Somehow, Sabbath, and the Signal in the Noise

Ashton's Weekend Musings

Author

Ashton Gustafson
June 07, 2025

Hi friends,

It’s been a long time since I’ve had the space to simply sit and read—no agenda, no underlining for a talk, no skimming for a business insight. Just reading. And Somehow by Anne Lamott was the perfect reentry point.

Anne writes like a friend who knows all your flaws and still shows up with a gentle smile and candor. Somehow: Thoughts on Love isn’t a manual. It’s a soul whisper. It reminded me that healing often arrives in fragments, and that love—real, clumsy, miraculous love—is still the only thing worth betting on.

It stirred up another voice I’ve been reflecting on this week: the late Walter Brueggemann, who passed this week. He once wrote:

“We are, all of us, every one of us, made for a Sabbath of silence,
in which we stop our busy talk and our restless doing,
and we simply become present to the mystery of God.”

In a world that rewards speed and noise, that line lands like gospel. Rest isn’t a reward—it’s the way home. It appears this is my life (and daily) work to learn again and again.

Shifting gears—but staying in tune with the signal through the noise—there’s something happening in the markets I thought you’d want to know. Dan Ives (the Wedbush tech analyst who’s basically become a prophet in the AI space and who I mentioned last weekend in my email) just launched an ETF: the Wedbush ETF: IVES. It’s a curated basket of companies he’s been pounding the table on for months—tech with real conviction behind it. This is interesting to me.

If you're looking for a signal in the market's static, this might be worth your radar.

Thanks for letting me share.

All there’s left to do is enjoy,

Ashton