We are (always) part of the problem

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This morning I read the following article

It got me thinking

Interestingly enough, it got me thinking about a Psalm

Psalm 139

 

That a more conservative friend of mine invoked,

Suggesting that I was being naïve about the dangers of socialism.

And I ought to “get real.”

_____________________________

 

“A historic Republican defeat ought to provoke some uncomfortable questions.

What went wrong? Why did voters reject us? Could our policies be unpopular? Our leadership disastrous? Have we perhaps become something Americans no longer want?

 

But those questions are dangerous. They might lead to reflection. Possibly even accountability.

 

Fortunately, Fox had a better idea.

ROLL THE SOCIALIST MUGSHOTS!

 

One headline warned: “DEM WINNERS’ RADICAL AGENDAS INDICATE PARTY’S PATH.”

Jesus Christ. You mean the people Americans elected might actually pursue the policies they campaigned on?  Somebody call the National Guard.

 

And there, in one glorious morning of television, was the entire problem.

You don’t have to convince people Trump is honest if you’ve convinced them Democrats are evil. You don’t have to defend his behavior if you’ve convinced them the alternative is national suicide.

 

You don’t even have to sell them Trump. You just have to sell them the apocalypse.

And the beauty of this arrangement is that it works long after Trump is gone.

 

Yesterday, American voters handed Republicans an unmistakable message and a rare opportunity to reconsider what they’ve become.

 

This morning, Fox News examined the wreckage, considered the lessons, and reached its conclusion.

 

Clearly, we haven’t frightened these people enough.”

          Mike McCready

____________________________

 

In Psalm 139, the writer closes his poem with these words.

 

“Search me, O God, and know my heart;

    test me and know my thoughts.

See if there is any wicked way in me,

    and lead me in the way everlasting.”

 

It is a laudable sentiment.

And people of faith often use it to point out the importance of inner reflection.

Perhaps even radical honesty

The need to look at ourselves

Moral, ethically, and spiritually

 

But while the poem starts with amazing praise,

And while the author is in awe of how God has not just created

But shaped and formed him,

Him

As an individual

 

The subject of the Psalm moves from

YOU (God)

To I (Me)

 

“I come to the end—I am still with you.

(Yay me)

O that you would kill the wicked, O God,

    and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—

    those who speak of you maliciously and lift themselves up against you for evil!

Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?

    And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred;

I count them my enemies.”

 

I am probably wrong, but this psalm seems so painfully human

I love you, God!

I have been shaped by your hand.

I am a special agent of God.

And you have a plan for me.

 

Classic!

 

But then that twist

Oh, that you would destroy those I don’t like and who don’t like me

Obliterate them,

But lead ME on the path everlasting

 

There is beauty here.

But there is also danger.

 

That we will slide into the piety of “search me”

With the certainty that God will find us better than THEM

 

We know we are God’s favorite

We know we are on God’s side

So, God, bless us,

Obliterate them

 

How often, when we find ourselves in difficult times

How often, when we find ourselves surrounded by people

Who seem bent on our destruction,

How often, when bad things happen (like 9/11, for example),

Do we honestly look at ourselves?

Do we really try to understand the ways in which we are part of the problem?

 

Because I expect we are ALWAYS PART OF THE PROBLEM

 

Right now, the America right is doubling down on its righteousness,

It is failing to look at its own failures

And is busily demonizing those they don’t agree with

(and lost to)

 

Demonizing THEM is always easier than looking at one’s own heart

And one’s own actions

 

But let’s be honest.  The left (Democrats) has done, is doing, and will do

The same thing.

 

And thus will find that it may well

Fall into the same old patterns that didn’t work

That it will go back to being what it has always been,

 

Rather than be open to the winds of change

That the people need, want, and voted for

 

We must frustrate the Sacred, greatly

I keep thinking of the words from Isaiah

 

“I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

 

I am about to do a new thing

I am always doing a new thing

 

WHY CAN’T YOU SEE IT?!

 

Why won’t you go with me?

As I make a way in the wilderness of hate and greed

And fill your empty, dry souls with love?

 

We have hit a pivotal moment as a nation.

God wants to do a new thing.

Will be slide into spiritual arrogance and expect God to

Change (or obliterate) everyone else?

 

Or will we be honest, truly honest, when we pray

“Search me, O God, and see where I need to change!

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done!”

Being afraid

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… the only Absolute ever promised us in the Bible is Yahweh… No institution - not Israel itself, no priesthood, no kingship, no military might, no conceptual school of thought, and no legal system - was ever allowed to displace Yahweh as the “rock and only fortress” of Israel… Although each of those institutions tried, and often did replace Yahweh as the central reference point, it was always called idolatry by the prophets.

