In the Midst of Chaos | Peace in Chaos

“Everything's in chaos”. It’s a phrase I seem to be hearing more lately. In my lifetime I’ve witnessed a lot of social change, disasters large and small, and frightening events in our country and across the world. But these events seem to come and go. Is that social change now coming harder and faster, and are we witnessing more extreme loss and misery these days? Or maybe we’re just hyper-sensitive.

Perhaps the question is beside the point.

Our scriptures tell us that we will experience trouble, but Jesus has come to help us overcome (the negative effects of it). For me right now, that overcoming has to do with understanding the collateral damage of horrible events in other places. I say that with the risk of sounding shallow, because it’s not ME it’s happening to. But our God asks us to care for others. And I feel, at the same time, deeply saddened by what is happening and incapable of really helping.

And that is frustrating!

Maybe there is something to be said for not letting ourselves be sucked into a worldview of last days pessimism and despair - something that would rob us of a promised personal peace. Chaos is a very powerful word, and let’s not hide our eyes from misery around us and feel something - then at least pray! Can we set aside the news hyperbole and achieve an authentic empathy?

Peace seems to be the opposite of chaos, and I was once told of a great definition for it. Our natural minds envision peace as an absence of turbulence, like a slow moving and meandering stream. But instead, swap that image for a tiny and beautiful bush firmly attached to a rock - in the middle of raging whitewater. 

Strength in the midst of danger.

So today, how do our tender hearts not only survive, but thrive? I’m wondering if compartmentalizing our worries and fears can be a good thing. I absolutely don’t believe we are to be detached and isolated in our fantasies. But maybe part of taking care of our emotional health involves really focusing on our own challenging moments. 

What am I feeling right now in my own conflict? What might the Lord be trying to communicate to me? How am I to respond best to others in this situation right now? It may be hard to do, but there are delicious fruits of the spirit to follow!

We cannot be positive agents of change if we let ourselves go down with the ship. Pessimism is certainly a part of that, but so is fear, insecurity and anger. Our Lord is the perfect physician of our troubled hearts. 

Let’s try to:

• Focus on what we can control and do

• Stay in our essential moments

• Take special care of ourselves

• Practice kindness with others

Peace to you all!

John 16:33 MSG
(Jesus answered them,) “Do you finally believe? In fact, you’re about to make a run for it - saving your own skins and abandoning me. But I’m not abandoned. The Father is with me. I’ve told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.”

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About the Author

Terry is a man in constant motion to explore new horizons. He has a thirst for new places and faces, and a deep love for the natural world - with a weakness for waterfalls and sunsets. All of this venturing out helps to both ground and inspire him, because it opens him up to people, with their vast, collective array of experiences, outlooks and responses.

He finds all of this fascinating and sees that it has encouraged the growth of something crucial in his Christian development: empathy and compassion toward his brothers and sisters on this planet.

Resilient | Rebuilding the Broken Things

Earlier in the pandemic I had a mental image of entering a cocoon, with the hope of emerging transformed into something beautiful at the end. I tried to picture quarantine as an opportunity to rest and let God work deeply. That may have been wishful thinking. Now as the pandemic is slowly lurching towards an end of sorts, I think I am in fact emerging as a more exhausted and broken self. But, I have survived, and maybe that’s enough.

Recent changes -- thanks to the vaccine -- have allowed my life to resume some sort of normalcy and left me feeling more hopeful. My kids have been able to start going to school part-time, which I am immensely grateful for. My daughter joined a swim team. My movie discussion group was finally able to gather in person around my backyard fire pit instead of on Zoom.

I feel like I am rebuilding my life and I sense there is a general need for rebuilding as a society at this time. God invites us to partner in the rebuilding process.

Isaiah 58:12 (NIV)
“Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will raise up the age-old foundations; and you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.”

There are several things I’m watching out for during this season of rebuilding.

