Things I Think…
1. It has been this way as long as I can remember…when I don’t understand something, I buy a book. Often, more than one book. The reign of the American Herod has me filling up every nook and cranny of the tiny space I occupy…because there is so much going on that defies rational understanding…
2. I confess that I spent an inordinate amount of time last week trying to figure out if America is the Babylon of Revelation…
3. Political crises often create sheep and goat scenarios where the participants are unknowingly choosing which side they will be on…the sheep trying to tend to the wounds inflicted by the goats…the sheep are quiet helpers, the goats are applauding deporting innocent people…
4. I remember when conservatives hated cancel culture…until they had the power to cancel people themselves…I have to admire the idiotic bravado that would try to cancel Harriet Tubman and Jackie Robinson…if they can just get those Confederate monuments restored it can be 1860 all over again…
5. Economists are calling this a time of “radical uncertainty” because of the whims of Herod…which means that all of us must embrace the “radical certainty” of Jesus…
6. With the new tariffs it won’t be long before I’ll have to decide whether to buy food or coffee…the Keurig must be fed…
8. ICYMI…things Duane thought...”A moral compass and a sense of decency is not something we should expect to discover in either the Republican party or the Democratic party in the current situation. It is, however, something we should expect of communities of faith. Many of those communities of faith, however, have failed us. In aligning themselves with one party or another and subsequently “baptizing” policies and personalities they have simply become yet one more partisan voice, one more part of a political machine. These alignments may well haunt us for decades to come.”
9. More from Duane…”I sometimes believe that we have fallen so in love with words, both ours and others, that we have forgotten that the Gospel is more than letters on a page. It is the good news of God in Christ which is to be proclaimed and it is a life to be lived, both in the community of the Church and in the eyes of a watching world. Maybe the first generations of Christians had a better grasp of that truth. Even without reading it, they heard it and they lived it.”
10. I was out in the catio pondering all the things troubling me when I was compelled to look up…and I saw that dozens of fluorescent pink and orange tulips had bloomed overnight…reminding me that in the end, there will always be beauty if we will just raise up to see it…
Look up, my friends…
#10…
Beautiful.
Dan,
thanks…I wish you could have taken photos for me…I can’t take good pictures to save my life…except for cats…I take good cat pics… 🙂
#10 what I love to call a “flannel board moment” reminding me of simple Sunday school lessons the sweet church ladies taught us growing up, ❤️
Pam,
It’s those flannel board moments that we actually remember….I love the metaphor!
“Often, more than one book. The reign of the American Herod has me filling up every nook and cranny of the tiny space I occupy”
But what about the cats?!?! Where are they to go if every nook and cranny is filled with books?!
You know, I’ve stayed away from trying to understanding what is happening in the world from an eschatological standpoint for a long while. I’ve come to understand that the certainty I once possessed about the “last days” was built on shifting sand. But I can say that what I see in the US now more reflects the “beast and false prophet” scenario than anything else I have observed over the past 55 years. But, again, no certainty here, just an observation.
KevinH,
We’re close to the cats taking my bed and me sleeping in the catio… 🙂
DavidM,
I’ve avoided end times madness like the plague…but the “beast and false prophet” scenario has me humbling myself to at least think on the matter…and buy some more books.
Isn’t it ironic that the people who once were so into end times stuff now think their hero is postponing the Rapture and those of us that have been critics are the ones getting spooked?
Some perspective when I look back 60 years ago. My fourth graders have Cuba as the current Spanish unit focus country. I had to give them a bit of history, including the Cuban missile crisis. I was very young, but I remember how nervous my parents were regarding nuclear war. Just something to think about, as we look at an economic disaster of nuclear proportions.
#10, on repeat! ❤️
In regards to #10 (and its comments):
– Spring is in the air and a welcome image of warmth and beauty.
– I remember flannel boards in Sunday school when I was a kid.
In regards to #7, they may very well end up being executed as enemies of the state as official R-O apostates. Something similar happened to Christian dissidents in Germany in the 20th Century.
