2026-05-18T18:33:58+00:00

Rose Colored

May 18, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

There is a series I started this morning on Hulu called The Dark Side of the 90’s. I assume it’s just another entry in The Dark Side franchise – I’ve already watched The Dark Side of Wrestling, there’s probably many, many more. There are lots of Dark Sides. This one is particularly interesting to me, I am often overcome by nostalgia for this decade.

[This morning?? Yes, I started it at 4am. It’s sometimes challenging to stay asleep, and today, it was very hard with a nasty stomachache. I am loving the series, but I am quite grouchy because a great series at 4am softens the blow, but is still at 4am. Sigh.]

I put that last paragraph in brackets as if it was an aside, just an unimportant extraneous footnote. But I am now seeing that it’s not, it’s the main idea.

You see, you love me a lot, you read these posts and have an idea of me that is all sunshine and rainbows. You imagine a man who loves easily and abundantly, with massive arms and perfect skin and hair. And that’s the point. I don’t have ANY hair. My skin is not smooth, it’s rough and scarred from losing too many battles with teenage acne. My arms are sort of big, but not at all what anyone would call massive. I do love easily and abundantly, but that hurts me A LOT, too. I’m super sensitive, but this hyper-sensitivity can make me awfully high maintenance. I’m pretty cool and like me a lot, but maybe not always.

The 90’s (music, films, tv, style, culture, etc) were awesome. I don’t have to tell you, everybody knows Generation X was the best generation to belong to by a thousand miles. It was a simpler, far more authentic time.

But that’s not all it was.

The first 2 episodes were about Jerry Springer and the Viper Room. The Viper Room was owned by Johnny Depp, a deeply cool hangout for the deeply cool, where creatives could connect and be social but away from the eyes of the world. It was also where they could do mountains of heroin and where River Phoenix died. Johnny Depp could also be described as deeply cool, but as we discovered through the years and in his court trial against ex-girlfriend Amber Heard, he’s also an abusive, alcoholic train-wreck. (Or maybe he’s not, I don’t know him at all. But now, we think we know everything about everyone.)

I watched the Jerry Springer Show, but now I don’t have anything nice to say about it. I have plenty of nice things to say about Jerry Springer, but not his show. It did help to knock down any boundaries left from Jenny Jones and Geraldo. That’s good, isn’t it?

In my head, the 90’s were all Nevermind, Pulp Fiction, “Fade Into You” (by Mazzy Star), flannel shirts, Kurt Cobain, and Counting Crows. It was college, long hair, and a President who played the saxophone and needed help defining “IS.” Morrissey released Kill Uncle, Your Arsenal, Vauxhall And I, Southpaw Grammar, AND Maladjusted.

But it was also Korn and Limp Bizkit, Titanic, Columbine and OJ Simpson. Yes, it had Kurt Cobain, but it also had Kurt Cobain’s suicide.

The internet started and it’s absolutely amazing, revolutionizing life and the human experience…and it kind of stinks in lots of ways, too. We got connected and more lonely & isolated then ever. We had more and more of everything and our mental health crashed.

We tend to see through some very stylish rose colored glasses, but they’re the kind of glasses that filter out anything we might not want to look at. AND we tend to see through some ugly cracked glasses that keep us from seeing any kind of light in the darkness. I guess maybe we just really struggle with complexity, with holding lots of emotions, sometimes totally opposite emotions, at the same time. We seek simplicity. Is it possible that everything is everything, all at the same time?

So what’s the point?

Who knows? All I know is that every single beautiful memory I have throughout my life involves people. Maybe I wouldn’t have loved “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” if my friends and I didn’t sing along together in our car at the mall. Every. Single. Beautiful. Memory. It was never about the thing, it was always the relationships. And maybe, if we can just remember that now, as we’re living the next beautiful memories, everything would be a lot simpler.

And Then…

May 16, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Maya Angelou famously said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Sheesh. That isn’t one of the truest things I have ever heard.

Thinking about this follows a familiar pattern.

