1) I am glad that Moses is granted such a panorama of the Promised Land. I find it heartbreaking that the is unable to enter the land. It reminds me a bit of the universal tour that God gives Job as part of his response to Job’s complaint.
2) Moses is buried there on the other side of the Jordan. The secret burial makes it difficult to create a shrine of his burial spot.
3) He is accorded proper mourning, but the people then start to move on. This could be a good place to discuss mourning rituals and how a ritual period puts a boundary around open-ended grief.
4) He gets a well-deserved coda at the the end of Torah’s five books. What would you like to be said about you? Who were the greatest public figures in your life? part of our envy of the great is that not only will we not measure up to them, but we will not fulfill even our own personal expectations.
5) the secret burial led later to a tradition that he was indeed assumed into heaven (see Jude) . Also the prophet like Moses would be a base for messianic expectations in some circles.
6) Moses dies with his great task unfinished. Do you have a bucket list? What pieces are accomplished? what will bother you if you don;t accomplish some of your goals/ Do you have unfinished emotional business? even if we do accomplish our goals, is that enough for the ravening maw of human covetousness?
7) Moses’s death has hints that it will be for the benefit of all the people (Ex. 4:21, 3 26, 1:37)
Friday, October 14, 2011
Oct. 16 devotions
Sunday Oct 16-Ps. 90 is one of the great psalms of the church. Few look so directly at the transience of life. It stands in humility at a human life span in the face of the Eternal One for whom a day is like a thousand years for us.yet, the Eternal One hears our complaints and cares for us even across the distance of dimension and eternity. No matter our age, life is fragile and precious. let’s live like we recognize that signal fact.
Monday-School starts again, or the job grind starts again. My cousin just wrote me saying that she has had a difficult time knowing how to manage time during her retirement and has gone in for more of a schedule than she thought she would. Otherwise, free time was starting to fell like a burden. I often refer to monks who will pray for hours, often by meditating on a small passage of Scripture. We rush through so much of life. I can think of few things to give time dimension and meaning more than prayer and spending quality and quantity of time with the bible.
Tuesday-Should the church market itself? One the one hand, did not Jesus say follow me? On the on the other hand, as Jesus said, come and see. If advertising helps people to come and see our particular outpost of the faith, then is that an issue? Still, the church is about the truth, and does advertising seek to obscure the truth to make a product more attractive? Is faith to be equated with just another product? Does the fiath need ot be communicated in ways appropriate to this new century?
Wednesday-we worked with Romans 7 last week, one of the deep forays into the human psyche in Scripture. Instead of seeing sin as a mistake or a deliberate choice, it sees us as in constant battle in being in its thrall, so that our moral attitudes and actions are hopelessly mired in confusion. Paul calls that being mired in the path of spiritual death. As the baptized we are constantly called to the clarity of the spirit of life to extricate us from our predicament.
Thursday-I was reminded that Israel had immense self-confidence in their faith, so that they were able to take prayers from other religions and adapt them as their own. We can learn from that. Instead of walling ourselves off from other faith traditions, we too could look at prayers, often beautiful ones, and adapt them for Christian worship, toward beauty and truth.
Friday-I was reminded today that some things that we do that seem designed to annoy others are personality traits. Extroverts tend to think out loud, and that drives some people crazy. Introverts take a lot of time to process and mull over a decision within, and that drives the quicker extroverts nuts. Together we make a healthy relationship, often by burnishing the rough edges or excesses from each personality type. Maturation may well be finding balance in our own personality and learning tolerance for the imbalances in those of others.
Saturday-we have such conflicting notions toward change. Part of me thinks change is usually for the worst, as it always has unforeseen negative consequences, or change has to be embraced, otherwise we make no forward progress. Change makes me feel defensive, if it is not my idea. If my idea, then my feelings get hurt if it is not embraced. We live in constant tension between tradition and change. Where do you prize both?
