Rod White's Blog

January 26, 2026

2026 Psalm: Hold on for dear life

Trump at Davos

Lord, eight countries
bombed in one year —
our president’s distinction
alphabetically:
Iran, Iraq,
Nigeria, Palestine,
Somalia, Syria,
Venezuela, Yemen.
Add Minnesota.
We’re great again.

Meanwhile, you heard,
his peacemaking claims:
Thailand/Cambodia,
Congo/Rwanda,
Israel/Hamas,
Israel/Iran,
India/Pakistan,
Armenia/Azerbaijan,
Egypt/Ethiopia,
Serbia/Kosovo.
He wants a prize
before he dies.

Did you notice the peace?
You saw the deals made,
gilded with self-interest.
But no love was shed
by the spider, the snake,
the toddler driving the car,
the sociopath-in-chief.

It does not feel good
to make these lists,
to wretch these labels, Lord.
But it feels better –
like tagging a rainstorm
an “atmospheric river,”
or a snow disaster
a “bomb cyclone.”
There is comfort
in naming the dreadful.

But there is more comfort
in turning into your call:
“Set your face
like flint
toward good this year.”
Selah.
“Hold on
to each day’s blessings
for dear life this year.”
Because life is dear
and love cannot be controlled.
It can yet be received,
cherished, nurtured,
but never commanded.

If love, or if I, seem paltry,
that may be very true.
But you are truer, Lord.
If my trust stumbles
in the face of fears and faults,
you remain trustworthy, Lord —
our dawn after the storm
who will not be hooded,
the colors of the bow
that no lie can dim.

The post 2026 Psalm: Hold on for dear life appeared first on Development.

View more on Rod White's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on January 26, 2026 03:00

January 19, 2026

MCC lessons: They are more useful than ever

MCC – the Mennonite Central Committee, has made a profound difference in my life as it keeps making a profound difference in the world. It is to the everlasting glory of the Brethren in Christ and different branches of the Mennonites that they combined resources in 1920 to form a relief, development and advocacy mission, so their small, Anabaptist part of the church could express the grace they received.

They continue to back up their convictions with their money and efforts and provide the world with an outsized witness of Jesus. There are only about 700,000 Mennonites in the U.S. and Canada and about 25,000 people affiliated with the BIC. That’s a lot of people (about the size of Oklahoma City!) — but it is not a lot to supply work in the 40 countries around the world where MCC represents us! They have so much love and commitment!

Not too long ago some dinner companions got my wife and me talking about the many immersion experiences and other trips around the world that showed us Christianity with a broader, love-in-action lens. I decided to summarize what I have written about them in this page.

When the evening was over, I was overwhelmed with gratitude for what MCC has done for the world and done for me. The blessing of seeing the work firsthand and the people it impacts stays with me and informs my faith. Having my American, Empire-fueled temptations highlighted has been lifesaving, as well.

I have a lot of stories. But I offer you three to illustrate why I am grateful.

1990 — El Salvador, Honduras

I remember being inspected by 18-year-olds with machine guns when they unloaded our bus, and being served dinner from the refugee rations of my hosts. It is hard to say what was the most eye-opening experience in El Salvador and Honduras. Maybe it was the moment we realized that the cost of one mobile medical unit designed to save the lives of American soldiers should they get into conflict could fund all the the medical outposts in Honduras, like ones we visited and funded, for a decade! The state-of-the art units waited, fully-loaded, on the base, ready to be helicoptered into some remote area someday while the citizens had nothing every day. Day after day of similar facts overwhelmed me with reality. When we did our debrief in Tegucigalpa, my story was about thinking I was going to Central America to solve problems and shine light. I burst into tears. I did not have any answers, and I came from a dark place that was the problem.

Jon Sobrino said he would never go to the U.S. again, it was too dangerous to his soul. I felt I needed to stay, ultimately, since light was needed in the belly of the beast. My parents were Goldwater Republicans. I voted for Nixon. So I can relate to how hard it is to let go of the myth of America and stop worshipping Trump these days. Francis of Assisi taught me to let go. But I think the Salvadorans may have sealed the deal on fighting back. Like Paul told the Corinthians, we don’t fight with the weapons of the world. Our weapons have an eternity of love and power behind them that demolishes strongholds, even if you are poor and powerless. The American Embassy in San Salvador was an embarrassing, but indicative, bunker. Can you imagine?! There are Christians in the U.S. who are sure Trump must build a wall to make America a stronghold!

2001 — Colombia

I remember being taught to dance in the moonlight and having the worst case of food poisoning in my life. But maybe I remember the desperate face of a farmer’s wife in Cali most of all. Her family had come to the city from Putumayo where the U.S. “Plan Colombia” had sprayed their farm and killed all their crops instead of coca. This is the same initiative the State Dept. official we met was embarrassed to tell us about. The farm woman told us, with some hysteria in her voice, like this was her big chance, “Go back and tell your government to stop the spraying. You are killing us.” She wept. I told the government, but they did not stop. It was hard to even get an ear to tell my story. Even though the U.S. spent 1 billion dollars in 2000-2001 for helicopters, personnel and glysophate, most people I encountered in the U.S. barely knew where Colombia was.

For the U.S. war is a tool of social change (now in Minneapolis!). So much investment in armaments has made the 1% our irrational overlords. The One Big Beautiful Bill allocated more than $170 billion over four years for border and interior enforcement, with a stated goal of deporting 1 million immigrants each year. That is more than the yearly budget for all local and state law enforcement agencies combined across the entire United States! I am no more than a Putumayo farmwoman in the face of that. But it will always be true that God has chosen the weak to shame the strong. Great love lived out in community is the hope for the world.

At-Tuwani 2011 — Palestine

I remember a sliver moon and an evening star over the Sea of Galilee and the ruins of bulldozed Palestinian villages refusing to stay buried under Canada Park near Jerusalem. My first hotel in Bethlehem had the 30 foot wall for its picket fence. But being in Capernaum, floating in the Dead Sea was priceless. Yet maybe the most enduring memory is standing in the shade at At-Tuwani and learning how Israeli apartheid works. How your house might be torn down for the least bureaucratic apostrophe. How settlers came and killed sheep with impunity and the government bulldozed irreplaceable olive groves. How Israel cordons off all the water. It is hard to know it until you see it.

“Progress.” Nationalism. Racism and now fascism in Israel. More than ever, I do not put my trust in chariots and horses. More than ever, like the Palestinians taught me, existence is resistance. Living your life and not playing dead (so you will survive, though as good as dead) is how the true faith has always spread.

I am grateful for the lessons MCC taught me about being a transnational Christian, subject to the law of love and convicted to see Jesus in the face of every human. The troubled places where MCC has done many wonders are are being regenerated in U.S. backyards, right now. Thank God we have people, like those serving with MCC, who prepare us to love and serve and hope so well. More wonders are required.

The post MCC lessons: They are more useful than ever appeared first on Development.

View more on Rod White's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on January 19, 2026 03:35

January 12, 2026

January 5, 2026

Apocalypse: The trauma intuition of CAS

As I listened to Laufey sing Christmas songs on Apple Music, I was, again, impressed by how well she does everything. I was basking in her warm voice when another song came on that did not fit the feed. Since I don’t know much about music apps, I was surprised. I thought it might be Laufey, trying out “edgy.” But it turned out that Laufey’s deep alto and Greg Gonzalez’ tenor are closely matched, to me at least. I had run into Cigarettes After Sex (“CAS” in what follows).

CAS in Brussels, 2017

I had never heard of CAS and , I admit, I asked in my head, “You named your band that?” When I found out more, I added, “Aren’t you from El Paso?” But, like so many people, I was intrigued by the song that showed up on my feed: Apocalypse (hear it here at a worship-like concert in London). As of August, the song had two billion streams on Spotify, so you’d think I might have run into it. Gonzalez and the song have Wikipedia pages. Regardless, the line “Your lips, my lips, apocalypse” said so much, I needed to know more.

Background for Apocalypse

Apocalypse was on the first album the men put out in 2017 and it never got on any charts. But it went viral in 2022 when it was background music for a TikTok trend in which people put up a photo from their childhood to remind them to be kinder to themselves.

I love how A.I. sums up their style: “Cigarettes After Sex is a dream pop, ambient pop, and indie rock band known for their ethereal, slow, and sensual sound, often described as ‘androgynous pop noir’ with hushed vocals, dreamy guitars, and romantic, melancholic themes. Their style draws from shoegaze and slowcore, creating a hazy, cinematic, and intimate atmosphere, perfect for winding down or late-night listening.” I needed a dictionary for that description, but it is apt. The NYT says CAS makes “woozy” music that Gen Z loves — and people all over the world do love it. 40something Gonzalez has a loyal — and notably young, fan base in Poland, India, Indonesia, and South America. The U.S. has only recently caught up to the rest of the world as one of their top markets.

