We endured the 20+ hours it took to get home from our wonderful trip. Then we walked in the door. A big fat snow storm. A frozen pipe oozing water down the back wall and creating nasty ice sculpture. An innovative toilet not functioning and bilge puddling from between the basement tiles. Trash and mail piled up. And, of course, there was the love-starved cat.
Once we returned, the cat stuck to us like glue all night and day. So I thought she was sticking when I took out the trash. But she darted out the door and into the frigid night and falling snow unbeknownst to me. I suppose I was less careful since, “What cat would go out in a blizzard?” We were cuddled up in our blankets for a long time until we noticed there was no longer a cat on top of us.
I guess you don’t know how much you need to trust God until you need to. We were beside ourselves. We love the cat almost as much as she loves us. We looked through every nook and cranny of our new, little house and could not find her. She had fooled us before, so we waited for her to appear from out of nowhere. Then we looked outside. Then we tried to go to sleep and wait for her to come out. I said, “We’ll just have to give her to God.” I admit I was not completely satisfied with that prayer. But where else can you go when you have nowhere else to go?
The angel
I tried to go to sleep but it did not work out. So I got up to do some more post-trip sorting out. About 2am, while I was typing, I heard someone shout at me from our back alley, which had never happened before. It looked like our neighbor, so I went out in the falling snow in my robe. “I’m looking for your cat,” he said. I had texted his roommate and everyone else in range, to sound the alarm. He went on to say, “I’m kind of the neighborhood ‘cat shepherd’ and I don’t want to lose another one.”
So we all started looking as the snow poured down – all around our block, under cars, behind bushes. Nothing. I went back to our porch to start over for the umpteenth time and I heard a cat. It was ours. She was settled into a cat shelter the neighbor had made out of a storage container. He was overjoyed and began to cry and admitted he was a little drunk.
So when I gave the cat to God, did that result in the arrival of a drunk angel to connect me with my beloved? My answer is “Yes.” You decide for yourself. You decide if it was right for me to feel like I was George on the bridge meeting the semi-competent Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life.
Angels in any condition are needed
The whole experience made me think we’d all better become adept at turning to God when we are desperate. Troubling times keep troubling up, after all.
A woman in Northeast Philly captured the moment on her security camera when she was walking her dog and her neighbor unwittingly unleashed three pit bulls from his house. They attacked her dog and bit her mercilessly. I don’t know whether she called Top Dog to save her (link in case you don’t live in Philly). But even if she did, she’ll need deeper healing and help than any lawyer can provide.
When Liam Arias and his father, Adrian were whisked out of Minnesota and locked up in Dilly, Texas, all sorts of angels appeared. Representative Juan Castro personally escorted them home when a judge ruled against the “perfidious” power-grabbing ICE keeps acting out. Having met a few refugees, I can tell you they have to trust God because they have so little hope.
Every day in this terrible time the cat is out in the snow, the dogs are out of their cages and armed men might appear in the neighborhood without a moment’s notice. Most of us are desperate enough to ask for help. Let’s start there with trust, not just end up there when there is nowhere else to go.
You may not believe God will help you or believe God is with you even if there is no hope for you. But it is still true: Jesus will be there and is there. Before I was even able to wonder why I was doing it, my Sunday school teacher got me to memorize how Jesus said, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.” I did not get the “Lo” or the “end of the age” or even “unto.” But I somehow understood “I am with you always.” And I have never forgotten.
I admit I often think I am responsible or to blame for a lot of the bad things that happen to me and I get frustrated because I don’t know how I am going to fix the war in Ukraine. But when I am afraid my loving cat is going to freeze to death, my thoughts naturally turn to God. And there God was in my drunk neighbor. I’ll concede that actual angels may have been helping too. But until Gabriel, or whoever, appears to me, I’ll take an angelic human or whatever goodness God shares with me next. I think we all have some angel in us. We should be quite useful to each other in desperate times.
I had a spiritual director once who was trained in the “Ignation School” of spirituality. Our relationship was a nice experience for me. He was a chemist, by education, and brought much of the personality and expertise of his field with him into our relationship. Being almost the opposite of a chemist, in training and typical personality type, I benefited greatly.
At one point, he told me about the three ways I could be tempted, according to Ignatius, and asked me to decide which way I was being tempted in the moment. You, like I am, may be tempted to give up your true self, or conform to the present ways of the world because of fear, or just try to ignore Jesus or all your spiritual awareness because there is just a lot of nonsense piling up all around us it is overwhelming
I hope repeating this old post might give you a couple of minutes of clarity or inspiration, depending on how you’re wired.
I have never forgotten the imagery Ignatius offered his disciples. Here are the thoughts from the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola paraphrased by David Fleming. I thought you might like to examine yourself to see how you are likely to be opposed this week.
According to Ignatius three are ThreeWays the Enemy Works:
Like a Bully
The enemy behaves like a bully who is a weakling before strength, but a tyrant before weakness. It would be characteristic of a bully to lose courage and take flight when confronted with someone who is determined and strong of will. However, if a person loses courage and begins to flee, the anger, vindictiveness, and rage of the bully will surge up and know no bounds. In the same way the enemy becomes weak, loses courage, and turns to flight as soon as the one leading a spiritual life faces their temptations boldly. (SE 325)
I have been very encouraged this week by dear friends who have had the courage to face “the bully” in whatever guise he was taking. Minnesotans may down in history for teaching us. My friends make me remember the recurring dream I had for several weeks, long ago now, in which a “monster” was chasing me. Gwen suggested I prepare to turn and face it that night rather than dreading to run away from it in my dreams. I decided to do it, and in my dream I did it. The result was exactly as Ignatius said. I proved it had no power over me.
Like a False Lover
The Enemy’s behavior can also be compared to that of a false lover. One who loves falsely uses another for selfish gains, and so people become objects at one’s disposal or like playthings for entertainment or good times. A false lover usually suggests that the so-called intimacy of relationship be kept secret because of fear that such duplicity will be made known. So does the Enemy often act in ways to keep temptations secret, and our tactics must be to bring our temptations out into the light of day to someone like our director, confessor or some other spiritual companion. (SE 326)
I regularly hear about the literal “false lovers” who lock people up. Porn is the undiscussed false lover for any people. Many people have connected with a person who doesn’t love Jesus and that relationship is a secret love. Some people have many secrets about how they have satisfied their lust and pretended they didn’t to their intimates. Sex it a spiritual matter. Although many people are resolute in pretending otherwise, there are probably no inconsequential couplings or orgasms. There are good reasons to wonder how people got into the Epstein files.
But our loves are not all sexual. We have many lovers who use us and leave us kicked to the curb. We trust our employers or addictions or abusers, even when they don’t love us like Jesus. We trust our false selves in all their delusions and bad heart-habits, even when they have repeatedly been proven self-destructive.
The solution is dialogue. We shouldn’t wait for our expectations of trustworthiness to be fully satisfied before we talk about our lovers. They are much less powerful in the light. Just because they fear the light, and they tell us that being secret is better, and they warn us of the terrible consequences of living in the light, that doesn’t mean they aren’t lying.
Like a Shrewd Army Commander
The Enemy can also work like a shrewd army commander who carefully maps out the tactics of the attack at the weakest point of defense. The military leader knows the weakness is found in two ways: a) the weakness of fragility and unpreparedness, and b) the weakness of complacent strength which is self-sufficient pride.
The Enemy attacks come against us at both points of weakness. The first kind of weakness is less serious in that we more readily acknowledge our need and cry or for help from God. The second kind of weakness is far more serious and more devastating in its effect upon us so that it can be a more favored tactic of the Enemy. (SE 327)
Peter says the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. This is a similarly threatening image. Our enemy is like an army commander scoping out the weak defenses of our walled city. Some places, like the gates we open to the world every day are well-defended because we know about them. But there are weak sections of the wall, perhaps, that defend places we never expect to be attacked, or don’t want to imagine being attacked because we’ve been hurt there before, that are much more dangerous.
The sociopaths who have taken over the presidency and many corporations are shrewd in that the are single-minded in their pursuit of winning power. ICE is literally prowling. It is overwhelming. Jesus knows. John said, “ Greater is the one in you than the one in the world. Relying on our own strength is probably the weakest thing we could do.
Opposition is real
Our former church got complacent and distracted. I think they thought we were safe because everyone supposedly loved one another. It made many people “sitting ducks” in the gun sites of an enemy shooting conflict at us. We can be so committed to our harmony that we don’t allow healthy conflict, or don’t even allow needed change to occur if it might create conflict. We even had a proverb that said, “Everyone is recovering from the sin addiction – expect conflict.”