Monday-School starts again, or the job grind starts again. My cousin just wrote me saying that she has had a difficult time knowing how to manage time during her retirement and has gone in for more of a schedule than she thought she would. Otherwise, free time was starting to fell like a burden. I often refer to monks who will pray for hours, often by meditating on a small passage of Scripture. We rush through so much of life. I can think of few things to give time dimension and meaning more than prayer and spending quality and quantity of time with the bible.
Tuesday-Should the church market itself? One the one hand, did not Jesus say follow me? On the on the other hand, as Jesus said, come and see. If advertising helps people to come and see our particular outpost of the faith, then is that an issue? Still, the church is about the truth, and does advertising seek to obscure the truth to make a product more attractive? Is faith to be equated with just another product? Does the fiath need ot be communicated in ways appropriate to this new century?
Wednesday-we worked with Romans 7 last week, one of the deep forays into the human psyche in Scripture. Instead of seeing sin as a mistake or a deliberate choice, it sees us as in constant battle in being in its thrall, so that our moral attitudes and actions are hopelessly mired in confusion. Paul calls that being mired in the path of spiritual death. As the baptized we are constantly called to the clarity of the spirit of life to extricate us from our predicament.
Thursday-I was reminded that Israel had immense self-confidence in their faith, so that they were able to take prayers from other religions and adapt them as their own. We can learn from that. Instead of walling ourselves off from other faith traditions, we too could look at prayers, often beautiful ones, and adapt them for Christian worship, toward beauty and truth.
Friday-I was reminded today that some things that we do that seem designed to annoy others are personality traits. Extroverts tend to think out loud, and that drives some people crazy. Introverts take a lot of time to process and mull over a decision within, and that drives the quicker extroverts nuts. Together we make a healthy relationship, often by burnishing the rough edges or excesses from each personality type. Maturation may well be finding balance in our own personality and learning tolerance for the imbalances in those of others.
Saturday-we have such conflicting notions toward change. Part of me thinks change is usually for the worst, as it always has unforeseen negative consequences, or change has to be embraced, otherwise we make no forward progress. Change makes me feel defensive, if it is not my idea. If my idea, then my feelings get hurt if it is not embraced. We live in constant tension between tradition and change. Where do you prize both?
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Preliminary Notes mt. 22:15-22, ex. 33:12-23
God realizes that we are overwhelmed by the sheer force of divinity. Part of god’s work in creation is the making of space for us to live, love, work and grow, without coercion.God shields Moses. God is furious and has tempted Moses with becoming the progenitor of a whole new people. Moses wants assurance that God will not be just with him but with all the people, not an angel, no no the presence of god t guide and stay and protect.
Moses as political leader-Moses has offered his very life to try to protect the people from the consequences o their betrayal of the command against idolatry. In the next chapter god’s character is announced slow to nager, merciful, gracious, extending steadfast love. that is god. That is the god of the Old and the New Testaments. This ineffable god, invisible, not to be picutred, allows Moses to catch sight of his glory.
Jesus himself is an extension of this gift to Moses, except that he is the tabernacle of the living god but liiving as a human being, so that we could draw close without being consumed like the Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Render to Caesar, a clever riposte is probably not a good place to start to build a political theology A friend of mine just used this passage n a stewardship campaign in arguing that we should render lots to the things of god, in his view, the church budget. OK in an ultimate sense the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, but as Paul himself reminds us governments are part of a subsidiary order that reflects a way of ordering human life in the chaos.(BOO and Conf?) I suppose our politics he become so debased that we need to say that Jesus is not forbidding the payment of taxes, and he lived under Roman oppression, not in a representative democracy. I would like to make it a biblical defense of separation of church and state, but I do not think it is fair to the text itself. As Paul said, we live in two overlapping worlds, our political arrangements of citizenship, but our dual citizenship is also in heaven. We hope that we have stable, secure free space to help decide political matters. Jesus’s clever riposte does not provide us with much a a working definition of how to divide what each inter-lapping realm may require. the way of god is not a forced march. many different paths can get us to the destination God wishes. some are precluded, of course, some preferred, perhaps, but god does not treat us as children. Adults have moral autonomy. God gives us the infinite compliment of thinking we are mature enough to make good moral decisions.