About the song Apocalypse, Gonzales says, “The imagery is surreal, and it’s not something that could have happened. But the way I think about that song is, before I left my hometown, it was me and two different girls I’d dated and then kind of become friends with. It felt that we were like beautiful losers — stuck in our hometown with these big ambitions. At that time, it felt like it was impossible to get out of the city, and so when I left and moved to New York, I thought about them again.” You may relate.

He continued to recall the aspirations they all had, and while he escaped to follow his dreams, the friends remained where he had left them. “They wanted to be screenwriters, painters and actors. But they were still in my hometown, kind of like the song says, ‘sort of trapped there’.…Thus, the song at the end is really about being there for people, when you’re all alone.”

Trauma-informed dream pop

My interest in the song piqued when I went to YouTube and found a lyric video. I loved how the thought fragments referenced memories that are too personal to understand completely but universal enough to evoke some feelings. They showed an intuitive sense of how trauma locks people up emotionally and undermines the intimacy we all crave.

In some sense, the band may have been riding the wave of “trauma-informed” everything moving through psychotherapy studies and into society when the song came out in 2017. That wave may or may not have crested by now. I was riding it myself around then, teaching doctoral classes on trauma in 2019 and 20. Then the whole society experienced the trauma of Covid-19, George Floyd, Palestine, and now we have King Donald reorganizing Venezuela. We are all considering what to do with trauma. CAS is doing their part, providing gauzy, thoughtful, background music for us with some tenderness.

Here are 5 ways the song concisely hears us and comforts us where we are traumatized.

Kisses on the foreheads of the lovers wrapped in your arms. You’ve been hiding them in hollowed-out pianos left in the dark.

Gonzalez acknowledges the deep emotional pain a new partner has suffered from previous relationships and heartbreak. In its gentle, supportive way, Apocalypse captures trauma not as a dramatic rupture, but as a quiet, lingering condition — a way of being emotionally stranded even in moments of intimacy. What makes the song psychologically insightful is its restraint: the singer never names trauma directly, yet the emotional patterns align closely with what clinicians recognize as post-traumatic attachment issues and dissociation.

Here is the song accompanying the troubles of an old love trying to reconnect with a past love in a new body(!) in The 100.

You’ve been locked in here forever, and you just can’t say goodbye.

Being emotionally “stuck” is what we call it. Trauma can be an ongoing “reality.” One of the song’s central insights is how trauma distorts time. The emotional voice feels suspended between past and present, as if the relationship exists in a perpetual aftershock. Trauma often prevents experiences from being fully integrated into memory, leaving someone to relive emotional states rather than recall events. The song mirrors this by dwelling in atmosphere and repetition rather than progression. There is no narrative resolution — only a looping sense of longing — which reflects how trauma resists closure.

Your lips, my lips, apocalypse.

The view of intimacy in the song is also psychologically precise. Closeness feels just out of reach. Any touch has to penetrate a veil of numbness and melancholy. When it does, it may feel dangerous. This aligns with trauma-related attachment patterns, where connection feels simultaneously necessary and unsafe — even like an apocalypse. Rather than joy, intimacy triggers vulnerability, and vulnerability recalls loss. The result is a muted, almost anesthetized form of love — tender, but distant.

The song accompanies such a twisted experience in SnowPiercer

You leapt from crumbling bridges, watching cityscapes turn to dust, Filming helicopters crashing in the ocean from way above.

The song begins with a dramatic scene of destruction. I often depict trauma like the shock of some unknown force blowing up one’s village — suddenly everything is rubble. In the song, the metaphor also describes the chaotic end of a tragic relationship — again. Such destruction seems inevitable, even expected. The subject is catastrophe, but the delivery is calm, almost resigned. Trauma survivors often normalize emotional devastation, treating it as the background condition of life rather than an exceptional event. Some therapists might feel this is more realistic than setting our sights on some ideal happiness — a goal line that might feel like it is always being moved back. By presenting emotional collapse in such a subdued tone, the song captures how trauma dulls one’s senses, even alarm systems — things are less likely to feel shocking anymore, even the end of the world.

A fan used the song to sum up an episode of The Last of Us to that effect.

Oh, please. Come out and haunt me, I know you want me.

The lyrics are a plea for the lover to let go of their fear and the emotional cycles that keep them “locked” in their past. The dreamlike music evokes a sense of dissociation. The vocals, production, and pacing feel submerged, as though we are all slightly removed from what we feel. This mirrors a common trauma response: staying emotionally present enough to function, but detached enough to avoid being overwhelmed. The listener senses feeling without having full access to it, which is how dissociation often manifests.

Sleeping soundly with the locket that she gave you clutched in your fist.

Ultimately, the song is a comforting message of support, with the singer promising, “When you’re feeling low I will be there too.” Its refusal to assign blame or seek meaning is itself psychologically astute — trauma doesn’t always come with clear villains or lessons. Often, what lingers is simply grief, confusion, and longing for something that can’t be restored. Apocalypse honors that ambiguity. It doesn’t try to heal the wound — it empathizes with what it’s like to live inside it. I think people sing along with this song at the concert because they love being seen and are passing on that good feeling to others. The whole arena is living inside the wound together, clutching what little comfort they have, but also hearing the hope that someone else is with with them and even for them.

CAS demonstrates an intuitive grasp of trauma psychology — not through explanation, but by creating a descriptive musical environment. The song feels the way trauma can feel –soft, repetitive, unresolved, and quietly devastating.

While not a direct narrative about PTSD from war or a specific traumatic event, the song deals with the themes of being haunted by the past, emotional turmoil, and the struggle to move forward in a new relationship, which all align with aspects of trauma recovery.

I think the whole song also aligns with Jesus walking with us in our “lowness.” Especially this week, during Epiphany, God’s message to the world is “When you’re feeling low, I will be there too.”

The post Apocalypse: The trauma intuition of CAS appeared first on Development.

View more on Rod White's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on January 05, 2026 03:05

December 29, 2025

Alex and the Old Man

My Christmas story for 2025

A bit like Alex

The 32-ounce cup hit the sidewalk behind him with a hollow thud. He felt droplets on his hand. And slowly, a cold spot seeped through his hoodie and t-shirt. At 34 degrees it was just too cold to ignore the bite, especially because a little icy breeze was blowing through the park. He tried to keep holding perfectly still, steeled against the cold. He couldn’t do it. Alex looked up to see if anyone saw him disrespected. Then he looked behind the bench to see the Wendy’s cup laying in the brown grass next to a mound of dirty snow.

He turned back around and wanted to cuss. But he just didn’t care enough to do it. He was in a cone of silence, not even a sulk. Numb. He had his headphones in, but he had let his phone die. That seemed appropriate. Mom would not be calling and dad was probably still drunk. His friends were in school — and who would call him, anyway? He barely knew anybody. He shifted around on the bench and started to pull his hood further over his face when he saw an old man teetering near the sidewalk across the way.

He was walking off the grass when he encountered the edge of the pavement. He paused, his left foot half on the grass and tilting up on the walk, as if he had run into a wall. He said much too loudly, “I believe you are a sidewalk. I was not expecting you. And I am a bit wobbly today. So if I fall on you, be kind. If I end up with a broken hip it will not be good.” He squinted left and right, then swung his right leg up on the pavement and dragged his other leg astride it, until he accomplished an upright stance. “Well, that’s done,” he said.

But he just stood there looking around with a dazed expression. He could not remember just where he was going before he had to navigate the ledge. He thought he should know this park like the back of his hand, since he was there every day. He’d had his dog with him in the past, but he was long gone, and there was no new dog to find the way. He knew he was slipping and even talked to things in the kitchen – appliances, fruit and such. When his daughter came by, this embarrassed her.

Alex very much wanted to ignore this old man. He pulled on his hood and tilted his head down. But he could still see him when he raised his eyebrows and peered out from under them. He was an intriguing sight, as he gave his commentary on getting over a two-inch obstacle. He was surprised he didn’t fall over from the sheer weight of his outfit. Even from where he sat, he could count three layers of sweater; he wore two scarves and puffy white earmuffs which surely could not have been his. The big ski pants he had on did not look like something he would be needing soon either.

He just stood there. Then he said, “Just relax, you’ll remember.” He could not recall where he had been going. He slowly scanned the park for clues and turned Alex’s direction. “That’s it! The bench!” he almost shouted. “You need a bench you old geezer.” And he started moving. He really did not move that much like an old, old geezer. But you could tell his left leg had a part or two that needed replacing. “The bench. It was the bench. I need to sit down,” he told himself.