On a more personal level, each of us might be very unaware of our childhood defense mechanisms and just consider them “normal,” or even “my right to be who I am,” or even, nowadays, “my genetic disposition that I can’t change even if I want to.” We could all use a little more Ignatian attention to our wanton self-sufficiency. The enemy would love us to be self-sufficient. It is antithetical to serving God. It makes easy to dominate, since we are basically alone looking for power when, just as Bad Bunny said, “The only thing greater than hate is love.”
Ignatian spirituality is not for the weakly committed. It takes a lot of time to ponder all the ways we could be growing stronger in faith and becoming stronger opponents to the enemies of God. I am encouraged to take the time, because much of the time I am not spending becoming aware of my temptations I am spending conforming to them.
Lord, eight countries
bombed in one year —
our president’s distinction
alphabetically:
Iran, Iraq,
Nigeria, Palestine,
Somalia, Syria,
Venezuela, Yemen.
Add Minnesota.
We’re great again.
Meanwhile, you heard,
his peacemaking claims:
Thailand/Cambodia,
Congo/Rwanda,
Israel/Hamas,
Israel/Iran,
India/Pakistan,
Armenia/Azerbaijan,
Egypt/Ethiopia,
Serbia/Kosovo.
He wants a prize
before he dies.
Did you notice the peace?
You saw the deals made,
gilded with self-interest.
But no love was shed
by the spider, the snake,
the toddler driving the car,
the sociopath-in-chief.
It does not feel good
to make these lists,
to wretch these labels, Lord.
But it feels better –
like tagging a rainstorm
an “atmospheric river,”
or a snow disaster
a “bomb cyclone.”
There is comfort
in naming the dreadful.
But there is more comfort
in turning into your call:
“Set your face
like flint
toward good this year.”
Selah.
“Hold on
to each day’s blessings
for dear life this year.”
Because life is dear
and love cannot be controlled.
It can yet be received,
cherished, nurtured,
but never commanded.
If love, or if I, seem paltry,
that may be very true.
But you are truer, Lord.
If my trust stumbles
in the face of fears and faults,
you remain trustworthy, Lord —
our dawn after the storm
who will not be hooded,
the colors of the bow
that no lie can dim.
Demonstrators fill Eakins Oval in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art during the “No Kings” protest, Saturday, June 14, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Top 10 Posts for 2025
Thanks for reading this year, everyone. I appreciate the community we share. This annual compilation might benefit new subscribers the most. Thanks for joining in. Here’s some of what you might have missed. For each of the top ten I put a representative quote — click the title if you want to read the whole piece.
I can’t lie. I think 2026 could be tough. What you read the most in 2025 reflects what a mind-boggling and heartbreaking year it was! This year will be harder. But I have hope and I wish you well as you develop and come to know your fullness in Jesus and his people.
For those who need it, there is a lot of biblical basis for protesting. The most obvious example is Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3. Together, they protested a command from Nebuchadnezzar to bow down and worship a massive, golden statue of himself. Trump, in his newly-gold-plated Oval Office bears a resemblance. The three men (and Daniel) knew the king’s command was putting a false God before the true God, so they refused to obey. Trump has posed as an anointed, God-protected ruler, so that is worth protesting as a Christian. His attack on constitutional rule and precedent is even more worth protesting as a dutiful citizen.
When I first saw Donald Trump’s “official portrait” I had to marvel at the audacious grandiosity of it. There is no hint of humility or welcome in it. It is designed to intimidate. It matches his endless talk about “winning.” I had to turn away, to try to put him away.
But after his re-election, I decided I needed to turn back and face what we are all facing in that face. A sociopath is president. And all the traits of that 4% of the population are now being worked into the government, into world society, and into our individual lives. No one has ever known what to do when these people get into power (which they normally don’t), except avoid them or kill them – but those are not immediate options for me. So I am at least trying to understand them and discern the most helpful responses God can suggest.
While there are undoubtedly some ideologues in our government presently, and some religious people, too, it is mostly a feast of the billionaires we are witnessing. They were hungry to get to the table and do something, to engage in a battle that feels existential and very difficult. They yearn to have a battle. They have “praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone” which are the money-making machines of their own design. But their gods demand more and they demand more of their gods. It’s an old story.
I don’t think Jesus cares much about the latest status quo, he has deeper things to do. When he says from the cross, “Father forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing,” that is his most loving “No.” Your borderline loved one does not really know what they are doing, either. Donald Trump and Elon Musk do not really care what they are doing to you as long as they rule you. Jesus on the cross is a big “No” to that, and big “No!” to whatever destroys love and peace. The cross is a big “No!” to sin and death, right? The resurrection is a big promise that you will flourish, one way or another, later if not now, if you say “No” with Him.
The compilation of my research which I presented: We can love sociopaths with everlasting love. We might be able to help them. But don’t offer sociopaths pity and don’t waste your time shaming them (which is essentially negative pity). Never assume they are like you, with your guilt, shame and doubts; they are not. Keep asking, “What are they doing with their huge, secret advantage?” And tell the truth about your answers — to yourself and to everyone who will listen.
The U.S. government is not the arbiter of God’s will. Jesus does not require it to save the world. It is a dispensable tool, whoever uses it. Right now, however, it is filled with false prophets asserting they are Christians called by God to take over the seats of power so true righteousness can be installed. It takes about five minutes of thought to suspect they are deceivers…. [AT THE SAME TIME] The Spirit of God is moving in the world right now. The logjam of Evangelical nonsense is being exposed and is about to break. I can’t predict a great American economy once it gives Ukrainian territory to Russia, or whatever Trump does. But I think I can predict a renewed church finding its courage and voice and providing an alternative. Many of you are probably the reasons I have such hope. God bless you.
The key to not becoming a victim of DARVO is to recognize when it is happening and refuse to cave in. These days, we all need to become experts, since it has become pervasive with the ascension of Donald Trump and JD Vance who employ it habitually. Most government communication is laced with DARVO these days (watch Karoline Leavitt). You can see the pattern most clearly whenever the government is accused of wrongdoing. No matter how far-fetched the logic, DARVO will be employed.
Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will renounce the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron. (4:1-2) When the Spirit “expressly says” something we primarily hear it with the seventh sense, which is the main reason we should keep it in shape. The message is mainly tested in community, which is why we need to stay connected to discerning believers. That sense can be dulled. A conscience can even be cauterized so it becomes impermeable to grace, joy and love.
When you read the comments to my Facebook post, you probably don’t see the beauty in each respondent. You don’t know them. We all know social media does not represent real persons, just a snippet of verbiage or snapshot of a moment. I have the benefit of knowing how each of these people care for others or are brilliant in their own way, I know a bit about their struggles and successes, their losses and graces. Most of them have faith.
Yet the Trump effect warps their dignity. Whatever distorted politics we are sorting out, we at least need to say a tidal wave of “NO!s” to dismissing our friends and hating our enemies. That may not be enough to stop the tyrants, but it will mean we have something left when they have passed through the social digestive system — which can’t be soon enough for me.
In the U.S. we Jesus followers might think the individual is the basic unit of the Church. If we are moral, we might think it is the family. But I think the Bible and common sense tells us it is a small group which is the basic unit. Many church people call that small group a cell, a construct within the Body of Christ held together by the Spirit of in love — not born of flesh but of God.
As I listened to Laufey sing Christmas songs on Apple Music, I was, again, impressed by how well she does everything. I was basking in her warm voice when another song came on that did not fit the feed. Since I don’t know much about music apps, I was surprised. I thought it might be Laufey, trying out “edgy.” But it turned out that Laufey’s deep alto and Greg Gonzalez’ tenor are closely matched, to me at least. I had run into Cigarettes After Sex (“CAS” in what follows).
CAS in Brussels, 2017
I had never heard of CAS and , I admit, I asked in my head, “You named your band that?” When I found out more, I added, “Aren’t you from El Paso?” But, like so many people, I was intrigued by the song that showed up on my feed: Apocalypse (hear it here at a worship-like concert in London). As of August, the song had two billion streams on Spotify, so you’d think I might have run into it. Gonzalez and the song have Wikipedia pages. Regardless, the line “Your lips, my lips, apocalypse” said so much, I needed to know more.
Background for Apocalypse
Apocalypse was on the first album the men put out in 2017 and it never got on any charts. But it went viral in 2022 when it was background music for a TikTok trend in which people put up a photo from their childhood to remind them to be kinder to themselves.
