Mike’s Rumblings 12-29-23

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  12.29.23 

1.  “Hope is the simple trust that God has not forgotten the recipe for manna.” ~ W. Paul Jones

Who among us does not need food for the journey? 

2. “There is a place deep within the heart of a person … and there, the troubled soul can find a peace which passes all understanding; there the wounds from the arrows of the evil-one can find balm and healing, and the arrows cannot  penetrate there to wound once again. Here, one does not pray with words, or even with actions, but one weeps and the teardrops themselves are prayer and confession and rejoicing and hope fulfilled… ” Abbot Lazar Puhalo

So beautiful isn’t it? It describes a bit of the essence of contemplative prayer which brings us to a place we are meant to occupy. We are ‘to be’ in that place. Not do- but be. It’s in that place where we are present to the very presence of God. 

3. If you lean to the left politically, so be it. 

If you lean to the right politically, so be it. 

Just be kind, rational, truthful and curious enough to rigorously critique what your particular ‘leaning’ is doing to your heart, soul and behavior.

4. And the Lord God came walking in the cool of the day and called out to Adam, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9) 

Jewish scholar, Martin Buber, translates God’s question: “Adam, where are you in relation to me?”

Could we not say that this is a crucial question for each of us.  

Can we sit with this question face to face and hear God’s invitation? 

Can we let God’s question evoke a thoughtful response?

Many of us cross the holiday finish-line breathless and weary. May you find a moment to pause and hear the Father of grace and goodness, gently ask you:

Where are you in relation to me?

Where are you in relation to the people I have placed in your life?

Where are you in relation to your inner world, to the soul that I care about and have placed within you?” ~ Mike Bowden, Grafted Life

Great questions. They make a rather nice end of the year Examen. 

…..

Both my wife and I are spiritual directors. We help those who want to explore questions like these. Each of us has room for two or three directees. Message me if you’d like to explore this opportunity. 

5.  “If you went back and fixed all the mistakes you’ve ever made you would erase yourself.” ~ Louis CK. 

  

There are times when we really blow it and just want to give up. We can move in the direction of shame but when we do, there’s a good chance we’ll end up on the other side of nowhere. 

We certainly can’t fix all our mistakes but we can certainly learn from most of them. Instead of slowly erasing ourselves, we can choose to discover that our ability to bounce back is a magnificent super-power. 

6.  “It’s hypocritical to call yourself a Christian and chase away a refugee or someone seeking help, someone who is hungry or thirsty, or toss out someone who is in need of  your help. If I say I am Christian, but do these things, I’m a hypocrite. You cannot be a Christian without living like a Christian.  You cannot be a Christian without practicing the Beatitudes. You cannot be a Christian without doing what Jesus teaches us in Matthew 25,  Christ’s injunction to help the needy by such works of mercy as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and welcoming the stranger. ~ Pope Francis 

The Pope is not so subtly reminding us that Jesus speaks a love language that is significantly different from  the one Christian nationalists  are trying to  force feed us.  He’s reminding us that those people being denigrated and stereotyped are near and dear to Jesus’s heart and shouldn’t be used as pawns in culture war games.  

 So perhaps it behooves us to get with the program. 

7. “In my heart dwells Jesus of Galilee, the Man above men, the Poet, who makes poets of us all, the Spirit who knocks at our door, that we may wake and rise and walk out to meet truth, naked, and unencumbered.” ~ Kahlil Gibran writing as John the Son of Zebedee in the book “Jesus, The Son of Man” 

“Mary and Joseph trusted their encounter with God and acted accordingly: These were two laypeople who totally trusted their inner experience of God and followed it to Bethlehem and beyond. There is no mention in the Gospels of the two checking out their inner experiences with the high priests, the synagogue, or even their Jewish Scriptures. Mary and Joseph walked in courage and absolute faith that their experience was true, with no one except God to reassure them they were right. Their only safety net was God’s love and mercy, a safety net they must have tried out many times, or else they never would have been able to fall into it so gracefully.” ~ Richard Rohr

8. If I asked you what was the biggest mistake your religion, ideology or worldview committed, and you did not come up with something serious, I for one would not trust you.” – Yuval Noah Harari 

Neither would I.  

Let me take a shot at some answers. 

• Twisting scripture to legitimize slavery, Jim Crow laws and various versions of apartheid.
• The church in Germany falling to its knees and legitimizing Hitler.
• The health and wealth gospel.
• The politicization of evangelicalism.
• The Crusades.
• Left Behind theology.
• Complementarianism which minimizes women. 
• American exceptionalism. 
• Legitimizing the cult of MAGA.
• The Doctrine of Discovery 

 9. “Several years ago, I invited a Buddhist monk to speak to my Senior elective class, and quite interestingly, as he entered the room, he didn’t say a word (that caught everyone’s attention).

He just walked to the board and wrote this: “Everyone wants to save the world , but no one wants to help mom do the dishes.”

We all laughed.

But then he went on to say this to my students: 

“Statistically, it’s highly unlikely that any of you will ever have the opportunity to run into a burning orphanage and rescue an infant. But, in the smallest gesture of kindness — a warm smile, holding the door for the person behind you, shoveling the driveway of the elderly person next door — you have committed an act of immeasurable profundity, because to each of us, our life is our universe.”

This is my hope for you for the New Year, that by your smallest acts of kindness, you will save another’s world. ~ John Perricone

10. In the film adaptation of Tolkien’s “The Return of the King” Aragorn rides in front of the gates of Mordor, turns to his sorely outnumbered army and declares: 

“I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day.”

“But it is not this day.” 

Powerful. 

All too often, for a variety of good and not so good reasons, fear washes over us. I’m choosing to channel my inner Aragorn, reminding myself that: 

This can’t be the day our courage fails.

This can’t be the time when we break our promises to friends and allies and begin to think only of ourselves. 

 It just can’t be.

Together, we must be brave, helping each other to calm our fears. 

Together, we must face those who want to do us harm. 

Together, we must live for the sake of others, just not ourselves.

This can’t be the day our resolve falters. 

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