Alex was startled to see his surprisingly quick advance; the plastic rattle of his ski pants sounded like a warning. He almost bolted like he was about to be captured. But he had no place to go. So he just stared at his feet, eyes closed, and pretended he was listening to music and should not be disturbed. He was afraid the man would say something to him. Or maybe worse, he’d throw up on him or drool on him. He had little idea what old people did. He’d never seen a grandparent and wasn’t sure he had any. He was on his second mother and dad made sure no one mentioned his parents — he either hated them or was hiding from them, he couldn’t tell.

The old man made it to the bench and faced it. He grabbed hold of the arm with his right hand and the back with left. He paused to slightly pant. “Here we are bench.” Then he stood up a little and slid his left hand along the backrest and then down along the curve of the arm until he turned around and fell onto the seat. “Hmmph. That’s cold on the butt, bench.” Then he settled in. His pants settled down.

Alex expected him to smell like piss. He wasn’t sure why. Must have been in a movie. But he didn’t. He smelled nice, like something he never knew he liked until he smelled it. The old man turned to him and said, “Excuse me. I meant to warn you I was coming. But I became preoccupied with the feat itself and forgot the warning. Forgive me for invading your space.” Alex slightly turned his head but said nothing. “You did look like you might not want to be disturbed. I was fifteen once. You’re about fifteen, right?”

Alex had to admit it. “Uh huh.”

“Well, I may start talking, which would not have pleased me when I was fifteen and out in the park freezing when I should be in school. But I have this habit of talking to whatever is around me, which makes my daughter want to pull her hair out. I feel sorry for her. She’s probably got someone looking for me right now because she’s afraid I will go out and live my life and die. You have a name, I bet.

“Alex.” He mumbled.

He asked, “Did you say Alex or Alec?” as he bent down a little to peer under his hood, his pants loudly buckling.

“Alex. He said a little louder and he turned his head a bit more.

“Good. I met this waiter named Alec and all I could think of was ‘Smart Alec.’ Which was not that nice since he seemed like a good kid. You know there was a real smart Alec in the 1800’s who was a con man in New York, right? A real Trump type. The place mints them. He used to bribe the police and got away with all sorts of stuff before they caught up with him. The police started calling every subsequent joker like him a ‘Smart Aleck.’ So I’m glad you are Alex.”

He looked at Alex but got no response.

“I hope they gave you the full title Alexander rather than just a hint of him. You know about Alexander the Great, I suspect. But I have little idea whether they teach anything but robotics in school these days. But just imagine…”

The old man lost his train of thought as he looked up into a tree. “What in the world are you still doing here? Your feathers have gone green and you should be in South America or almost there by now.”

He turned to Alex and said, “But that tanager might be saying the same thing about me, eh? What are you doing here? You should be gone already!” He gave Alex’s knee a sidelong pat.

Alex almost said something, since he was not used to being touched. It set off a little tingle, That worried him. He stayed quiet, however, since he still had a bit of stranger danger going on.

The old man just sat quietly looking into the tree.

Then he startled. “Oh yes. Alexander the Great. I was about to tell you about you if you were your namesake at 15. You’d be getting your lessons from Aristotle today. Just think about it. Next year it will be 335 BC, your father, the great Philip of Macedon, will be dead and you will be king.”

“One year after that you will have consolidated all of Greece under your authority and you’ll be getting ready to invade the Persian Empire. By the time you are 30 you will have created one of the largest empires in the history of the world, stretching all the way to India. But by 32 you’re dead, probably poisoned. You’re the namesake of quite a guy. You knew all that already, right?”

Alex thought very carefully and then said, “No.” You could almost hear the ice crack.

“That’s too bad. What the hell is Alexander the Great doing out here in nothing but a hoodie? I at least had the sense to put on these ridiculous ski pants. It colder than a well digger’s ass in the Klondike.”

Alex actually turned and smiled. “You mean some well digger is sitting on a Klondike bar?”

“Ha! That’s funny. You’re joking, right? — I don’t know you well enough to tell. It’s just something my dad used to say. You know there was a goldrush to the Klondike area of Canada, right next to Alaska, in the 1890’s, right? It is cold as hell up there.”

“I don’t know much about Canada. I’ve barely been out of the city.”

“Then I guess your father never said much about the Klondike when he was showing off like mine did.”

“He’s mostly drunk when he’s at home, so I don’t listen to him much.”

There was a moment of silence. Then the old man said, “I’m sorry Alex.” That piece of empathy stung like bumping a bruise. “That’s a hard father to have. I suppose he’s not much for Christmas either.”

“He leaves that to my mothers.” He was not sure why he was telling this old man his secrets. No one at school knew anything about his family and no one had ever even been to his house.

“Well maybe that’s OK. My mother loved Christmas. She was about the least Christian about it as possible, however. I later became a Presbyterian and they are kind of queasy about it sometimes, too — maybe like your dad.”

He looked like he was having a vision. “But Mom loved Santa. She had boxes of Santa stuff she got out every year and you couldn’t get away from him. She painted him on the windows of the addition out back – no one was going to see that! She always found some chocolate Santa to put in my stocking. Nice, silly lady. She loved giving gifts from Santa, even though she barely had a pot to piss in.”

Alex gave him a quizzical look.

“Oh sorry. Like a chamber pot, you know? Before there were bathrooms, rich people had pots with a lid under their beds. If you needed to pee in the night you used it and the maid dumped it out the next day. Or if you’re poor you dumped it out yourself. But if you’re really poor, you don’t even own a pot. It’s something my mom used to say, although when she got to the word piss she’d clear her throat, ‘We didn’t even have a pot to mmmgh hmmgh in.’”

Alex couldn’t help smiling.

So he asked, “Did you say why you aren’t at school right now?”

Obviously not, since he’d said less than twenty words. “No. I didn’t. I don’t really know.”

“Well, if your dad’s drunk and its Christmas, you know.”

“What does that have to do with it?” Alex was seriously confused.

“Come on. You’re Alexander-the-kid-whose-dad-is-drunk-and-doesn’t-give-a-shit-about-Christmas, not Alexander the Great. It’s hard to go to school if you don’t have some Christmas in your heart at Christmastime – worse if somebody stole it. Here, wait a minute. I’ve got something for you.”

He reached in under his ski pants and rummaged around in whatever was underneath them. “There you are. Gotcha,” he said. And he drew out his hand.

“Put your palm out.” So he did. And the old man laid a small, smooth rock in it. “I think you need this more than me. I may not know where I am, but I never forget who I am. This is my baby Ebenezer.”

“You mean like Ebenezer Scrooge?”

“Oh! You know Dickens, huh? No, not that one.“

“I mean Ebenezer like the big rock the Prophet Samuel raised up to be a monument so the old Israelites would remember how God helped them when they were fighting off the Philistines — the great ‘Stone of Help.’ Eben is ‘stone’ and Ezer is ‘help’ in Hebrew. You might not know anything about the Bible. Let me tell you, the Presbyterians know everything. But gnarly old Samuel lived about 800 years before your namesake was conquering everybody in sight.” He looked into the distance, “I’ve been carrying my own baby Ebenezer for a long time, ever since I decided to follow Jesus.” He looked back at Alex, “I reach down in my pocket and remember God has helped me and God will help me.”

Alex looked at the rock in his palm like it weighed a ton. “I can’t take your special rock!”

“You can if I give it to you. Don’t look a gift rock in the mouth. I’m not even explaining that one. I don’t really need the rock. It has reminded me so much, I will never forget God is with me.”

At that very moment they heard, “Oh my God!” A lady screamed from across the park. They both looked her way. She pointed at the old man, “There you are.”

They looked back at each other. The old man said, “She found me.”

“Stay where you are please!” she screamed with a teacher voice.

“I’m staying.” The old man winked at him.

She breathlessly ran up and he stood up. She hugged him. Then she just looked at him, hands on his shoulders, like he was an unruly pet.

“I’m sorry. I kind of got lost. But this young man took care of me.”

“Thank you so much!” She opened her purse and took a hundred out of a wad of bills, grabbed his other hand and made a hand sandwich. His hand was meat; the money was lettuce. She bent over and whispered near his ear, “You’re an angel.” He was afraid she was going to kiss him. The touch of her soft, gentle hands brushing his as she stood back up shocked him.

The bill fell on the frozen mud. He picked it up and handed it back at her. “I didn’t really do anything,” he argued.

The old man shouted, “Take it, Alexander the Great! She’s like Santa!”

She calmly said, like a dutiful doctor ignoring her patient’s report as she read their chart, “Thank you, Alexander.” He was dismissed. And she turned to her father, “Let’s get you home before you’re dead.”

The old man rolled his eyes at Alex with a twinkle, “See you around, buddy.”

Alex stood up and watched them bustle off to a car flashing emergency lights in the bike lane. The cold patch on his back felt like it might be turning to ice as the day passed noon. But the $100 bill and his baby Ebenezer felt warm in his pocket.

