ROUGH AND READY

    

        This is the ninth

             in our 

          Fall Series

      FOLLOW THROUGH

           living out

  The Sermon On The Mount

It builds on last week's posting,

        ROUGH STUFF

    which is available by 

    scrolling down here, or

by going to the Blog Archive

  ( November 19, 2020)

           ******

Dear All of Us,

What would you make of a commanding general

who sent his troops into fierce combat 

with absolutely no protective gear nor armaments -

not even a camouflage cap, not even a spit ball?

Implausible! Derelict! Hideous!

Some feel that's what Jesus does by insisting 

we love our enemies and that we do not retaliate

when we are the victims of evil.

They feel we're sent out defenseless

into a rough, tough world,

vulnerable, victims in the making.

This we need to check out!

Now, an important caution right from 

the get go here. In no way are we meant

to passively endure any or all evil.

What Jesus shares does mean, though,

that we do not return evil for evil,

we do not retaliate.

For sure the victim of sexual or spousal abuse

must not feel compelled 

to just stay there and take it.

They should get the hell out of hell

for God's sake - literally so!!.

The systems and leaders responsible for 

social inequities need to be corrected, 

but without a tinge of retaliation,

again "for God's sake."

I once tried to pastor a church that wasn't.

It was toxic. It was damaging my soul,

my psych and my body.

I asked for and received another assignment.

It was professionally embarrassing 

to spend such a short time in one place.

It also and happily led to health 

and appointment to one of

the best church I ever pastored.

Yes, there's a lot of rough in life.

We need to be ready for that.

Jesus spoke and lived out

        how to be

 READY for the ROUGH.

In our own way and world we wade into 

fierce combat zones all the time: 

   - cut throat competition

     in the business world

   - not at all "social" climbers

     stepping all over us

     to get to the top of the pile,

     the heap of personal carnage 

     they cause at school, church, 

     on the team, at the club

  - the crude and course who 

    cut us off in traffic or conversation

  - the friend who betrays and belittles us

 - the relative who despises us and 

   makes drama of it at family gatherings

 - social/systemic evils - affronts to justice

   and The Common Good.

 - the list would exhaust 

   any cloud's storage capacity.

As we wade into life's fierce combat zones

how do we arm ourselves?

What protective gear covers us?

What weapons do we carry?

How secure our advantage?

Well, the way of the world would have us 

load up on ammo of various calibers:

  - cunning

  - mocking

  - out smarting

  - hitting first and hard

  - sarcasm

  - over powering/whelming

  - getting a good lawyer

    and suing the socks off 

    the suckers

  - doing a social media smear 

  - never mind " a tooth for a tooth",

    KNOCK OUT ALL THE BASTARD'S TEETH!

  - spill the beans, spread the dirt

  - subtlety set loose  

    devastating misinformation.

  - figure out how do you get them 

    before they get you

  - misuse law and or position 

    for political, economic, 

    social dominance

  - riot rather than reform

That's the way of the world 

in pursuit of protection

and advantage.

It bears no closeness to living 

and responding in 

"the reign of God."

Not only are protection 

and advantage issues here, 

but even more so is the purity, the reality, 

the viability of our spiritual living.

That goes for the individual and the group.

How do we go right under the siege of wrong?

How stay safe in harm's way 

without harming others

and our very own souls?

The Sermon on The Mount calls 

for heroic valor.

And this is where it gets

      Rough Tough

In Matthew 5:38-48

Jesus sets the high bar 

of response to enemy and hurt.

  

      - "Do not resist the evildoer"

      - "Love your enemies".

A personal confession, well, more like 

an old fashioned, early church public confession.

I get it in my head. I buy it in my heart.

I can't do it all in practice.

Now long in the tooth 

(and glad to still have most of them),

I really can love and not retaliate

at being cut off by the crude and course,

at getting stepped on by sick social climbers,

at a friend's betrayal and belittlement,

at the despising relative, 

when working to right a social wrong,

and I don't have the money 

or energy to be in the cut throat business world.

It's not so much virtue.

Just, "Been there. Done that" 

and suffered the futility of such foolishness.