First, I think of the ways others have made me feel. They check their cell phones when we eat together. They don’t even pretend to listen, waiting for the first breath so they can get back to talking (sometimes about something totally different, oblivious to the fact that I was ever speaking.) They are late. They use words that are intentionally cutting and/or dismissive. And on and on. A million actions, words, body language, and tones, impossible to misconstrue, can make us feel absolutely unimportant to them.

I get a little angry and frustrated at them. How can someone be so rude? So thoughtless? So self-obsessed? My hands are probably on my hips at this point, indignant at their behavior.

And then… It’s this “And then…” that really bothers me. I do wish that I could stop this pattern right after “indignant at their behavior.” It would make things so much easier. I could just be comfortably right. And I am right, it is rude, thoughtless, self-obsessed, but I am not comfortable because of the “And then…”

This happens when I watch documentaries, too. I can’t believe these people!! Monsters!!!

And then…

And then I realize the million ways I have made others feel. How could I have been so rude? So thoughtless? So self-obsessed? I am a monster, too! In the Bible, in Paul’s letter to the Romans, he spends a chapter detailing how awful everyone else is, and then, in the next breath, pulls the rug out from under us and our righteousness and says, “you are exactly like them!”

It’s a familiar pattern that I really can’t stand. I want to be happy pointing at them from the moral high ground.

But of course, there is no moral high ground, it’s all just flat, like the Midwest. And all that’s left is to pay attention to our own actions, words, body language, and tones. To the ways we make others feel. To care for their hearts. To make them feel important to us. (This is infinitely easier once they actually are important to us.) We can look, see, notice, listen, stop. We have to begin to hear Maya Angelou and integrate her words into our lives, but the sad terrible part is that we have to first have an “And then…”

Improvement

May 13, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site just asked me, what’s one small improvement you could make in your life? That feels like the beginning of a very long, detailed, vulnerable answer. Maybe that’s why it only asked for 1. So, I’ll think of one.

Should it be a physical improvement (like bigger arms), or an intellectual one (like learning what data centers are)? Maybe emotional? I should probably not overreact so much, probably shouldn’t hyper-focus and ruminate, either. A habitual improvement is the answer, right? I should not watch so much tv, should eat better, should build a deck and finish the wood floors in our dining room. Or maybe I should eliminate so many “should’s.”

Does answering that prompt somehow imply an unhappiness with who I am right now? Can we be both content AND driven to improve?

I just looked it up on the internet and the first result says, no, that we should not be content ever. The guy on reddit reasoned that contentment means we will not move forward. Others say yes, you can. We can be satisfied and ambitious.

Someone named Wong Sr Chin writes, “To attain contentment, you must change the CONTENT of your improvement [that’s clever, isn’t it??] so that it caters more for the needs of your inner being, besides satisfying your outer needs.” Sometimes, people write and talk in such a way that it gets pretty confusing. In short, Wong Sr Chin is advocating spirituality – that any contentment in materiality is ultimately empty. That’s true, despite what advertisements would have us believe – that new car or gambling addiction isn’t the missing piece to our wholeness.

What is the content of my contentment? More important than ‘what’ is ‘why’ I would want to improve. Why do I want to grow or evolve or become anyone other than who I am right now? First, DO I want to grow or evolve or become? And yes, I do. Now, why?

I think we are created to grow. It is our natural state. We are one thing, a seed, say, and we are given the task to become a tree or a vegetable or a bush. If we stay static, we get dull and uninspired, wasting away inside, until there’s just a dim light barely shining. Now the question is, what kind of tree do I want to grow into? Once I answer that, I will work backwards and create the framework. What does that tree do, what is it like, what does it like, what makes up that tree’s daily routine?

I’m very happy with me. I could not always say that, but I can now, and that does not mean that I am a finished product, or that who I am is who I will always be. So, what’s one small improvement I could make? Trees (of any kind) probably don’t grow so big and strong eating Oreos and blueberry muffins, so I could not eat as much sugar.