The post Alex and the Old Man appeared first on Development.

View more on Rod White's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on December 29, 2025 03:34

December 22, 2025

Jesus was born again in the year of King Donald

Jesus was born again in the year 2025,
in the reign of King Donald, who
commandeered the airwaves to recite
his pack of lies once again and again,
vainly propping up his house of cards.
No one watched.

The prophets echoed like memories of angels:

When tyrants tremble in their fear
And hear their death knell ringing,
When friends rejoice both far and near
How can I keep from singing?

In prison cell and dungeon vile
Our thoughts to them are winging,
When friends by shame are undefiled
How can I keep from singing?

“Pauline T” in 1868 (Civil War) and Pete Seeger in 1978 (Vietnam War)

Jesus was born again in the year 2025,
a time when the jester, Pete Hegseth,
sent drones to kill the unsuspecting,
smugglers and fishermen on the open sea,
like Herod searching Bethlehem.
No drugs were found.

The prophets echoed like magi in the night:

Herod the king, in his raging
Chargèd he hath this day
His men of might in his own sight
All young children to slay

That woe is me, poor child, for thee
And ever mourn and may
For thy parting neither say nor sing
“Bye bye, lully, lullay.”

Robert Croo (ed.) in 1534 from 1456 (War of the Roses)

Jesus was born again in the year 2025
when Old King Donald faked emergencies
and Congress sat on their wall, never
to stop him “Stop Him!” and his illegal tariffs,
and his slicing the world into spheres.
His mania spiked.

The prophets echoed like shepherds telling the news:

Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king
Do you know what I know?
In your palace warm, mighty king
Do you know what I know?
A Child, a Child shivers in the cold
Let us bring him silver and gold

Said the king to the people everywhere
Listen to what I say!
Pray for peace, people, everywhere
Listen to what I say!
The Child, the Child sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light

Gloria Shayne Baker in 1962 (Cuban Missile Crisis)

Jesus was born again in the year 2025
When King Donald and his minions
vainly tried to stop the tale of Epstein
from being told across the land.
He protected pedophiles.
He pardoned felons.
He profited billionaires,
and called it hope for the poor.
No one believed him.

The prophets echoed like John the Baptist preparing the way:

Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,
and in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
let all within us praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! O praise His name forever!
His pow’r and glory evermore proclaim!

Placide Cappeau in 1847 (2nd French Revolution)

Jesus was born again in the year 2025
when King Donald begged for a peace prize
and an arch to validate his vapid life,
and placed his name on someone else’s memorial
prophetically putting himself
in the grave.

The prophets echoed like a memory of Mary’s great song,
like the worms that ate Herod cried out for lack of enough voices:

But with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring; –
Oh hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!

Edmund Sears in 1849 (Fugitive Slave Act)

Henry Ossawa Tanner, Angels Appearing before the Shepherds, c. 1910

Jesus was born again in the year 2025:
born in us who hear the angels sing,
born in us worn down with woe,
born in us subject to sociopaths,
born in us bound by bloated oligarchs,
born in us who amplify your voice,
louder every day, as the dawn rises
and the Son shines through the veil,
the Light of our restoration.

The prophets cry out with the prophets of old
and with all who relay the music of your sphere:

The original final verses:

VII
Come, Desire of Nations, come,
Fix in Us thy humble Home,
Rise, the Woman’s Conqu’ring Seed,
Bruise in Us the Serpent’s Head,

VIII
Now display the saving Pow’r,
Ruin’d Nature now restore,
Now in Mystic Union join
Thine to Ours, and Ours to Thine.

IX
Adam’s Likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp thy Image in its Place,
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in Thy Love.

X
Let us Thee, tho’ lost, regain,
Thee, the Life, the Inner Man:
O! to All Thyself impart,
Form’d in each Believing Heart.

Charles Wesley in 1739 (War of Austrian Succession)

The post Jesus was born again in the year of King Donald appeared first on Development.

View more on Rod White's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on December 22, 2025 03:00

December 15, 2025

We’re letting gambling wreck sports?

One of my friends said last Monday, “Did you notice I am not wearing green?”

I said, “No.” I honestly had not noticed anything he was wearing.

“This is the first game day in 20 years I have not worn our colors. I’m not even going to watch.”

“Huh?”

“It’s the gambling. I just can’t be sure that anything about the game it true anymore. People are betting on players and even plays. There are just too many good reasons to cheat. I’m done.”

I felt clueless. I thought sports betting was out of control. But I already hated gambling because my mom and dad lived out their retirement near Las Vegas. I can feel Vegas suck the life out of me when I am just passing through. But I have become accustomed to zoning out during the new betting commercials. I know they are over when I hear “Please play responsibly” or “Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.” In Australia they are getting strict about all sorts of life-sucking “games,” so their tag line is “Chances are you’re about to lose”.

Gambling Stats

I decided to do some research about what is really happening and found out quite a bit I did not know.

The Americans Gaming Association reports that Americans have embraced gambling (they say “gaming”). More than half of all American adults (57%) participated in some form of gambling in 2024-5. 30% gambled at a physical casino, while 21% placed a sports bet. It is a boom time for “gaming.” 90% of Americans find casino gambling to be acceptable for themselves or others, and 62% now find gambling to be personally acceptable.  134 million American adults, or 53% of the population, visited a casino for gambling or other entertainment purposes in the past 12 months, the highest level of casino visitation on record. Legal Sports Reports gives you more.

In February, a Siena Poll found that by 50% to 34% Americans support online sports betting being legal in all 50 States. But 65% think it will create compulsive gamblers. 58% say the Federal Govt. should regulate to protect consumers. 63% support the SAFE BET Act. 52% have “chased” a bet (meaning they placed additional, often larger, bets in an attempt to recover money lost from earlier wagers). 37% were ashamed after losing. 20% lost money they couldn’t afford to lose. 34% know someone with an online sports betting problem. Only 9% ever sought help with problem gambling — as SNL said a year ago, that’s because it is “somebody else’s” problem.

A majority of people in the U.S.A. are apparently going with a culture laced with gambling. But, like my friend, some people are getting concerned. For instance, 500 sports gamblers were polled in November in Connecticut; the majority believe corruption is more widespread than just the recent NBA scandal and think advertising for sports gambling leads to incredibly risky betting behavior, or even addiction. A New Yorker article from October noted how the “prop” bet leads to disaster (that is, a bet on a specific occurrence or statistical outcome within a game that does not necessarily affect the game’s final score or margin of victory). This YouTube from Bloomberg lays out the dangers. Trump’s posthumous pardon of Pete Rose for betting on baseball shows how gambling is even reaching into the past to become normalized.

What do Christians say?

Christianity Today kinds of hems and haws since the Bible does not directly name gambling as a sin. They say, “Online gambling isn’t necessarily sinful, but it’s certainly not a careful use of the wealth God has given us.”

Conservative Christians in the UK say: “There are three legitimate ways in which wealth may change hands – by giving, by working for it, or by genuine exchange (including taxation): anything else is virtual theft and so a breaking of the 8th commandment.” As has been said: “Gambling is a kind of robbery by mutual agreement; but it is still robbery, just as dueling, which is murder by mutual agreement, is still treated as murder.” Of the three impulses behind gambling – the desire for gain, the desire for a thrill and the desire for competition, the moral and ethical problems are focused on the desire for gain.

Gambling directly appeals to covetousness and greed “which is idolatry” according to the Apostle Paul (Colossians 3:5). Gambling breaches the 1st, 2nd, 8th and 10th commandments. It enthrones personal desires in place of God. Jesus warned: “you cannot serve both God and Money” (Matthew 6:24). A greedy and unrepentant person is an idolater who cannot obtain salvation (Ephesians 5:5).Gambling directly depends on other people incurring financial loss. Jesus said that you should “do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12). But gambling depends on doing to others what we would not have them do to us.

Conservative U.S. Evangelicals in the Gospel Coalition say: Sports betting perpetuates the sins of idolatry, greed, and dissatisfaction with God’s provision. It feeds on vices rather than virtues and godliness. It’s highly addictive. With the ease and convenience of a smartphone app and a credit card, sports betting has become yet another dopamine-inducing “scrolling” activity alongside social media platforms, online pornography, and other addictions just a few clicks away. As a vice disproportionately targeting young men, sports betting has the potential to imperil their current and future ability to love and lead families because of devastating debt. Sports betting is another assault on families already besieged by a litany of negative cultural pressures and obstacles….Don’t be fooled by how destigmatized sports betting has become. Just because you can now do it on your phone from the comfort of your suburban living room, as opposed to in the dimly lit, smoky Vegas casino, doesn’t mean the dangers are less real. The less seedy, more acceptable “brand” of sports betting today is what makes it so concerning.