But come at me or my loved ones physically,

or at my loved ones attacking their spiritual, 

social, psychological, or financial safety, 

and I'll try not to hurt you too much,

but I'll use force to stop you.

This is the one place where I just don't follow 

what many feel is what Jesus requires of us.

I will resist the evildoer, be that person, party,

church, corporation, politician, government.

Am I in spiritual jeopardy?

Am I am wrong?

Am I spiritually flakey and frail?

And in all cases, I know I'm far

from  alone - we are legion.

We all seem to stall out,

get stymied just about here. 

How about this?

If we can learn the genius 

of what Jesus commands,

and really accept an infusion 

of his Holy Spirit, 

we can make grade.

We can get though the granite of

misunderstanding and fear to

the vein of gold in what Jesus tells. 

So, a closer look for a closer way

to follow Jesus' lead to unrestricted Love

for enemy and the spiritual energy not to retaliate.

Let's have a try!

   The Genius of Jesus,

   The Largeness of His Love

Jesus responds to evil,

pierces evil, not with a weapon, 

but with the power of 

Absolute Sheer Reality,

Absolute Sheer Love.

He wants to do the same for us and with us.

The evildoer's casing of hurt 

may continue but it no longer excludes us 

from going to the heart of the matter

and embracing the hurtful one/group 

at their core and thus on unto loving union,

even if the hurters don't yet get it

and continues to hurt.

Empire is likely to last longer than any of us.

Responding in and with Jesus 

and his limitless love means  

the evildoers are then powerless to block 

our GodLove for them.

They cannot keep us from piercing past 

their hurting us to God's deep Oneness in them.

The evildoer is no longer enemy

because we won't let that be the story shorted.

We don't retaliate because that would continue 

discontinuance between us.

And this is key -we don't "resist" 

by revengeful counter attack.

That just compounds evil.

So, we counter in lavish love.

Using the metaphors of Jesus 

in this Gospel section

  ( Matthew 5;39-2)

we some how or other 

say something like:

  - "Hey, you want my coat, 

     here's my cloak as well.

     You'll really look good in both."

  - "You want to take me to court?

     Hop in. I'll drive and pay your court costs

     when we get there."

  - "What you just said sure

     was a real slap in the face. 

     But, hey, together we can find a 

     a way to face what's bugging you." 

  - "You're really pushing me 

     to go along with you on this.

     Tell you what, let's see 

     how much more

     I can stretch to just that."

   - "You want me to cosign your car loan?

      You know what? I've got the money. 

      I'll just buy the car for you."

These sorts of responses and their animating spirit

apply whether the enemy/hurter is a person,

a government, a corporation, a social system.

The secret here is to stop the chain of evil 

by out doing the hurter in honest goodness.

That's the meaning of

           "Do not resist the evildoer".

Refuse tit for tat. Up the ante to a

response of lavish generosity. 

Now if someone or a system is out of control,

is violating, desecrating, destroying,

we employ LoveEnergy to restrain that.

But, we do not retaliate in the venture.

"Love your enemies" sure as heaven   

takes a lot of love.

I/We cannot pass muster 

on our own steam, 

and by our own good intentions.

We just don't have nearly enough juice

pulsating through our wires. 

We need to so absolutely, so sheerly, 

so totally allow ourselves to be consumed, 

enfolded, enwrapped in God's Love

that then God's Love in us embraces God's Love 

in the painful other, bonding us all three.

As always, the issue at the center of everything 

is letting God love us to Love.

We really need to get sick and tired 

of the loneliness, the incompleteness,

of trying to go it alone, the futility of trying 

to be our own fullness and god,

fighting our way forward.

We're just not up to it. We end up up side down.

We just ice ourselves out of God's warm love.

God wants intimacy. God wants us to get lost 

in God within us and God within each other.

That means and makes a Divine Love Union.

So enlivened, we can't waste ourselves, 

or others, by hurting enemies.

That would keep us apart from God in us

and God in the other, and thus from God.

It would short the divine circuitry.

Without a doubt the hardest of the hard

is not resisting the evil doer

in revengeful  violence.

What Jesus says and shows here

is so often misunderstood and then rejected.

