What follows is hard and difficult.
I am convinced it is necessary.
I pray it leads to hope.
I offer it to you humbly and in love.
John Frank
******
Dear All of Us,
Awake or asleep
we are living a nightmare.
Life is dreadfully dangerous.
Existence right now
teeters on the edge of hell.
As is and as is going
are rushing us to a
social/global graveyard.
Wipeout is in the wind.
And worst of all,
most of us don't know it,
or don't want to know it,
or don't know
what to do about it.
Yet, nobody nowhere
gets a pass.
Ever since we bit our butt
biting that apple in the garden
we've had hell to pay.
Now it's even more terrible.
The ante is up
beyond dangerous.
Our dread danger is like
none other is all of history:
EXSTINCTION
Nuclear
or
Environmental
or both in a new
BIG BAD BANG
that blasts
all to nothing
but elements of
what could have been
divinely delightful.
We are organized crazy bad,
in public, in private,
in head, in heart.
The systems that operate us
are sick and sicken unto death.
They set us up for fall.
They curate chaotic
devaluations
of truth and wisdom
which turn us toward
certainly possible
and now
sadly close to inevitable
EXTINCTION
Causes and Effects
What's setting us up for down?
- capitalistic gouging by the few,
grinding the many into poverty,
seducing the rest with
assorted stuff and status,
degrading our habitat.
- war whores making
killers out of kids,
fattening to obscene obesity
the military-industrial complex,
scooping out the common purse
of enough (853 Billion Dollar
Defense Budget in the USA
alone for2022 ), enough
to eradicate much to most
of the word's poverty,
hunger, and illness
- a world-wide
communication assembly
internet, social media, cellular,
print and broadcast
often used to
flagrantly misinform,
enflaming
mass confusion and conflict
paired with mind numbing,
conscience dulling trivia and folly.
- politicians, bureaucrats, dictators
fashioning cults to support their
dominating madness and warring.
- an epidemic of excessive "me-ism'
- religion that
lost its virginity long ago,
e.g. Christian Nationalism,
which has nothing to do
with Christianity or
"One nation under God,
with liberty and justice for all,"
e.g. vapid, sterile,
professionalized,
bureaucratic, corporate,
denominations and churches
that dull to denial the
lived experience of the
"Kin Domain of God"
Jesus offers, lived,
and detailed in the
Sermon on the Mount.
- AI: great potential, great peril -
like riding an unbroken,
unbridled stallion
at the edge of the
Grand Canyon
- earth and climate
on hospice care
- a public confused,
meaning-deprived,
distracted to death
with bread and circus
(check tonight's TV listings)
- sheep without a shepherd
straying precipice close.
Not one word of the above
is hyperbole,
nor does it have to be
the world's
last gasping word
BUT
see nothing,
do nothing
and it's the
EXTINCTION
of
EXISTENCE
The extinction
of dinosaurs
eons ago was small change
compared to the bankruptcy
of people and planet
about to cash us out.
So what the heaven
do we do about this hell
on earth?
I know of no one, nowhere
with an organizational
Master Plan
for reversal and redirection
that can move us righted.
Organizational shuffle
is not where we need to start.
Blessedly we do have
a wondrous,
hope filled
way to start.
It's cellular and small.
It grows a presence
personal, public, and robust.
Individually and in small groups
we pray for
clarity and courage of heart.
Individually and in small groups
we daringly dream
the real and right,
so such that
we be it,
we live it.
Individually and
in small groups
we can start
to swap out
hell for heaven
as we
DARE TO DREAM
alive a life
We dream
God's Originating Dream.
After a lover's orgasm
of creative sharing
God viewed
what was conceived:
"God saw everything
that had been made,
and indeed,
it was very good."
Genesis 1:31
We live God's
creative dream.
We see everyone
and all that is
as very good
- God Darn Good -
plenty for all
and for all to share.
We are great-full
and
care-full.
We live the dream real.
No more dreams, though,
of
Domination
of trying to corner
THE CENTER
and thus throwing
all off balance.
We refuse to dream
of playing God,
of biting into the
original fruit of
misinformation
and arrogance
and thus
biting ourselves
in the but again and still.
We quickly, completely
shake snake free,
awake from that
nightmare
and never ever
fall for it again.