          Richard Rohr,  in Things Hidden

 

… some will seek after stability by building a different kind of certainty, a story: that person over there is at fault.  We’ll populate our story with victims, villains, and scapegoats, forgetting that they too are living in a system that isn’t working, scaffolded by ramshackle certainties of their own.  Instability breeds anxiety, and the more anxious we are, the more rigid we become in our thinking.  Anxiety decreases flexibility and our ability to learn.  And these anxieties are easy to exploit by leaders with an agenda.

          MaryAnn McKibben Dana in Better Than Normal

___________________________

 

Be afraid

Be very afraid

 

So say the politicians.

Be afraid

Of Communists, Socialists

Be afraid

Of immigrants

People of Color

 

MUSLIMS!!!

Trans people!

 

Ignore the fact that there really aren’t any politicians in America

who are actually Communists

Forget the fact that Muslims make up 1.5% of the American population

They are going to impose Sharia Law (whatever people think that is)

Forget the fact that there are more flat-earthers than there are trans people

 

THEY are going to destroy us

 

Uncertainty has its place.

But the problem is that when we are uncertain

We seek certainty

We embrace it

Cling to it

Depend on it

And we weaponize it

 

We find things we think we can trust

And those things become our center

 

People think they can trust Trump (only God knows why)

And Trump becomes their center

And MAGA becomes a cult of certainty

 

People lean into the law.

Whether that law be the law of the land

Or what they believe to be Sacred law

 

And fall into the idolatry of the law

Making the law, or at least the laws they choose as important

To be the Center, the Absolute

The one thing they can trust

 

We can abuse, dehumanize, and deport immigrants

Because we are simply upholding the law passed by Congress

(How many laws do those same people not uphold?)

 

“The Bible says, LGBTQI+ people are bad”

People say

“Of that I am certain”

And those Bible verses become God to them

Blinding them to a God who is love and forgiveness

 

We have so many gods we trust that are not God

We replace Yahweh with so many pathetic human things

Our military

A political party

MAGA

Guns

 

But there is only one certainty, Yahweh,

that can help us embrace the uncertainty which surrounds us

and which we cannot escape

 

One certainty that

When we do not understand

When we are afraid

When we are confused

When we are bombarded by lies and hate

 

Can help us keep that uncertainty

From making us

Deplorable

 

People who are rigid, hate-filled,

Angry,

Fearful,

And cruel 

 

I am tired of being anxious.

Here on Jesus Christ I will stand

He’s the solid rock of my life

The one Absolute

Who can deliver me

From my anxious self

The fondness of God

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I’ve made a habit of rephrasing the line “God loves you,” and instead of making it about God, I make it about the object of God’s relentless affection – us.  So, throughout “The Shack,” Papa would say, “I am especially fond of her or him.”  There is a world of difference between saying “I love you,” which is about me, and saying “I am especially fond of you,” which is about you.  Both are correct, but the latter somehow pierces the disquiet of our souls and says, “Yes, I know you love me, but do you know me and do you like me?  You love because that is the way you are, but is there anything about  me that is worth loving?”  Do you ‘see’ me, and do you like what you ‘see’?”

          Wm. Paul Young

____________________________

 

We constantly say God is love.

And we believe it,

Kind of,

Mostly.

 

But we struggle to believe that God’s love

Trickles down

To us

 

Personally

I can believe God loves humankind

But I have more trouble believing God loves

This particular human

Stephen

 

There is that nagging doubt.

And that insidious belief that God loves me

If

 

If I am good enough

If I accomplish enough

 

I might believe God loves me for what I can do

Or have done

“Have I been good enough”

 

But I struggle to embrace the reality

that God just, simply, loves me

With all my flaws,

With my history of bad choices

 

If God really knows me

God can’t really love me

Love me abstractly perhaps, because

The Sacred has no choice, right?

But like me?

 

If I met God face to face, would God say,

“I am particularly fond of you?  You are my favorite child?”

(We are ALL ‘God’s favorite child’, just as my children are ALL my favorites)

 

And what does it mean,

If I cannot accept the compassionate, grace-filled embrace of God

 

For me, it makes me insecure.  It makes me feel less.

Empty

Unloved

 

And it causes me

To hide behind certainty and competence

Behind answers that I sow like seeds.

 

It causes me to create a wall that keeps people at a distance

It forces me to prove myself (which makes me appear arrogant, when really I struggle to believe I am really OK)

 

It can be worse.

It can force people to make others less so they can be more.

It can cause people to inflict pain on others to numb their own pain,

It causes people to believe that enough is never enough and become bloated with power and wealth.

 

The more power, the more influence we have

The more damaging it is to fail to believe that God is fond of us.

 

Poor Donald Trump.  And Pete Hegseth.