1. Acknowledge the losses. Many of us have experienced a range of losses this past year including sickness and death, mental health struggles, broken relationships, and economic impacts. Many children, including my own, may struggle to rebound from the social and academic losses of the past year. As much as we want to quickly put this season behind us, acknowledging the grief that goes along with these losses is a necessary part of the healing and rebuilding process. If you are feeling despair, I want to encourage you that it is not a permanent feeling. You can seek help from a friend or a professional counselor. God wants to redeem this season of grief, “to comfort all who mourn...bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning.” (Isaiah 61:3)

2. Maintain empathy and compassion. One of the things I’ve been most struggling with is maintaining empathy and compassion for those who have had a different response to the pandemic than I have. This seems to be the case for many folks. We’re in a heightened time of ideological divides, not just as it relates to public health, but also to general political views. It’s so tempting and easy to have anger towards people who are in active opposition to your views. Brené Brown cautions against what she calls “common enemy intimacy.” Having anger towards whoever you view as the out-group, be they anti-maskers, always-maskers, or OSU Beaver fans*, does not help us move forward. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Darkness cannot drive away darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive away hate; only love can do that.”

3. Be the change you wish to see. As we rebuild, things will not turn out the same as they would have without the pandemic. This is an opportunity for us to prayerfully consider our goals and work towards achieving them. You might be working toward big or small changes in your life. After a year of so much sameness, one of my goals is to be more open to trying new things. So, recently, I decided to be adventurous and purchase wasabi-soy snack almonds instead of my usual honey roasted flavor. They were surprisingly good! And today I went for a trail run in a new location (it was too hilly for me and I had to walk a lot, but it made me feel a bit closer to an elite athlete). Those are small things, but I’m hoping that the practice of trying new things will lead me to more fun and adventure over the long-term.

Where do you see the need to rebuild in your own life and relationships? What step is God inviting you to take today?

*Just kidding Beaver believers! The author does not endorse any sports teams (unless of course it’s a team her children are on).

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About the Author

Ursula and her husband Spencer have two young children, and their family enjoys playing hide-and-seek and dancing in the living room. She works as a communications and events coordinator with the University of Oregon.

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

Common Ground – Practicing P.L.A.C.E.

One of the first things I learned as a child was to make distinctions: a boy is not a girl, white is not black, ugly is not beautiful, healthy is not sick, fat is not thin, Christian is not Jewish or Muslim, American is not Russian or Japanese….and, of course… Texas is not like anywhere else!

To be sure, it’s a pretty common thing to learn about something by learning about its opposite, or if not opposite, at least something different. We like to contrast things. It helps bring things into clarity.

As I got older, though, I realized that these dualistic contrasts were not always helpful and could be sometimes downright harmful. And why is that? Well, I think it is because it’s all too simple, and to keep it simple and easy to understand, you have to do a lot of generalizing and stereotyping to make things (and people) fit into little boxes with clear rigid sides. This way we have a sense of some kind of tidy control over our categories. We can file them away in alphabetical order on the shelves in our mental library. We can even do this with God, or at least our ideas about God.

The problem, as I see it now in my life, is that life isn’t so tidy, predictable, able to be categorized. And when we only think dualistically, we tend to judge “the other” as something not as good as the thing we are, or the thing we understand best. I guess that’s a piece of human nature. We tend to judge and fear things that are unfamiliar to us.

This is not very helpful when we want to live out Jesus’ mandate to love God and to love other people as we love ourselves…. even our enemies! How do we do that well, if we are suspicious and fearful of people even a little different from ourselves?

It might help us if we did some “exchanging”. We could practice P.L.A.C.E. (patience, listening, awareness, curiosity, empathy).

Maybe we could exchange our impatience for patience. Maybe we could quit talking so much about ourselves and our opinions and do a lot more listening and asking questions. Maybe we could exchange our judgement for curiosity about “the other”. Maybe we could look for ways to be empathetic rather than critical. Maybe we could exchange our fear for a new kind of courage that allows us to stay put in unfamiliar or uncomfortable circles.

I read in the teachings of a very wise man that it usually takes either great love or great suffering for our little neat boxes to be expanded, to be transformed. When we experience deep, healthy love (human or godly) or we experience great pain and suffering, our horizons open up in a way they couldn’t otherwise. Isn’t this a mystery? Maybe this is what Jesus was getting at when he said, “Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Suffering is bound to happen to us if we are human. It is common to the human condition in this imperfect world, so no one escapes it. But it seems to me that living a life of love might be more of a choice. We get to choose whether to love God or love other people. We can choose to just live a life “looking out for #1”. Some people are energized by anger and power over others. But at what cost? As Jesus put it, they would gain the whole world but lose their souls.

