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. 6.30.23 

1. “the truth is that things

don’t really get solved.

they come together

and fall apart.

they come together again

and fall apart again.

it’s just like that.

the healing comes from

letting there be room for

all of this to happen:

room for grief,

for relief,

for misery,

for joy.” ~ Pema Chödrön

2. Many of you are still on an interesting and sometimes difficult quest to make sense of your spiritual lives – past, present and future. And I applaud you. I love interacting with you. Your journey is sacred and filled with meaning.  For sure, it has been hard. There’s healing that needs to be done. Trust has been broken by individuals and institutions. Friends and family question your motives. Sometimes you do too. But you’re working through it all because you believe this particular  journey is important.

This much I know. God sees you and isn’t afraid of the journey you’re on. 

3. “Trump doesn’t just cross moral lines; he doesn’t appear capable of understanding moral categories. Morality is for Trump what colors are to a person who is color-blind.” ~ Peter Wehner, The Atlantic

I believe this to be true. How do we respond? 

C.S. Lewis once said that “one of the most cowardly things ordinary people do is to shut their eyes to facts.” 

How many people do you know who live within an echo chamber, never really hearing anything contrary to what they believe?  They wade into every argument with eyes and ears closed and a malfunctioning crap detector. It is indeed an act of cowardice to not care about the truth and to not search for it.

4. “To my Republican colleagues who introduced this resolution [to censure me], I thank you. You honor me with your enmity. You flatter me with this falsehood. You, who are the authors of a big lie about the last election, must condemn the truth-tellers and I stand proudly before you. Your words tell me that I have been effective in the defense of our democracy and I am grateful.” ~ Congressman Adam Schiff 

Schiff is a little full of himself at times but that’s true of many of us, right? But censure? Nah. His rebuke of House Republicans is spot on. 

5.  Listening to this refrain of a worship song grabbed me. 

“On my best day, I am a child of God. 

On my worst day, I’m still a child of God.” 

True. Nothing can separate us from God’s love.

“God looks at us and is ecstatic. This God loves the sound of our voices and thinks that all of us are a magnificent work of art… God’s cheek resting on ours. God’s singular agenda item. ~ Gregory Boyle, SJ

6. “Religion is one of the safest places to hide from God.” Richard Rohr

I put my guard up when I’m with religious people but open myself up when I meet people of faith.

7. I read that a “Moms for Liberty” chapter in Hamilton County, Indiana quoted Hitler in a recent newsletter. There was a backlash. They said ‘oops’, tried to rationalize it, and then backpedaled away from it.  None of this surprises me. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled Moms for Liberty as an “anti-government extremist” group in its 2022 annual report. I’ve seen our local chapter at work and I don’t like what I see. Actually, they scare me. 

Anything that carries the smell of Christian Nationalism gives me the shivers. 

According to Christianity Today “Christian nationalism is the belief that the American nation is defined by Christianity, and that the government should take active steps to keep it that way. Popularly, Christian nationalists assert that America is and must remain a “Christian nation”—not merely as an observation about American history, but as a prescriptive program for what America must continue to be in the future.”

Christian nationalism is much more political than it is biblical. And when its adherents use the Bible, it’s often used crudely, and applied with venom. It is fundamentalism. It is toxic. Christian nationalists consider their rather severe and vengeful distortion  of Christianity to be the guiding norm for a society, different from and taking precedence, over any other belief system. It blurs and then decimates every distinction between church and state. 

8. “I’d rather live next door to someone who crossed a desert to become an American than an American who wouldn’t cross the street to help a foreigner.” ~ Source unknown

9. Carmelite nun Constance Fitzgerald writes for the Center for Action and Contemplation:

“There is not only the so-called dark night of the soul but [also] the dark night of the world. What if, by chance, our time in evolution is a dark-night time—a time of crisis and transition that must be understood if it is to be part of learning a new vision and harmony for the human species and the planet? …

It is only in the process of bringing the impasse to prayer, to the perspective of the God who loves us, that our society will be freed, healed, changed, brought to paradoxical new visions, and freed for nonviolent, selfless, liberating action, freed, therefore, for community on this planet earth. Death is involved here, a dying in order to see how to be and to act on behalf of God in the world. …Here God makes demands for conversion, healing, justice, love, compassion, solidarity, and communion…”

I think she’s saying something important when she speaks about a dark night of the world, where things look heavy and foreboding. I certainly sense that. The good news is that our good God is present, preparing us for our role in living in and through this present darkness.

10. “May God bless you with a discontent with easy answers, half-truths, superficial relationships, so that you will live from deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, abuse, and exploitation of people, so that you will work for justice, equality, and  peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you will reach out your hand to comfort  them and to change their pain to joy.

May God bless you with the foolishness to think you can make a difference in this world, so that you will do the things which others tell you cannot be done. . .” ~ Ruth Fox, OSB