Mike’s Rumblings – 10-27-23
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. 10.27.23
1. Let’s keep praying for a just and lasting peace in all the places on our globe where there is war. I’d list them all but it would be too distressing. The hate has to end. It must end.
And it needs to end in our country. How many legislators have been threatened in our country for just doing their job? Too many. Anti-semitism runs deep here as does Islamophobia. Anti-gay rhetoric is on the rise. Racism is ever present. Anti-immigrant voices are loud and strong.
We’re looking at each other through a biased lens.
“Is it possible for us to see each other the way God sees us instead of through our biases? The truth is that God doesn’t see people the way we do, no matter how much we try to convince ourselves and others that our way is the Creator’s way. In God’s eyes, each and every person is a bearer of [God’s] image. Each is a special creation, each is loved, each is in need of God’s love and forgiveness….” ~ LeRoy Barber
Look into a mirror and say “I am an unrepeatable miracle of God.” Keep saying it until you believe it.
And then bring to mind those you are at odds with or those you think unkindly about. Remind yourself that they too are a one of a kind miracle of the Creator.
2. “While they carried a great burden about gaps of injustice, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela radiated conviction and not condemnation, redemption and not final judgment, embrace and not rejection. The truly prophetic nature of their work in South Africa was pursuing justice with a quality of mercy that shaped a quest for communion with enemies and strangers.” ~ Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice: Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace and Healing
They really were prophets. No doubt about it. They spoke truth. That proved to be unsettling to those maintaining the status quo. But they gained converts. Some say they worked a miracle or two. And they paid a price. They weren’t universally loved.
3. I live in deep red Florida. In my head I refer to myself as part of the non-violent resistance in a MAGA held territory.
4. When President Biden talks about the crisis at the border he does not vilify those who seek shelter and asylum. He sees them as real people. He doesn’t tell lies about them nor does he call them names. He sees them as having value. I appreciate a leader who sees all people as having worth.
Our last president didn’t value people in need. Instead, he used them as props to stir up hate. And then he quite easily persuaded others to do likewise.
I’ll keep standing with the man who believes that all people are made in the image and likeness of God and hold at arm’s length the man who doesn’t.
I’d urge you to do the same.
5. It’s pretty clear that we are engaged in a national political brawl that’s pretty much about whether or not authoritarianism is better than democracy. It would be better if it were a conversation instead of a fist fight. But dang, it’s hard to have a conversation with the willfully ignorant and those who distort truth for their own gain.
6. “The big and hidden secret is this: an infinite God seeks and desires intimacy with the human soul. Once we experience such intimacy, only the intimate language of lovers describes the experience for us: mystery, tenderness, singularity, specialness, changing the rules “for me,” nakedness, risk, ecstasy, incessant longing, and also, of course, necessary suffering. This is the mystical vocabulary of the saints.” ~ Richard Rohr
7. “Some people will never like you because your spirit irritates their demons.” ~ Denzel Washington
8. M*A*S*H* Wisdom
Frank Burns: Well everyone knows “war is hell”.
Hunnicutt: Remember, you heard it here last.
Hawkeye: War isn’t Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.
Father Mulcahy: How do you figure that, Hawkeye?
Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe.
Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them — little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.”
War is filled with the blood of innocents. The sobs we hear emanate from those whose hearts are shattered. If we keep insisting that ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” is the best way forward, don’t be surprised when someone you love shows up blind and toothless.
9. “Peace is not just about the absence of conflict; it’s also about the presence of justice. Martin Luther King Jr. even distinguished between ‘the devil’s peace’ and God’s true peace. A counterfeit peace exists when people are pacified or distracted or so beat up and tired of fighting that all seems calm. But true peace does not exist until there is justice, restoration, forgiveness. Peacemaking doesn’t mean passivity. It is the act of interrupting injustice without mirroring injustice, the act of disarming evil without destroying the evildoer, the act of finding a third way that is neither fight nor flight but the careful, arduous pursuit of reconciliation and justice. It is about a revolution of love that is big enough to set both the oppressed and the oppressors free.” ~ Shane Claiborne, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals
Please read this. Not once. Not twice. Not three times. Read it until it seeps into the very depth of your being.
10. If my Facebook feed is any indication, the #1 problem facing us as a country is self-checkout at big box stores. The already livid posters are even more ticked off because store management has the audacity to think that they even have the right to check receipts at the exit to make sure everything is on the up and up.
Oh my. Immaturity runs deep in our country.