In regards to end-times prognosticating, let me throw this one out:
I remember about in all Rapture/Late Great Planet Earth excrement one of the questions was the role of the US in all that. Since the US is not mentioned, they standard dispy answer was that the US ceased to influential due all the Christians being rapture before the s**t hit the fan. Perhaps the US does not play role in end-times because the Christians in the US and their political gods/false prophets/beast succeed in isolating the US economically and militarily by their own hand and stated goals. The US turns inward (Make America Great Again) and the rest of the world, says “Don’t let the door hit you in the a** on the way out.”
We are starting to see realignments in international trade where EU countries, Canada, and Asian countries are looking at multilateral trade agreements that specifically exclude the US. Then there is the whole thing about rare earth metals something China (and Canada and Australia) have. Of course, now that we pissed off Canada and Australia, they won’t lift a finger to help us from China on those.
As for those MAGA cultists (Christian or otherwise) that lose their jobs, houses, businesses, farms to due their Orange Dear Leader’s trade and tariff actions, I have NO sympathy. It is their own damn fault for drinking the Kool-Aid and it time for them to face the consequences of their stupidity. Good luck to those MAGA cultist farmers selling your wheat and soybeans to Asia when they buy them from Canada and Argentina.
I finished Rohr’s book and a Brueggemann title this past week and am a bit alarmed at how sluggish my brain has become…it takes some real effort to wrap my thinking around their ideas.
We’ve had a beautiful spring here with magnolia tree and daffodils leading the way…lilacs soon.
Lots of financial unrest as well and resulting stress. Trying not to be anxious, but feel like we’re in a slow motion tsunami…
fil,
I hear you on both fronts.
Reading takes all my energy…I’m surrounded by books I’ve started, but not finished…sitting about like half eaten sandwiches.
The financial aspect is truly frightening…but it has been for me for years and God has provided.
I might need to have “God has provided” tattooed somewhere I see it often…no suggestions needed… 🙂
Reading Acts 1:7 helps me to relax and realize that I don’t need to be knowing everything all the time.
Meh, Conservatives loved “Cancel Culture” back in the 80s when it was Cabbage Patch Kids being “new age” or getting TV stations to preempt NYPD Blue or episodes with gay characters. The American Family Association basically made a cottage industry out of this. It’s why I took their concerns from circa 2015-2023 with little seriousness.
Off topic — but one thing I think that may be unpopular in some circles but will probably be a growing concern: In the past week or so I’ve read of three different famous exvangelicals and groups that are under scrutiny for abuse and coverup. One was arrested for stalking and abuse (and was big enough to get an interview in CNN and famous cult podcasters beforehand), another promised reform after manipulative behavior and goes right on with his group as if nothing happened. People who complained about Mark Driscoll and Trump for a decade went on to defend them because of the urgency of the moment and all. Sound familiar?
I’m no fan of Trump and grew tired of the trendiness and political alarmism in evangelicalism some 30 years ago as a teen. But be clear: this whole “Enemy of my enemy is my friend” stuff that ignores clear red flags will eat your movement faster than anything else.
DavidP,
I don’t know who you’re referring to, but you’re spot on in principle…
Thanks. Julie Roys had the news of one a few weeks back involving “The New Evangelicals” podcasts I’ve had referred to me over and over by friends upset at the state of the church. It was pretty boilerplate when I listened (nothing that hasn’t been said by Sojourners countless times, lots of political us vs. them) so I didn’t pay much more attention until I saw this.
The other I discovered accidentally. Turns out a guy with academic credentials got some attention in exvangelical circles. Got some nice writeups in CNN and interviews in similar circles. Interviews with deconstruction podcasters. Turned out to have some skeletons.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ReligiousTrauma/comments/1equjf9/avoid_darren_slade_avoid_gcrr/
I don’t bring this up to discredit people agonizing with their faith combined with decades of bad theology and politics. But it’s naive to think it’s just the right wing people with their John Wayne movies acting in bad faith. Grifters gonna grift.
DavidP,
I confess that I’ve never heard of the guy.
I do agree with you in principle…it’s not simply a right wing issue.
Fact is that center-left Christians have little influence and even their grifters don’t attract attention…