I love how A.I. sums up their style: “Cigarettes After Sex is a dream pop, ambient pop, and indie rock band known for their ethereal, slow, and sensual sound, often described as ‘androgynous pop noir’ with hushed vocals, dreamy guitars, and romantic, melancholic themes. Their style draws from shoegaze and slowcore, creating a hazy, cinematic, and intimate atmosphere, perfect for winding down or late-night listening.” I needed a dictionary for that description, but it is apt. The NYT says CAS makes “woozy” music that Gen Z loves — and people all over the world do love it. 40something Gonzalez has a loyal — and notably young, fan base in Poland, India, Indonesia, and South America. The U.S. has only recently caught up to the rest of the world as one of their top markets.
About the song Apocalypse, Gonzales says, “The imagery is surreal, and it’s not something that could have happened. But the way I think about that song is, before I left my hometown, it was me and two different girls I’d dated and then kind of become friends with. It felt that we were like beautiful losers — stuck in our hometown with these big ambitions. At that time, it felt like it was impossible to get out of the city, and so when I left and moved to New York, I thought about them again.” You may relate.
He continued to recall the aspirations they all had, and while he escaped to follow his dreams, the friends remained where he had left them. “They wanted to be screenwriters, painters and actors. But they were still in my hometown, kind of like the song says, ‘sort of trapped there’.…Thus, the song at the end is really about being there for people, when you’re all alone.”
Trauma-informed dream pop
My interest in the song piqued when I went to YouTube and found a lyric video. I loved how the thought fragments referenced memories that are too personal to understand completely but universal enough to evoke some feelings. They showed an intuitive sense of how trauma locks people up emotionally and undermines the intimacy we all crave.
In some sense, the band may have been riding the wave of “trauma-informed” everything moving through psychotherapy studies and into society when the song came out in 2017. That wave may or may not have crested by now. I was riding it myself around then, teaching doctoral classes on trauma in 2019 and 20. Then the whole society experienced the trauma of Covid-19, George Floyd, Palestine, and now we have King Donald reorganizing Venezuela. We are all considering what to do with trauma. CAS is doing their part, providing gauzy, thoughtful, background music for us with some tenderness.
Here are 5 ways the song concisely hears us and comforts us where we are traumatized.
Kisses on the foreheads of the lovers wrapped in your arms. You’ve been hiding them in hollowed-out pianos left in the dark.
Gonzalez acknowledges the deep emotional pain a new partner has suffered from previous relationships and heartbreak. In its gentle, supportive way, Apocalypse captures trauma not as a dramatic rupture, but as a quiet, lingering condition — a way of being emotionally stranded even in moments of intimacy. What makes the song psychologically insightful is its restraint: the singer never names trauma directly, yet the emotional patterns align closely with what clinicians recognize as post-traumatic attachment issues and dissociation.
Here is the song accompanying the troubles of an old love trying to reconnect with a past love in a new body(!) in The 100.
You’ve been locked in here forever, and you just can’t say goodbye.
Being emotionally “stuck” is what we call it. Trauma can be an ongoing “reality.” One of the song’s central insights is how trauma distorts time. The emotional voice feels suspended between past and present, as if the relationship exists in a perpetual aftershock. Trauma often prevents experiences from being fully integrated into memory, leaving someone to relive emotional states rather than recall events. The song mirrors this by dwelling in atmosphere and repetition rather than progression. There is no narrative resolution — only a looping sense of longing — which reflects how trauma resists closure.
Your lips, my lips, apocalypse.
The view of intimacy in the song is also psychologically precise. Closeness feels just out of reach. Any touch has to penetrate a veil of numbness and melancholy. When it does, it may feel dangerous. This aligns with trauma-related attachment patterns, where connection feels simultaneously necessary and unsafe — even like an apocalypse. Rather than joy, intimacy triggers vulnerability, and vulnerability recalls loss. The result is a muted, almost anesthetized form of love — tender, but distant.
The song accompanies such a twisted experience in SnowPiercer
You leapt from crumbling bridges, watching cityscapes turn to dust, Filming helicopters crashing in the ocean from way above.
The song begins with a dramatic scene of destruction. I often depict trauma like the shock of some unknown force blowing up one’s village — suddenly everything is rubble. In the song, the metaphor also describes the chaotic end of a tragic relationship — again. Such destruction seems inevitable, even expected. The subject is catastrophe, but the delivery is calm, almost resigned. Trauma survivors often normalize emotional devastation, treating it as the background condition of life rather than an exceptional event. Some therapists might feel this is more realistic than setting our sights on some ideal happiness — a goal line that might feel like it is always being moved back. By presenting emotional collapse in such a subdued tone, the song captures how trauma dulls one’s senses, even alarm systems — things are less likely to feel shocking anymore, even the end of the world.
A fan used the song to sum up an episode of The Last of Us to that effect.
Oh, please. Come out and haunt me, I know you want me.
The lyrics are a plea for the lover to let go of their fear and the emotional cycles that keep them “locked” in their past. The dreamlike music evokes a sense of dissociation. The vocals, production, and pacing feel submerged, as though we are all slightly removed from what we feel. This mirrors a common trauma response: staying emotionally present enough to function, but detached enough to avoid being overwhelmed. The listener senses feeling without having full access to it, which is how dissociation often manifests.
Sleeping soundly with the locket that she gave you clutched in your fist.
Ultimately, the song is a comforting message of support, with the singer promising, “When you’re feeling low I will be there too.” Its refusal to assign blame or seek meaning is itself psychologically astute — trauma doesn’t always come with clear villains or lessons. Often, what lingers is simply grief, confusion, and longing for something that can’t be restored. Apocalypse honors that ambiguity. It doesn’t try to heal the wound — it empathizes with what it’s like to live inside it. I think people sing along with this song at the concert because they love being seen and are passing on that good feeling to others. The whole arena is living inside the wound together, clutching what little comfort they have, but also hearing the hope that someone else is with with them and even for them.
CAS demonstrates an intuitive grasp of trauma psychology — not through explanation, but by creating a descriptive musical environment. The song feels the way trauma can feel –soft, repetitive, unresolved, and quietly devastating.
While not a direct narrative about PTSD from war or a specific traumatic event, the song deals with the themes of being haunted by the past, emotional turmoil, and the struggle to move forward in a new relationship, which all align with aspects of trauma recovery.
I think the whole song also aligns with Jesus walking with us in our “lowness.” Especially this week, during Epiphany, God’s message to the world is “When you’re feeling low, I will be there too.”
The 32-ounce cup hit the sidewalk behind him with a hollow thud. He felt droplets on his hand. And slowly, a cold spot seeped through his hoodie and t-shirt. At 34 degrees it was just too cold to ignore the bite, especially because a little icy breeze was blowing through the park. He tried to keep holding perfectly still, steeled against the cold. He couldn’t do it. Alex looked up to see if anyone saw him disrespected. Then he looked behind the bench to see the Wendy’s cup laying in the brown grass next to a mound of dirty snow.
He turned back around and wanted to cuss. But he just didn’t care enough to do it. He was in a cone of silence, not even a sulk. Numb. He had his headphones in, but he had let his phone die. That seemed appropriate. Mom would not be calling and dad was probably still drunk. His friends were in school — and who would call him, anyway? He barely knew anybody. He shifted around on the bench and started to pull his hood further over his face when he saw an old man teetering near the sidewalk across the way.
He was walking off the grass when he encountered the edge of the pavement. He paused, his left foot half on the grass and tilting up on the walk, as if he had run into a wall. He said much too loudly, “I believe you are a sidewalk. I was not expecting you. And I am a bit wobbly today. So if I fall on you, be kind. If I end up with a broken hip it will not be good.” He squinted left and right, then swung his right leg up on the pavement and dragged his other leg astride it, until he accomplished an upright stance. “Well, that’s done,” he said.
But he just stood there looking around with a dazed expression. He could not remember just where he was going before he had to navigate the ledge. He thought he should know this park like the back of his hand, since he was there every day. He’d had his dog with him in the past, but he was long gone, and there was no new dog to find the way. He knew he was slipping and even talked to things in the kitchen – appliances, fruit and such. When his daughter came by, this embarrassed her.
