Hopeful Thinking

Sunday Message: The Saturation Point What is it that really makes a difference in the world? What is it that changes something from an impossible situation to a perfect one? What is it that takes a few small, scattered rainstorms and coheses them together into a perfect storm? Does that one small updraft of air at just the right temperature and just the right amount of moisture in just the right location know that it will be the final ingredient of a super storm of incalculable power of both destruction as well as transformation? How could that little puff of warm moist air know its real destiny? It doesn’t know what it doesn’t know. But it knows that it desires something. It knows that, like everything in the universe, it seeks equilibrium with its surroundings. Equality. Equanimity. Balance. We love to say that ‘one person can make a difference’ even though we never think we will actually be that one person. Is that something that we choose, or are we chosen? We usually thi...

This is a message for the full spectrum of control freaks out there. You know who you are. There are many variations and degrees to the need for control. Some are more healthy than others. We all like to have at least some control over our lives. That’s natural. But do stay on the lookout for when it begins to disrupt your happiness. Even if you’re used to it. If you begin to observe that your desire to be in control of everything is taking up too much of your time and joy every day, that’s a worthy observation to make. Good for you. Now be careful of how you go about soothing that. Attacking a control fetish head-on will never work. This is a part of our psyche that likes to stay broken. One needs to be a bit crafty. I had a friend in seminary who used to laugh and say, “God’s got jokes. He sure does got jokes.” He meant that whenever we try to make a plan, only God knows what’s really going to happen. My friend evoked an image of a deity looking down from a porthole in the sky...

Something special happens in our brains when we face the light. Among other things, we get happier. When we give ourselves twenty minutes of sunlight in the morning it resets our body clocks, it improves our mood and increases our activity levels. It produces vitamin D as well. Many know these things already. What do we do with that knowledge? Typically nothing. But let’s say your psychiatrist has told you that you need a slight mood stabilizer. The prescription she offers you is a choice between either a pill or a practice. You can either take a chemical with side effects and a co-payment, or you can get into the daily habit of twenty minutes of sunlight and short walk. Which would you choose? Even a few seconds every now and then of just turning your face toward any light source at all will incrementally change you from within. Whether it’s the sun, a light bulb, or even a candle. There’s a prayer in this. It’s a prayer to feel better. There is another, more metaphorical sou...

The “Ultimate Reality” is my favorite term for, among other things, the force which many refer to as “God.” To me, these two words together are a statement which says, “Whatever God really is (or isn’t), that’s It. I accept reality for whatever it ultimately is.” The term also acknowledges the possibility there is no God as well. Any truly unifying thought should have room for everyone on it. There are many who feel that their beliefs about the Ultimate Reality are the correct ones. Some are curious about the beliefs of others, some utterly reject all opposing thought and its thinkers wholesale. But everyone has their own opinion about how reality truly functions. Who is to say for certain we don’t just become dust in the end with no purpose? Who is to say that we don’t participate in an eternal cycle of reincarnation? Who is to say that either Heaven or Hell exists? Many of us believe. None of us knows. And once we find out, it’s pretty difficult to report back in a way that allo...

It seems nearly every social group has a way of marginalizing each other. People are made to feel as if they don’t have a right to exist, much less belong. There is so much fear of one another in the world. We are forever glancing over our shoulders. Yet we must acknowledge we have been manipulated to feel this way. It is not natural to us. It is natural to recognize difference, of course, but not fear it. The system of all life is designed to flourish in the presence of diversity. Just ask a gene pool. Some are told where to stand on an issue, some are told where to sit on the bus. We are all told whom to fear, and why. There is no group immune to this experience. The elite, too, fall victim to their own propaganda even when they know they wrote the narrative themselves. To them, the lie becomes more real each time it is told. The trick to standing up to this oppression is to recognize it for what it is. And then calmly not stand for it. A peaceful protest is not fought on ...