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Monday People

April 21, 2025

Leon Festinger’s concept of Cognitive Dissonance was presented as part of an undergraduate class. I love the concept. It often applies to me.

Sometimes events just don’t make sense. We can’t wrap our heads around what’s happening. My life has experienced many changes—especially around employment. Accepting the changed environment and moving on can take time. Maybe some people adapt quickly. Not always me.

While I’ve been thinking about things during this Holy Week, I’ve concluded how unfair we’ve always been to Jesus’s followers. It was a tough week.

Sunday—a huge parade with thousands cheering them on.
Monday-Wednesday—teaching at the Temple, quiet dinners with Mary and Martha and Lazarus
Thursday—a quiet Passover meal with teachings they didn’t understand fully, quickly followed by arrest, trial 1, trial 2, judgement.
Friday—after a long night when they made themselves scarce, another type of parade through Jerusalem, no cheering, just jeering, ending with death.

Preachers will sometimes talk about Saturday people. This is the in-between time. The followers who had scattered and hid on Friday regrouped on Saturday completely unsure of the significance of what happened and fearful of what would happen. Would the Jewish leaders be satisfied with doing away with the leader? Would they search out followers to kill them and put an end of the threat to their leadership?

Sunday, the empty tomb. Try to wrap your head around that! No experience could have prepared them for the shock.

Then Monday. And beyond. How do we live with this new reality? We have to grow up and become the leaders he had trained us to be. We have to learn to live with a different experience of Jesus.

They did, and we can.

Posted in Awareness, Faith, Waiting | Leave a Comment »

He Meant What He Said

April 18, 2025

What if Jesus actually meant what he said?

It’s Good Friday—evidently a mistranslation from Old English for those of us who wonder about the term “good” referring to the day Jesus was executed. Could be a better word is “holy.”

How about some context?

The Romans build a world based upon power relationships. People sought power and, once attained, keeping it. This worldview, or mindset that we might call it today, filtered from the Emperor to family relationships. It was all about power.

The Jewish people had not lived under their own government for hundreds of years. Despite occasional revolts, the first Century dawned with them still under foreign rule. They longed for a leader who would lead a successful revolt and throw out the foreigners.

They thought Jesus might be the real deal, unlike the many before him whose naked corpses on short crosses (the pictures we see are not historically accurate, the reality was to demean the prisoner as much as possible) were often found along the roadways.

Therefore as I wrote a couple of days ago, the gospel writers point out that he had the equivalent of a Roman legion of followers ready to make him king. He entered Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday to those expectations that he came to the capital to overthrow the Romans.

What did Jesus actually teach? And live?

The inverse of power—love. He taught that our relationships should be come from a love based on God’s grace. He repeated frequently the need for a new way of living—the way of the Kingdom of Heaven. He said that his followers would be known by their love. He said that the greatest love was to give up our life for the sake of helping other people.

I’ve heard sermons and read books where the author was shocked that the crowd turned against Jesus on that Thursday. I am not shocked. Their expectations were crushed.

They didn’t listen to what Jesus said. They put their hopes and dreams on him instead of incorporating Jesus’s hopes and dreams for them into their lives.

Even his closest disciples hid on execution day and the following day. Even when Sunday came with the empty tomb and then his appearances, they could not comprehend. I don’t blame them. They also tried to put their interpretation on the movement (see James and John asking for places of power in the new kingdom).

Sometimes it takes me a period of time to digest new situations. I don’t blame them. They are us.

Then they understood that Jesus meant what he said and then proceeded to model it. It changed the world.

If Jesus actually meant what he said, maybe we should also believe it. And live it. Maybe we can change the world.

[Sorry, I usually try to keep these meditations to about 200 words. This one is like a sermon. I just had to figure out my logic. Based on 50+ years of study, this is as succinct as I can think today. I wish you all a happy Easter.]

Posted in Christianity, Faith, Thinking | Leave a Comment »

I Haven’t Learned That Yet

January 23, 2025

I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet: Discovering New Ways of Living When the Old Ways Stop Working, by Shauna Niequist.

How does one deal with the crash and burn of a famous father’s career (dragging down theirs)j along with the body beginning to act in strange and mysterious ways? Add a physical move to a completely different environment and way of life.

Shauna Niequist (NEE-kwist) blends fifty vignettes into a book that explores how she coped with the grief of sudden upheaval of life.

This is an excellent book club read for those groups not too timid to discuss dealing with painful real life.

Maybe you or someone you know currently deals with some shock of life and the resultant emotions and physical reactions. Don’t offer advice or ignore them. Buy this book and simply hand it to them. It would be like giving them a friend to walk along with them on the journey.

But the writing contains neither hopeless nor despair.

Oh, how do you deal with it? One day at a time. Seek out some joy—walking, cooking, gathering with friends over food and wine and conversation. Find a good therapist. In a weird way, it’s a celebration of life over pain.

Posted in Compassion, Faith, Friends, Living | Leave a Comment »

True Religion

October 25, 2024

But true religion, or a heart right toward God and man, implies happiness as well as holiness.—John Wesley.

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What is Faith?

October 17, 2024

It is not a speculative, rational thing, a cold, lifeless assent, a train of ideas in the head; but also a disposition of the heart.