In Genesis, we are told we are made, all of us, in the image and likeness of God. Whose image on us-god’s in baptism, sign of the cross, the mark of god, 777. We give ourselves away to the world of Caesar for god. God is as near as every breath, but god won’t smother us. God does not countenance being used in a game of gothca either. At times, god will show us a way when we are in desperate need. Most of the time, god gives us the gift of space and room to work out our decisions on our own. Surely that can be done in prayerful discernment, using all of the intellectual and spiritual tools at our disposal, but the Spirit is more a a whisper than a commanding shout most of the time.God
Moses as political leader-Moses has offered his very life to try to protect the people from the consequences o their betrayal of the command against idolatry. In the next chapter god’s character is announced slow to nager, merciful, gracious, extending steadfast love. that is god. That is the god of the Old and the New Testaments. This ineffable god, invisible, not to be picutred, allows Moses to catch sight of his glory.
Jesus himself is an extension of this gift to Moses, except that he is the tabernacle of the living god but liiving as a human being, so that we could draw close without being consumed like the Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Render to Caesar, a clever riposte is probably not a good place to start to build a political theology A friend of mine just used this passage n a stewardship campaign in arguing that we should render lots to the things of god, in his view, the church budget. OK in an ultimate sense the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, but as Paul himself reminds us governments are part of a subsidiary order that reflects a way of ordering human life in the chaos.(BOO and Conf?) I suppose our politics he become so debased that we need to say that Jesus is not forbidding the payment of taxes, and he lived under Roman oppression, not in a representative democracy. I would like to make it a biblical defense of separation of church and state, but I do not think it is fair to the text itself. As Paul said, we live in two overlapping worlds, our political arrangements of citizenship, but our dual citizenship is also in heaven. We hope that we have stable, secure free space to help decide political matters. Jesus’s clever riposte does not provide us with much a a working definition of how to divide what each inter-lapping realm may require. the way of god is not a forced march. many different paths can get us to the destination God wishes. some are precluded, of course, some preferred, perhaps, but god does not treat us as children. Adults have moral autonomy. God gives us the infinite compliment of thinking we are mature enough to make good moral decisions.
In Genesis, we are told we are made, all of us, in the image and likeness of God. Whose image on us-god’s in baptism, sign of the cross, the mark of god, 777. We give ourselves away to the world of Caesar for god. God is as near as every breath, but god won’t smother us. God does not countenance being used in a game of gothca either. At times, god will show us a way when we are in desperate need. Most of the time, god gives us the gift of space and room to work out our decisions on our own. Surely that can be done in prayerful discernment, using all of the intellectual and spiritual tools at our disposal, but the Spirit is more a a whisper than a commanding shout most of the time.God
Saturday, October 8, 2011
M'Lady Gwenhwfir's Notes on Mt. 22:15-22
1) Since the Pharisees intend to entrap, it is ironic that they tell the truth in their flattery.What is the impact of bringing in Herodians?
2)See the recent Chr. Century for a nice piece on linking the image on the coin with the image of god on us/in us in baptism-also the word, character has the sense of being stamped, like a coin.
3)The loathsome task would be the daily minimum wage, so about &55.This was a flashpoint in Israel, as it was a tax to the occupying forces of Rome.Notice that the word for the tax, a census, is a big issue in the history of Israel as a problem, as it often led to corvee labor, thus enslaving the former slaves.
4) Even though this has it locus on taxation, one should be careful to make it a blank screen upon which we can project our views of contemporary taxation as a way to wave a political flag that merely uses the text as a launching pad.
