Welcome to Conscious Curiosity, where we break down concepts & insights from experts for normal people. Basically cliff notes for grown-ups!
Here's this month's "zoom out" edition, where we think about how we think with bite-sized wisdom from experts & thought leaders.
On being the change we want to see
Conscious Curiosity: Edition No. 12:
Anarchy is not loosed upon the world in a single cataclysm but in the daily acceptance that there's nothing to be done, because if something does need to be done, someone else will surely do it.
But there is no someone else. There is only we—no one but us.
– Jonah Goldberg, American conservative journalist, author, and political commentator
I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.
– Mother Teresa
"We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”
– prayer of Jehoshaphat, 2 Chronicles 20:12
***Note from Ansley:***
There have been multitudes of words this week, from all voices & all sides. So I'm not here to add more noise to the chaos. I felt so worn thin by the events of this week, the fever pitch of finger pointing & rage baiting, on Sunday morning as we took our family to church that I could barely settle my mind as the worship began.
I took several deep breaths & could feel the sharpness of my jagged thoughts & my stolen peace. Maybe you too? I felt as desperate as I've ever been for a word of hope this September Sunday. Jordan, our pastor, said at the outset of his message that he had written it before the horrifying events of the week unfolded. My goodness, was it powerful. Even more so with the knowledge that God had put these words in Jordan's mouth before Wednesday last week. I want to share with you all some of what Jordan shared with us in the hopes that it challenges & moves you like it did me.
Jordan was teaching on the passage in Numbers where poisonous snakes are rampant among the Israelites & they pray to God for rescue. God tells Moses to make a snake, mount it on a pole and that anyone who looks on it will live. At one point in the message, Jordan said:
Before a problem can be solved, it must be seen.
We have all been bitten, and we are all biting, and the venom is going viral in our world. We are ALL looking for antivenom.
We don't get to say, "Oh those people have done this." The problem is the poison in all of us.
This is not what we want coursing through our collective bloodstream anymore.
Amen & amen & amen, right? What a word for each of us. We don't get to say that the poison is only in other people—the poison is pervasive. It's everywhere we look, most especially on social media & spewing from the outrage performers from both parties.
Jordan continued—in John 3:14-15, Jesus says to Nicodemus: "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him." Just two verses later comes John 3:17, which we talked about in the June CC: "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to {save, heal, make whole} the world through him."
Sozo. To save, heal, make whole. THAT is what God does. That is what He wants to do in & through & with us as His agents of new creation in a hurting world.
If we don't look or sound like He who heals & makes things whole, then we are not walking in the way of Jesus, no matter how loudly we proclaim his name.
INHALE: Lord, make me
EXHALE: An instrument of peace.
May we be instruments of antivenom in a world that has cultivated a taste for poison.
(Breath Prayer credit: Liturgies for Parents)
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October |Topic Preview:
- {relationships}: What makes a relationship happy & healthy?
Gottmans' Marriage Masters & Disasters, explained.
Up Next |Topic Preview:
- {faith}: As a Christian, do you have to pick between believing in Creationism & Evolution? Evolutionary Creationism, explained.
What to expect from Conscious Curiosity emails:
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on the 1st of each month: "zoom in" editions with useful tidbits from the experts on relationships, faith & psychology.
- one "deep dive" + two fun facts, rotating spotlight between topics (relationships, faith & psychology)
- sneak peak of next month's content
- on the 15th of each month: "zoom out" editions with quick insights from experts & thought leaders to help us think about how we think.
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