The Southern Baptists are alarmed: “Gambling factors out God.” The 2017 SBC Resolutions Committee, proposed a resolution adopted by the Convention “on the sin of gambling.” Also, the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission released a publication called Pay to Play: A Practical Guide to Addressing Gambling in the Church. The director says, “We worked hard to produce a theological and practical guide—in addition to an in-depth white paper—that we think will be helpful to pastors as they navigate this growing epidemic.”

Meanwhile, gambling advertising becomes more entertaining, ubiquitous and brazen. For instance, into what are these happy, robotic, multicultural lemmings/bike riders being translated?:

Why is nothing done?

My friend said, “This is a big mess. It has ruined sports for me. Why isn’t anything being done?”

I hadn’t thought about that, so I asked A.I. Here is the gist of what that know-it-all collected with my gist thrown in.

“Sports betting has not been banned despite its negative effects primarily due to the significant economic benefits for states and the argument that regulation is more effective than prohibition. The complex issue involves a balance of individual freedoms, economic incentives, and social concerns.”

That’s the bottom line. You have to wonder why the government of the people sees the vices of the people as a way to stay in business. I think there is something immoral about that business model, don’t you?

Americans apparently love gambling. It all got started with the lotteries. To be honest the ancient Chinese had a lottery that helped build the Great Wall. But as far as the U.S. goes, the first legal lottery was started by New Hampshire in 1964.

When the Supreme Court overturned Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) with Murphy v. NCAA in 2018, it served to open the floodgates for all forms of gambling. The ruling stemmed from a legal challenge initiated by the state of New Jersey, led at the time by Governor Chris Christie. New Jersey argued that the PASPA violated the Tenth Amendment’s anti-commandeering doctrine, which prevents the federal government from forcing states to enforce federal laws or maintain existing state laws.

In the 6-3 majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that “Congress can regulate sports gambling directly, but if it elects not to do so, each State is free to act on its own”. The Court said the PASPA unconstitutionally dictated what state legislatures could and could not do, thus infringing on state sovereignty. Justice Breyer said he would have preferred New Jersey get a “pyrrhic victory”— winning the right to authorize betting but still being barred from having private businesses run it, in order to respect Congress’s broader goals.

Now there is a multi-billion industry to contend with since many states (though not all, including California) rushed to legalize gambling and reap the revenue. I call it creating a “fool tax,” to be honest, or receiving an invitation to ruin from your governor.

Key reasons why nothing has been done to ban sports betting include:

It is a big money maker for States. Legal sports betting generates billions in tax revenue for state governments, which can be allocated to public services like education and infrastructure. This financial incentive makes it difficult for states to roll back legalization efforts. New York, for example, collected over $876 million in tax revenue from sports betting in 2023. This is probably the main reason sports betting is running rampant: the governments are addicted.Our governments are dominated by rapacious corporations. The sports betting industry, with major players like FanDuel and DraftKings, has a powerful lobbying presence and has deeply integrated itself into sports media and culture through advertising and sponsorships, making it an “indispensable” part of the sporting experience. This is the second big reason. Our pirate capitalism sees a victim, milks them dry and leaves the carcass.

The rest of the main reasons are more speculative and moral. These reasons change if people we more educated, healthier and less subject to corporate domination.

Prohibition does not work very well. The historical failure of attempts to ban popular, but potentially harmful, activities (like alcohol during Prohibition or the War on Drugs) suggests that an overarching ban would not eliminate sports betting but merely drive it into an unregulated, illegal black market. $150B was illegally gambled on college sports, alone, in 2018, before the Supreme Court decision. The American Gaming Association (AGA) argues legal markets bring consumers out of predatory illegal operations and provide transparency and consumer protections. It remains to be proven that legal markets are less predatory or more transparent.Regulation is seen as a better approach. Instead of a full ban, the prevailing approach in the U.S. has been state-level regulation following the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision to overturn the federal ban. This allows states to implement consumer protections and allocate funds for problem gambling treatment and research. Critics justly argue such measures are often inadequate. By the time the corporations have brainwashed the public, warnings by governments seem faint, at best. Public health of any kind is poorly funded.Americans think you should have the right to harm yourself. Proponents of legal sports betting argue that adults should have the freedom to choose how to spend their money and time, provided they do so responsibly. “Responsible gambling” is an oxymoron to many Christians. But such reasoning prevails when it comes to gun control, cannabis, and, apparently, murdering Venezuelans. The saying, “I’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission” is becoming common sense.The people want it. There is a significant public appetite for sports betting, with millions of Americans participating in the activity. Legalization acknowledges and caters to this demand. But “want” in the U.S. is determined by what consumers buy in the economy as designed by the dominant corporations. They have also wanted processed food, gas guzzlers and McMansions, to name a few products that were not in society’s or their own best interests. We psychotherapists would generally contend that people “want” a lot of things for reasons they do not fully understand and often do not want when they do.

I think gambling preys upon desire and calls it a “game.” It is only fun when it does not include money. When it is a for-profit enterprise, gambling is always a scam — I’m with the Australians, “You are about to lose.” It is a “thrill” when it is risky, but satisfying that desire usually just leads to needing more thrill to avoid dealing with one’s true needs or desires.

The fact that this deregulation is happening when most of the betting is happening on a phone app makes gambling even more damning. The internet feeds on desire. Digital platforms thrive by exploiting human wants—for connection, information, status, or novelty—using algorithms to trigger dopamine hits, creating endless loops of seeking, consuming, and craving that drive engagement, problematic use, and consumerism, turning desires into constant, often unfulfillable, digital appetites. The online world capitalizes on our innate needs, turning them into addictive patterns through self-presentation, fear of missing out (FoMO), and hyper-stimulation, shaping our search for fulfillment in ways that benefit platforms more than users.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 KJV). This applies to the CEOs of gambling corporations and the government officials who enable them. It applies to the inherent corruption of the end users and the self-deception capabilities within human nature. Our desires and motivations are often untrustworthy and self-destructive. We need God in the middle of our gambling and a society that looks out for our hearts and health, not just our consumption habits.

**************************

Yesterday was Catherine Doherty Day! Get to know the “Baroness” who became an anti-racism activist and spiritual director. She was Thomas Merton’s spiritual mother. She is celebrated at The Transhistorical Body.

The post We’re letting gambling wreck sports? appeared first on Development.

View more on Rod White's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on December 15, 2025 02:55

December 8, 2025

We cannot “skip grades” in spiritual development

Let’s start with Morton Kelsey, the agnostic pastor who met God through Jungian therapy and became a spiritual guide for others. He knows quite a bit about not graduating from previous “grades” in spiritual development, yet he is positive about our capacity to keep moving along the inner way. Here is a quote from one of his more than 50 books:

“We can grow at any time. The human being is far more plastic than most of us ordinarily believe. However, the task that we need to learn, the development we need to achieve, can only be accomplished earlier or later at a much higher cost than at its proper time. Much of psychotherapy consists of providing the environment in which people can live through a stage that they missed before. Spiritual direction…will involve this kind of direction and counseling and companionship for the simple reasons that the various stages each provide essential elements in a full and mature religious life. We cannot skip grades in spiritual development.” – Companions on the Inner Way

Inhibited spiritual development

The metaphor of “skipping grades” does not completely suit Kelsey’s point, since we don’t pass tests to get from one stage of development to another and no one can really judge what our final mark should be. But the metaphor does picture our need to cross boundaries of maturation to get into further stages. Jesus called the process moving along the “narrow way that leads to life.” And we know he was well acquainted with people who stubbornly stayed on the way that leads to death.

As a psychotherapist, I am accustomed to exploring the past to find unfinished psychological issues. As a spiritual director, I accompany my companions on their parallel journey into wholeness. Along the way we bump into incomplete loves and assumptions that inhibit their growth and joy. As a developing person, I am also on the way. None of us are managing to skip grades, as much as we might like to.

We might start exploring entire sides of ourselves at 50, even, and wonder what we were doing at twenty. Whenever we become aware, some of us get excited to see the new possibilities; but others are daunted at the work they see ahead. My client’s development may start very basically: they need to survive and get to square one. Soon they may feel some confidence and receive some affirmation. Then they are likely to discover that the lacks they note and the abundance they feel both hint at the possibility of trust and happiness. God wastes nothing; it can all come to good. My own experience and the experience of others convinces me we often have unfinished work from the past stages of our development that either blocks us from progressing or taints the development we have achieved. What needs to get finished can cause us a lot of suffering. But God is with us.

One thing that helps us keep moving through the suffering on our narrow way is understanding the stages of how we develop so we can identify what we are still carrying or even reliving from our past — especially from our childhood or adolescence. Exploring the way we grow also helps examine our adult development (or lack of it), which is often left unpondered, as if becoming an adult were the end point. Kelsey inspired me to look at it all again in seven stages and look for the kind of things that keep us “held back” so to speak.