Alex very much wanted to ignore this old man. He pulled on his hood and tilted his head down. But he could still see him when he raised his eyebrows and peered out from under them. He was an intriguing sight, as he gave his commentary on getting over a two-inch obstacle. He was surprised he didn’t fall over from the sheer weight of his outfit. Even from where he sat, he could count three layers of sweater; he wore two scarves and puffy white earmuffs which surely could not have been his. The big ski pants he had on did not look like something he would be needing soon either.
He just stood there. Then he said, “Just relax, you’ll remember.” He could not recall where he had been going. He slowly scanned the park for clues and turned Alex’s direction. “That’s it! The bench!” he almost shouted. “You need a bench you old geezer.” And he started moving. He really did not move that much like an old, old geezer. But you could tell his left leg had a part or two that needed replacing. “The bench. It was the bench. I need to sit down,” he told himself.
Alex was startled to see his surprisingly quick advance; the plastic rattle of his ski pants sounded like a warning. He almost bolted like he was about to be captured. But he had no place to go. So he just stared at his feet, eyes closed, and pretended he was listening to music and should not be disturbed. He was afraid the man would say something to him. Or maybe worse, he’d throw up on him or drool on him. He had little idea what old people did. He’d never seen a grandparent and wasn’t sure he had any. He was on his second mother and dad made sure no one mentioned his parents — he either hated them or was hiding from them, he couldn’t tell.
The old man made it to the bench and faced it. He grabbed hold of the arm with his right hand and the back with left. He paused to slightly pant. “Here we are bench.” Then he stood up a little and slid his left hand along the backrest and then down along the curve of the arm until he turned around and fell onto the seat. “Hmmph. That’s cold on the butt, bench.” Then he settled in. His pants settled down.
Alex expected him to smell like piss. He wasn’t sure why. Must have been in a movie. But he didn’t. He smelled nice, like something he never knew he liked until he smelled it. The old man turned to him and said, “Excuse me. I meant to warn you I was coming. But I became preoccupied with the feat itself and forgot the warning. Forgive me for invading your space.” Alex slightly turned his head but said nothing. “You did look like you might not want to be disturbed. I was fifteen once. You’re about fifteen, right?”
Alex had to admit it. “Uh huh.”
“Well, I may start talking, which would not have pleased me when I was fifteen and out in the park freezing when I should be in school. But I have this habit of talking to whatever is around me, which makes my daughter want to pull her hair out. I feel sorry for her. She’s probably got someone looking for me right now because she’s afraid I will go out and live my life and die. You have a name, I bet.
“Alex.” He mumbled.
He asked, “Did you say Alex or Alec?” as he bent down a little to peer under his hood, his pants loudly buckling.
“Alex. He said a little louder and he turned his head a bit more.
“Good. I met this waiter named Alec and all I could think of was ‘Smart Alec.’ Which was not that nice since he seemed like a good kid. You know there was a real smart Alec in the 1800’s who was a con man in New York, right? A real Trump type. The place mints them. He used to bribe the police and got away with all sorts of stuff before they caught up with him. The police started calling every subsequent joker like him a ‘Smart Aleck.’ So I’m glad you are Alex.”
He looked at Alex but got no response.
“I hope they gave you the full title Alexander rather than just a hint of him. You know about Alexander the Great, I suspect. But I have little idea whether they teach anything but robotics in school these days. But just imagine…”
The old man lost his train of thought as he looked up into a tree. “What in the world are you still doing here? Your feathers have gone green and you should be in South America or almost there by now.”
He turned to Alex and said, “But that tanager might be saying the same thing about me, eh? What are you doing here? You should be gone already!” He gave Alex’s knee a sidelong pat.
Alex almost said something, since he was not used to being touched. It set off a little tingle, That worried him. He stayed quiet, however, since he still had a bit of stranger danger going on.
The old man just sat quietly looking into the tree.
Then he startled. “Oh yes. Alexander the Great. I was about to tell you about you if you were your namesake at 15. You’d be getting your lessons from Aristotle today. Just think about it. Next year it will be 335 BC, your father, the great Philip of Macedon, will be dead and you will be king.”
“One year after that you will have consolidated all of Greece under your authority and you’ll be getting ready to invade the Persian Empire. By the time you are 30 you will have created one of the largest empires in the history of the world, stretching all the way to India. But by 32 you’re dead, probably poisoned. You’re the namesake of quite a guy. You knew all that already, right?”
Alex thought very carefully and then said, “No.” You could almost hear the ice crack.
“That’s too bad. What the hell is Alexander the Great doing out here in nothing but a hoodie? I at least had the sense to put on these ridiculous ski pants. It colder than a well digger’s ass in the Klondike.”
Alex actually turned and smiled. “You mean some well digger is sitting on a Klondike bar?”
“Ha! That’s funny. You’re joking, right? — I don’t know you well enough to tell. It’s just something my dad used to say. You know there was a goldrush to the Klondike area of Canada, right next to Alaska, in the 1890’s, right? It is cold as hell up there.”
“I don’t know much about Canada. I’ve barely been out of the city.”
“Then I guess your father never said much about the Klondike when he was showing off like mine did.”
“He’s mostly drunk when he’s at home, so I don’t listen to him much.”
There was a moment of silence. Then the old man said, “I’m sorry Alex.” That piece of empathy stung like bumping a bruise. “That’s a hard father to have. I suppose he’s not much for Christmas either.”
“He leaves that to my mothers.” He was not sure why he was telling this old man his secrets. No one at school knew anything about his family and no one had ever even been to his house.
“Well maybe that’s OK. My mother loved Christmas. She was about the least Christian about it as possible, however. I later became a Presbyterian and they are kind of queasy about it sometimes, too — maybe like your dad.”
He looked like he was having a vision. “But Mom loved Santa. She had boxes of Santa stuff she got out every year and you couldn’t get away from him. She painted him on the windows of the addition out back – no one was going to see that! She always found some chocolate Santa to put in my stocking. Nice, silly lady. She loved giving gifts from Santa, even though she barely had a pot to piss in.”
Alex gave him a quizzical look.
“Oh sorry. Like a chamber pot, you know? Before there were bathrooms, rich people had pots with a lid under their beds. If you needed to pee in the night you used it and the maid dumped it out the next day. Or if you’re poor you dumped it out yourself. But if you’re really poor, you don’t even own a pot. It’s something my mom used to say, although when she got to the word piss she’d clear her throat, ‘We didn’t even have a pot to mmmgh hmmgh in.’”
Alex couldn’t help smiling.
So he asked, “Did you say why you aren’t at school right now?”
Obviously not, since he’d said less than twenty words. “No. I didn’t. I don’t really know.”
“Well, if your dad’s drunk and its Christmas, you know.”
“What does that have to do with it?” Alex was seriously confused.
“Come on. You’re Alexander-the-kid-whose-dad-is-drunk-and-doesn’t-give-a-shit-about-Christmas, not Alexander the Great. It’s hard to go to school if you don’t have some Christmas in your heart at Christmastime – worse if somebody stole it. Here, wait a minute. I’ve got something for you.”
He reached in under his ski pants and rummaged around in whatever was underneath them. “There you are. Gotcha,” he said. And he drew out his hand.
“Put your palm out.” So he did. And the old man laid a small, smooth rock in it. “I think you need this more than me. I may not know where I am, but I never forget who I am. This is my baby Ebenezer.”
“You mean like Ebenezer Scrooge?”
“Oh! You know Dickens, huh? No, not that one.“
“I mean Ebenezer like the big rock the Prophet Samuel raised up to be a monument so the old Israelites would remember how God helped them when they were fighting off the Philistines — the great ‘Stone of Help.’ Eben is ‘stone’ and Ezer is ‘help’ in Hebrew. You might not know anything about the Bible. Let me tell you, the Presbyterians know everything. But gnarly old Samuel lived about 800 years before your namesake was conquering everybody in sight.” He looked into the distance, “I’ve been carrying my own baby Ebenezer for a long time, ever since I decided to follow Jesus.” He looked back at Alex, “I reach down in my pocket and remember God has helped me and God will help me.”
Alex looked at the rock in his palm like it weighed a ton. “I can’t take your special rock!”
“You can if I give it to you. Don’t look a gift rock in the mouth. I’m not even explaining that one. I don’t really need the rock. It has reminded me so much, I will never forget God is with me.”
At that very moment they heard, “Oh my God!” A lady screamed from across the park. They both looked her way. She pointed at the old man, “There you are.”
They looked back at each other. The old man said, “She found me.”
“Stay where you are please!” she screamed with a teacher voice.
“I’m staying.” The old man winked at him.
She breathlessly ran up and he stood up. She hugged him. Then she just looked at him, hands on his shoulders, like he was an unruly pet.