It does not mean allowing Empire's evil 

in person, group, action - just taking it on the chin.

Turn the other cheek means give the hurter

another chance to kiss rather than slap, 

being sure not to slap back.

To get it right and live it out 

takes careful attention

and a lot of Soul-Smart-Stamina.

Jesus resisted the evil doers in the Temple.

He used force. He publicly castigated them.

He flipped their money tables.

He chased then out of the place with a whip.

He challenged and interrupted their evil. 

He did not hurt or destroy them.

He stopped them.

No vengeful response.

On the cross it wasn't calling down 

vengeful, wrath.

It was "Father, forgive them

for they know not what they do."

Holy wisdom shows us what and when.

At times we do need to model on Jesus 

vigorously flipping the tables on the 

evil doers in the temple.

Whether it's the energy of voice or arm, 

we do right to right a wrong.

We publicly protest police brutality

and brutality toward police.

We challenge to change corrupt

political/governmental evils.

We overpower a shooter or rapist.

What we don't do is fall into the trap 

of vengeful retaliation.

Our culture trains us 

to defend ourselves.

Jesus trains us to make sure 

that defending doesn't 

just fend off union

at the deepest level,

even if the hurter

isn't ready to go there. 

Our nuclear nations are like 

tectonic plates pushing 

against each other, 

pressure building to 

rupture and devastation -

a defense offensive,

ready to retaliate 

unto mutual annihilation.

Jesus nurtures us in the softening 

of edges and borders, 

not pulling or pushing,

reducing the conflicting pressures.

That makes possible merging mutuality,

               Oneness 

 and the dynamic of expanding creation.

God creates diversity,

invites complementing

       "fullerness" 

yet we trash the immigrant, 

the poor, minorities, the "different",

those that don't suit and satisfy

our ego demands, 

who trigger our insecurities,

making them enemy,

denying them lived GodLove from us,

thus denying union and 

       "fullerness''

by practicing anti-creative 

birthing control of GodLove.

Jesus trains our heads and hearts,

to strip away the contraceptives 

of retaliation and enmity,

to overcoming evil with GodLove.

Jesus has us go through 

the hurt to the hurter's God-Core,

merging there with the hurter and God.

In the process we do right wrongs 

with positive energies of sheer truth,

reality, and divine love.

Never, though, in negative 

vengeful, destructive vengeance -

always good for good.

It comes down to this or up to that:

we deny GodLove and descend 

to the hell of maddeningly lonely,

self imposed solitary confinement, 

or we lavish GodLove on all 

and ascend to the heights of 

shared and expansive creative union,

even in the immediacy of inflicted pain

from evildoer/Empire.

So, let's do spiritual stretch with Jesus.

That means the stress of facing 

our limits, pain and hurt,

    and accepting God's

        " fullerness"

all the way inside, being 

        Loved To Life

  so others can be as well.

To wrap up, there is here a 

       Sacred Trinity

 God - the hurt - the hurter

"in" love even if the hurter 

does not realize it yet.

It's ROUGH and we're READY.

Please let's love and pray

 for each other so we 

"go all the way" 

in Divine Love Making.

      John Frank

       ******

This past week we had 

a large number of folks 

from Russia join in with us.

        Wonderful!

Welcome to you and all 

new to our gathering.

Please come back and stay 

   as we SoulShare 

  each week here at

   "frankly speaking"

spirituality for the street.

-It is posted by mid-day 

 every Thursday

 east coast USA time

 johnfrankshares.blogspot.com

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-Blog Archive contains all 

 past posting

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           ******

One of the really neat things 

about being non retaliatory

is that all our energies are harmonized,

are all together going 

in the same right direction.

We don't split and splinter.

                    ******

Thanksgiving Good Wishes !!!!

       Looking forward 

         to seeing you 

         next week.

           ******

            

 

 

 

 

    

  

 

   

 

TOUGH STUFF

  

          This is the eighth in our

              Fall Series

         FOLLOW THROUGH

              living out

   The Sermon On The Mount

              ******

Whether there is snow where we live or not, 

these next two posting will mean 

"heavy shedding" for all of us.