The seven stages of our spiritual development

Nothing I am about to list is particularly new. I’ve written about it myself, many times. But I found it useful to explore it again, now that I am where I am today. You are probably down the road to life somewhere new, yourself. Let’s see if we can note what is unfinished and could use some love from you and maybe some new choices.

Stage 1

Knowing what you now know about how your family was working when you were born, imagine how you were being prepared for your spiritual journey.

Children are like tender plants. They can be educated, but mostly they must be allowed to unfold so they are open to relating to a loving God who can give them confidence in the ultimate nature of the universe. Faith takes root early. If they are not tended with grace they can be closed to that possibility and live in deep-rooted fear or worthlessness because of what they have experienced with the humans on which they relied. Fear and shame also take root early. The most essential element in early Christian nurture is consistent human warmth and understanding, kindness and love. Unless people receive these things as children they find it very difficult to believe in them as adults.

We learned a lot by the time we got to kindergarten. How did you learn to see the world? What needs to be loved, understood or finished?

Sunday school – Christ Church Denver

Stage 2

Try to remember being you in elementary school. By the age of 3-4 we are able to store memories, but first-hand experiences are more likely to be stored when we have language more developed in our growing brain. How did you experience God as a child? Did your environment encourage spirituality?

In the stage of early childhood we begin to develop our sense of personhood and distinguish between inner and outer awareness. That “I am who I am” is called the ego. We need that self awareness to differentiate our spiritual awareness within it. Later on, we may need to let go of aspects of the view of self we developed as a child, but you can’t give up what you have not achieved. At this stage we learn language to express ourselves. We develop our left brain with reading and math, and our right brain with music, painting and stories. A great need in this stage is acceptance by others for who I am becoming. If I am nurtured with warmth and love I will take on the values of my parents and develop a conscience. If I am controlled and punished or violated, I may turn to violence and fear. We should avoid leading children to dig into the unconscious at this point. We’re not ready for that.

We developed an enduring view of self through reflection and comparison by 4th or 5th grade. Can you remember what is was like to see yourself and be seen (or not)? What needs to be loved, understood or finished?

Stage 3

Think back on your teen years and your early twenties. Our struggle for autonomy took a winding road to get where we arrived. We needed to rebel against the structures that formed us to either make them our own or go another way. What did you do? Did you have anyone to trust with your spiritual journey?

Sometime between 11 and 15 (and earlier all the time, it seems) our hormones push us into puberty and we come to the first bloom of our sense of autonomy. During this stage we test everything and are tested, this includes psychologically and spiritually. In the U.S. we have generally lost the formal initiation rites traditional cultures have, so many are left alone to find their own way. At this point in life, it is useful if caring adults are understanding of the process: parents and, especially, another trusted adult who can help us deal with fears and doubts about ourselves and God. Rebellion against the religious values of parents is almost necessary if we are ever to have faith of our own. It is during this stage that young people become open to the unconscious and to spiritual awareness. Check our Robert Johnson’s take on the process in He and She.

The pressure to become adults may have resulted in a significant season of depression by the end of our teen years. Who had you become by then? How did it feel? Who or what did you trust? Did you experience God? Make a commitment? Set a direction? Get derailed? What needs to be loved, understood or finished?

Stage 4

You can probably remember your late twenties (if you aren’t there right now). You may never have really moved beyond them. Early adulthood often includes our most life-changing and enduring experiences of God and community, but sometimes results in our long-lasting distance from both. You may be in the middle of the troubles associated with finding your own way and deciding how to align.

The process of differentiation and reorientation that began with puberty may take a long time for many people, and some get arrested at this point. Young adulthood is a continuation for the foundation of sexual intimacy, vocation/career, individuality and mutual responsibility. We must be led by our own convictions and establish our own patterns. We may have many professions over our lifetime, but we should complete this stage by becoming proficient in one. In the postmodern era, it seems like this is one of the most emotionally trying stages of development. The fruitless search for meaning young adults face and the gnawing sense that their present work and future opportunities are slim often lead to despair and avoidance. All the drawing power of our screens does the greatest damage here: porn, games, gambling, shopping, presenting our image, comparison, and relationships apps. The confusion and despair can be met with spiritual direction and companionship, but many churches are dominated by inattentive old people, so that can be hard to find.

How are you doing or how did you do? Did you come to a full sense of yourself? Find a place in the world? Did you form an adult relationship with God? Or did you get sidetracked or are still in the middle of it? By this time you have a life story. How do you tell it? How did you tell it? What needs to be loved, understood or finished?

Stage 5

Can you name what your middle age has been like, if you are there? The transition can be confusing. Middle age is when we are most likely to experience running into the wall of the unfinished development of our previous stages. It is a struggle to get into the future or into deeper realms of ourselves when we are stuck in our past.

This fifth stage might hit precociously spiritual people during puberty or young adulthood, but more likely comes between 35 and 50. It is often called the midlife crisis. We have developed and achieved some status, perhaps. But we are not satisfied and death is becoming more real. The children may be less needy or gone and the profession may feel old or unsuitable. Some people may return to childhood faith and move beyond it into deeper meaning. Others may look at their struggle and pronounce it purposeless. Toggling between beauty and boredom, bounty and bitterness is not uncommon. Our society gives little help with a search for meaning, and religion seems coopted by the endless power struggle all around us. Some accept fundamentalism in the Christian or political sense and give up their independence and critical capacities, as we can presently see. This is a time in life when fellow strugglers and spiritual directors are crucial. We are confronting our inner depth but also looking into the abyss.

How are you doing or how did you do it? Did you get into the second half of your life or are you still working on that? By this time, others may have saddled you with a life story. How do they tell it? Are you stuck in their view of you? Are you disappointed that your idealization of yourself is not accomplished? Can you connect with God and others with a deeper spiritual awareness yet? What needs to be loved, understood or finished?

Stage 6

Eventually, our bodies tell us we are old. Most of us do not have a plan for that time and many of us realize we need to develop the spiritual and relational resources we are missing.

Old age is not always a golden age because we have not successfully passed through the first five stages effectively. Most of us have more time to explore the possibilities, however. We may have less family obligations and more disposable income. We can simplify our lives and focus on what is most important to us. Many people allow their religious and creative impulses to emerge. Many interesting books and biographies are written by people in this stage because we are drawn to remember and take stock of our lives. Most of us become more able to accept our flaws and reconcile with others. But some of us are overcome by the fears that were held back by our resilience, which is now waning.

What is your story of this stage? You may think of your past as your story, but old age is also a wonderful time to develop. What needs to be loved, understood or finished?

Stage 7

The final stage, of course, which we will definitely not be skipping is death. In this age when centenarians are being minted at an unprecedented rate, it makes sense to consider what it means to die, and what it means to be dying for quite some time.

Some may see their final days as “there is nothing to be done but grin and bear it.” Younger people who doubt any life beyond this one, often feel like old people just rub their noses in their mortality — the nursing homes are full of their parents. Helping the dying die well is a valuable service for which more and more people are needed. Preparing to die by living well and knowing how to die well is a worthy endeavor at any stage. Paul was wise enough to know “I die daily.” He said, “To die is gain.” It made him brave to face his end no matter when it happened.

If you are in this stage, thank God you are still reading and thinking along with us. We need your wisdom, prayer and love. We even need your frailty to call out our compassion. Accompanying you to death helps us honor our own death and encourages us to get serious about what comes next. How are you doing with the Lord’s promise of eternal, abundant life? It is never too late to move beyond what blocks our experience of life. Like Kelsey taught, “We can grow at any time. The human being is far more plastic than most of us ordinarily believe.” What needs to be loved, understood or finished?

********************

Today is John and Betty Stam Day! Get to know these interesting examples of missionary passion at The Transhistorical Body.

The post We cannot “skip grades” in spiritual development appeared first on Development.

View more on Rod White's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on December 08, 2025 02:44

December 6, 2025

Your “values” might be undercutting your God-given worth

When I served as a pastor, I often had a tough time with my leaders in the Brethren in Christ Church — not because we did not love each other, but because I groaned under their direction. Granted, I was theological friends with Christians like bell hooks who were preaching an ethic of love and I pondered making friends with Buddhists. What’s more, I was rather vocal about the antichrist ethics of capitalism and attempts by the U.S. to dominate the world militarily and economically. So I made them groan a bit, too — I think they thought I was very liberal.

The beautiful BIC

I, on the other hand, regularly told them, when I got the chance, that I thought they were the ones who were very “liberal,” in that they readily adopted post-Enlightenment philosophies as the basis for their theology. Even though they were supposedly rooted in antiestablishment Anabaptism, they relentlessly “left the farm” (as they liked to say), to more effectively compete in the present “marketplace” of ideas. They succeeded, to an extent, in growing churches filled with enculturated Christians.