“I’m sorry. I kind of got lost. But this young man took care of me.”
“Thank you so much!” She opened her purse and took a hundred out of a wad of bills, grabbed his other hand and made a hand sandwich. His hand was meat; the money was lettuce. She bent over and whispered near his ear, “You’re an angel.” He was afraid she was going to kiss him. The touch of her soft, gentle hands brushing his as she stood back up shocked him.
The bill fell on the frozen mud. He picked it up and handed it back at her. “I didn’t really do anything,” he argued.
The old man shouted, “Take it, Alexander the Great! She’s like Santa!”
She calmly said, like a dutiful doctor ignoring her patient’s report as she read their chart, “Thank you, Alexander.” He was dismissed. And she turned to her father, “Let’s get you home before you’re dead.”
The old man rolled his eyes at Alex with a twinkle, “See you around, buddy.”
Alex stood up and watched them bustle off to a car flashing emergency lights in the bike lane. The cold patch on his back felt like it might be turning to ice as the day passed noon. But the $100 bill and his baby Ebenezer felt warm in his pocket.
Jesus was born again in the year 2025,
in the reign of King Donald, who
commandeered the airwaves to recite
his pack of lies once again and again,
vainly propping up his house of cards.
No one watched.
The prophets echoed like memories of angels:
When tyrants tremble in their fear
And hear their death knell ringing,
When friends rejoice both far and near
How can I keep from singing?
In prison cell and dungeon vile
Our thoughts to them are winging,
When friends by shame are undefiled
How can I keep from singing?
Jesus was born again in the year 2025,
a time when the jester, Pete Hegseth,
sent drones to kill the unsuspecting,
smugglers and fishermen on the open sea,
like Herod searching Bethlehem.
No drugs were found.
The prophets echoed like magi in the night:
Herod the king, in his raging
Chargèd he hath this day
His men of might in his own sight
All young children to slay
That woe is me, poor child, for thee
And ever mourn and may
For thy parting neither say nor sing
“Bye bye, lully, lullay.”
Robert Croo (ed.) in 1534 from 1456 (War of the Roses)
Jesus was born again in the year 2025
when Old King Donald faked emergencies
and Congress sat on their wall, never
to stop him “Stop Him!” and his illegal tariffs,
and his slicing the world into spheres.
His mania spiked.
The prophets echoed like shepherds telling the news:
Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king
Do you know what I know?
In your palace warm, mighty king
Do you know what I know?
A Child, a Child shivers in the cold
Let us bring him silver and gold
Said the king to the people everywhere
Listen to what I say!
Pray for peace, people, everywhere
Listen to what I say!
The Child, the Child sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light
Gloria Shayne Baker in 1962 (Cuban Missile Crisis)
Jesus was born again in the year 2025
When King Donald and his minions
vainly tried to stop the tale of Epstein
from being told across the land.
He protected pedophiles.
He pardoned felons.
He profited billionaires,
and called it hope for the poor.
No one believed him.
The prophets echoed like John the Baptist preparing the way:
Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,
and in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
let all within us praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! O praise His name forever!
His pow’r and glory evermore proclaim!
Placide Cappeau in 1847 (2nd French Revolution)
Jesus was born again in the year 2025
when King Donald begged for a peace prize
and an arch to validate his vapid life,
and placed his name on someone else’s memorial
prophetically putting himself
in the grave.
The prophets echoed like a memory of Mary’s great song,
like the worms that ate Herod cried out for lack of enough voices:
But with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring; –
Oh hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!
Edmund Sears in 1849 (Fugitive Slave Act)
Henry Ossawa Tanner, Angels Appearing before the Shepherds, c. 1910
Jesus was born again in the year 2025:
born in us who hear the angels sing,
born in us worn down with woe,
born in us subject to sociopaths,
born in us bound by bloated oligarchs,
born in us who amplify your voice,
louder every day, as the dawn rises
and the Son shines through the veil,
the Light of our restoration.
The prophets cry out with the prophets of old
and with all who relay the music of your sphere:
The original final verses:
VII
Come, Desire of Nations, come,
Fix in Us thy humble Home,
Rise, the Woman’s Conqu’ring Seed,
Bruise in Us the Serpent’s Head,
VIII
Now display the saving Pow’r,
Ruin’d Nature now restore,
Now in Mystic Union join
Thine to Ours, and Ours to Thine.
IX Adam’s Likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp thy Image in its Place,
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in Thy Love.
X
Let us Thee, tho’ lost, regain,
Thee, the Life, the Inner Man:
O! to All Thyself impart,
Form’d in each Believing Heart.
Charles Wesley in 1739 (War of Austrian Succession)
One of my friends said last Monday, “Did you notice I am not wearing green?”
I said, “No.” I honestly had not noticed anything he was wearing.
“This is the first game day in 20 years I have not worn our colors. I’m not even going to watch.”
“Huh?”
“It’s the gambling. I just can’t be sure that anything about the game it true anymore. People are betting on players and even plays. There are just too many good reasons to cheat. I’m done.”
I felt clueless. I thought sports betting was out of control. But I already hated gambling because my mom and dad lived out their retirement near Las Vegas. I can feel Vegas suck the life out of me when I am just passing through. But I have become accustomed to zoning out during the new betting commercials. I know they are over when I hear “Please play responsibly” or “Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.” In Australia they are getting strict about all sorts of life-sucking “games,” so their tag line is “Chances are you’re about to lose”.
Gambling Stats
I decided to do some research about what is really happening and found out quite a bit I did not know.
The Americans Gaming Association reports that Americans have embraced gambling (they say “gaming”). More than half of all American adults (57%) participated in some form of gambling in 2024-5. 30% gambled at a physical casino, while 21% placed a sports bet. It is a boom time for “gaming.” 90% of Americans find casino gambling to be acceptable for themselves or others, and 62% now find gambling to be personally acceptable. 134 million American adults, or 53% of the population, visited a casino for gambling or other entertainment purposes in the past 12 months, the highest level of casino visitation on record. Legal Sports Reports gives you more.
In February, a Siena Poll found that by 50% to 34% Americans support online sports betting being legal in all 50 States. But 65% think it will create compulsive gamblers. 58% say the Federal Govt. should regulate to protect consumers. 63% support the SAFE BET Act. 52% have “chased” a bet (meaning they placed additional, often larger, bets in an attempt to recover money lost from earlier wagers). 37% were ashamed after losing. 20% lost money they couldn’t afford to lose. 34% know someone with an online sports betting problem. Only 9% ever sought help with problem gambling — as SNL said a year ago, that’s because it is “somebody else’s” problem.
A majority of people in the U.S.A. are apparently going with a culture laced with gambling. But, like my friend, some people are getting concerned. For instance, 500 sports gamblers were polled in November in Connecticut; the majority believe corruption is more widespread than just the recent NBA scandal and think advertising for sports gambling leads to incredibly risky betting behavior, or even addiction. A New Yorker article from October noted how the “prop” bet leads to disaster (that is, a bet on a specific occurrence or statistical outcome within a game that does not necessarily affect the game’s final score or margin of victory). This YouTube from Bloomberg lays out the dangers. Trump’s posthumous pardon of Pete Rose for betting on baseball shows how gambling is even reaching into the past to become normalized.
What do Christians say?
Christianity Today kinds of hems and haws since the Bible does not directly name gambling as a sin. They say, “Online gambling isn’t necessarily sinful, but it’s certainly not a careful use of the wealth God has given us.”
Conservative Christians in the UK say: “There are three legitimate ways in which wealth may change hands – by giving, by working for it, or by genuine exchange (including taxation): anything else is virtual theft and so a breaking of the 8th commandment.” As has been said: “Gambling is a kind of robbery by mutual agreement; but it is still robbery, just as dueling, which is murder by mutual agreement, is still treated as murder.” Of the three impulses behind gambling – the desire for gain, the desire for a thrill and the desire for competition, the moral and ethical problems are focused on the desire for gain.
Gambling directly appeals to covetousness and greed “which is idolatry” according to the Apostle Paul (Colossians 3:5). Gambling breaches the 1st, 2nd, 8th and 10th commandments. It enthrones personal desires in place of God. Jesus warned: “you cannot serve both God and Money” (Matthew 6:24). A greedy and unrepentant person is an idolater who cannot obtain salvation (Ephesians 5:5).
Gambling directly depends on other people incurring financial loss. Jesus said that you should “do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12). But gambling depends on doing to others what we would not have them do to us.