Somewhere a person exists who lives almost totally within the mind. Religion is a set of rules. Politics is a set of opinions. Other people either agree with their ideas or they are lost, ignorant, disregarded.

We probably know one of these people. Most likely more than one. And I’m not talking about on TV. Maybe they exist in your local church or pub or fitness center.

The quote that provoked my reflection is from John Wesley. I think he is reflecting the life and teachings of Jesus when he says that it’s all about a disposition of the heart.

How is our (my) heart disposed today? How can we better reflect the heart Jesus sought to instill in us? What am I going to do today to reflect life rather than “lifeless assent”?

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Wesley on Faith and Good Works

October 10, 2024

John Wesley pondered in one of his sermons, “The first usual objection to this is, that to preach salvation or justification, by faith only, is to preach against holiness and good works. To which a short answer might be given: ‘It would be so, if we spake, as some do, of a faith which was separate from these; but we speak of a faith which is not so, but productive of all good works, and all holiness.’ “

Paul the Apostle tried to express thoughts like this in various letters—that after faith a follower just naturally acts with service and mutual submission.

James the Apostle and half-brother of Jesus (or step-brother, or whatever your theology), not one to beat around the bush, flatly stated that faith without works is dead.

Jesus talked of his followers producing good fruit.

Faith produces good works and holiness. What fruit are you producing?

Posted in Faith, Service | Leave a Comment »

Dogma or Experience?

August 9, 2024

The church became officially recognized in the early 300s. By 330 CE, it had a creed, an official book of scripture, and evidently had developed rituals.

It was not much later that groups of men and women trekked into the desert wildernesses of Syria and Egypt searching for an alternative to the Church’s reliance on dogma and doctrinal orthodoxy as the means to understanding the depths of God.

These searchers gathered in small groups or went out to a cave alone to meditate and look for God’s presence.

This tradition has continued even until today. Perhaps the rock’n’roll mega churches were a bit of reaction to formal ritual and dogma. But each group develops its own ritual and dogma.

Many are not satisfied with either. We search for a deeper understanding of God. When Jesus spoke of different types of people, the Greek translation of his Aramaic was makarios. But it means more than “blessed” or “happy.” Its deeper meaning refers to a deep relationship with God. It is not a superficial “you will be happy” sort of thing.

If dogma soothes your soul, so be it. That should not be criticized. Some of us long for a deeper spiritual experience of God that can be translated to outer service in pursuit of peace, justice, healing.

Posted in Faith, Meditation, Service | Leave a Comment »

Healthy Faith

May 10, 2024

I picked up these thoughts from Arthur C. Brooks, who wrote Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier with Oprah Winfrey. He is a devout Catholic and is a friend of the Dalai Lama. After his recent visit, he jotted some notes from their conversation. He says it better than I could.Try living these, not as a checklist but incorporated as a fundamental way of life. Maybe I’ll write these on a PostIt note and put it on my desk as a reminder when I begin my day.

Healthy faith builds on seven truths:

All people are our family;
Life demands gratitude;
Love repays love;
We are made for empathy;
Love is action, not a feeling;
That action is compassion.
Life’s purpose is to uplift and unite others.

Become a teacher of love. Your classroom is every interaction. Teach through action.

Posted in Faith, Living | Leave a Comment »

Good Friday to Easter-A Journey

March 29, 2024

It is probably a character flaw.

I wrote that sentence this morning. I could not concentrate. Then we left for lunch. I have no idea where I was going, since I have so many of those “flaw” things.

I know I was contemplating the death of Jesus.

And how some people apply layers of theological thinking to the event.

And how some people enjoy (?) wallowing in the gory details of how a person dies during a crucifixion.

And how some people avoid those negative scenes.

Then, only the shift in time from Friday to Sunday.

They knew he had died and been buried. But he was missing. Then he appeared and talked with a couple. Then more. Then lots more. Later (we don’t really know how long) he cooked breakfast on the shore of the lake.

Once again, there are those who overlay many layers of theology on the meaning of the events.

But there were too many witnesses to be ignored. And the story spread faster than any lie (well, today thanks to social media, lies spread instantaneously, but they didn’t have X back then). Within a decade thousands of people found their spiritual searching fulfilled in the person of the Jesus who came back to life.

You can involve yourself in a multiplicity of theological disputes. Or, you can simply say, “I’d like to live with that guy who died and came back to life.” It’s called following Jesus and living with-God every day.

Posted in Attitude, Christianity, Faith | Leave a Comment »

I Am With You

September 12, 2023

Haggai, the prophet, wrote that God said, “I am with you.”

Jesus told his followers at the end of his ministry, “I will be with you.”

What does that mean?

Is it more than a feeling (sounds like a 60s love song)?

Jon Swanson asked once when Jesus asks you to follow him, what would you pack? Great question.

So, I packed to follow Jesus, because he is with me.

Literally? (OK, you Biblical literalists, hit me with that.)

Do I just think he is with me?

Do I believe that he is right here in the room with me? Do I see him? Hear him? Smell him?

Maybe I feel his presence in a way that cannot really be described in prose. It is more than a feeling. Yet, it is not a physical presence. I think they have hospitals for people who say they can see, touch and smell Jesus or God right now.

These meandering thoughts remind me of a Jesus movement song from a long time ago–love is something you do, not always something that you feel, but it’s real.

Yeah, that’s it.

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