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Morning Prayer link
Dear Lord, You have brought me to the beginning of a new day.
As the world is renewed fresh and clean, so I ask You to renew my heart with Your strength and purpose.
Forgive me the errors of yesterday and bless me to walk closer in Your way today.
This is the day I begin my life anew; shine through me so that every person I meet may feel Your presence in me.
Take my hand, precious Lord for I cannot make it by myself.
Amen.
SHINE, JESUS SHINE : BIG SING at ROYAL ALBERT HALL,LONDON 30 12 2012
Prayer by Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) Link
O God,…we thank Thee for Thy Church,
founded upon Thy Word, that challenges us to do more than sing and pray,
but go out and work as though the very answer to our prayers depended on us and not upon Thee…
Help us to realize that man was created to shine like the stars and live on through all eternity.
Keep us, we pray, in perfect peace, help us to walk together, pray together, sing together, and live together until that day when all God’s children, Black, White, Red, and Yellow, will rejoice in one common band of humanity in the kingdom of our Lord and of our God, we pray.
Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer link
Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, As it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, The power, and the glory,
For ever and ever.
Amen.
Benediction link
The Lord enlighten you
through the teachings of Jesus Christ
and strengthen you as you walk in his light.
The Lord give you joy
as he shows you his Fatherly mercies
new every morning.
The Lord give you wisdom in happiness,
comfort in suffering,
rest in death,
and one day,
the peace of eternal life.
Amen
Is an old story from the Jewish wisdom, this:
“Every person should have two pockets.
In one pocket should be a piece of paper saying: “I am only dust and ashes.”
When one is feeling too proud, it helps to reach into this pocket and take out this paper and read it.
In the other pocket should be a piece of paper saying:
“For my sake was the world created.”
When one is feeling disheartened and lowly, it helps to
reach into this pocket and take this paper out and read it.
We are each the joining of two worlds:
WE ARE FASHIONED FROM CLAY, BUT OUR SPIRIT IS THE BREATH OF ADONAI.”
(Tales of The Hasidim Later Masters, Martin Buber, p.249-50) “
For the life of me, I still don’t understand what Carreon is talking about.
Everyone has internal self-doubt, it’s as human as putting on a good face even when you (generic you) don’t want to.
So how does this get internally transformed into ‘Imposter Syndrome’?
Mayhap I don’t have the required array of brain cells to ‘get it’?
Or is Carreon making too much ado about nada?
> So how does this get internally transformed into ‘Imposter Syndrome’?
The clinical entity is assuredly real; it sounds like its etiology is not yet well-understood (which should not be surprising; the brain is very complex).
I think that a certain amount of self-doubt can be adaptive in that it makes it easier to recognize unwise trajectories and make “course corrections”.
Much more alarming to me are the actual imposters who have pathological self-confidence and pursue paths that are destructive to others without regard to the harm they cause.
Many of us know people like this. Some of them have a lot of power over others.
Muff Potter,
In my world, and with many of my friends, I am struck by those who don’t feel successful with several things- family, job, etc. They worry that they are failing, but they put up a good front so those around them can’t discover that they don’t believe they are good at what they do.
Let me confess something here. Sometimes I wonder why anyone would listen to what I have to say. If only they knew I failed here and there. My time in the Lutheran church has helped me with this feeling of inadequacy. I”m doing this because a strong Hand held mine and said, “Let me lead you. You can do it.”
This is such a good comment. I wish I had thought of it.
IMO, things started going south in the American church when Christian psychology came on the scene. The biggest section in Christian bookstores are now stacked with self-help resources. Somewhere along the line, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” fell by the wayside and counselors inserted themselves instead of the Holy Spirit. Don’t get me wrong, there is certainly time to seek professional psychological help, but the masses in the pew seem to favor self-help fixes vs. spiritual resources available to them through Christ who is “Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). Reading the red and praying for power have fixed a lot of things in my Christian experience.
Amen to the pathological self confidence harming others.
Right now in my little neck of the red neck woods people are all a twitter over a music video. It supposedly is just innocently telling how folks in our small towns will protect each other, but the video scenes are much more chilling and if you know where some are filmed, a clear warning to those of darker skin tones to step carefully cause “we still got our guns.”
Bottom sediment. (The refined oil field lady’s version of bs.) These same folks willing to shoot someone they perceive might be a threat to me at a gas station are not willing and have never been willing to get a vaccine against anything, not just covid. And they are not and have never been willing to wear a mask even to a family reunion where they will persist in hugging 97 year old grandpa’s neck after they spent the evening before at a bar.
They could use a few rounds of page 77, greenbook ELCA hymnal.