My disappointment with the BIC, by whom I am ordained and licensed, was activated again when one of my spiritual direction clients brought up their personal “values.” I was literally triggered by the term and maybe went just a little beyond the bounds of my usual restraint. Let it suffice to say my appreciation for my companion was too great to let them stay subject to a word that has infiltrated the church and undercut our faith for over 140 years, now.

BIC Values

The subject of values was a main point of dispute for me with my leaders. I did not organize any marches, but I am sure I spoke up much more than they preferred.

In the year 2000 a General Conference of the Brethren in Christ adopted a new identity statement enumerating our “values.” That word may be the least Anabaptist, Pietist or Wesleyan one they could have chosen to describe our basic beliefs. I would have preferred “distinctives” or “aspirations” or “convictions.” Instead we got the straight business-plan title “Core Values” without too much thought as to why. (They are still being used). I assume they thought my critique was “urban.”

Each statement is fine, even if they do have the tortured sound of being committee compromises. But by calling them “values” they undermined my attempts to introduce radical Christianity to people who had lost it or never had it. The prospective Jesus followers I met already had “values.” But they had lost “virtue” or any sense of transcendent “morality.”

The word “values” got a new definition

When I was in college, I often saw students carrying around a big fat paperback of Friedrich Nietzsche philosophy. He is the father of the modern, abstract use of the word “values,” in the sense of moral or social principles. His thinking was popularized in the early 20th century by sociologists and anthropologists, notably Max Weber.

Nietzsche in 1882

Nietzsche was a pioneer in undermining the traditional Christian thinking that dominated Europe. He was definitely thinking outside the box. Before he went officially “mad,” probably due to the same kind of brain disorder that affected his father and brother, he famously wrote of the “transvaluation of all values” (Umwertung aller Werte). That meant he was cheering along the process of revaluing what was valuable. He was the man who said “God is dead,” meaning that in the modern era, belief in God and the accompanying Christian morality had lost its power and influence in society, leading to a moral vacuum humanity would have to fill.

He challenged traditional classical and Judeo-Christian virtues and asserted these moral standards were human-created rather than transcendent truths. It was in the 1880s that Nietzsche began to speak of “values” in the way we now use the word to talk about the moral assumptions and attitudes of a given society. He used the word consciously and repeatedly, to demonstrate the momentous transition human history had made. He thought describing the “transvaluation of values” was revealing the revolution which was underway, a revolution against both the classical virtues and the Judaic-Christian ones – against the very idea of a transcendent morality.

Others developing value theory (“axiology” after the Greek word for “worthy” or “deserving”) immediately pushed back, arguing for the objective existence of values, independent of human desires. But by the time Theodore Roosevelt used the word in the early 1900’s, it is well on its way to describing relativized beliefs that are socially constructed. The beliefs of the world were moving toward what we have today where, as Nietzsche noted, the powerful often have and impose values which normal, weak people do not come up with on their own. The transcendent morality revealed in Jesus was replaced by the survival of the fittest ideas. Now Donald Trump is a value unto himself and, even among the poor, the enrichment of oligarchs is of utmost importance, as they say it should be, even as they attempt to recreate the world in their image.

What we “value” could be deadly

Who would have thought the Brethren in Christ would become the handmaidens of Nietzsche?

Values, as we now understand that word, do not have to be virtues; they can be personally-sourced beliefs, opinions, attitudes, feelings, habits, preferences –- whatever any individual, group, or society happens to value, at any time, for any reason. One cannot say of virtues, as one can of values, that anyone’s virtues are as good as anyone else’s, or that everyone has a right to their own virtues. Only values can claim such moral equality and neutrality. This impartial, “non-judgmental” (as we now say) sense of values –- values as “value-free”–- is now so firmly entrenched in our vocabulary and sensibility that one can hardly imagine a time without it.

My issue with the use of “core values” to describe our discipleship had quite a bit of Teddy Roosevelt pragmatism in it. I still think most Christians in the U.S. are heavy on principle and light on action. Their faith is proving unsustainable as we speak. That’s why I like bell hooks’ ethic of love so much — it is all about how you live, not just what you think or believe.

It is hard to see belief systems in the New Testament at all; the writings are all about creating something by the power of the Holy Spirit; they are more about following Jesus than worshipping him at a distance, if we choose to do so. It is ironic that the powerless of the world regularly claim their freedom by not “drinking the kool-aid” of anyone imposing some principle on them when that very act shows how they “drank the kool-aid” of reducing themselves down to a set of personal values. All the while they could have been following Jesus who actually is a law unto himself, and who faced his detractors, imprisoned in their sense of worth, with “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins.”

What if I don’t value billionaires?

The people I have served were much more moved by the valuation of the “invisible hand” than the conviction of the Holy Spirit. What most people value these days is almost totally subsumed under making a good deal. My cousins asked me at most Thanksgiving dinners, “How is the church business going? Is your church getting bigger?” Advice columnists ask, “Are you better off with him or without him?” Put that last phrase into AI and it says, “Ultimately, the decision is personal and should prioritize your own happiness and well-being.” That is about all we’ve got these days: what I value, more or less.

Our government is littered with big hands grasping at a diminishing public trough. What if I don’t believe they are really job creators? What if I don’t value the way they assign my value? What if Jesus, the great I AM, makes me who I am?

Ellen Meiksins Wood observed, that a capitalist society is a society in which social relations are “embedded in the economy” rather than the “economy being embedded in social relations.” What she meant is we cannot account for the complexity of the capitalist mode of production as if it were an expression of human motives, desires and values. Capitalism is not simply an expression of the human tendency to “truck, barter and exchange.” Now it is a power that compels us to govern our whole lives in a transactional and commodifying way. It is not merely a matter of free people making choices, it is a compulsion, so much so, that a popular slur by our rulers is calling someone a “socialist.”

Under capitalism, many other aspects of human nature — such as the need for love, solidarity, and individuality — are secondary to the values associated with profit-seeking, or, if being kind, with “personal satisfaction” or “self-realization.” The word “values” is loaded with monetary value, quid pro quo, even with an evaluation of empathy as too weak to be sustainable.

I think the word “values” is loaded with the worst kind of autonomy: Godless, loveless, aloneness. The thoughts that: “I am responsible for what is important,” “I assign worth,” “My everyday choices to consume one thing over another is what gives me an identity” are overwhelming and subjugating. Thus the BIC reduced themselves with their “core values” to another set of choices, a product. It did not set itself apart from the world, it willingly adapted itself to the principles of the world.

But let’s remember after all this: Jesus is greater than our core values. There were undoubtedly many people in the crowd he confronted in John 8 who did not hear him and just “write him off“ with, “You have a right to your own opinion.” They followed him. The BIC is full of those kind of people, too.

The post Your “values” might be undercutting your God-given worth appeared first on Development.

View more on Rod White's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on December 06, 2025 07:51

November 24, 2025

Forgive yourself: You’ll not only feel better, you’ll be better

We usually think of forgiveness as a relational matter. They hurt me; they need to apologize. I did some wrong; I have to admit it and ask forgiveness. You may theoretically believe that is true, right? But living it out in the real world can be difficult. It is much easier to blame or avoid than reconcile.

We need to figure out forgiveness to save the world from its perpetual lack of reconciliation. As we do that, we actualize our own true self and get reconciled inside. Because forgiveness is not just between two people, is also an internal, psychological, and spiritual necessity. You also have a relationship with yourself, too. If we don’t sort out all the different voices that make up our inner dialogue, there is perpetual conflict going on inside of us, too!

For instance, last week I put out my weekly blog post a day earlier than I intended — no big deal really. But I made the mistake because I thought Sunday was Monday! I was ready to call some computer someone somewhere to find out why my machines were all off! I finally figured out I was off and felt ashamed of myself for jumping to a wrong conclusion that cost me an hour of turmoil — so embarrassing! I accepted my “sin,” but the feelings of guilt and shame stuck with me. I did a dumb thing. Then I felt ashamed because I couldn’t let go of those feelings! What a flawed psychotherapist! I was not forgiving myself. I needed some inner reconciliation. Otherwise, I might have carried around my secret shame right through the terrific meeting at Salt and Light!

We know Jesus will forgive our sins when we confess our sins. But will we cooperate by forgiving ourselves? Some would say “Forgiving yourself is not that important if Jesus already did it.” Maybe. But I know a lot of people who are forgiven in principle but have never experienced a minute of that forgiveness in their hearts. Their presentation of themselves in the world is forgiven, which is good as far as that goes. But their inner being is unforgiving, critical, harsh and living under the law of some childhood jungle in which they grew up. Maybe you aren’t fully forgiven by Jesus if you won’t forgive yourself.

by Jaroslav SamoilenkoHard on yourself?