We will be working our way through

drifts of difficulty - understanding aright

and embracing fully what are for most

the most difficult dimensions of

Jesus's call to discipleship.

The realness and viability of

our spiritual lives depends on 

making it through to clarity and embrace.

Happily we can count on The Holy Spirit 

for stamina and perseverance.

                  ******

Dear All of Us,

I don't know how it goes with you,

but for me The Bible can often be a 

           Rough Read

              really

         TOUGH STUFF:

 - Psalm 137:9 

  Smash the heads of your enemies' babies 

  against a rock -

  So much for respect life!

- Book of Joshua

  Turns out that the Promised Land

  was already peopled and

  God had them evicted so 

  the Israelites could move in -

  The locals are still soar about it!

- Numbers 26 and Matthew 1 

  Mile long genealogies and head counts -

        "Enough already!" 

  with all these ancient analytics and  

  actuarial rollouts 

- Exodus 25 - 40

  Encyclopedic, repetitive ritual regulations -

  makes the Methodist Book of Discipline 

  and the Roman Code of Canon Law

  look like simple little manuals 

  on how to change a tire

- I Samuel 15:3 

 "Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy 

  all that they have; do not spare them, 

  but kill both men and women, child and infant, ..." -

  Hey, that's genocide! 

- Genesis 19: 30-38

  Lot's two daughters get Daddy drunk 

  two nights in a row and take turns 

  having sex with their father -

  Definitely not a go for The Hallmark Channel,

  much less a children's religious education class . 

 

                 Rough Reads!

Now in all fairness scripture needs to be read

in terms of its time, place, culture, 

the consciousness level of its people and writers,

the customs current, the literary forms of then, 

and a ton more elements that factor into 

what is written, how it is written and 

what the basic meaning was and is for all its form.

Scripture is nothing close to a pulp novel written 

by someone in Peoria for pleasure reading.

For all of the above the read is often  

              TOUGH STUFF

           The roughest of the

              TOUGH STUFF

  for me is right here where we are 

             in this series on

           FOLLOW THROUGH

                living out 

       The Sermon On The Mount 

       That's Matthew 5:38-48.

Now, I'm all in for the rest of it.

The Golden Rule, well, OK, most days anyway.

I get it and go with it about

 - anger, lust, divorce, judging,

 - not grandstanding at public prayer, 

   almsgiving, or fasting,

 - a simple yes or no 

   to truth telling,

 - making sure both heart and treasure 

   are in the same right place,

 - and all the wonderful rest.

In all conflicted honesty, though, I choke at 

           Matthew 5:38-48.

    I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.

So, let's go over this together.

Let's be completely Soul Sensitive.

Let's be totally Soul Honest.

Right now and right here let's face Jesus.

Let's see Jesus looking us right in the eye 

and saying to us:

  

   "Here's another old saying

    that deserves a second look:

   'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.'

    Is that going to get us anywhere?

    Here's what I propose:

   'Don't hit back at all.'

    If someone strikes you,

    stand there and take it.

    If someone drags you 

    into court and sues for 

    the shirt off your back,

    gift wrap your best coat 

    and make a present of it.

    And if someone takes 

    unfair advantage of you,

    use the occasion 

    to practice the servant life.

    No more tit-for-tat stuff.

    Live generously.

       Matthew 5:38-42

         The Message

 

Hey, come on now, Jesus!! 

You want us to be 

human punching bags?

This is more than a bit much!!

Well, Jesus does "come on now"

and that with more, much more, 

        TOUGH STUFF !!

   "You're familiar with the old written law,

    'Love your friend,' 

     and its unwritten companion,

    'Hate your enemy.'

     I'm challenging that.

     I'm telling you to love your enemies.

     Let them bring out the best in you,

     not the worst.  

     When someone gives you a hard time, 

     respond with the energies of prayer,

     for then you are working out of your true selves,

     your God-created selves.

     This is what God does.

     He gives his best - the sun to warm

     and the rain to nourish - everyone, regardless:

     the good and the bad, the nice and the nasty.

     If all you do is love the lovable, 

     do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that.

     If you simply say hello to those who greet you,

     do you expect a medal?

     Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.

     In a word, what I'm saying is, Grow up.

     You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. 

     Live out your God-crated identity.

     Live generously and graciously toward others,

     the way God lives toward you.

                    Matthew 5:43-48

                      The Message

Well, there you have it. And so do I. But do we?

Can we buy in? Our spiritual lives,

us being disciples, are at stake here.

It's simply a "no go" to be a 

        Cafeteria Christian

when it comes to what Jesus serves up: 

      "I'll have one of these, 

       but I'll take a pass on those."

    Yet and Yes, this really is 

           TOUGH STUFF

So let's go back over all this very slowly

in the coming week. That will highlight 

where/how we are with this 

           TOUGH STUFF

It will also prime us for next week

when we will dig deep to get 

the real sense and scope 

of what Jesus says about 

retaliation and reaction to enemies,

those who hurt us one way or many.

So, let's apply each utterance of Jesus here 

to the worst/hardest case scenarios 

in our personal, church, national and international,

real life social/soul settings.

Let's "get it down on paper,' or if better for you,

on a spread sheet.

We need to one way or another

spell it out so we can get a real read

on where we are with Jesus and 

his way of responding to the painful bastards 

in our private and shared life.

Of course that is not gentile,

Church Ladies Aid Society talk.

       It is tough talk about the 

           TOUGH STUFF

        Jesus says about the 

          TOUGH STUFF

with which we have to deal, 

for example, whatever 

our political persuasions, indeed 

our political passions, in these 

divided, anxious, angry times.

Under each phrase of Jesus we catalogue 

our questions, conflicts, resistance.

Given that kind of sheer, stark, encounter,

      how do we do with this

         TOUGH STUFF ?

      Are we really ready to

       FOLLOW THROUGH

  actually, practically, living out

          this section of 

  The Sermon On The Mount -

    not resisting the evildoer,

      loving our enemies?

Or is all this too high a "Mount" for our climb?

And what about our establishment churches?

What about our social circle?

What about our business and work settings?

What about our sports and entertainment choices?

What about our judicial/penal system?

What about our military stance?

What about politics just now?

Can we see people through the political smog choking us,

see children of God, see brothers and sisters

with the same divine presence and DNA 

at their core as ours even if 

we are offended/hurt by them?

What about social justice issues - racial strife, 

income disparity, excessive incarceration, immigration?

What about environmental matters?

What about militarism and international concerns?

What about red and blue not allowing 

a white of respect, civility, cooperative compromise 

                       for the

                  COMMON GOOD

                  and making it a 

                Red, WHITE and Blue 

                         USA

The scripture scholars peg these words of Jesus as

                  "ipsissima verba",

                   "the very words" 

                   of Jesus.

They are not the work of later Gospel writers 

ascribing words to Jesus based on their lived experience 

and that of the early church -

perfectly proper literary form in those days.

This is Jesus verbatim. Are we listening?

Will we hear him? Let's be real about that 

and not try to explain him away.

That would only separate us, distance us as disciples,

from following Jesus, from 

          FOLLLOWING  THROUGH

               on living out 

      The Sermon On The Mount

Let's be real in hearing what Jesus says 

and about where we are with that so far.

And let's be sensitive to ourselves and our

                  "so far."

          It may indeed be that

                  "so far"

we just can't hear it, much less start to live it.

God is patient with us as we grow.

We do well to share in that patience.

So, let's do our best to sense, to catch on 

to what and why Jesus is after in all this

and where we come down with him

                   "so far"

Hey, this sounds like a lot of homework

             - rough sledding -

for the coming week. Sorry about that.

Actually, though, all this is more

               Heart Work.

Let's have at it, pray and ponder,

and then we'll pick up here again next week.

We need to first honestly face the 

             ROUGH STUFF

and our actual, operative response.

Then we can begin to hear anew

the hard truth and beauty of what Jesus invites.

Anything short of that is sadly spiritual self delusion. 

Next week we will try to plow through 

the drifts of difficulty, dig deep, chip through

granite of our confusion, fear, our "so far,"

and strike it rich, discovering the seam of gold

in what Jesus says, invites and offers

as we understand it anew and life it freely. 