5)hypocrite has a sense of being an actor with a classical mask, as in its root actor, dissembler/role player.that could be a good place to focus. See Thomas Long sermon, something like 2 and 1/2 cheers for hypocrites
6) One may want to notice that Jesus does not produce a coin, for rhetorical effect or out of poverty, but the critics have one at the ready. (Was its possession unclean?)
7)The image was probably idolatrous and called the emperor son of the divine Augustus, note that calling Jesus Savior, Son of God and other titles held by the emperor would place Christians into conflict with roman civic allegiance.
8) One way to read the riposte is to see that god's sovereign prerogatives do give some room to the state. (One could examine the word what belongs to Caesar some attention, perhaps). One needs ot be careful not to make this a plea for American separation of church and state, but one could link it to Paul's view of the state in Rom. 13.
9) It is a pt. that echoes through the centuries what are the things that are god's to be given/ When one consider the psalm, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, we run directly into a claim for our lives in their entirety, so our easy compartments fail to close against the claim.
10) Jesus does disappoint those looking for him to urge nothing to be given the sate, perhaps. This is a good example of Jesus not playing traditional power politics but transforming politics, to make the world more human/human a la the ethicist Paul Lehman in the Transformation of Politics (1975, I think)
11) Thoreau in Civ. Disobedience famously said that Jesus left his questioners none the wiser as to the tax issue as to a method of determination.
11)
2)See the recent Chr. Century for a nice piece on linking the image on the coin with the image of god on us/in us in baptism-also the word, character has the sense of being stamped, like a coin.
3)The loathsome task would be the daily minimum wage, so about &55.This was a flashpoint in Israel, as it was a tax to the occupying forces of Rome.Notice that the word for the tax, a census, is a big issue in the history of Israel as a problem, as it often led to corvee labor, thus enslaving the former slaves.
4) Even though this has it locus on taxation, one should be careful to make it a blank screen upon which we can project our views of contemporary taxation as a way to wave a political flag that merely uses the text as a launching pad.
5)hypocrite has a sense of being an actor with a classical mask, as in its root actor, dissembler/role player.that could be a good place to focus. See Thomas Long sermon, something like 2 and 1/2 cheers for hypocrites
6) One may want to notice that Jesus does not produce a coin, for rhetorical effect or out of poverty, but the critics have one at the ready. (Was its possession unclean?)
7)The image was probably idolatrous and called the emperor son of the divine Augustus, note that calling Jesus Savior, Son of God and other titles held by the emperor would place Christians into conflict with roman civic allegiance.
8) One way to read the riposte is to see that god's sovereign prerogatives do give some room to the state. (One could examine the word what belongs to Caesar some attention, perhaps). One needs ot be careful not to make this a plea for American separation of church and state, but one could link it to Paul's view of the state in Rom. 13.
9) It is a pt. that echoes through the centuries what are the things that are god's to be given/ When one consider the psalm, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, we run directly into a claim for our lives in their entirety, so our easy compartments fail to close against the claim.
10) Jesus does disappoint those looking for him to urge nothing to be given the sate, perhaps. This is a good example of Jesus not playing traditional power politics but transforming politics, to make the world more human/human a la the ethicist Paul Lehman in the Transformation of Politics (1975, I think)
11) Thoreau in Civ. Disobedience famously said that Jesus left his questioners none the wiser as to the tax issue as to a method of determination.
11)
Friday, October 7, 2011
Notes for Ex. 33 reading on Oct 16
1)After the Golden Calf, god is furious. OK an angel will go with you, but not my presence. God almost seems to be giving some breathing space to cool off.
2) Moses seizes on this, as at the bush he was promised that god would be with him. I guess an angle was insufficient for Moses. This bold intercession harkens back to Abraham.
3) the emphasis on grace and mercy are a prelude ot the great summation of divine character in the next chapter.