Genesis 3
We
DARE TO DREAM
God's Dream
of a
Glorious
New Creation
a reset, a redoing,
a refreshing
in our just now and here:
"For I am about to create
new heavens and a new earth:
the former things shall not be
remembered or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I am creating;
for I am about to create
Jerusalem as a joy
and its people as a delight.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem
and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound
of weeping be heard in it,
or the cry of distress...
Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking
I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb
shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw
like the ox;
but the serpent -
its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain."
Isaiah 65:17-19, 24- 25
Now there's something
to dream about,
a dream to lean into,
a dream to live into,
one that enlivens and renews.
How can the dream be resident
where we live?
How can the imagery here
be spoken in a living dream,
daytime realized
in our just now right here?
We
DARE TO DREAM
the dream Jesus has.
He spoke it, he lived it,
he offers it.
"The Kin Domain of God"
Jesus shares how
the dream comes true:
Sermon on the Mount.
Mathew 5 -7
We dare dream it alive in
attitude, practice, lifestyle.
We peal The Beatitudes off the
Sunday School Flannel Board
and let them place us in
new postures and practices.
The Sermon On The Mount
wraps real and right
about everything:
about our call to be
salt of the earth,
light of the world,
about tradition, anger,
adultery, divorce,
our word of honor,
retaliation, love of enemies,
alms giving, prayer, fasting,
treasure and valuation,
seeing clear and clean,
the choice of God over stuff,
worry and anxiety,
taking a pass on judging others,
messing up the pure and holy,
just asking to receive,
the gold standard
for treating others,
using God's GPS
to go it pinpoint right,
never mind talk -
taste to trueness,
we can't fake out God -
claim doesn't do it,
follow in fact,
don't talk it, walk it.
We calibrate lifestyle to Gospel -
With Jesus we dream alive
a whole new, simplified
manner and approach to
God Dream Lived.
"In a word,
what I'm saying is,
Grow up.
You're kingdom subjects.
Now live like it.
Live out your God-created identity.
Live generously and graciously
toward others, the way
God lives toward you."
Matthew 5:47-48
The Message
That means things like
us having enough
and then sharing the rest -
the kids and grandkids,
the needy near and far,
support for justice efforts,
food banks, racial restfulness,
homing the homeless,
being a Big Brother/Sister,
liberal support of
The Christian Brothers
and their educational ministry,
The American Indian
College Fund,
Berea College,
which is tuition free
for the rural and other needful.
Rather than live like
the upper crust,
we keep it simple and share
with those at
the bottom of the pile,
close by and far afield.
We pray/pay Turkey/Syria relief.
We
Dare To Dream
ourselves into full torque
acceptance, participation,
liveliness
in Jesus' offer of
life together in
The Reign of God
With others we are graced
to live real and right,
right in the midst of a world
unreal, wrong and wronging.
God brings light to a dark world
radiating through
our Kingdom living.
"You are the light
of the world."
Matthew 5:14
We are incorporated into
The Body of Christ
1 Corinthians 12:27
As a body we live Jesus,
"...the way, the truth
and the life."
John 14:6
Practically and as one we live
his way of life
the truth that he embodies
the life of God he shares.
We do it in the actuality of our
right now right here.
We are "ecclesia",
"The Gathered"
And gather a lot
we do and that
in small, relational,
Spirit Breathed Community.
We eat together.
We pray together.
We care for each other
and together we care for
people and place in need -
close in, far out.
We do our best to let God
transform our thinking,
values, lifestyle.
We are patient with each other
as that happens.
This is the way the church started
and can restart now.
It is cellular and small.
It grows a presence
public and robust.
We get to live a beautiful
Love Life
in the midst of its opposite.
As we do we pray, really pray,
that Empire will fade as
"Thy kingdom come
on earth as it is
in heaven."
Matthew 6:10
As we do we witness to it
together, practically,
living the dream
confident that
"All shall be well,
all shall be well...
For there is a
Force of love
moving through
the universe
that holds us fast and
will never let us go."
Julian of Norwich
Full heartedly and together we
DARE TO DREAM
John extremely Frank this week
******
It is quite wonderful
to have new folks
join in here each week.
WELCOME
to
frankly speaking
spirituality for the street
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
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Thanks for sharing here in this
difficult and hopeful experience.
Next week
LENT
A good time to
DARE TO DREAM
See you then.
Love to all
******
