Mike’s Friday Rumblings – 09-23-22
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.9.23.22
1. Dr. Sharon said it on an episode of Ted Lasso. “The truth will set you free but first it will piss you off.”
Yep. That’s what happens more often than not. At least to me. And you?
2. “Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability –
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.” ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ
excerpted from Hearts on Fire
For those who love to go fast this is a great reminder to be conscious of and attentive to the speed of God. The Lord’s idea of ‘hurry up’ is a bit different than ours
3. Heather Cox Richardson writes that there are “lot of moving pieces in the immigration debate. Migrants need safety, the U.S. needs workers, our immigrant-processing systems are understaffed, and our laws are outdated. They need real solutions, not political stunts.”
We don’t need political stunts.
“History does not look kindly on leaders who treat human beings like cargo, loading them up and sending them a thousand miles away without telling them their destination … Still, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made that choice today. … Instead of trying to help them, he chose to charter a private jet and send them to a rural island community late in the day and without warning so they wouldn’t have the resources at the ready to support them. The people of Martha’s Vineyard, its vibrant immigrant community, and the Commonwealth as a whole are already calling Governor DeSantis’ bluff and rising to meet the challenge because that’s what Americans do — we help those in need.” ~ U.S. Rep, Wiliam Keating
These politicians who play games with refugees and those who chuckle, giggle, and smirk in the background are by and large – people who proudly profess faith in Christ. Imagine that.
Lauren Lisa Ng, Director of Leadership Empowerment for American Baptist Church Home Missions reminds us that scripture doesn’t say “ When I was hungry you put me on a bus, when I was thirsty you booked me a one-way plane ticket, and when I was a stranger, you treated me like cargo and shipped me off for political gain.”
4.. “The hallmark of a resilient, productive and sustainable culture is that disagreements aren’t risky.
When someone cares enough to make an assertion and show their work, a healthy organization or society takes a look.
The alternative is the brittle, closed culture of talking points, loyalty oaths and unquestioned status quo. It might be a neighborhood social club, a large corporation or a nation, but the principle remains.
What happens when we disagree? Because when the world changes (and it always does) we’ll probably end up disagreeing sooner or later. Being good at it is a skill.” ~ Seth Godin
5. Whatever a patron desires to get published is advertising; whatever he wants to keep out of the paper is news.” L. E. Edwardson, Chicago Herald and Examiner, circa 1920
That was awhile ago. Journalism has changed. But the best journalists still go looking for what people in power want to keep hidden. We should all be thankful for them. Our nation can’t survive without good journalism. Punditainers are not journalists. They just pretend they are. To buy into their fantasy world is folly.
6. “A truck loaded with thousands of copies of Roget’s Thesaurus crashed yesterday losing its entire load. Witnesses were stunned, startled, aghast, taken aback, stupefied, confused, shocked, rattled, paralyzed, dazed, bewildered, mixed up, surprised, awed, dumbfounded, nonplussed, flabbergasted, astounded, amazed, confounded, astonished, overwhelmed, horrified, numbed, speechless, and perplexed.” ~ Author Unknown
7. “I cannot make good choices unless I develop a mature and prudent conscience that gives me an accurate account of my motives, my intentions, and my moral acts.” ~ Thomas Merton
Without a mature and prudent conscience our choices will be determined by the loudest voice before us. The crowd will dictate our actions. Good and evil will be defined by whatever version of groupthink captures our fancy in the moment. When that happens we must face the obvious, that we have no guiding principles, only the desire to fit in and not make any waves. Is that any way to live?
It isn’t.
Thus, signing on to Trump’s ‘I am Qanon’ movement isn’t on my to do list.
8. Everybody seems to be trying to prove that they are right. We have almost a collective incapacity to admit failure, to never admit that we are wrong, which makes us liars most of the time. Jesus is calling forth a very different kind of human being. Jesus says people who live the vulnerable life of connection and relationship will bear much fruit. These are the people we trust, like, and admire. And yet so many of us are afraid to be the very thing that we admire the most. How foolish human beings are! But again, Jesus has told us the way: he is the vine. We are the branches. None of us can be or need to be correct, but we can always be connected.” ~ Richard Rohr
9. No wonder Salmon Rushdie has enemies. Authoritarians hate truth.
“The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.”
“A poem cannot stop a bullet. A novel can’t defuse a bomb… but we are not helpless …we can sing the truth and name the liars.”
10. “If Jesus thought that poverty was a lack of hard work, he would’ve rebuked the poor for their condition but instead he rebuked the rest of us for not taking care of them.” ~ Anonymous