Conservative U.S. Evangelicals in the Gospel Coalition say: Sports betting perpetuates the sins of idolatry, greed, and dissatisfaction with God’s provision. It feeds on vices rather than virtues and godliness. It’s highly addictive. With the ease and convenience of a smartphone app and a credit card, sports betting has become yet another dopamine-inducing “scrolling” activity alongside social media platforms, online pornography, and other addictions just a few clicks away. As a vice disproportionately targeting young men, sports betting has the potential to imperil their current and future ability to love and lead families because of devastating debt. Sports betting is another assault on families already besieged by a litany of negative cultural pressures and obstacles….Don’t be fooled by how destigmatized sports betting has become. Just because you can now do it on your phone from the comfort of your suburban living room, as opposed to in the dimly lit, smoky Vegas casino, doesn’t mean the dangers are less real. The less seedy, more acceptable “brand” of sports betting today is what makes it so concerning.
The Southern Baptists are alarmed: “Gambling factors out God.” The 2017 SBC Resolutions Committee, proposed a resolution adopted by the Convention “on the sin of gambling.” Also, the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission released a publication called Pay to Play: A Practical Guide to Addressing Gambling in the Church. The director says, “We worked hard to produce a theological and practical guide—in addition to an in-depth white paper—that we think will be helpful to pastors as they navigate this growing epidemic.”
Meanwhile, gambling advertising becomes more entertaining, ubiquitous and brazen. For instance, into what are these happy, robotic, multicultural lemmings/bike riders being translated?:
Why is nothing done?
My friend said, “This is a big mess. It has ruined sports for me. Why isn’t anything being done?”
I hadn’t thought about that, so I asked A.I. Here is the gist of what that know-it-all collected with my gist thrown in.
“Sports betting has not been banned despite its negative effects primarily due to the significant economic benefits for states and the argument that regulation is more effective than prohibition. The complex issue involves a balance of individual freedoms, economic incentives, and social concerns.”
That’s the bottom line. You have to wonder why the government of the people sees the vices of the people as a way to stay in business. I think there is something immoral about that business model, don’t you?
Americans apparently love gambling. It all got started with the lotteries. To be honest the ancient Chinese had a lottery that helped build the Great Wall. But as far as the U.S. goes, the first legal lottery was started by New Hampshire in 1964.
When the Supreme Court overturned Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) with Murphy v. NCAA in 2018, it served to open the floodgates for all forms of gambling. The ruling stemmed from a legal challenge initiated by the state of New Jersey, led at the time by Governor Chris Christie. New Jersey argued that the PASPA violated the Tenth Amendment’s anti-commandeering doctrine, which prevents the federal government from forcing states to enforce federal laws or maintain existing state laws.
In the 6-3 majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that “Congress can regulate sports gambling directly, but if it elects not to do so, each State is free to act on its own”. The Court said the PASPA unconstitutionally dictated what state legislatures could and could not do, thus infringing on state sovereignty. Justice Breyer said he would have preferred New Jersey get a “pyrrhic victory”— winning the right to authorize betting but still being barred from having private businesses run it, in order to respect Congress’s broader goals.
Now there is a multi-billion industry to contend with since many states (though not all, including California) rushed to legalize gambling and reap the revenue. I call it creating a “fool tax,” to be honest, or receiving an invitation to ruin from your governor.
Key reasons why nothing has been done to ban sports betting include:
It is a big money maker for States. Legal sports betting generates billions in tax revenue for state governments, which can be allocated to public services like education and infrastructure. This financial incentive makes it difficult for states to roll back legalization efforts. New York, for example, collected over $876 million in tax revenue from sports betting in 2023. This is probably the main reason sports betting is running rampant: the governments are addicted.
Our governments are dominated by rapacious corporations. The sports betting industry, with major players like FanDuel and DraftKings, has a powerful lobbying presence and has deeply integrated itself into sports media and culture through advertising and sponsorships, making it an “indispensable” part of the sporting experience. This is the second big reason. Our pirate capitalism sees a victim, milks them dry and leaves the carcass.
The rest of the main reasons are more speculative and moral. These reasons change if people we more educated, healthier and less subject to corporate domination.
Prohibition does not work very well. The historical failure of attempts to ban popular, but potentially harmful, activities (like alcohol during Prohibition or the War on Drugs) suggests that an overarching ban would not eliminate sports betting but merely drive it into an unregulated, illegal black market. $150B was illegally gambled on college sports, alone, in 2018, before the Supreme Court decision. The American Gaming Association (AGA) argues legal markets bring consumers out of predatory illegal operations and provide transparency and consumer protections. It remains to be proven that legal markets are less predatory or more transparent.
Regulation is seen as a better approach. Instead of a full ban, the prevailing approach in the U.S. has been state-level regulation following the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision to overturn the federal ban. This allows states to implement consumer protections and allocate funds for problem gambling treatment and research. Critics justly argue such measures are often inadequate. By the time the corporations have brainwashed the public, warnings by governments seem faint, at best. Public health of any kind is poorly funded.
Americans think you should have the right to harm yourself. Proponents of legal sports betting argue that adults should have the freedom to choose how to spend their money and time, provided they do so responsibly. “Responsible gambling” is an oxymoron to many Christians. But such reasoning prevails when it comes to gun control, cannabis, and, apparently, murdering Venezuelans. The saying, “I’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission” is becoming common sense.
The people want it. There is a significant public appetite for sports betting, with millions of Americans participating in the activity. Legalization acknowledges and caters to this demand. But “want” in the U.S. is determined by what consumers buy in the economy as designed by the dominant corporations. They have also wanted processed food, gas guzzlers and McMansions, to name a few products that were not in society’s or their own best interests. We psychotherapists would generally contend that people “want” a lot of things for reasons they do not fully understand and often do not want when they do.
I think gambling preys upon desire and calls it a “game.” It is only fun when it does not include money. When it is a for-profit enterprise, gambling is always a scam — I’m with the Australians, “You are about to lose.” It is a “thrill” when it is risky, but satisfying that desire usually just leads to needing more thrill to avoid dealing with one’s true needs or desires.
The fact that this deregulation is happening when most of the betting is happening on a phone app makes gambling even more damning. The internet feeds on desire. Digital platforms thrive by exploiting human wants—for connection, information, status, or novelty—using algorithms to trigger dopamine hits, creating endless loops of seeking, consuming, and craving that drive engagement, problematic use, and consumerism, turning desires into constant, often unfulfillable, digital appetites. The online world capitalizes on our innate needs, turning them into addictive patterns through self-presentation, fear of missing out (FoMO), and hyper-stimulation, shaping our search for fulfillment in ways that benefit platforms more than users.
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 KJV). This applies to the CEOs of gambling corporations and the government officials who enable them. It applies to the inherent corruption of the end users and the self-deception capabilities within human nature. Our desires and motivations are often untrustworthy and self-destructive. We need God in the middle of our gambling and a society that looks out for our hearts and health, not just our consumption habits.
**************************
Yesterday was Catherine Doherty Day! Get to know the “Baroness” who became an anti-racism activist and spiritual director. She was Thomas Merton’s spiritual mother. She is celebrated at The Transhistorical Body.
Let’s start with Morton Kelsey, the agnostic pastor who met God through Jungian therapy and became a spiritual guide for others. He knows quite a bit about not graduating from previous “grades” in spiritual development, yet he is positive about our capacity to keep moving along the inner way. Here is a quote from one of his more than 50 books:
“We can grow at any time. The human being is far more plastic than most of us ordinarily believe. However, the task that we need to learn, the development we need to achieve, can only be accomplished earlier or later at a much higher cost than at its proper time. Much of psychotherapy consists of providing the environment in which people can live through a stage that they missed before. Spiritual direction…will involve this kind of direction and counseling and companionship for the simple reasons that the various stages each provide essential elements in a full and mature religious life. We cannot skip grades in spiritual development.” – Companions on the Inner Way
Inhibited spiritual development
The metaphor of “skipping grades” does not completely suit Kelsey’s point, since we don’t pass tests to get from one stage of development to another and no one can really judge what our final mark should be. But the metaphor does picture our need to cross boundaries of maturation to get into further stages. Jesus called the process moving along the “narrow way that leads to life.” And we know he was well acquainted with people who stubbornly stayed on the way that leads to death.
