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Worldwide Stew

Blog

Here are my blog posts. I previously posted them on Obsidian but I’m moving them (slowly) to this website. It will take time. I’m also going to be publishing new pages as often as they come to mind.

Number of posts: 76

Nothing else matters

Nothing else matters

By Mike Davis, Th.M.

Yesterday... After the dog's bath. My wife ambled her way to the garage door. I let our dog down her ramp And out of the car. I watched our dog Follow her Momma To the door. While my wife unlocked the door I watched them both From the car. Both my girls. The Beauties I live for. My feelings in that moment Were all gratitude For it's simplicity Nothing else mattered. No event could eclipse That picture in my mind. That was all there was Right then. The expanse of my World, Was funneled Into 63 cubic feet. But those 63 cubic feet Were more expansive Than all the Universe. Only a fleeting cluster of photons, Filtered into an optic nerve, Gratitude distilled in a millisecond.
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On Independence, wealth, and status

It’s Indepenence Day in the United States. As a nation, the United States seems less independent than at any time in our history.

In this post, I wanted to talk about how a country’s economic policies promote or removes freedoms. This post starts with a policy that swept America away: Trickle-down Economics. Trickle-down economics came into public discussion during the United States Presidency of Ronald Reagan. It promised that great wealth trickles down to the poor. Don’t saddle the wealthy or corporations with taxes. Give them more money and it will trickle down to the impoverished, the story went. It sounded good. For years, I believed it, too.

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Go to Your Room

I suspect my Mom wasn’t the only parent who responded to her children’s loud disagreements and fighting by telling us to go to our rooms.

It was good advice. When we get caught up in fight (part of the fight, flight, faint network), the chemicals coursing through our bodies want to defend ourselves from fear of shame, embarrassment, and , occasionally, physical injury.

Often, the most mindful way of navigating our fear, anger, and doubt is to separate ourselves from the circumstances. This is especially true if we can learn to be aware of arousal. Awareness can be our Earkly Warning System! It gives us space to rewrite the story we’re telling ourselves. Usually, that’s the problem: the story that’s taken residence in our mind. They’re taking advantage of us. They don’t value my feelings. They always treat me this way.

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And then they came for me

Pastor Martin Niemöller did what many Christians did when they saw the Third Reich systematically remove the rights of selected populations. Group by group, Hitler and his hinchmen took away the rights 1) of the press, 2) of educational institutions and their professors, 3) of races, 4) the mentally ill, 5) of dissidents, and of other groups.

Like all good religious people, he said nothing.

Then they came for him.

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And then they came for me

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