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. 7.28.23

1. Author Jon Pavlovitz tweeted: “I don’t think I can travel to Florida anymore because the time difference is too much. It’s 1860 there.”

The most anti-woke state in America still can’t figure out how to honorably teach kids the truth about our nation’s history. 

“Victoria McQueen, 17, of Tallahassee, Florida, was looking forward to taking AP African American Studies her senior year. She said that when she heard the class was rejected by the DeSantis administration, she felt defeated. “It just hurts me, especially as a young African American female, that 400 years later they’re still trying to sweep the history of African Americans under the rug after all they did,” the rising senior said. “The way that America has broken African Americans and people of color in general, broken them down from top to bottom, not giving them the credit they deserve behind the scenes and in front of the camera − it just hurts to know that even in the classroom they can’t be acknowledged.”

Doesn’t the DeSantis crowd have better things to do? I know for sure there is a rather severe property insurance problem that needs his attention. And affordable housing in Florida is hard to come by. No, they don’t have the time for that. Why fix what’s  broken when there’s still a book to be banned, or a history that needs a little tweaking so white people can still  feel good about themselves?

2. Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard had this to say about 2nd place finisher Tadej Pogacar.  “I really have a lot of respect for Tadej. In my opinion he’s the best bike rider in the world. He’s such a complete rider and in my opinion he’s the best rider out of everyone when you see the whole picture.”

Told about Vingegaard’s complimentary remarks, Pogacar replied: “He’s also one of the best. As a rider, as a guy, he’s super good. I also have a lot of respect for him. He’s a class above in this Tour de France.”

These two rivals are fierce competitors and good human beings. Each has won two Tour de France yellow jerseys. Each has placed second. Both have a few more years of cycling left in them. Vingegaard, from Denmark is 26 and Pogacar, from Slovenia is 24. That’s good news for the sport.

3. “See the Super Patriot. Hear him preach how he loves his country. Hear him preach how he hates liberals  and moderates, and intellectuals, activists and pacifists and minority groups and aliens and unions and teenagers and the very rich and the very poor and the people with foreign sounding names. Now you know what a super-patriot is. He’s someone who loves his country and hates 93% of the people who live in it.” ~ MAD Magazine, 1969

What was, still is. Who knew Mad Magazine was prophetic?

4. Speaking of insanity, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, if you haven’t heard, flashed nude pictures of Hunter Biden, in a congressional hearing.

A satirist who goes by the name Mrs. Betty Bowers, America’s Best Christian responded by saying:  “I find that I am unable to lower my expectations fast enough to keep up with Marjorie Taylor Greene.”

In MAGA world it’s seemingly a mad dash race to the bottom of a cesspool and Rep. Greene is doing her darndest to be the first one there. But she’s got a lot of competition.  

Issac Asimov once said: “When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent.” 

5. The USA Women’s World Cup squad has 9 seasoned veterans and 14 players who are brand new. The oldest is 38 and the youngest 18. This story by NY Times writer Juliet Macur gives us a nice little window into team dynamics.

“The story seemed like one Alex Morgan might tell around a campfire.

Back in the day, the 34-year-old Morgan likes to begin, when players like her needed to find their way to their soccer games, they used something called MapQuest. It wasn’t an app on your smartphone, the kind with a reassuring voice that announced each turn and flashed a digital dot to show your location.

It was a website, Morgan said, that generated a map and a list of step-by-step directions, which you had to print out on actual paper. Sometimes it fell to preteen kids like Morgan to read out the turns while a parent drove.

“That was such a hard time,” the United States defender Naomi Girma, 23, recalled telling Morgan after hearing the story recently, feigning sympathy. “And Morgan, she was like, ‘You don’t even know.’”

Sports are often about gaps: talent gaps, experience gaps, compensation gaps. And in the weeks and months before the Women’s World Cup that began on Thursday in Australia and New Zealand, the players on the U.S. national women’s soccer team have found an unlikely bond in jokes, jabs and stories related to what may be their most notable feature: a generation gap.”

Go USWNT women’s national team.

6. The gospel is less about how to get into the Kingdom of Heaven after you die, and more about how to live in the Kingdom  of Heaven before you die.” ~ Dallas Willard

It’s a reminder to “not be so heavenly minded that you are of no earthly good.”  

7. “In the time, perhaps an hour or so, between her encounter with the Risen Christ at the Tomb and when she shared the news of the Resurrection with the other disciples, Mary Magdalene was, in a sense, the church on earth. Because only to her had been revealed the full Paschal Mystery, of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Any discussion of women’s roles in the church must begin with these two facts: It was to a woman, not a man, to whom the Risen Christ first chose to appear. And it was a woman who, for a time, was the sole carrier, and proclaimer, of the Good News of the Resurrection.” ~ James Martin SJ quoting Sister Peggy Beaudette, SC.

8. “In the early Christian Scriptures, the message of Jesus seems to have been heard in great part by people on the bottom. Those who are outside or at the edges of the system understand Jesus, while those who are inside or at the center are the ones who crucify him.” ~ Richard Rohr

These days, the outsiders and the edge dwellers are the ones speaking most profoundly to my heart and soul. The die hard insiders, not so much. It’s pretty clear that too many of them are busy living fearfully and legalistically in a world that no longer exists. 

9. “And another regrettable thing about death 

is the ceasing of your own brand of magic, 

which took a whole life to develop and market  –

the quips, the witticisms, the slant adjusted to a few, 

those loved ones nearest the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears, 

their tears confused with their diamond earrings, 

their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat, 

their response and your performance twinned.

The jokes over the phone. 

The memories packed in the rapid-access file. 

The whole act.

Who will do it again? 

That’s it: no one;

imitators and descendants aren’t the same.” ~ John Updike

The psalmist reminds us that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” There’s no one else like you. Truly, you are an unrepeatable miracle of God. Walk humbly into the fullness of your identity.

10. “My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear.” ~ Anne Lamott

“…a series of staggers… one safe place to another …moving across the swamp of doubt and fear.” I get it. It’s honest. She keeps things real.