How many times have I heard, “I think it will all get better if I just try harder. I’m having trouble doing what I want to do, but when I do, it will all be fine.” Such a person never even gets to square one of life with Jesus because they are still negotiating whether his lovingkindness is something they can live in and express, especially toward themselves. As a matter of fact, they may be quite loving to others but hard as nails with themselves. They might have a loud inner voice that even says, “Look how bad you are at forgiving yourself!” Or even harder, “If you don’t love others rightly, you’ll be damned!” Or very logical, “If you ‘forgive yourself,’ pretty soon you’ll never confess a sin and not even be a Christian!” Rather than letting guilt and shame pass through like regular emotions, every criticism and failure sticks to them like they are flypaper, until it is hard to hear the voice of love for all the buzzing. Does any of this sound familiar?

Do you struggle with forgiving yourself? Probably. I think most of us have been quite confused about the subject. Most of us seem to be balancing whether we are too easy on ourselves, or rationalizing our bad behavior — at times wondering whether we are too hard on ourselves, and at times condemning ourselves. Such questions are what any wise person would want to ponder, of course. But the Bible tends to go beyond them. Paul assumes we are all unjustifiable (Romans 3:23), and we’re all likely to think too highly of ourselves (Romans 12:3). His remedy is not to admit we are self-condemning and self-congratulating at the same time; he wants us to accept where we are at and accept that Jesus is with us there. Likewise, Jeremiah asserts that we deceive ourselves about our condition; we’re a mystery to ourselves, but God can truly interpret our hearts (Jeremiah 17:9-10).

Don’t you think it qualifies as a “sin” to hold ourselves in contempt even when God prizes us and has forgiven our sin (2 Corinthians 2:6-8)? Let’s consider how to forgive ourselves and be reconciled inside as well as out. Then we might be able to feel God’s compassion in our anguished souls. If you already feel some resistance to the very thought of that, this post might be for you, especially.

Why forgive ourselves?

Only God can forgive sin, so we are not talking about that, OK? I’m talking about cooperating with the Spirit of forgiveness beating on the door of our guilt and shame. We’ve been gods to ourselves and it is strangely different to come at our sense of responsibility for being good from the place of being forgiven. We are born again by forgiveness and, like so many things in Christ, we need to grow up into it.

Remember: All who are in Christ are freed from condemnation (Romans 8:1) and freed to love (Galatians 5:13). We are meant to display the mercies of God as sinners forgiven of their sins (1 Timothy 1:15-16).

Extending grace and kindness to oneself and others is the transformation God effects in those who have received His grace and kindness. God’s kindness leads to repentance, that is, the Presence of kindness leads us to agree with God’s loving way of seeing us. Such gentleness is only possible for us because Jesus has set us free from the power of sin, the tyranny of self-rule, and the oppression of evil. Jesus said “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8). The starting point of forgiving ourselves is experiencing God’s forgiveness.

Keys to forgiving yourself

Clarify responsibility

Blame is tricky. Sometimes we blame ourselves for the injuries other people cause. For instance, many neglected or abused children think they must be to blame for not being cared for because they are unlovable. On the other hand, we sometimes blame others for things that are really all about us — it is called projection. What we find shameful or unbearable, we cast on others and despise it, or assume someone else made us feel and act as we do.

When we are blaming ourselves or others, we need to sit back and do some mentalizing. Before we start reacting inside with self-loathing or outside with abusive behavior, we need clarity: What is mine and what belongs to someone else? What might be coming at me from the society, in general?

“Clarifying” who is responsible for the injury might sound like we could get caught in an endless inventory of our troubles, as if more clarity is all we need. But I think we need to go deeper than that. I am really talking about simple self-care. We feel better when our feet are on the solid ground of reality, even if that reality initially causes us some pain.

One of the reasons we shy away from clarity is because we feel things about it. We might be angry. We might have unfinished business with a perpetrator we have displaced on people who bumped into our trigger. We might feel confused, even paralyzed. But we need to risk seeing it all clearly, since if we do not clarify who to forgive: ourselves, others, or whoever, lack of forgiveness will probably make us sick. It’s terrifying to face our pain, and so it seems easier to take the blame for it or cast the blame for it. But it is better to have a clear look at what is really going on so we can be appropriately responsible and appropriately gracious. It is deeper to have compassion for ourselves. Clarifying who needs forgiving is a good first step.

Renounce the dark comfort of your badness

You have probably heard someone say this, too, ” God can’t forgive me; I’m beyond grace.” I heard someone say on TV the other night, “I’ll see my mother again in hell.” Sometimes an unwillingness to seek forgiveness and live in God’s grace is a matter of pride – I did it my way. But more likely, doing life our own way is a matter of despair — it is all we think we can do, we’re alone. You may hear a voice that tells you. “You need to earn God’s favor and that of others.” But then you likely have another voice chime in to say, “You are too flawed to do that. You keep trying and you never make it.”

Self-justification is the universal spiritual disease that leads to spiritual death (Romans 6:23). Self-condemnation also leads to spiritual death: “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:10). We need to give up both of them. We need to be forgiven by God and then work with her to forgive ourselves — feel the love of God healing us and the power of God transforming us.

Seek repair/make amends/foment reconciliation

One of the best feelings in life is to sincerely say, “I am sorry I did that to you. Please forgive me.” I think someone read that line and immediately thought sarcastically, “Right.” Some of us choke on the words “Please forgive me” because they are among the most vulnerable words one can say. They admit we’re guilty. We did something bad. We did not earn it. We are not perfect. We need something from the other person: forgiveness.

As hard as each may be, every act of forgiveness changes the world a little more, or at least stops it from going down the drain so fast. Jesus is quite radical when he tells us to go to our brother and sister and win them to a reconciled relationship (Matt. 18). That’s what God was doing in Jesus. His whole life is an invitation to connect in love, forever. His suffering is not just to fulfill some cosmic law, it is the natural process of being self-giving. When we acknowledge our responsibility for pain or the responsibility of others and seek to make things right, our experience of God’s love and forgiveness opens up, maybe even because someone forgives us or receives our forgiveness! When I experience the forgiveness of God and others I can extend it more readily to myself. (Ephesians 4)

The same experience Jesus describes going on between people, needs to go on inside us. We need to seek repair and foment wholeness in our hearts, as broken as they may be. We are prone to duking it out inside. The things we say to ourselves! I won’t write any examples because they are often unprintable. The shame that locks us into a secret view of ourselves that haunts our days! Forgiveness is an inside and out revolution.

Love with abandon

Jesus identified loving God with your whole heart and loving your neighbor as you love yourself as the two greatest commandments. He told his disciples to “Love one another as I have love you” – he assumed, of course, his disciples were letting him love them. We are all invited to walk in love with Jesus. All of Christ’s teachings assume some new spiritual thing will happen in us, including that we will love ourselves like we experience God loving us. I am not sure we can keep loving others authentically if we do not experience the lovingkindness of God in our souls — and 95% of us want to do that.

Jesus is given over to love. He loves with abandon. Love requires courage and boldness because love is always costly and opens us to possible suffering. No one who has friends, lovers, children or a mate has never suffered for love. It calls for sacrifice. It is sometimes unrequited. It is easily misunderstood. Sometimes we refuse to forgive because we are protecting ourselves from the demands of love. Maybe right now you resent being told you need to do something you don’t feel like doing or don’t think you can do. Maybe you think it is unjust to forgive or you fear you will be diminished if you give into a bad person. But love and intimacy are only possible when we are vulnerable to being hurt again.

Love is kind — not only to others but to ourselves. Love keeps no record of wrongs — not only of others but of ourselves. Those are lovely seed-thoughts from 1 Corinthians 13. Our spiritual instincts tell us that even though our failure to forgive ourselves hinders our love for others, our meager attempts at doing it, met by the meager love others show for us is not for nothing. The process of bravely loving others facilitates self-forgiveness, too.

As soon as you read those lines, you may have noticed how you are not kind to yourself and how your record of your wrongs is quite complete. But don’t give up on yourself! God won’t. John lovingly writes to his disciples (1 John 3), “Little children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us, for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”

Get help

If you are hard on yourself and struggle with forgiving yourself, a therapist might help. Most people think forgiving others and being forgiven is the right way to go. Even so, more and more people these days are shying away from love because conflict and break ups could happen. They feel unprepared and unskilled in a fundamental feature of intimacy: forgiveness. A therapist might help you get started on better relationships with others and with yourself in many ways, including learning how to forgive yourself.

The post Forgive yourself: You’ll not only feel better, you’ll be better appeared first on Development.

View more on Rod White's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on November 24, 2025 03:30

← Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 60 61 Next →

Rod White's Blog

Rod White's profile
14 followers