The house of rattling mirrors

Some ginormous cosmic-sized semi trailer with a massive smoke machine on its back is driving past the earth. Blowing away the land of smokescreens and rattling the house of distorted mirrors. The economic reckoning we have sensed was going to come - had to come, was untenable in its not-comingness - the living under the illusion that we have all been used to because we don't know any different - it's all starting to topple, to wobble, to rock and to roll. Perhaps we can learn to dance in the middle of it all.

Do not fear. Breathe. Good reminders in heady times. I think I need to double my centering prayer practice. Even though I trust that amazing things are going to happen on both sides of the reality ledger, there are so many fearful things facing us. Environmental and economic. Do I fear? I would lie if I said I never do. I can feel it lurking at times, sure. And pretending it's not there on the edges just makes it lurk more. But yes, I think we are living in amazing times and in a lot of ways we need these things to happen to get us moving. Gearing down and getting centered are vital to keep the fear away. That and faith and hope and vision, too.

This evening my time, there has been a coordinated effort to lower interest rates from the US, the UK, Canada, Sweden and Switzerland by half a percentage point. China also cut theirs by 0.27 percent. Whether they are able to stave off the next Great Depression remains to be seen. Whether people's hearts fail them for fear and set the markets toppling again is another story.

I like here what Poser or Prophet says:

Not that I know anything about this stuff, but I reckon that, if the global markets were to crash and we were to be heading for some sort of Great Depression at some point in the future then… well… then it makes sense for the Spirit to begin stirring now-ish in order to create communities of Christians who are learning how to share the basic elements of life, who are economically dependent upon one another, who are making connections across national boundaries, and who are trying to bridge the gap between the West and the Rest of the world.

There are many different scents on the wind. Some of them are scary. The house of economic mirrors is built on flimsy pretexts, on greed at one end and fear at the other. This world is greedier than it has ever been. Robbing its kids and grandkids to feed our own appetites. Perhaps the roosters need to come home. But don't forget to sniff the wind. There are all sorts of amazing things going on. The media won't report the most beautiful ones. Breathe.

PS: I love what the boys at The God Journey had to say about all of this (it's the podcast called The Unshakeable Kingdom). Wayne talks a lot about living with expectancy and trust and not fearing in these weird times, and this has been a sweet listen, for me. In fact, I've listened to it twice. The way he talked about his dad, who was going in for possibly-life-threatening surgery, was just so cool. Recommended listening for some encouragement.