listen to the one guy who didn’t buy into the scarcity model

And who defined an abundant life in a far different way

Blessed are the poor

Blessed are those who mourn

The first shall be last and the last first

Sell all you have and give to the poor (are you listening, Elon?)

Jesus did not sell wealth.

Jesus sold abundance

He promised that if we could learn to trust in God

(remember the lilies of the field)

We would be set free from the scarcity mindset

And we would be able to be

Welcoming

Accepting

Generous

Forgiving

And we would be satisfied.

Remember Isaiah?

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your earnings for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. (55:2)

Why do we keep listening to Donald Trump

And not to Jesus?

Seems like a valid question

And I believe Walter Brueggemann was right.

The power of the future lies not in the hands of those who believe in scarcity but of those who trust God's abundance.

Lord, help us trust

Creating space

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Recently I’ve been wondering: if, when Jesus says deny yourself and follow me, that maybe it’s not about ensuring his followers are doormats. Maybe he’s inviting us to deny the part of us that wants to see itself as separate from God and others. 

Deny the self that believes that spirituality should be a suffering avoidance program.

Deny the self that always creates a list of demands.

Deny the self that is so turned in on itself that it cannot see much of anything beyond itself…

Because in the end, one aspect of the whole death and resurrection thing that Jesus promised us is the death of the false self.

But the death of the false self doesn’t feel good. In fact, Richard Rohr once wrote that “holiness never feels like holiness; it just feels like you’re dying.”…

But no matter how painful, when the unhealthy ideas and habits and identities we rely on are taken away from us, it just makes space for that which is actually real and actually holy….

Nadia Bolz-Weber. Daily Meditation, CAC, August 31, 2026

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Those who follow Jesus

Have signed on to something weird,

A path that leads not to ascent

To what is normally seen as victory and success

But to descent.

To what is normally seen as renunciation, 

Perhaps even failure and defeat.

Those who will be first must be last.

If you want to live, you have to die.

Give, if you want to receive.

Weird.

Or not.

Honestly, if I want to grow,

If I want to become a better human creature,

If I want to “move on,”

I must be continually letting go,

Continually dying.

Beginnings often can only come after endings.

If I am full of ego, for example,

Full of “me,”

(like someone we all know)

Then there is no room for other people,

No room for God.

And if there is no room for God,

Then I must become my own god

If I am too full of “victim,”

Then there is no room in my soul for self-examination;

“What about this mess I am in, is really about me, not them?”

If I can’t let go of my fear, I can’t be open to

Other people.

Change.

God’s new thing.

Maybe Jesus was on to something.

Deny the self,

Let it all go

Hand it all over.

And God will keep much of it.

But God will also hand back that which is worth keeping

And much more besides.

Know the job

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Thomas Howells, my beloved English Professor in College

Once opined

That you ought to know the job requirements before you take a job

 

Sounds right!

 

But I think, looking back, that I have

More often than not

Taken jobs, and then tried to make them fit my expectations

 

I don’t think I really thought it through

When I decided to take on the job of “minister” or “pastor”

 

Even after four years of seminary and an M.Div.

I am not sure I had really thought about what it meant to take on that role.

 

If I had, I would have understood that I did not have the skill set

I had some of the skills

But not all

Perhaps not most

 

So I remade the job to fit my natural skills

Which meant parts of the job got neglected

Perhaps worse

 

I got away with it, mostly

But underneath some real successes

Was some real poverty

 

It gets even worse if we start thinking about the whole idea

Of being a follower of Jesus

OMG

Seriously!

 

It is one thing to go through the motions of

Memorizing scriptures

Showing up on Sunday morning and being pious

Thinking it looks cool to wear a cross

 

It is quite another to die to one’s self

To embrace radical love

Which means embracing

Radical generosity

Radical forgiveness

Radical compassion

Radical acceptance and welcome

 

Which means being willing to let go of much that we prize

And be a servant

And perhaps

Stand against the powers of this world

And resist abusers of power

And haters

And the greedy

 

To go against the core values

Of a nation gone wrong

Of a religion gone off the tracks

 

To try and be a follower who is also a “minister,” a “leader?”

Way beyond me

 

All I can do is echo the words of Paul (Romans 7,  JB Phillips)

In my mind I am God’s willing servant, but in my own nature I am bound fast, as I say, to the law of sin and death. It is an agonizing situation, and who on earth can set me free from the clutches of my sinful nature? I thank God there is a way out through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

Thank God for the Spirit

Thank God for grace and forgiveness

 

Thank God for the ways God can use us

Despite ourselves

 

May we, in these difficult times

Be honest about what the “way” looks like

About who we follow

What we embrace

 

May we, as best we can

“take on the job”

Of being God’s people

what do you expect?

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“Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.”

Eric Hoffer

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Wow!

That is incredible!

I love the way it is all coming together, finally!

Ah, those spikes of hope

A person who has been struggling seems to be getting it all together

Yay!

A new family shows up in worship

The church finally seems to be gaining some momentum

You leave a worship service going “Wow, that worked!  That was powerful”

You go online to find a good person has won an election

And then

The old patterns emerge

The new family disappears

The church feels mired in “old stuff”

The Senate confirms a corrupt creep into a key role

And you end up feeling

Bankrupt

Empty

Tired

Hopeless

Perhaps it was easier when I was younger

35, 45, not 75

Perhaps it was easier when I wasn’t fighting chronic pain,

Two shoulders full of torn tendons that don’t work

An energy level that never faltered

A mind that was sharp

But now?