                   Your fellow 

                "Wanna Be But"

                    Disciple,

                 John Frank

                   ******

    

 Greetings to all our first time visitors.

 How wonderful this week to welcome

 large groups of you from 

         France and Russia.

 We appreciate your company

           a whole lot!!

             ******

   "frankly speaking"

spirituality for the street

- is posted Thursdays 

  by mid-day

  east coast USA time

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          ******

         Good luck 

 roughing it out with the

      TOUGH STUFF.

        this week,

  with plowing through.

  Next week's sharing 

    will build on it

  and hopefully get us 

  to the heart of what 

  Jesus is reveling here.

  We'll have to dig for it,

  and dig we will!!

         ******

        

   

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

WORRY FREED

                                            

     This is the seventh in our

              Fall Series

          FOLLOW THROUGH

              living out

    The Sermon On The Mount

               ******

     Given the givens just now, 

     many of which we'd be 

     more than happy 

     to give a heave 

     but simply cannot,

     our sequence here 

     this week is altered.

     

     Those givens have a lot of us 

     worried sick, tied up in 

     restraining knots of worry.

     So this week we skip ahead to

     Matthew 6:25 -34 and focus on 

     worry and finding a freeing forth. 

                  ******

     

   

                                    Written         

                              November 9, 2020

Dear All of Us,

Here in Washington, DC this morning 

it is beautiful, clear, colorful  - autumn ideal.

Here in Washington, DC this morning

it is frightful, conflicted, dangerous -

dreadfully far from ideal.

The atmosphere is choked 

with a pandemic resurgence, 

economic jeopardy, culture war, 

a presidential transition that is 

neither presidential nor transitional,

but is constitutionally threatening,

concerns that the reactions and rhetoric 

may result in riot.

Here in Washington, DC 

it is Monday morning,

time to start this week's piece on

"spirituality for the street" 

 and to do so

"frankly speaking." 

Is it even worth a try?

So much is flashing at us so fast.

Will all this need to be 

revised and rewritten

before posting Thursday morning?

Well, you know what?

I'm not going to worry about it!

Way better, I'm going 

to write about being

    WORRY FREED

It's critical to note that 

there's a vast difference 

between being freed from 

debilitating worry 

and fearlessly facing 

the strain of responsible 

concern and action.

The two are interlaced.

We darn well better be  

concerned and responsive 

to the societal issues before us.

We darn well better work 

to be freed from worry 

that renders us personally, psychically, 

socially, spiritually disabled.

The emphasis here today

is on the latter.

Let's see what we can see about

not being worried soul sick

and find ways to be 

   WORRY FREED 

in a most stressful 

and worrisome time.

As noted, 

the turmoil of the times 

sure is tripping up 

all sorts of us 

in all sorts of 

negative ways.

Right at the top of 

that pile of peril is

      WORRY.

It robs many of 

a healthy spiritual freedom, 

imprisoning's them,

limiting then, 

restraining them 

in the grip of fearful worry.

They are anything but

     WORRY FREED

So let's face and feel both 

the perniciousness of fear and 

the power of freedom in Christ.

    "It was for freedom 

     that Christ set us free;

     therefore keep standing firm

     and do not be subject again

     to a yoke of slavery"

                           Galatians 5:1

Our spiritual freedom and growth 

start to set in when we find out 

that the facts of life are

way more than about sex.

The real facts of life are that 

        life is lovely 

           and 

    life can be lousy.

     We "be" in, 

     we go and grow 

     through both.

We don't want to miss the one 

worrying about the other.

We deal with both as they come,

not as they might come.

To see this we do well to look at 

the lovely and the lousy

as they both played out 

for growth and greatness

in the lived experience of

Mohammed, Buddha, Jesus,

Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt,

Martin Luther King, C.S. Lewis

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Jung,

my mother and probably yours.

In large part life is like a card game.

We only win if we make the best of 

the hand we are dealt.

In life, as in cards, 

it all comes down to

how we react.

So we don't play it safe 

because that isn't safe.

