Author: Higher Up IDEALS
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Save the Future With Your Present Conversations
If you are part of a community of folks as small as your family or as large as a megachurch and you aren’t challenging yourselves in your conversations your communications are the equivalent of standing water. And elementary science tells us what happens to standing water. The conversations that we participate in are supposed to…
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The Art of the Real: Turning Trash into Treasure
Let’s face it. Our systems are failing us. They were founded on an unsustainable false premise that some people were inherently of higher worth while others were inherently of lesser worth. And the reality is that this is an inherent lie destined for collapse. We can do everything we can imagine to prolong the inevitable.…
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A Conversation Among Equals: The Importance of De-ranking Conversations
The fact is that, whether we intend them to or not, most of our conversations happen in frameworks that are upheld by socially accepted ranking systems. And, when conversations happen in a context where someone holds a perceived “higher ranking”, it is virtually impossible to have the conversations we need to move our society forward…
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Doing God’s Will – In Honor of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“I just want to do God’s will”. These words. This seven word contract with our Creator were some of the last public words that he spoke before being murdered the next day on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel by a country—and I do mean by a country–that praised his stance for non-violence when it…
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When to Stop Praying
When many people heard about what happened in the Capitol their instinct was to pray. Mine was to stop praying. In the video below, I explain why.
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Wisdom Begins in Wonder
We often think that wisdom is in what we consider to be the “high places”. But in God’s reality, there is nowhere that wisdom is not because wisdom is embedded in all of creation. In this message, I reflect on wisdom I witnessed from one of the members of our homeless community. What I don’t…
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Saved By Homelessness
Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Jesus What do you make of that verse written above—“the Son of Man has no place to lay his head?” When I hear it, I imagine Jesus basically living on the streets with his friends giving from his spiritual abundance freely…
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After Your Neighbor Calls the Police on You
Before reading this post, you may want to read the post, Before You Call the Police on Your Neighbor, to establish some context. So far every response to my blog post about someone calling the police on my family instead of knocking on my door to express their apparent concern for my dog has been…
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Homelessness as an Indicator of Our Society’s Priorities
Originally posted on The Roofless Church: “They put all of society’s problems on us. They make money from criminalizing us. Every time they lock us up, money goes into someone’s pockets.? That’s why they are making it so hard for things to get better.” – Known Unknown Click Image to go to Facebook Video It’s…
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Before You Call the Police On Your Neighbor
Yesterday someone called the police on me because they were apparently concerned for my dog, Journey, who was in the backyard laying in the snow. Giving the person the benefit of the doubt, I imagine that they feel like they were doing something of a kindness toward Journey. The officers who did the welfare check…