Can these dry bones live?

Can this nation recover?

Can the church not just survive but flourish?

Can I continue to live a life of productivity and meaning?

No, I am not a pessimist (am I?)

Leland Val Van de Wall once said 

“The degree to which a person can grow is directly proportional

To the amount of truth he can accept about himself without running away”

The same might be said for nations and churches

I believe there is always hope

The Kingdom of God is near

It lingers around our hearts

And we see glimpses of glory

Near but not yet

So close, but yet so far

I don’t think

Those moments of “Wow”

Will ever be more than fleeting

They will be followed, too quickly by “Ugh”

But they come, and come, and come again

And for that I give thanks

I Missed Glory

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No doubt about it! God is good — good to good people, good to the good-hearted.

But I nearly missed it, missed seeing his goodness.

I was looking the other way, looking up to the people

At the top, envying the wicked who have it made,

Who have nothing to worry about, not a care in the whole wide world.

Pretentious with arrogance, they wear the latest fashions in violence,

Pampered and overfed, decked out in silk bows of silliness.

They jeer, using words to kill; they bully their way with words.

They’re full of hot air, loudmouths disturbing the peace.

People actually listen to them—can you believe it?

Like thirsty puppies, they lap up their words.

Psalm 73, The Message

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This morning there was, I think, a great sunrise.  

I missed it.  I got sucked into the news, and sucked into anger, and despair.

And I missed it

God revealing God’s glory

We cannot let this culture blind us

Whether we embrace it, or are driven to despair by it.

We have to keep our eyes on God.  We have to constantly choose God

And reject the way of power and domination

We have to stop worshiping the way of power and domination, and the people who represent it.  That way is nothing.

And remember God.  And God’s way.  We have to keep our eyes on God.

And then, despite how illogical and useless it might seem

Walk the way of radical love

Standing up against hate and greed, with every fiber of our being.

 

Not so secret Agents of God

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The most important thing about Job’s silence is that he does not remain alone in it. He is joined by three friends—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar—who hear of Job’s affliction and come from far off to comfort him.

“And they lifted up their eyes from a distance but could hardly recognize him. And they lifted up their voices and wept, and each one tore his robe and they threw dust over their heads into the air. And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights without speaking a word to him, for they saw how great was his pain. (Job 2:12–13)

Those seven days of silence are surely one of the most influential acts of pastoral care ever performed. The Jewish practice of “sitting shiva” (literally “sitting seven,” when friends come to sit with mourners at home over the period of a week) memorializes the friends’ wise compassion in this long moment of shared grief. More than twenty-five hundred years after the book of Job was written, this one act of Job’s companions is imitated on a daily basis by comforters all over the world. Silence kept with others has a special quality. It is like a fine veil, preserving separateness, yet strangely heightening mutual awareness. Silence requires us to be present to the unexpressed needs of others, needs of which they may themselves not yet know. It is a powerful means of fostering mutual encouragement among us, whom God has entrusted to one another in this wilderness of pain and doubt.

Ellen Davis (Duke Divinity School)

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Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar

Did a lot wrong

They misrepresented God's justice by claiming 

bad things only happen to bad people, 

Eliphaz literally invented false charges

Saying Job abused the poor, starved the hungry, and robbed widows

All to support his own crappy theology

Bildad said that Job’s children died because they sinned

Zophar insisted that as bad as things were,

Job should have been punished more harshly

With friends like these, who needs enemies

They tried to make sense of it all

They tried to make reality fit their theology 

That good produces blessing

And evil produces curse

And God is harsh and demanding

They created their own reality 

A rather cruel, minimizing, marginalizing

reality

Rather than open their hearts, minds, and souls

To the idea

That life is messy

And that God is love

And that it is all very confusing

And all we can really do is trust God

Embrace the fact that God is love

And take it one day at a time

But before they got scared

Facing uncertainty

Having to move to radical trust

In love and grace

And got all caught up in merit theology 

They did something beautiful

They went to where Job was, and it wasn’t pretty

They went and sat on a mound of garbage

And they just were with him

Present

On the garbage heap

In the dust

With the flies

With the pain and the uncertainty

With God

Sometimes we struggle with God

We get confused and frightened

We don’t understand

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Why does a person like Donald Trump flourish?

We watch as wonderful people suffer injustice at the hands of ICE

We watch children go hungry as SNAP is taken away

We see the elderly lose access to healthcare

And the temptation is there

To try to have it make sense.

But it doesn’t make sense!

We don’t have to make it make sense.

All we have to do is trust that God is love

And then

As agents of God’s mercy and grace

Find the hurting, wherever they are

And sit with them

In Trump’s concentration camps

In the doorways of old buildings

Wherever they are

We should be with them

But going to where they are is not enough.  We break the silence

We reach out

We pick them up

We proclaim that they are beloved children of God

We advocate for them

We do whatever we can to care and heal

To fight for justice

And God will become present

Perhaps through us

God’s voice will be heard, and God’s love will be manifest

It will still be messy

But God will be with us in the mess

One day at a time

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

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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

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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

________________________________________

 

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