In Need of Guidance (Richard Rohr)

After he retired, my father cried in my arms and said, “I don’t know who I am now. I don’t know who I am. . . . Pray with me, pray with me.” Here I was a grown-up man, a priest, supposed to be strong for my father. I didn’t know how to do it. I guess I said the appropriate priestly words. But I didn’t know how to guide him into the second half of life, and he was begging for a guide.

The church wasn’t much of a guide in such things. The common sermon was on the evil of abortion. My mom in her 70s would come home and say, “Why does the priest keep telling us the same thing? I can’t have babies anymore!” That’s what happens when the Church doesn’t grow up or support its growing members. We focus on something that’s quantifiable and seemingly clear and has no subtlety to it. It’s mostly black and white thinking, usually about individual body-based sins. We know who the sinners are, and we know who the saints are, and we don’t have to struggle with the mixed blessing that every human being is. We’re all mixed blessings and partly sinners, and we always will be. But this wisdom only comes later, when we’ve learned to listen to the different voices that guide us in the second half of life.

These deeper voices will sound like risk, trust, surrender, uncommon sense, destiny, love. They will be the voices of an intimate stranger, a voice that’s from somewhere else, and yet it’s my deepest self at the same time. It’s the still, small voice that the prophet Elijah slowly but surely learned to hear (see 1 Kings 19:11-13).

For Democrats, Shutdown Success Also Brings Danger

Stick around Washington long enough and you will learn a simple rule: Success also brings risk. Danger comes calling when the winning side in a political fight either overreaches in its hour of triumph or fails to turn newly won political capital into something useful.

This is the risk for Democrats right now. There is no doubt they won—convincingly—in their showdown with President Trump over his demand for billions of dollars to build a wall along the southern border. They stared down the president during a monthlong partial government shutdown, and in the end they got exactly what they were demanding: a temporary reopening of the government without providing any money for the wall.

First, they now have spent the opening period of their new control of the House of Representatives focused not on their priorities—health care in particular—but instead on Mr. Trump’s top priority, immigration.

Second, the shutdown prevented the new Democratic House leadership, and all those new House members elected last November, from starting off by demonstrating they can govern effectively.

..  A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that positive feelings about the Democratic party fell to 35% this month from 39% in December. That means the share of Americans who have positive feelings about Democrats is essentially no different from the 34% who have positive

Brené Brown | Daring Classrooms | SXSWedu 2017

We need to understand how scarcity affects the way we lead and teach, we have to engage with vulnerability and we need to learn how to recognize and combat shame. What would it mean for our schools and classrooms if we showed up for tough, honest conversations about what it takes to bring our best, most authentic selves to work? These conversations may sound risky and vulnerable, but risk and vulnerability are essential to courageous schools. A daring classroom is a place where both teachers and students commit to choosing courage over comfort, choosing what is right over what is fun, fast or easy and practicing values rather than professing them.

Shame can not survive being spoken because it depends upon you thinking you are alone.

The antidote to share is empathy.

Shame is fed by empathy:

  • Secrecy
  • Silence
  • Judgement

Perspective taking: take the perspective of others

Every time someone talks about hate, substitute the word “pain”.

Investors Aren’t Buying Bank Chiefs’ Optimism

The heads of America’s biggest three banks all spoke positively about the economy Tuesday as their share prices fell sharply

Bankers are often criticized for being out of touch with the real world. Often that is unfair, but on Tuesday, as the leaders of the nation’s three biggest banks told investors that the economy was great, investors were acting like the boom was over.

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs financial conference, the chief executives of JPMorgan Chase , JPM -4.46% Wells Fargo WFC -4.54% and Bank of America BAC -5.43% all said they see exceptionally strong economic conditions at the moment, citing strong consumer spending and business confidence.

On closer inspection, all three bank executives gave hints of trouble just beneath the surface.

JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive James Dimon spoke of the indirect costs of trade tensions to business confidence and investment. He sounded skeptical these tensions would be resolved within the cease-fire time period agreed to by the U.S. and China over the weekend. “There’s no way you can finish the complexity of these trade negotiations in 90 days,” he said.

.. Mr. Dimon also suggested he’s been puzzled that middle-market borrowers haven’t ramped up their borrowing more as the economy has improved… Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan struck a similar note, saying medium to large-size clients are already making changes to their supply chains in response to the trade uncertainty, which he said costs them money while adding no value for their customers.

Wells Fargo Chief Executive Timothy Sloan cited a different risk, saying the biggest concern he hears from business clients is “their inability to hire enough workers.” This is the kind of thing that can lead to what Mr. Dimon referred to as a “traditional recession” caused by Federal Reserve raising interest rates as wages and prices rise.

Sometimes the risks are greatest just when things seem to be at their best. Investors are right to brace for what may come next.