Another Cult Documentary

May 5, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I watched a cult documentary on Hulu last weekend: The Rise & Fall of the Jesus Army. I wouldn’t say I liked it, but maybe it was educational. But even in that, I don’t know if I learned anything truly new. These accounts use the same template. Part I is the beginning, a community forms and people find acceptance, belonging, and meaning. It’s uplifting, the music is buoyant and light. Of course, it doesn’t end after part I so the beauty is tempered by the promise of pain to come. Part II brings that pain, the leader starts to demand more from the members (some combination of money & sex, always money & sex), he (with very few exceptions, always a he) begins taking advantage of his position. People begin to notice, very quietly at first, then finally those people start talking to each other and the water begins to boil. Part III is the reckoning, where the authorities get involved – arrests and death usually follow – and the community dissolves. The end.

The Jesus Army piled up so many offenses (so many), most of which were hidden and eventually unprosecuted.

These docs leave us wondering how the teachings of Jesus lead to manipulation (sexual and otherwise) and violence. It just doesn’t make any sense at all. How do we take the actual Bible (not just the one we’ve been sold on tv), a book about love and life, and make it about hate and death?

Yes, I’ve heard that absolute power corrupts absolutely, but is it that simple? Do these people plant these beautiful spaces, and then turn monstrous when they are held up as superheroes? Do they mean well at the beginning, then lose their way? Do they just see an opportunity to satisfy their desires and leave Jesus behind? OR are they using the Gospel and Christianity as vehicles they can drive anywhere, even to hell?

I like to think there are no such things as monsters, just degrees of confusion and brokenness (which, of course, lead to monstrous behavior.) I think these people are very similar to everyone else, just wildly misguided at some particular significant point in their lives. Maybe that’s not true.

Morrissey asks in his great song “Sister, I’m A Poet,” “Is evil something you are? Or something you do?” And I believe the answer is that it’s something we do, not what we are. But is that just the optimistic naivety of a sucker? Are there people who are evil, through and through, who have corrupted their created nature?

Maybe more importantly, when are we all going to learn anything from this template? I never blame the followers, I know why and how they get tangled up in these cults. But the repetition of the leadership is maddening. That saying, those who don’t know the past are doomed to repeat it, is nonsense. We know it very well, and yet we keep running it on a loop, over and over again.

Now that I’m thinking, maybe all of this finding who we are from what we do is the thing that isn’t working. Maybe the real answer is to discover who we really are, and let that inform everything we do, instead.

…And maybe I’ll just stay a hopeful sucker forever. I hope so.

(Heart)

April 27, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I wonder why this site wants to know my favorite emoji? I guess I don’t care to think about the why’s of writing prompts, it happens to be a red heart and I use it very, very often. (Maybe it’s as simple as, “Hey, that’s mine too!” Or maybe they’re gathering more and more information about each of us so that we are more easily disposed of when the Machines revolt. They may use my (heart) against me. There’s probably some truth in that, my heart is probably my biggest vulnerability, and can be used against me by human beings, too.)

Have you seen Bugonia? It’s an awfully strange film released last year. Maybe you liked it or not, but there can be no argument that Emma Stone is the most interesting actor working today. She’s fascinating, you can barely take your eyes off of her. Her Square Space commercial is even awesome, each word and movement she makes is magnetic.

Bugonia is one of the reasons why movies (and art, in general) can change our lives. It takes our regular, normal avenues of thought, takes “how things are,” and then twists them all inside out and upside down. We have no idea what could be possible. 2 guys kidnap Emma Stone because they believe she is an alien bent on destroying the human race. That’s probably enough to tell you, but nowhere near enough to have any expectations. We’re just along for this ride. My uncle had a saying, “I’m just a hubcap,” that meant he had no input to where we were going or how, but he was sure coming. We’re hubcaps for Bugonia. If you think you might know what happens, at any point, you’re likely mistaken.

Honestly, I don’t even know if I’d say I liked it. It doesn’t feel important, if I liked it. I know I loved Emma Stone, but that goes without saying, it’s so obvious. Everyone loves Emma Stone.