If we look at their behavior, we must see it as a sign

That they are terrified

That they feel unloved.  And unlovable.

 

So they must force those around them to respect and admire them.

Look at my arch!

Watch me do pull-ups!

 

And they end up walking through life spreading pain and hate

Division and destruction.

 

My friends, God loves you.

More, God is especially fond of you.

And me

And, yeah, Donald Trump

 

We can hate, perhaps despise what people do

We can hate ideologies of hate

But we can’t hate people (OK, we do, but we probably shouldn’t)

 

Because hate will not solve anything.

Hate engenders hate

That is why Jesus on the cross refused, even then,

To hate the people who had put him there.

 

Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.

Honestly, I couldn’t have done that

Or if I could have uttered the words, “Father, forgive them,”

I would have ended with, “because they are idiots, stupid.”

 

Thank you, God

That you were especially fond of Pilate, and those men at the foot of the cross;

And that you are especially fond of those I think are spectacularly dangerous and wrong;

And that you are especially fond of me.

The inevitability of self reflection

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There comes a moment in your life when you realize that no matter how hard you try, you're never going to be fluent in Spanish. Or go hike in Norway, or do so many things you have dreamed of.  Or be as excited as you used to be about catching fireflies in Nebraska and grandma’s house.  You will not be famous.  A big name in a big pulpit.

 

You are never going to be able to recapture the moments with your kids and grandkids you failed to have because you were too busy, trying to do “all of the above.”

 

While I believe I have done good things in my life.  And while I have had some wonderful adventures.  I realize, here at 75, how many times I made mistakes that kept me from having the influence I could have had.

 

I look back at the paths that I've trod, at the things that I regret, the mistakes that I've made, and at times they seem to overwhelm the good.

 

Yes, I can call it regret, for all the things I could have done, but never quite did, yet

And all the things I should have said, but held back in fear

And all the chances that I missed, year after year

To be my best self.

 

I have been from my earliest days, an anxious, uncertain soul

Needing to be liked and affirmed.

Needy people do not relate to others well

Even those who have skills, talents, and abilities find those attributes

Dimmed by insecurity and need

 

I have tried too hard to prove myself, to myself and others.

I have been a workaholic.

For a period of my life, I was terribly dysfunctional, seeking to deal with my

Inner turmoil in unhealthy ways.

 

And at times all that comes rolling back.

My life narrative leans into my failures and not my success.

 

My biggest regrets center around my relationships with people.

To put it bluntly, I have been almost impossible to get close to

I have had friends, but rarely were those friendships deep or resilient, or persistent.

 

My ego fears got in the way

My need to impress

To be important

To be right

Caused me to seem arrogant and radically opinionated

When mostly I was just uncertain and longing to be valued

 

This may sound like low testosterone babble

Sorry

But I’ve thought about this a lot.

I am not going to blame anyone for where I landed

My parents did the best they could, and it was pretty damn good

I landed here anyway.

 

I was thinking the other day about my greatest failure.

As a pastor, a therapist, a friend, a parent, and a spouse

 

It is this.

My inability to step out of my own brain and listen well to others.

Kind of a big handicap for people in the roles I have been in.

 

My brain goes 1000 miles a minute.  It is like there are 100 TVs in my head.

And they are all on the same channel

My brain is nimble (mostly, still) and creative

And when people start to talk, it goes into hyper gear

 

And I, instead of listening with patience, knowing that I might miss something important

If I don’t keep my mouth shut,

 

Jump in

 

Over-talking, ending other people’s sentences

I have no patience, because I need to get my thoughts and MY ideas out there.

To all of you who read this, whom I have talked over the top of….  Mea Culpa. Mea Maxima Culpa

 

To those who have felt me pushy and arrogant.  I am sorry.  Please forgive me

To those whom I have made feel “less.”   I  am sorry.

 

For those who wanted to get close but got tired of talking to a wall,

Who found me unapproachable.  I am sad.

 

You would think with all my education, training, and experience I could have done

Better than this.

 

But, alas

 

This is my life, for better or worse.

 

But the God I believe in came and was available

And that God allowed the Empire to kill him

To remind me that out of even death, life can emerge

Out of failure, new beginnings.

 

I have no illusions.  I am 75.  Change will be hard.  Is hard

But this day, and every day

I will try to let the God who wants to fill me with joy, love, and hope

Do just that

 

And I will try to calm down

And listen

And shut up

And let God be with me, both in the Holy Spirit

And through the Spirit in the people around me

Who have wonderful wisdom to share and gifts to give.

 

The alternative is too grim to bear

 

Amen?

 

“So this is it ⎯ what cost me all that time. A man who turned out to be old, a house that turned out to be empty.”

― Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad

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

______________________________________

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

________________________________________________

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

___________________________________

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

_____________________________

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!