James A Erickson, D.Min., MFT

04/11/2026

“Brothers and sisters, you are signs of hope in a world marked by absurd and inhuman violence. But no interest can be worth the lives of the weakest, of children, of families; no cause can justify the shedding of innocent blood. You are, called to be tireless peacemakers in the name of Jesus, help us to clearly proclaim that God blesses no conflict; to cry out to the world that those who are followers of Christ, the Prince of Peace, never side with those who yesterday wielded the sword and today launch bombs; to remember that it is not military action that will create spaces of freedom or times of peace, but only the patient promotion of coexistence and dialogue between peoples.” Pope Leo

On April 9, 1945, 39 years old Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed at Flossenburg Concentration Camp. He was hanged because of his participation in a plot to overthrow Hi**er and the N**i Regime.
In a sermon on 2 Corinthians 12.9, Bonhoeffer proclaimed "Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness, and pride of power, and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear... Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now."
As he was led to his hanging, Bonhoeffer final words were "This is the end—for me, the beginning of life.”

02/15/2026

“There is a famine abroad on the earth, a famine not of bread, for we have had too much of that and our luxury has made us forget God; a famine not of gold, for the glitter of so much of that has blinded us to the meaning of the twinkle of the stars; but a famine of a more serious kind, and one which threatens nearly every country in the world – the famine of really great men. In other words, the world today is suffering from a terrible nemesis of mediocrity. We are dying of ordinariness; we are perishing from our pettiness.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen

02/06/2026

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1426955738796904&id=100044474737643

01/23/2026

Spirituality (Dancing in the realm of the unknown)
and Science (Dancing in the realm of the known)
search for the meaning of life;
And poetry is the perfect place for both of these to have a conversation
Partly because they both care a lot about efficiency, and have a lot of rules
And poetry is the playground , these vessel, that can contain these opposites,and tensions,
Rosemerru Whatolla Trommer with Art Goodtimes 1/23/26

01/19/2026

01/09/2026

Wealth can be lost.
Fame fades.
Titles expire.
Perfection is an illusion.

But the way you treat people — that stays.

We live in a world that celebrates appearance over character, status over sincerity, and achievement over humanity. Yet when life strips everything away, what truly matters is not what you owned, but who you were when no one was watching.

🪷 Being real means living honestly — not pretending, not performing, not hiding behind masks to be accepted.
🪷 Being humble means knowing your worth without needing to prove it or place yourself above others.
🪷 Being kind means choosing compassion even when it’s inconvenient, unrecognized, or unreturned.

In Buddhist wisdom, a person is not measured by knowledge or success, but by their intention and conduct. A calm mind, a gentle heart, and harmless actions are considered greater riches than gold.

🍃 You don’t need to impress the world.
🍃 You need to leave it lighter than you found it.

At the end of life, people won’t remember your grades, your followers, or your bank balance.
They will remember how safe they felt around you.
How you listened.
How you showed up.

That is a life well lived.

(a borrowed post)

12/04/2025

"I hope you come to find that which gives life a deep meaning for you. Something worth living for--maybe even worth dying for something that energizes you, enthuses you, enables you to keep moving ahead. I can't tell you what it might be that's for you to find, to choose, to love. I can just encourage you to start looking and support you in the search."---Ita Ford, M.M., one of the four Maryknoll missioners killed by Salvadoran military 45 years ago.

12/04/2025

A quote from Pope Francis shared by my friend Jim Hagan: “Rivers do not drink from their own water; trees do not eat of their own fruit; flowers do not smell their own fragrance. To live for others is a dimension found in nature. We are all born to help one another. No matter how difficult it might be, life is good when you are happy and better when others are happy because of you.”

12/03/2025

Your negative self-talk is literally harming your physical health.

Negative self‑talk does more than hurt your feelings—it places real, measurable strain on your body.

When you constantly criticize yourself, your brain reacts as if you’re under threat, triggering the stress response system. Cortisol and adrenaline spike, your heart rate climbs, and blood pressure rises.

Over time, this chronic activation increases inflammation, disrupts sleep, weakens the immune system, and puts significant strain on the cardiovascular system. Studies show that people who engage in frequent negative internal dialogue are more likely to develop hypertension, experience heart-related symptoms, and face higher risks of long‑term cardiac disease.

This ongoing mental stress also reshapes the brain’s emotional circuits. Negative self‑talk fuels anxiety, depression, and rumination—mental loops that keep the body in a prolonged state of physiological arousal. This “never-ending stress cycle” exhausts the nervous system and accelerates wear and tear on the body, known as allostatic load. In short: the way you speak to yourself changes your biology. Breaking the habit of harsh self‑criticism isn’t just good for mental health—it could literally protect your heart, extend your life, and restore the balance your body needs to function at its best.

source
Brosschot, J. F., Gerin, W., & Thayer, J. F. (2006). The perseverative cognition hypothesis: A review of worry, prolonged stress, and its impact on health. Journal of Psychosomatic Research.

11/30/2025

"A love affair has to do with immediate personal satisfaction. But marriage is an ordeal; it means yielding, time and again. That's why it's a sacrament: you give up your personal simplicity to participate in a relationship. And when you're giving, you're not giving to the other person: you're giving to the relationship. And if you realize you are in the relationship just as the other person is, then it becomes life building, a life fostering and enriching experience, not an impoverishment because you're giving to somebody else. . .

This is the challenge of a marriage. What a beautiful thing is a life together as growing personalities, each helping the other to flower, rather than just moving into the standard archetype. It's a wonderful moment when people can make the decision to be something quite astonishing and unexpected, rather than cookie-mold products."
- Joseph Campbell,

From An Open Life: Joseph Campbell in Conversation with Michael Toms p. 127

11/17/2025

Community not only is a human need, but also where Christians believe that Christ chooses to establish his presence. Due in part to the restrictions to contact because of the COVID pandemic, church attendance, where many of us experience community, has fallen off. People turn to the internet for a substitute replacement for community. At best, the internet is an inadequate substitute. At worst, with its limitations of contact and communication, it fosters isolation and is destructive of community.

11/04/2025

Copied from FB:
Ernest Hemingway once wrote:
“The hardest lesson I had to learn as an adult was the brutal need to keep moving forward, even when I felt broken inside.”
That truth is raw, unfiltered, and deeply painful — because it is profoundly human.
The hardest thing we learn as adults is that life doesn’t wait for us.
It moves on relentlessly, indifferent to our heavy hearts or exhausted souls.
There is no pause for pain, no rest for disappointment, no time granted by the world to heal our wounds.
And yet, we are forced to go on — to carry our burdens in silence, to smile even as we crumble inside.
But amid that cruelty, a hidden miracle is born: after every fall, we rise again; after every defeat, we keep going.
We discover that resilience isn’t a shout of triumph or an act of grand heroism — it’s the quiet inner whisper that says:
“Keep going.”
Yes, it’s an exhausting and sometimes unfair journey, but every small step forward is proof of our endurance — of our choice to live, to hope, to believe that a better tomorrow is possible.
And that choice alone… is the greatest form of courage.