4) I honestly cannot decide, at least today, if God’s holiness/grandeur/glory, in general, would kill Moses, or if this is contingent on the betrayal of the golden calf episode. At any rate, I love how God gives as much to Moses as possible. I will not speculate on the backside of God point, but I will say that perhaps it means god hides the divine face from the wrong we do. After all, it is the goodness of God that passes by Moses. It is God shielding Moses. (Is this perhaps the spot for elijah and te still small voice?
5) Moses has called on God to remember the divine purpose of Ex. 19 to make a special holy people, a kingdom of priests. this is an excellent counter to God having called Israel your people to Moses, and Moses is buttressing the contention that they are still the people of god, even though the betrayal was explicit and deep.
6) Moses is a mediator for the people par excellence. In a desperate move, he relies soley on his relationship from the bush episode to call on the gracious side of God.
2) Moses seizes on this, as at the bush he was promised that god would be with him. I guess an angle was insufficient for Moses. This bold intercession harkens back to Abraham.
3) the emphasis on grace and mercy are a prelude ot the great summation of divine character in the next chapter.
4) I honestly cannot decide, at least today, if God’s holiness/grandeur/glory, in general, would kill Moses, or if this is contingent on the betrayal of the golden calf episode. At any rate, I love how God gives as much to Moses as possible. I will not speculate on the backside of God point, but I will say that perhaps it means god hides the divine face from the wrong we do. After all, it is the goodness of God that passes by Moses. It is God shielding Moses. (Is this perhaps the spot for elijah and te still small voice?
5) Moses has called on God to remember the divine purpose of Ex. 19 to make a special holy people, a kingdom of priests. this is an excellent counter to God having called Israel your people to Moses, and Moses is buttressing the contention that they are still the people of god, even though the betrayal was explicit and deep.
6) Moses is a mediator for the people par excellence. In a desperate move, he relies soley on his relationship from the bush episode to call on the gracious side of God.
Column on student debt for Alton Telegraph on line
I pray the Lord’s Prayer daily. As a Presbyterian, we use the Matthew version of the prayer, so one of the petitions is “forgive us our debts, s we forgive our debtors.” Usually we spiritualize or at least apply this to emotional wounds. Still, the word was deliberately chosen, as it is different than the word Luke chose in the shorter version of the prayer. Debt is a financial term. It is directed toward people who were often facing crushing debt burdens. perhaps the few who were owed large sums heard it and responded.
I ask readers to consider if we should apply the words of the Lord’s Prayer to the issue of debt in our country. In particular, how should we respond to the crushing debt young people carry in order to carry on their educations. This applies to public institutions as well as private ones. When I was a student in the late Dark Ages, the state provided more than one half of the funding for the University of Maryland. That figure, has dropped to less than one fifth. The burden is left on the student.People may look with nostalgia at a time when one could work through college, the enormous basic costs of present could only permit that memory to live if a student took ages to finally finish a degree.
Many of the high debt costs are due to interest rates at the time of the time in college.Even bankruptcy does not forgive the loans. These loans are large and crushing. Soon, the amount of college loans will exceed our unconscionable credit card debt, as we move inexorably past the trillion dollar mark. I do appreciate the idea of the moral value in paying one’s bills. Still, the Constitution recognizes bankruptcy protection to get a fresh start. ((Remember we still had debtors prisons for the bankrupt).
I would ask us to consider easing the burden of college loans by collectively sharing them. We could consider pushing for a law to ease, if not forgive, the debts of students.
After all, we have forgiven the debts of foreign nations, often corrupt ones. In the developing economy, college seems to be a necessity for many positions. For people going into graduate or professional school, the numbers reach dizzying, if not nauseating heights. Even with scholarships. a good liberal arts college may well require 1000,000 dollars from the student for four years. I know of precious few part-time jobs that can generate that sort of income.