There are actions that bring life and there are actions that bring death. It seems to me that being more open, accepting, including, helping, loving… and just plain walking alongside people of any persuasion (whether racial, social, economic, sexual, religious, national, etc.) is life-giving to us and to them. The contrary to this brings a kind of death energy. And I have a strong feeling that walking alongside “the other” will expose more commonalities than differences among us. We are, after all, nothing more or less than ….human …created in the image of a most loving God.

Matthew 22:37-40
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

Matthew 5:3-4
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Matthew 16:26
What good will it be for a man is he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?

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About the Author

John has been an essential component to the life and development of CitySalt since 2004 and, presently, serves as an associate pastor with a focus on prayer, discipleship and spiritual direction in addition to being a regular part of the teaching team. He enjoys the outdoors, water sports, music, reading and especially spending time with his wonderful family and chocolate lab, Gunnar.

Common Ground | Common Ground Breeds Compassion

John 4:19-24 NIV
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe Me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know; for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

Wow, I had no idea how timely this topic would be when we planned it! Common ground has always been an important theme in life to me. It allows empathy and compassion and Godly love to happen, brings people together to achieve the best outcome for everyone, and allows for fellowship. As I write this, the world is struggling with the effects of Covid-19. There are some strong differences of opinion in how our city/county/state/country/world should be handling it right now, sometimes for good reasons. But we need common ground in order to remember what we're fighting for in the first place, so we can work together to lessen the consequences of the pandemic.

The other day, a friend I'd worked with in a conflict zone overseas posted about the similarities between living in that country and the situation we're all in now. A friend of hers (presumably here in the USA) made the comment “But this sort of thing shouldn't be happening here.” I quickly replied that no place in the world deserves what we’re going through. We’re all in it together. No country or people group is immune to disaster, or is more important than any other place. God makes it pretty clear in the Bible that He loves the entire world. That means we all have something in common. We’re all humans, created by God, loved by God, and God desires us all to come to Him.

In the book of John chapter 4, Jesus talks to a Samaritan woman. The Samaritans had common ancestry with the Jews, the ethnic group Jesus belonged to, but they had split over the years and had different customs and religious practices. The divide was so wide that Jews and Samaritans wouldn’t even talk to each other if they could help it (hence the impact of the story of “The Good Samaritan”). But instead of engaging in the argument that she posed about where people should worship God, Jesus found common ground with her. One day, true believers would worship in the Spirit and in truth, instead of the places where each of their respective ethnic groups gathered to worship. She couldn’t argue with that one, but winning a potential argument wasn’t even the point. Jesus provided a way for Jews and Samaritans to come together, and more personally, for this woman to have fellowship with Him.

What could happen if we focused on what we have in common with other people groups instead of our differences? I will let your imagination run wild with the possibilities of that. But I believe a lot of good would come of it. I’ve seen it happen in this country and in others. Finding common ground doesn’t mean not acknowledging our differences. Differences often exist for valid reasons. What it does mean is having compassion and empathy for each other, while acknowledging that our commonalities bring us together. At the very base level, we are all humans and as such, deserve respect.

Now there is a danger in focusing too much on common ground. I see the potential for us to feel that since we all have things in common, our experiences, and the differences they make in our lives don’t matter. But this is far from the truth. It would be damaging to think that just because we’re all equal in value and we all have things in common, that we all have equal needs. Unfortunately, people who have been oppressed in their current lives or histories, or live in poverty or war, often have more needs or have unequal access to fulfilling them. Not acknowledging that and just living with rose-colored glasses is denial, and doesn’t seem like acting in love to me. For me right now, this means being grateful for the prosperity that I live in (yes, I’m stuck in isolation, but I have a cozy little apartment to be stuck in and a cat to keep me company), and praying for (and even maybe donating to) people groups who will face Covid-19 with much greater need, such as people in poverty here or in other countries, refugees, and others.

But the remedy for this is the same as the goal for finding common ground: love, compassion, empathy, and working together. If we keep those things in focus, we can do much good in drawing people together and even drawing them closer to God.

