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. 3.29.24
1. Find a Good Friday service that will allow you to linger with all the stories of Holy Week, to feel the sting of betrayal, the deep emotion of the Cross, and the fear of the disciples. Find a service that will allow you to wrestle with the uncertainty of the moment, that invites you to experience the silence of Saturday. Find a service that allows you to put yourself into the narrative and urges you to stay expectant.
Do that and Easter Sunday will be all the sweeter.
2. Frodo: “I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.”
Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
There are days when I’m convinced we are standing before the very gates of Mordor, outnumbered and afraid. If you experience it similarly, join me in spending some time today sitting quietly in the Presence of God, who is never outnumbered and never fearful.
3. “You have given all to me
To you, Lord, I return it
Everything is Yours
Do with it what you will
Give me only your love and your grace
That is enough for me.
Amen.” ~ Pray as You Go
What a challenging, aspirational prayer. “Give me only your love and grace. That is enough for me.”
Praying these words as part of my spiritual practice has reminded me that my desire for a God who is ‘enough’ is still strong. Without that desire, I’m sizzled.
4. Let nothing disturb you. / Let nothing upset you. / Everything changes. / God alone is unchanging. / With patience all things are possible. / Whoever has God lacks nothing. / God alone is enough.” ~ Teresa of Ávila
I believe this but am often befuddled by the aura of mystery contained within it, delighted with the simple truth it proclaims, and frustrated by my inability at times to live in a less perturbed manner.
5. In the 20th century (generally speaking) “Protestant Christians set out to make America Christian and ended up making Christianity American.” ~ Stanley Hauerwas
“If our Christianity causes us to look at how a poor person spends their welfare check with inherent suspicion all while we look at how the exorbitantly rich accumulate mass amounts of wealth with inherent admiration, we need a grand reversal.
Beware of any Christian movement that demands the government be an instrument of God’s wrath but never a source of God’s, mercy, generosity, or compassion.” ~ Rev Benjamin Cremer
6. On his deathbed Francis of Assisi said: “I have done what was mine to do, may Christ now teach you what you are to do.”
Francis also said: “All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”
True. However, I’d like to see more than one candle. Just sayin’.
7. Adam Kinzinger, former GOP Congressman who served on the Jan. 6 Committee writes:.“I watched a Trump rally (so you don’t have to) and was repeatedly struck by one thing: The number of seniors, who should be enjoying the sunset years of their lives, consumed with rage and anger.”
The platform of the Republican Party is the MAGA agenda and the MAGA agenda consists of two words – Donald Trump – and those two words can be translated as Chaos. That kind of chaos produces rage and anger. And some of you reading this are OK with the chaos, welcome it, and say it is ‘of the Lord’.
That’s where you lose me. There is no moral substance to your argument. There is nothing suggesting the fruits of the Spirit are in play.
8. It seems we Christians have been worshiping Jesus’ journey instead of doing his journey. The worshiping feels very religious; the latter just feels human and ordinary. We are not human beings on a journey toward Spirit; we are already spiritual beings on a journey toward becoming fully human, which for some reason seems harder—precisely because it is so ordinary.” ~ Richard Rohr
9. Maggie Kuhn, forced to retire from the Presbyterian Church at the age 65, decided she had a whole lot of living left to do and so she founded the Gray Panthers, an advocacy group for older Americans. Ms. Kuhn famously said. ”Speak your mind even if your voice shakes.”
“A ship in harbor is safe — but that is not what ships are built for.” ~ John A.Shedd
Thoreau once wrote: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” To which someone added: “and die with their song still inside them.”
Ships are meant to sail. Lives are meant to be lived. Songs need to be sung. Speaking your mind, shaky as it might be, on behalf of others, is a noble endeavor.
Why live in quiet desperation when there’s still so much before us that can breathe life into our troubled souls? For those who are truly hopelessly desperate, let’s be there for them.
10. “Earth’s crammed with heaven
And every bush afire with God.
But only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest sit around and pluck blackberries.” ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The post Mike’s Rumblings 03-29-24 appeared first on Anita Lustrea.
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free