Rather we savor to growth 

through all the love in life -

having a baby, 

getting lost in a Monet,

hiking The Appalachian Trail, 

good wine with good friends,

reading Richard Rohr and Thomas Merton,

a SoulYes to being mystically 

enwrapped in GodLove,

going to a Springsteen concert,

a Dicken's novel, 

culinary euphoria dining at 

Suzanne McCarthy's table...

We also man up/woman up to 

all the "lousies" in life

rather than sitting in the corner,

thump in mouth, 

stilled to stupor by worry -

a possible birth defect, 

a love that may fall through,

a potential financial bust,

pandemic peril, 

career frustrations,

health concerns, 

our country coming undone 

at the seams...

We live spiritually real and well

when we do so 

in a spirit that embraces 

with vigor and gusto the lovely,

and damn well refuses 

to be wasted by worry

about the lousy 

before it shows up.

As the lovely and the lousy

show up we go at each with 

matching vigor and gusto.

Worry is a fake out.

It gets us stalled, even stopped,

by fear of what might happen,

but hasn't happened.

It steals positive life energies

and is thus life denying.

It gets us preoccupied 

with what is not actual,

what is not here,

paralyzed by possibilities.

In the meantime we sit out,

miss out, on vigorous living,

on deepening and expanding of soul.

Worry is a sucker game of the devil.

Hey, if you're too sophisticated 

for the term devil, try

"counter creative vacuum."

Impressed??

When we cave to worry,

we miss the lovely, 

lose the verve to wrestle 

with the lousy when it does show up.

Yes, we will hurt in life.

But literally for God's sake, 

why hurt early and more 

than has to be by worrying about it

beforehand?

Worry is diabolical because it derails

the enterprise of growing through

the "lovelies" and the "lousies" of life.

It saps soul.

It wastes, it limits living.

It misdirects attention and energies 

from good to good for nothing.

Tell it to go to hell, 

right there with the devil,

aka "counter creative vacuum."

The older I get the bolder I get.

To wit, here's more than 

is usually shared in a public forum.

I'm eighty, have significant prostate problems,

nasty arthritis neck to hips that is always 

uncomfortable and regularly painful,

and an aortic aneurysm. 

I refuse to waste time, attention and energy

on what any or all of that 

might/may mean some day. 

So I take my prostate meds 

and don't worry about a maybe metastasis.

I keep on keeping on with a daily walk,

even as there's more and more shuffle to it

and less distance covered lately,

rather than worry about a day when 

wheels will be necessary.

I put my whole heart into the glories of life 

before me right now rather than worry about 

an aortic blow out and a fast transition to Next.

I'm here, not in the nowhere of worry.

Please note the double negative.

We know what that means, right?

Here's an uncomfortable but 

hard to miss analogy.

Let's not fall for the disfigurement 

of being a Worry Wart.

A face full of warts would keep 

a lot of folks indoors 

and missing much of life.

Being a Worry Wart disfigures 

our soul and how we face life.

It locks us in and living out.

Remember the wisdom that says:

"A coward dies a thousand deaths.

The brave person dies once."

Don't die off from full force living

by worrying a lot about something that 

is not in the right now, 

may never be so, 

and if it is someday we take the hit once,

not a thousand unnecessary and 

life stealing times.

I've taken a bunch of words to say this poorly.

In just a few wonderful words 

Jesus says it so well:

         "Give your entire attention

         to what God is doing right now,

         and don't get worked up about

         what may or may not happen tomorrow.

         God will help you deal with

         whatever hard things come

         when the time comes."

                                    Matthew 6:34

                 

                    WORRY FREED

                        sure is!!

               John Frank

                 ******

This week we have again been blessed 

with another large contingent of visitors 

from Portugal. A hearty welcome to you

and all our other first time visitors.

                  ******

                "frankly speaking"

        spirituality for the street

- is posted by mid-day Thursdays

  east coast USA time

  johnfrankshares.blogspot.com

- an automatic email edition 

  arrives each Friday

  sign up top right above

- all past posting are accessible from

  Blog Archive

  right column above.

                  ******

Here's  to our strength and stamina

in a tough and terrible time,

living the "lovelies" and the "lousies,"

             WORRY FREED

  **************************