Imposters. Pretending to care about others and to be willing to lay down their lives for others. Unless, of course, it inconveniences them in the slightest.
dee,
“not good enough” is kind of background “music” in my own self-reflection; I attribute it to hereditary influences that I suspect predispose me to depression, and have learned to self-critically evaluate my self-criticism — “where is this coming from and how reasonable is it?”
I think that a certain amount of self-doubt could be useful in terms of stimulating striving toward excellence. Perhaps to imagine that “I’m already the best” would interfere with discernment of places where there is need for improvement.
The best thing, I suppose, is to have sober self-assessment. Can’t pick the citation out of memory, but I’m pretty sure there is a Pauline text with that counsel.
I also think that there is a lot of comfort in texts like 1 Jn 3:1-3. We aren’t yet what we shall be — which is glorious — but the hope of what we shall be is a motive for its pursuit.
https://www.amazon.com/Confidence-Game-Fall-Every-Time/dp/0143109871
“The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It … Every Time.”
“A compelling investigation into the minds, motives, and methods of con artists—and the people who fall for their cons over and over again.
“While cheats and swindlers may be a dime a dozen, true conmen—the Bernie Madoffs, the Jim Bakkers, the Lance Armstrongs—are elegant, outsized personalities, artists of persuasion and exploiters of trust. How do they do it? Why are they successful? And what keeps us falling for it, over and over again? These are the questions that journalist and psychologist Maria Konnikova tackles in her book.”
Yeah, preachers, and church leaders, too.
Michael Lewis weighs in: https://youtu.be/fFUKPXUT9H8 The OverConfidence Game: when someone tries to explain to an author the author’s own work, for example. It happens. OverConfidence in spades versus an author just doing their work, that they know best by the way because they did the work. Instead of someone just boasting and talking as the loudest voice in the room cuz they get off on being THAT VOICE.
Exactly. In our relationship with God, we are humbled and yet called to His purpose, but only capable through our integral relationship with Him, our Creator. In our relationships with our fellow people, we stand level – each of us has a calling of equal merit.
You live in a Sundown Town?
(Posting this from a place that was a Sundown Town 100 years ago. Not only a Sundown Town, but a Klan Town.)
And what’s the name of this music video?
Dr Carreon admits he had been undermined by his supervisor and adds many factors now undermining higher students.
Remedy: don’t trash intellect, just go wide. Sixth forms should offer more O levels, and colleges / universities should offer more A levels, certificates and diplomas, preferably with an element the student can design / choose for themselves.
Most of my best O level results were for subjects entered in my twenties and thirties. I’ve self homeschooled since retirement (without enough feedback scope).
I’ve known people who faked it to fake it. I’ve also known people who made it to make it.
“Shine Jesus Shine” is a nice oldie!
HUG–at one time my town was a sundown town. Not so much now. Of course, Harrison Ark. is not that far away. The video is “Try that in a small town.”
Your blog is successful because your articles are human-interest based and they resonate with your readership. No theo-babble at every turn, and no victim-blaming.
Sorry to hear that your friends feel that they’re ‘not-good-enough’ and beat themselves up for not achieving perfection.
I gave that up years ago and learned to love myself for what I am and as I am.
Discovered historical redlining locally after reading “The Color of Law” by Richard Rothstein.
So grateful you have humbly yet boldly moved forward with God’s hand.
Re: Luther and Lutheranism, it makes sense that Luther stood up to corruption in the Church of his day although in the end, the guy had issues.
However, the fact that Calvin’s TULIP begins with Total Depravity, graduating to selective salvation, would seem to require intensive PTSD therapy for all who have ventured into his line.
God help the Calvinistic reformed.
In Genesis, God first created every person sacredly with dignity, agency, and value in His image. Some seem to have lost our foundation. We each are today still created sacredly with value, dignity, and agency, in God’s image.
One of your masthead quotes from 2017:
The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made. Groucho Marx
Ava, amen and amen. We are all created loved and with dignity, agency, and value.
I’ve also learned over the years to believe in myself.
You’d never know that from “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” Worm Theology.
Which I experienced in a Christian Fellowship(TM) that had NOTHING to do with Calvin, only Hal Lindsay and Jack Chick. Total Depravity Worm Theology has metastasized outside its place of origin.
It’s very common in the Calvary Chapel brand too.
They beat themselves up for not being able to achieve perfection damn near as hard.
Ava Aaronson,
FYI: Luther believed in total depravity and predestination.
Headless Unicorn Guy,
They just hadn’t realised “Calvin” is an alluring brand name yet (nobody in fact, had ever heard of him). I’ve lived through it in 100 shades of identical dilution, that’s all.
Only when read through Calvin-colored beer goggles.