Now, back to if I liked it… I hate “it is what it is.” I hate that sort of despair that slumps it’s shoulders and says, this is how the world is, this is how I am, how they are. The sort of despair that says this is how it is and it’s always going to be. I think that is what keeps most of us stuck in jobs, relationships, and circumstances that are draining our lives rather than giving anything valuable. That despair is what stole our imaginations. It’s also why the divorce rate is so high. It’s why, in November, we vote for the least embarrassing and soul-crushing option instead of taking a sledgehammer to the whole broken system and rebuilding it from the rubble into something more closely resembling the original dream. “But this is just how it is,” right? “What can we do?” Right?

The more I think about it, you know I really love Bugonia. I love songs that have jarring tempo changes, that use words in new ways, tv shows with depth and complexity, and films that defy expectations. When things happen that shock, that open our eyes and move us to the edge of our seats. I love the Bible for lots of reasons, for the hope and promise, and because of the world-transforming impossible twist: everybody who died stayed dead…until 1 didn’t. Now what? Maybe anything and everything IS possible. Maybe we can live, too. Maybe yesterday doesn’t have to be today and tomorrow and next year.

And maybe enough super weird movies can help pull us into a whole new reality where it isn’t just what it is.

What About Joshua?

April 21, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

This is an interesting time. I don’t have anything to say – I don’t want to write about the last documentary I watched on the mafia or what I think about the shameless cash grab of rereleasing Endgame with new footage “essential” to Doomsday. Maybe I’ll write about my new love of the Cleveland Cavaliers or my mom’s cat later. But instead of leaving this space blank, I know I don’t do this often (I like to keep it relatively religion-free) but I’ll share the post I wrote on my other blog. Maybe you’ll like it…

We’re currently at the tail end of Joshua, following a Bible In A Year plan, and there are some things about this book that are surprising and others that are problematic. I wonder if everyone everywhere who has ever read the Scriptures have had these same immediate reactions, if they thought, “sheesh, there is an awful lot of killing, so much about totally destroying entire groups of people,” or “why do I care about the boundaries of each tribe’s land?” Probably.

We finished the earlier books, with all of the monotony of the sacrifices, measurements and laws, thought we were done, now we’re back into more super-specific details. What I think when I read it is not, “now, where exactly did Dan’s eastern border stretch?” Instead, it’s that there was a tribe that descended from Dan and it did stretch from one very concrete place to another. Sometimes, we can disconnect and think this all fell out of the sky. It’s easy to forget that this all happened, and it happened in this place at this time to these people. The fact that the book through which God chose to reveal Himself includes countless human beings is extraordinary, as if we’re the medium He chooses to create His masterpiece. So, now, I really like these loooong lists and details (honestly pretty meaningless in themselves, I don’t reference a map or anything, but heavy with significance at their inclusion at all.)

The genocide is another thing altogether. It hurts to read, especially to spend even an extra second in consideration. It’s a little like reading the story of Noah, not through the tiny prism of Noah & his family, but thinking of everyone else. All other people drowned. It’s a horrific story we tell to children. Or speaking of inappropriate kids’ stories, David separates Goliath’s body from his head at the end. I have a million more examples, and 1 question, in light of the last paragraph. If these are real people, in real places, at real times, then real flesh and blood people just like you and me are dying…I guess the question is: What??? If God created us all in His image, and loves us all, then what about the Amorites and Amalekites? What about Goliath?

I just Googled “Amalekites,” and here’s what it says: “The Amalekites were a nomadic, warlike tribe in the Negev desert who served as the first and most persistent enemies of Israel in the Bible. As descendants of Esau, they attacked the Israelites after the Exodus, leading to a divine mandate for their destruction. Amalekite symbolizes absolute evil in Jewish tradition, representing irrational hatred if the Jewish people.”

Ok. That sounds like the extermination of a group of people symbolizing absolute evil representing hatred of God’s chosen people by those chosen people is something we can understand, doesn’t it? It sounds reasonable, even.