As a psychotherapist, I am accustomed to exploring the past to find unfinished psychological issues. As a spiritual director, I accompany my companions on their parallel journey into wholeness. Along the way we bump into incomplete loves and assumptions that inhibit their growth and joy. As a developing person, I am also on the way. None of us are managing to skip grades, as much as we might like to.
We might start exploring entire sides of ourselves at 50, even, and wonder what we were doing at twenty. Whenever we become aware, some of us get excited to see the new possibilities; but others are daunted at the work they see ahead. My client’s development may start very basically: they need to survive and get to square one. Soon they may feel some confidence and receive some affirmation. Then they are likely to discover that the lacks they note and the abundance they feel both hint at the possibility of trust and happiness. God wastes nothing; it can all come to good. My own experience and the experience of others convinces me we often have unfinished work from the past stages of our development that either blocks us from progressing or taints the development we have achieved. What needs to get finished can cause us a lot of suffering. But God is with us.
One thing that helps us keep moving through the suffering on our narrow way is understanding the stages of how we develop so we can identify what we are still carrying or even reliving from our past — especially from our childhood or adolescence. Exploring the way we grow also helps examine our adult development (or lack of it), which is often left unpondered, as if becoming an adult were the end point. Kelsey inspired me to look at it all again in seven stages and look for the kind of things that keep us “held back” so to speak.
The seven stages of our spiritual development
Nothing I am about to list is particularly new. I’ve written about it myself, many times. But I found it useful to explore it again, now that I am where I am today. You are probably down the road to life somewhere new, yourself. Let’s see if we can note what is unfinished and could use some love from you and maybe some new choices.
Stage 1
Knowing what you now know about how your family was working when you were born, imagine how you were being prepared for your spiritual journey.
Children are like tender plants. They can be educated, but mostly they must be allowed to unfold so they are open to relating to a loving God who can give them confidence in the ultimate nature of the universe. Faith takes root early. If they are not tended with grace they can be closed to that possibility and live in deep-rooted fear or worthlessness because of what they have experienced with the humans on which they relied. Fear and shame also take root early. The most essential element in early Christian nurture is consistent human warmth and understanding, kindness and love. Unless people receive these things as children they find it very difficult to believe in them as adults.
We learned a lot by the time we got to kindergarten. How did you learn to see the world? What needs to be loved, understood or finished?
Sunday school – Christ Church Denver
Stage 2
Try to remember being you in elementary school. By the age of 3-4 we are able to store memories, but first-hand experiences are more likely to be stored when we have language more developed in our growing brain. How did you experience God as a child? Did your environment encourage spirituality?
In the stage of early childhood we begin to develop our sense of personhood and distinguish between inner and outer awareness. That “I am who I am” is called the ego. We need that self awareness to differentiate our spiritual awareness within it. Later on, we may need to let go of aspects of the view of self we developed as a child, but you can’t give up what you have not achieved. At this stage we learn language to express ourselves. We develop our left brain with reading and math, and our right brain with music, painting and stories. A great need in this stage is acceptance by others for who I am becoming. If I am nurtured with warmth and love I will take on the values of my parents and develop a conscience. If I am controlled and punished or violated, I may turn to violence and fear. We should avoid leading children to dig into the unconscious at this point. We’re not ready for that.
We developed an enduring view of self through reflection and comparison by 4th or 5th grade. Can you remember what is was like to see yourself and be seen (or not)? What needs to be loved, understood or finished?
Stage 3
Think back on your teen years and your early twenties. Our struggle for autonomy took a winding road to get where we arrived. We needed to rebel against the structures that formed us to either make them our own or go another way. What did you do? Did you have anyone to trust with your spiritual journey?
Sometime between 11 and 15 (and earlier all the time, it seems) our hormones push us into puberty and we come to the first bloom of our sense of autonomy. During this stage we test everything and are tested, this includes psychologically and spiritually. In the U.S. we have generally lost the formal initiation rites traditional cultures have, so many are left alone to find their own way. At this point in life, it is useful if caring adults are understanding of the process: parents and, especially, another trusted adult who can help us deal with fears and doubts about ourselves and God. Rebellion against the religious values of parents is almost necessary if we are ever to have faith of our own. It is during this stage that young people become open to the unconscious and to spiritual awareness. Check our Robert Johnson’s take on the process in He and She.
The pressure to become adults may have resulted in a significant season of depression by the end of our teen years. Who had you become by then? How did it feel? Who or what did you trust? Did you experience God? Make a commitment? Set a direction? Get derailed? What needs to be loved, understood or finished?
Stage 4
You can probably remember your late twenties (if you aren’t there right now). You may never have really moved beyond them. Early adulthood often includes our most life-changing and enduring experiences of God and community, but sometimes results in our long-lasting distance from both. You may be in the middle of the troubles associated with finding your own way and deciding how to align.
The process of differentiation and reorientation that began with puberty may take a long time for many people, and some get arrested at this point. Young adulthood is a continuation for the foundation of sexual intimacy, vocation/career, individuality and mutual responsibility. We must be led by our own convictions and establish our own patterns. We may have many professions over our lifetime, but we should complete this stage by becoming proficient in one. In the postmodern era, it seems like this is one of the most emotionally trying stages of development. The fruitless search for meaning young adults face and the gnawing sense that their present work and future opportunities are slim often lead to despair and avoidance. All the drawing power of our screens does the greatest damage here: porn, games, gambling, shopping, presenting our image, comparison, and relationships apps. The confusion and despair can be met with spiritual direction and companionship, but many churches are dominated by inattentive old people, so that can be hard to find.
How are you doing or how did you do? Did you come to a full sense of yourself? Find a place in the world? Did you form an adult relationship with God? Or did you get sidetracked or are still in the middle of it? By this time you have a life story. How do you tell it? How did you tell it? What needs to be loved, understood or finished?
Stage 5
Can you name what your middle age has been like, if you are there? The transition can be confusing. Middle age is when we are most likely to experience running into the wall of the unfinished development of our previous stages. It is a struggle to get into the future or into deeper realms of ourselves when we are stuck in our past.
This fifth stage might hit precociously spiritual people during puberty or young adulthood, but more likely comes between 35 and 50. It is often called the midlife crisis. We have developed and achieved some status, perhaps. But we are not satisfied and death is becoming more real. The children may be less needy or gone and the profession may feel old or unsuitable. Some people may return to childhood faith and move beyond it into deeper meaning. Others may look at their struggle and pronounce it purposeless. Toggling between beauty and boredom, bounty and bitterness is not uncommon. Our society gives little help with a search for meaning, and religion seems coopted by the endless power struggle all around us. Some accept fundamentalism in the Christian or political sense and give up their independence and critical capacities, as we can presently see. This is a time in life when fellow strugglers and spiritual directors are crucial. We are confronting our inner depth but also looking into the abyss.
How are you doing or how did you do it? Did you get into the second half of your life or are you still working on that? By this time, others may have saddled you with a life story. How do they tell it? Are you stuck in their view of you? Are you disappointed that your idealization of yourself is not accomplished? Can you connect with God and others with a deeper spiritual awareness yet? What needs to be loved, understood or finished?
Stage 6
Eventually, our bodies tell us we are old. Most of us do not have a plan for that time and many of us realize we need to develop the spiritual and relational resources we are missing.
Old age is not always a golden age because we have not successfully passed through the first five stages effectively. Most of us have more time to explore the possibilities, however. We may have less family obligations and more disposable income. We can simplify our lives and focus on what is most important to us. Many people allow their religious and creative impulses to emerge. Many interesting books and biographies are written by people in this stage because we are drawn to remember and take stock of our lives. Most of us become more able to accept our flaws and reconcile with others. But some of us are overcome by the fears that were held back by our resilience, which is now waning.
What is your story of this stage? You may think of your past as your story, but old age is also a wonderful time to develop. What needs to be loved, understood or finished?
Stage 7
The final stage, of course, which we will definitely not be skipping is death. In this age when centenarians are being minted at an unprecedented rate, it makes sense to consider what it means to die, and what it means to be dying for quite some time.
Some may see their final days as “there is nothing to be done but grin and bear it.” Younger people who doubt any life beyond this one, often feel like old people just rub their noses in their mortality — the nursing homes are full of their parents. Helping the dying die well is a valuable service for which more and more people are needed. Preparing to die by living well and knowing how to die well is a worthy endeavor at any stage. Paul was wise enough to know “I die daily.” He said, “To die is gain.” It made him brave to face his end no matter when it happened.