It is obvious that we need to get more money circulating in this sluggish economy. A large part of the income of younger people is shifted directly into college loan payments. In part, young people have to put their independent lives on hold as they cannot afford a decent apartment or even considering saving for a home, as a large percentage of their income pays student loans.
The American Dream will continue on the wings of education, but it is impeded if we place the burden on the backs of young people. Instead of speaking of future debt burdens due to our share in the budget deficits, we could act decisively and for the current crisis in helping out people being squeezed by a system over which they have no control.
The usual word for forgive in the Greek New Testament is aphiemi, literally not to hold on to, or to let go, release. Student loan forgiveness, or even partial release could help energize this economy for the young. Socially, we know that education is still the ladder for personal achievement in this country, as generation after generation has shown. We cannot shackle the dreams of this generation to the sinking weight of student loans.
I ask readers to consider if we should apply the words of the Lord’s Prayer to the issue of debt in our country. In particular, how should we respond to the crushing debt young people carry in order to carry on their educations. This applies to public institutions as well as private ones. When I was a student in the late Dark Ages, the state provided more than one half of the funding for the University of Maryland. That figure, has dropped to less than one fifth. The burden is left on the student.People may look with nostalgia at a time when one could work through college, the enormous basic costs of present could only permit that memory to live if a student took ages to finally finish a degree.
Many of the high debt costs are due to interest rates at the time of the time in college.Even bankruptcy does not forgive the loans. These loans are large and crushing. Soon, the amount of college loans will exceed our unconscionable credit card debt, as we move inexorably past the trillion dollar mark. I do appreciate the idea of the moral value in paying one’s bills. Still, the Constitution recognizes bankruptcy protection to get a fresh start. ((Remember we still had debtors prisons for the bankrupt).
I would ask us to consider easing the burden of college loans by collectively sharing them. We could consider pushing for a law to ease, if not forgive, the debts of students.
After all, we have forgiven the debts of foreign nations, often corrupt ones. In the developing economy, college seems to be a necessity for many positions. For people going into graduate or professional school, the numbers reach dizzying, if not nauseating heights. Even with scholarships. a good liberal arts college may well require 1000,000 dollars from the student for four years. I know of precious few part-time jobs that can generate that sort of income.
It is obvious that we need to get more money circulating in this sluggish economy. A large part of the income of younger people is shifted directly into college loan payments. In part, young people have to put their independent lives on hold as they cannot afford a decent apartment or even considering saving for a home, as a large percentage of their income pays student loans.
The American Dream will continue on the wings of education, but it is impeded if we place the burden on the backs of young people. Instead of speaking of future debt burdens due to our share in the budget deficits, we could act decisively and for the current crisis in helping out people being squeezed by a system over which they have no control.
The usual word for forgive in the Greek New Testament is aphiemi, literally not to hold on to, or to let go, release. Student loan forgiveness, or even partial release could help energize this economy for the young. Socially, we know that education is still the ladder for personal achievement in this country, as generation after generation has shown. We cannot shackle the dreams of this generation to the sinking weight of student loans.
Sermon notes 10/9 Ex. 32, Phil 4:1-9
Idolatry’s impetus comes from fear and anxiety.It is the answer to the question is go with us or not? That was left hanging in the reading 2 Sundays ago at Massah and Meribah. Now it appears that the people have already made an idol of Moses and grow anxious when he is gone for a while. Like teenagers, they decide to throw a party with daddy out of town. Idolatry is not limited to the adoration of an image. We have extended it to even making a priority in life of Church and culture, as we will soon hear in the affirmation of faith. . It was a feast to god but to try to capture the essence of the liberating god in a human enclosure is part of the point.I’ve always liked the expression that Presbyterians worship a big or large God.The reformed tradition has always seen idolatry as a most dangerous sin, partly as Calvin said, the human mind is a factory of idols. We are constantly at work creating substitutes for god, ways of replacing god with a smaller more malleable god. Is it beyond our capacity to try to capture the ineffable One in something we make? Is it another bite from the apple of the garden? With Adam and Eve human nature seems to want to be like a god.
