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. 2.9.24
1. Ruth Felker Jones, a theologian living in Chicago, writes about ‘rules for doing theology.’ I especially like these:
-Lay your weapons down. Bow your heads in prayer and come in unguarded.
-Read to seek intimacy with the scriptures. Read things more than once. Read across time, space, culture, ethnicity and experience…
-Knowing that God is God, relax into the fact that you will not master the subject. Let the subject master you.
-Embrace mystery over mastery.
2. Most sermons, I once was told, are based on the writings of Paul more than any other sources, even more than Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Paul was and remains a theological stalwart even though I think he could have benefited from counseling and a spiritual director. Seriously, I think he had issues.
Here’s the general outline of Paul’s letters. (I don’t know the source)
“Grace
I thank God for you.
Hold fast to the gospel.
For the love of everything holy, stop being stupid.
Timothy says hi.”
3. I don’t know Taylor Swift’s music very well but I’ve figured out she is an accomplished and generous businesswoman, a gifted song writer and an amazing performer. I also know she’s dating a football player, Travis Kelce, of the KC Chiefs, who will surely be a Hall of Famer when all is said and done. Kelce will be playing in the Super Bowl on Sunday and Swift will be in attendance.
They appear to be happy together.
Now, I know you will find this difficult to believe but conspiracy theorists are saying their romance is fake news and it is really part of an outrageous plot to use their popularity to somehow sway the next election. That plot will start to thicken, they’re saying, during the Super Bowl. Oh my.
My predictions.
-Chiefs 35. 49ers 21.
-No Swift/Kelce political endorsements during the game.
-More than one camera shot of Swift cheering.
-Conspiracy theorists will do what they can to save face and then rush to the very pits of hell or one of its many convenient subsidiaries to grovel for their next assignment.
4. “Instead of withdrawing from the world, whether as individuals or groups or nations, we are called to be fully immersed in the places we are…Our contemplative practices are always ways of being more alive in the world and more active for the good…Instead of a lonely, separatist, isolationist life, we can become the contemplative life of the party or the most hospitable hermit.”~ Gareth Higgins, Center for Action and Contemplation
“We can become the contemplative life of the party or the most hospitable hermit.”
That’s clever wording and it’s wonderfully thought provoking.
5. “ .. I look at all the brokenness around me, the constant news cycle of gloom and despair… and I lament about the state of the world… Lament is how you live between the poles of a hard life, trusting in God’s sovereignty. Lament is how we bring our sorrow to God.
Without lament we won’t know how to process pain. Lament fuels our prayers; it fuels our cry of ‘Lord, please arise, please be lifted up, please be exalted in our time.” ~ Lectio 365, a helpful Lectio Divina app.
Lament is a spiritual, pressure release valve for those times when we’re hit by a kind of sadness and grief that knocks us off our feet and threatens to paralyze us.
6. The documentary on Netflix, “The Greatest Night in Pop” is worth watching. It’s about how the song “We are the World” came into being and the incredible artists who sang it. It’s a feel good experience and the song still makes me tear up. It contains a much needed message for today:
There comes a time
When we heed a certain call
When the world must come together as one …
We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let’s start giving …
7. “You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise…
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise… ” ~ Maya Angelou, And Still I Rise: A Book of Poems.
I’m currently reading Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” It’s a perfect read for Black History Month. The bonus I have is that I will have a discussion about it next week with fellow readers from my “Manasota Interracial Book Club.” It’s always a lively discussion.
How about you? What are your reading, watching, or listening to this month that’s expanding your awareness of Black history and achievement?
8. “Resilience is really a secular word for what religion was trying to say with the word faith. Without a certain ability to let go, to trust, to allow, we won’t get to any new place.” ~ Richard Rohr
Letting go requires us to live with a sense of abandon. That’s hard for those of us who are control freaks.
Will our control issues bite us if we’re not careful? And if we find a way to stay in control do we run the risk of bowing to and worshiping the god named SELF?
9 . “The gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again … not to make people with better morals but to create a community of prophets and professional lovers, men and women who would surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, who would live in ever greater fidelity to the omnipresent Word of God, who would enter into the center of it all, the very heart and mystery of Christ, into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant, furious love. This, my friend, is what it really means to be a Christian.” ~ Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God
Brennan Manning was one of those writers who greatly informed my thinking around matters of faith and practice. The “Ragamuffin Gospel” really rocked my world.
10. “We believe that a democracy needs, among other things, a strong liberal party and a strong conservative party in order to flourish. Our concern is that the Republican Party has mortgaged itself to an antidemocratic demagogue, one who is completely devoid of decency…posing an existential threat to America and to the ideas that animate it …” ~ Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic writing for the entire Editorial Board
I agree. It should concern us that autocrats around the world are gleefully chomping at the bit over the prospect of another go around with MAGA’s presumptive nominee for president.
The post Mike’s Rumblings 02-09-24 appeared first on Anita Lustrea.
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