I want to leave you with something a little different and a little fun, as a way of demonstrating our current basis for common ground, and bringing us together with laughter. My fellow nerds will already know that the Star Wars villain Emperor Palpatine is not a sympathetic character. Yet this cute little video helps us understand what we’re going through a bit. We can empathize with him and with the rest of the humans on this planet because we’re all in this together, and we can beat this pandemic by working together (separately as much as possible, of course!). I realize that by the time you read this, the social isolation may be over, but I think it’s still relevant to my theme. You’ll understand the inside jokes a lot more of course if you’ve seen other HISHE/How It Should Have Ended videos, especially the other Villain Pub ones, but you’ve probably seen at least a few of the movies referenced in it so I think you’ll still get it. Enjoy!

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About the Author

Jessie is an educator, she currently teaches teens and has taught overseas. She is also a novice writer, with several books in various stages and a (long-neglected) blog about the journeys of women. She is very excited to be a part of the CitySalt blog team. She has been blessed by a few communities of Christian writers that have encouraged her dream. She lives with her trusty sidekick cat, Arwen in the foothills of South Eugene, where she can go hiking within minutes of the sun coming out from behind the clouds.

Common Ground | Right or Relationship?

Several years ago I was struggling in my marriage. You know, the typical getting to know each other kind of stuff, when a relationship goes from romantic to real. We weren't seeing eye to eye, rather we were going nose to nose. I don't remember now what the hot topic was, but I certainly remember what a great friend of mine said to me later as I told him about the conflict. He said I had two choices in any argument. I could be "right,” or I could have relationship. Which one, he had the guts to ask, was more important to me?

I instantly knew he was right. And wise. But, I silently reasoned, couldn't I have both? Well ideally yes, but in this case, no, as my ego was bigger than my logic. Struggles between people are typically chalked up to "lack of communication,” and yes, that's mostly true. But good intention can so easily be drowned in the words, due to the lack of strong relationship in the first place. Or it can be absent altogether, buried under our baseless assumptions. One of my favorite quotes is: “A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” (And in my case, reiterating them).

We are taught from an early age that right is, well, RIGHT. Math either computes exactly or it's wrong and rendered useless. The scientific method requires earnest study, then an educated theory, then experiments to prove it wrong or right. In our biblical heritage, there is extremely high value, even if not always verbalized, in having right doctrine. We speak of being “right with God” with frightening consequences for the alternative.

In our current world, realizing a sense of common ground sometimes seems like a quaint notion reserved for pacifists, or a weak option if we feel like being nice to people. In reality, I would submit that it’s absolutely essential for any of us to not only get along, but to excel as individuals and as human team members.

Why? Because we ARE all relational. We were created that way. Every last one of us. And every good work in every facet of our human experience is in some way affected by, involves, or benefits others.

So should we devalue or even toss out our strong and long-held convictions, for the sake of agreement? Should we avoid honest conversations at all costs? Absolutely not. But here are a few things that help me navigate the thorny patch of words and people:

1. I should always be seeking a more “perfect truth”. I see through the glass dimly, and I always want to see more clearly. It’s okay to not have all the answers yet, and my view is typically tainted by incomplete information (emotional assumptions).

2. People, even those I disagree with, are way more important than my arguments. I will never influence anyone in a positive way, without already having a relationship with them. That comes first. Mutual respect comes next.

3. I have way more in common with others than I have differences, and we are frequently desiring the same good outcomes. “Us vs. Them” tribalism has to go. Can I work with others for a common good even while disagreeing with them?

I realize that I act, by nature, like a myopic mule with blinders on. But I desperately need others’ perspectives, fueled by their personal stories to complete my big picture. And empathy - borrowing others’ glasses to peer into their world - is a powerful key that unlocks it all.

It’s a win/win - righteous relationship!

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About the Author

Terry is a man in constant motion to explore new horizons. He has a thirst for new places and faces, and a deep love for the natural world - with a weakness for waterfalls and sunsets. All of this venturing out helps to both ground and inspire him, because it opens him up to people, with their vast, collective array of experiences, outlooks and responses.

He finds all of this fascinating and sees that it has encouraged the growth of something crucial in his Christian development: empathy and compassion toward his brothers and sisters on this planet.