If you are in this stage, thank God you are still reading and thinking along with us. We need your wisdom, prayer and love. We even need your frailty to call out our compassion. Accompanying you to death helps us honor our own death and encourages us to get serious about what comes next. How are you doing with the Lord’s promise of eternal, abundant life? It is never too late to move beyond what blocks our experience of life. Like Kelsey taught, “We can grow at any time. The human being is far more plastic than most of us ordinarily believe.” What needs to be loved, understood or finished?
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Today is John and Betty Stam Day! Get to know these interesting examples of missionary passion at The Transhistorical Body.
When I served as a pastor, I often had a tough time with my leaders in the Brethren in Christ Church — not because we did not love each other, but because I groaned under their direction. Granted, I was theological friends with Christians like bell hooks who were preaching an ethic of love and I pondered making friends with Buddhists. What’s more, I was rather vocal about the antichrist ethics of capitalism and attempts by the U.S. to dominate the world militarily and economically. So I made them groan a bit, too — I think they thought I was very liberal.
The beautiful BIC
I, on the other hand, regularly told them, when I got the chance, that I thought they were the ones who were very “liberal,” in that they readily adopted post-Enlightenment philosophies as the basis for their theology. Even though they were supposedly rooted in antiestablishment Anabaptism, they relentlessly “left the farm” (as they liked to say), to more effectively compete in the present “marketplace” of ideas. They succeeded, to an extent, in growing churches filled with enculturated Christians.
My disappointment with the BIC, by whom I am ordained and licensed, was activated again when one of my spiritual direction clients brought up their personal “values.” I was literally triggered by the term and maybe went just a little beyond the bounds of my usual restraint. Let it suffice to say my appreciation for my companion was too great to let them stay subject to a word that has infiltrated the church and undercut our faith for over 140 years, now.
BIC Values
The subject of values was a main point of dispute for me with my leaders. I did not organize any marches, but I am sure I spoke up much more than they preferred.
In the year 2000 a General Conference of the Brethren in Christ adopted a new identity statement enumerating our “values.” That word may be the least Anabaptist, Pietist or Wesleyan one they could have chosen to describe our basic beliefs. I would have preferred “distinctives” or “aspirations” or “convictions.” Instead we got the straight business-plan title “Core Values” without too much thought as to why. (They are still being used). I assume they thought my critique was “urban.”
Each statement is fine, even if they do have the tortured sound of being committee compromises. But by calling them “values” they undermined my attempts to introduce radical Christianity to people who had lost it or never had it. The prospective Jesus followers I met already had “values.” But they had lost “virtue” or any sense of transcendent “morality.”
The word “values” got a new definition
When I was in college, I often saw students carrying around a big fat paperback of Friedrich Nietzsche philosophy. He is the father of the modern, abstract use of the word “values,” in the sense of moral or social principles. His thinking was popularized in the early 20th century by sociologists and anthropologists, notably Max Weber.
Nietzsche in 1882
Nietzsche was a pioneer in undermining the traditional Christian thinking that dominated Europe. He was definitely thinking outside the box. Before he went officially “mad,” probably due to the same kind of brain disorder that affected his father and brother, he famously wrote of the “transvaluation of all values” (Umwertung aller Werte). That meant he was cheering along the process of revaluing what was valuable. He was the man who said “God is dead,” meaning that in the modern era, belief in God and the accompanying Christian morality had lost its power and influence in society, leading to a moral vacuum humanity would have to fill.
He challenged traditional classical and Judeo-Christian virtues and asserted these moral standards were human-created rather than transcendent truths. It was in the 1880s that Nietzsche began to speak of “values” in the way we now use the word to talk about the moral assumptions and attitudes of a given society. He used the word consciously and repeatedly, to demonstrate the momentous transition human history had made. He thought describing the “transvaluation of values” was revealing the revolution which was underway, a revolution against both the classical virtues and the Judaic-Christian ones – against the very idea of a transcendent morality.
Others developing value theory (“axiology” after the Greek word for “worthy” or “deserving”) immediately pushed back, arguing for the objective existence of values, independent of human desires. But by the time Theodore Roosevelt used the word in the early 1900’s, it is well on its way to describing relativized beliefs that are socially constructed. The beliefs of the world were moving toward what we have today where, as Nietzsche noted, the powerful often have and impose values which normal, weak people do not come up with on their own. The transcendent morality revealed in Jesus was replaced by the survival of the fittest ideas. Now Donald Trump is a value unto himself and, even among the poor, the enrichment of oligarchs is of utmost importance, as they say it should be, even as they attempt to recreate the world in their image.
What we “value” could be deadly
Who would have thought the Brethren in Christ would become the handmaidens of Nietzsche?
Values, as we now understand that word, do not have to be virtues; they can be personally-sourced beliefs, opinions, attitudes, feelings, habits, preferences –- whatever any individual, group, or society happens to value, at any time, for any reason. One cannot say of virtues, as one can of values, that anyone’s virtues are as good as anyone else’s, or that everyone has a right to their own virtues. Only values can claim such moral equality and neutrality. This impartial, “non-judgmental” (as we now say) sense of values –- values as “value-free”–- is now so firmly entrenched in our vocabulary and sensibility that one can hardly imagine a time without it.
My issue with the use of “core values” to describe our discipleship had quite a bit of Teddy Roosevelt pragmatism in it. I still think most Christians in the U.S. are heavy on principle and light on action. Their faith is proving unsustainable as we speak. That’s why I like bell hooks’ ethic of love so much — it is all about how you live, not just what you think or believe.
It is hard to see belief systems in the New Testament at all; the writings are all about creating something by the power of the Holy Spirit; they are more about following Jesus than worshipping him at a distance, if we choose to do so. It is ironic that the powerless of the world regularly claim their freedom by not “drinking the kool-aid” of anyone imposing some principle on them when that very act shows how they “drank the kool-aid” of reducing themselves down to a set of personal values. All the while they could have been following Jesus who actually is a law unto himself, and who faced his detractors, imprisoned in their sense of worth, with “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins.”
What if I don’t value billionaires?
The people I have served were much more moved by the valuation of the “invisible hand” than the conviction of the Holy Spirit. What most people value these days is almost totally subsumed under making a good deal. My cousins asked me at most Thanksgiving dinners, “How is the church business going? Is your church getting bigger?” Advice columnists ask, “Are you better off with him or without him?” Put that last phrase into AI and it says, “Ultimately, the decision is personal and should prioritize your own happiness and well-being.” That is about all we’ve got these days: what I value, more or less.
Our government is littered with big hands grasping at a diminishing public trough. What if I don’t believe they are really job creators? What if I don’t value the way they assign my value? What if Jesus, the great I AM, makes me who I am?
Ellen Meiksins Wood observed, that a capitalist society is a society in which social relations are “embedded in the economy” rather than the “economy being embedded in social relations.” What she meant is we cannot account for the complexity of the capitalist mode of production as if it were an expression of human motives, desires and values. Capitalism is not simply an expression of the human tendency to “truck, barter and exchange.” Now it is a power that compels us to govern our whole lives in a transactional and commodifying way. It is not merely a matter of free people making choices, it is a compulsion, so much so, that a popular slur by our rulers is calling someone a “socialist.”
Under capitalism, many other aspects of human nature — such as the need for love, solidarity, and individuality — are secondary to the values associated with profit-seeking, or, if being kind, with “personal satisfaction” or “self-realization.” The word “values” is loaded with monetary value, quid pro quo, even with an evaluation of empathy as too weak to be sustainable.
I think the word “values” is loaded with the worst kind of autonomy: Godless, loveless, aloneness. The thoughts that: “I am responsible for what is important,” “I assign worth,” “My everyday choices to consume one thing over another is what gives me an identity” are overwhelming and subjugating. Thus the BIC reduced themselves with their “core values” to another set of choices, a product. It did not set itself apart from the world, it willingly adapted itself to the principles of the world.
But let’s remember after all this: Jesus is greater than our core values. There were undoubtedly many people in the crowd he confronted in John 8 who did not hear him and just “write him off“ with, “You have a right to your own opinion.” They followed him. The BIC is full of those kind of people, too.
Let’s start with 
Old age is not always a golden age because we have not successfully passed through the first five stages effectively. Most of us have more time to explore the possibilities, however. We may have less family obligations and more disposable income. We can simplify our lives and focus on what is most important to us. Many people allow their religious and creative impulses to emerge. Many interesting books and biographies are written by people in this stage because we are drawn to remember and take stock of our lives. Most of us become more able to accept our flaws and reconcile with others. But some of us are overcome by the fears that were held back by our resilience, which is now waning.