Positive psychology can be an aid against false gods-it distracts the idol-making of our minds
positive psychology is demonstrated in helping in a crisis, in helping keep us resilience and flexible, instead of rigid and inflexible, therefore vulnerable to all of the twists and turns of life.
What we feed our minds does have a decided impact on a sense of well-being. I am not saying that we have discovered a panacea, but we do know more about the effects of mental stimulus than we once did. Let’s go at it from another angle. Those of us who deal with depression find that their thought patterns are altered due to the condition. When most people would shrug off a small issue, depressives will blow it out of proportion. Depressives see themselves as a cause of poor behavior in others and then beat themselves up for it. Depressives overgeneralize. Instead of seeing incidents as discrete, we will tend to put them in a pattern and mutter, why does that always happen to me; I never get things right. If we recognize our unhealthy thought patterns, recognize that depressive episodes are unconnected to events in our lives, then we have a tool that helps minimize the episodes when they do occur.
On the other hand, building up a stock of the material Paul urges does help mold virtues such as resilience. Dr Cam Meredith of this church spent a lot of time in his take on Adlerian ego psychology as trying to find the ways we can encourage the self to discover options and resources to deal with life’s difficulties. Paul emphasizes the word, excellence, quality, virtue, arete, in Greek. The word lovely would be closer to winsome, calls forth love, to see them is to love them, their kindness or benevolence evokes it in others--things fit to say and hear gracious/high-toned words--honorable/worthy/venerable/honorable/revered/dignified as in kabod/gravitas.
Years ago, I came across a study by Michael Robinson of videomalaise. High news watchers were more down on the country in than low news watchers. Alienated people say good things about a local official , but they know the country is going downhill fast. We use religious motivation to say that the world is going downhill. We do well to match every complaint with signs of hope and good. Religious commitments are screened our glasses.Will they look like Paul’s here this morning or glasses where everything looks gray, somber and in decline?
Positive psychology can be an aid against false gods-it distracts the idol-making of our minds
positive psychology is demonstrated in helping in a crisis, in helping keep us resilience and flexible, instead of rigid and inflexible, therefore vulnerable to all of the twists and turns of life.
What we feed our minds does have a decided impact on a sense of well-being. I am not saying that we have discovered a panacea, but we do know more about the effects of mental stimulus than we once did. Let’s go at it from another angle. Those of us who deal with depression find that their thought patterns are altered due to the condition. When most people would shrug off a small issue, depressives will blow it out of proportion. Depressives see themselves as a cause of poor behavior in others and then beat themselves up for it. Depressives overgeneralize. Instead of seeing incidents as discrete, we will tend to put them in a pattern and mutter, why does that always happen to me; I never get things right. If we recognize our unhealthy thought patterns, recognize that depressive episodes are unconnected to events in our lives, then we have a tool that helps minimize the episodes when they do occur.
On the other hand, building up a stock of the material Paul urges does help mold virtues such as resilience. Dr Cam Meredith of this church spent a lot of time in his take on Adlerian ego psychology as trying to find the ways we can encourage the self to discover options and resources to deal with life’s difficulties. Paul emphasizes the word, excellence, quality, virtue, arete, in Greek. The word lovely would be closer to winsome, calls forth love, to see them is to love them, their kindness or benevolence evokes it in others--things fit to say and hear gracious/high-toned words--honorable/worthy/venerable/honorable/revered/dignified as in kabod/gravitas.
Years ago, I came across a study by Michael Robinson of videomalaise. High news watchers were more down on the country in than low news watchers. Alienated people say good things about a local official , but they know the country is going downhill fast. We use religious motivation to say that the world is going downhill. We do well to match every complaint with signs of hope and good. Religious commitments are screened our glasses.Will they look like Paul’s here this morning or glasses where everything looks gray, somber and in decline?
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