Grace for Our Wounded World

(Friday Filosophy 5/05/23)

Happy Freakin’ Friday!

Welcome to another issue of Friday Filosophy, the weekly postcard where I give you a question, topic, or challenge to consider.  This week I’m hoping you’ll spend some time thinking about grace.  More specifically, grace for our wounded world.

By no means is this meant to be a downer. Yet it’s important to recognize that right now, far too many people are suffering, distressed, or otherwise troubled.  There’s a breakdown in civility and an alarming shortage of grace.  We can debate the causes from polarizing politics to social media personas, but that won’t change the reality.  Hurt people hurt other people, and right now, there are a lot of hurt people and I’m not quite sure what we can do about it.

My prosperity work began with my desperate desire to get out of poverty to have more and better choices in my life. Once I accomplished that, I foolishly thought that by sharing my knowledge of how to become wealthy I could save the world. This came from my naive belief that if you made enough money, you could buy your way out of any challenge.  (The universe has since humbled me in that regard.)

This is not to say that money doesn’t solve problems; it certainly can. But money only solves money problems.  I still feel called to teach wealth-building principles because there are still far too many people choosing between medicine and rent, or a car repair versus groceries. Poverty is a sin and a blight on humankind.  But wealth in and of itself, won’t repair your marriage, insulate you from addiction, or protect your child from self-destructive behavior.  One of the reasons my work has evolved over the years is to keep it relevant to the broader, holistic prosperity situations people are actually facing.  It’s why I made the transition from extolling getting rich, to living a truly prosperous life.  And that takes us back to grace....

I don’t know about you, but I need to get out more. Being a loner and making my living primarily as a writer allows me to live in a world mostly of my own creation.  It’s when I interact in my softball league, conduct my coaching sessions, and mingle with seminar attendees that I get reminded of how much hurt there is out in the real world. (And gets driven home viscerally when there is a ruptured relationship, bad medical diagnosis, or death among my loved ones.)

There is a business model of polarization and divisiveness that drives journalism, entertainment, politics, and social media right now. There’s also an epidemic of isolation and loneliness, which is fueling endemic depression and suicide.  Twitter, cable news, and other elements of the public square have gotten vindictive, cruel, and malicious.  Somehow "otherizing" then demonizing groups of people has become a badge of honor and the new flavor of virtue signaling.

Can’t we just give people the benefit of the doubt now and then?

Can’t we just dig a little deeper for empathy?

Can’t we just offer some grace?

I sincerely hope you will make the time to watch or listen to the new podcast.  It’s a fascinating topic that could switch the way you about money:

Becoming Rich is a Spiritual Quest

YouTube: http://ow.ly/X10650O8wuN

Apple: http://ow.ly/LKcQ50O8wuQ

Spotify: http://ow.ly/jOAo50O8wuO

Anchor: http://ow.ly/BTno50O8wuP

May your weekend be full of grace…

Peace,

- RG

P.S. This talk about grace, reminded me of one of the most thought-provoking essays I’d read in quite a while.  It's this one from Isaac Saul on the immorality of incarceration in America today.  Read it and see what you think: https://www.readtangle.com/evidence-prisons-dont-work/

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