This is an audio version of Mike Murphy‘s Friday rumblings. This is a regular post on Facebook that I’ve turned into a podcast. I decided Mike’s words needed a wider audience. You may agree or disagree with what he says, but there is certainly much food for thought contained here. You can friend Mike on Facebook for the printed version or read it below

Rumblings. 7.14.23

1 . “Hold fast to dreams 

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird 

That  cannot fly. 

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field 

Frozen with snow.” ~  Langston Hughes

Dream well. Cheer on the dreamers. 

2. “It’s rather obvious that Jesus spends most of his ministry standing with the ones accused of unworthiness, the so-called bad people, the demonized. It is actually rather scandalous how the only way he tries to change them is by loving and healing them, never accusing anybody but the accusers themselves. His social program is solidarity. As Jesuit Greg Boyle, the street priest in Los Angeles, says, “Jesus stands with the demonized until the demonizing stops.” Father Greg insists this is Jesus’ primary form of justice work, which is why Jesus’ “strategy” is always so hard to pinpoint and name. His justice strategy is solidarity—even more than working or fighting for justice per se, which disappoints many activists…

God calls us to lives of communion with the world’s suffering. This is so much harder than merely trying to fix it, understand it, control it, or even localize it. Only love can do this, and really only God’s love.” ~ Richard Rohr

“Jesus stands with the demonized until the demonizing stops.” Whoa. 

3. “You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll rise…

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries? …

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise. …

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.” ~ Still I Rise, Maya  Angelou 

When the oppressed rise up, they’re telling us that they are no longer in the mood (as if they ever were) to keep playing the oppression game under the old rules of engagement.Courage has emboldened them and the breath of heaven has lifted them up.  

Oppressors really don’t like that opposition. It scares them. It throws them off their game. That’s a good thing. But they won’t go down easily. They’ll puff themselves up and bellow and rage and do any manner of scary things. They’ll even say they are the ones rising up against injustice. They’re not. It’s their feeble attempt to justify the harm they inflict  and the hate they carry in their heart. 

4. “Don’t settle for a small life.” ~ Pope Francis

5. The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Don’t be surprised if that community looks like a band of misfits and ragamuffins. If it doesn’t, start over.

6. “Don’t tell someone you love them and then vote for someone who will hurt them.” I don’t know the origin of this but it sure makes sense. Integrity demands that we walk our talk and it  compels us to not ‘suffer fools’ who do nothing but yak, yak, yak and use their words to marginalize others.   

7. “One day a harassed and busy executive was on his way to the office when he spotted a Bedouin from the desert sitting and resting under a tree in the city. The executive asked the Bedouin “What are you doing here?” The Bedouin replied that he had made a decision to stop for a while.

“You know you could be earning money if you were working,” said the executive. 

“”What would I do with it”

“If you earned some money you could open an office”

“And then?”

“Then you could earn more money and build a factory.”

“”And then?”

“Then you could have your own villa at some fancy resort?

“Good, and then?”

“Then you would still have some money to put in the bank.”

“Yes, and then?”

“Well, then you could stop, sit down and rest.”

“But that’s what I’m doing at the moment.” ~ Trevor Hudson, Discovering Your Spiritual Identity.

We sometimes pester people to make our desires their desires or to put their desires in a package different from the one they prefer. There are moments when our suggestions are both unneeded and unwanted. 

I do wish this story had been expanded a wee bit because I wonder what the takeaway was for that businessman?

8. A ship, sailing past a desert island, spots a man who has been stranded there for several years. The captain goes ashore to rescue the man and notices three huts. “What’s the first hut for?” he asks. “That’s my house,” says the castaway. “What’s the second hut for?” “That’s my church.” “And the third hut?” “That’s the church I used to go to.” ~ author unknown 

Signs of the times.

9. In last week’s episode of the far right ‘theater of the absurd’ Marjorie Taylor Greene got kicked out of the House Freedom Caucus. My mouth dropped open and I just started chuckling, wondering how long it’s going to be before they build a coliseum and start throwing each other to the lions. 

10. Frequently, I have  a conversion experience. I sin. I’m good at it. But I know how to confess. When I do, I look with fresh eyes for the footsteps of Jesus and when I see them again, I resume my journey.