Now, I don’t mean to be contrary, but there is a strange passage in chapter 5, before the battle of Jericho. Joshua meets a figure, and in his aggression, essentially asks, “are you with us or against us?” This figure, a “Commander of the army of the LORD” answers, “Neither.” Neither??Now what? What do we do with that? Also, a lot of scholars think this figure was a pre-incarnation appearance of Jesus, who would later famously say, “Love your enemies.” We can assume He meant “the first and most persistent enemies of Israel,” the Amalekites, too.

So now I’m wondering what part we don’t understand. It seems like we are very clear on the Old Testament narrative, we understand enemies and war. Good guys and bad guys, us vs them. We do understand and we honestly don’t seem to mind those parts. The complicated parts are the ones that are complicated by this Commander and Jesus Himself. Neither? Love your enemies? Their words bother us, not the book of Joshua.

And here’s what I’ll say to that: they should. We should be bothered, and we should stay bothered. The words and way of Jesus are revolutionary and radical, we have no frame of reference for the Kingdom of God. Unconditional love and grace is not what we do here, we do productivity and record-keeping. Vengeance above forgiveness.

It’s vital to stay bothered, to keep wrestling with these parts we don’t like, that confront us in the deepest parts of us. (Of course, we do have to be aware of what actually we’re wrestling with/about.) And hidden in the middle of this story is a command for how we’re called to interact with these parts. The Commander says “Neither,” then He says, “now take off your shoes because you’re on holy ground.” That’s so good. He reminds us that when we’re in relationship with Him, it’s all holy ground, and Joshua’s reaction is to fall facedown. When we read the Word, his is the only posture that will work, awe, reverence and total respect, trying to make our lives fit Him instead of twisting Him to fit us.

Joshua IS certainly a tough book, maybe not for the reasons we think it is, but we must not stop reading it.

Puzzle Pieces

April 14, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

What is my favorite restaurant? That’s what the site wants to know, and I’m wondering if it’s part of a connected marketing attack, where the site asks me, shares that info with 1. the restaurant I deem my favorite, who can send me coupons and advertisements, and 2. all of the other restaurants & businesses in the world, who want to take that #1 position and my money. I’m not sure it’s worth it for the spam avalanche into my inbox… actually, I’m not even sure I have a favorite restaurant. I really like quite a few, but if you told me I had 1 meal that would be the last meal I would ever eat out, I have no idea where we would go.

Anyway. This post is a little late, I usually write on Mondays, but I was in the middle of a big, beautiful Star Wars puzzle. That shouldn’t matter, it shouldn’t be an obstacle to real life for a normal person. But I’m not a normal person. I have what’s called an addictive personality, so when I begin a puzzle, we can safely figure it will take nearly every second of my free (or writing/working) time. And that’s what it did, for a couple of days, and now it’s finished and glorious.

I love puzzles, and I often used to wonder why. Now, I know.

The world is more and more mixed up, confusing, frustrating, and I have little control over what happens on a macro level. Of course, I have lots and lots of control over how I treat my neighbors or what I buy at the grocery store, or how & when I brush my teeth. But I can’t stop any of the wars happening right now or make the sun come out. I can’t erase any of the President’s increasingly problematic posts on his personal social media site. I can’t bring gas prices down or help the Dallas Cowboys win the Super Bowl.

So, it feels like our cultural, political, emotional, and economic environments are just big snarling masses of individual pieces, disconnected and random. It’s a dining room table of chaos. But in this Star Wars puzzle’s case, I can find 2 pieces that fit, then a third, and it starts to take shape. You hold one piece and think, how can this possibly make sense? And it really doesn’t, by itself, but there is a meta-narrative that recontextualizes everything, making one central ordered picture that’s full of meaning.

Puzzles work as a metaphor, a soothing intellectual exercise, and they’re super fun. Now that it’s done, I can just appreciate the beauty of cohesion and unity, and that’s just what I’ll do.

Easter Sunday

April 6, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I recognize we are not the same. We all celebrate in different ways.

Yesterday was Easter Sunday, and I spent the morning sharing a sunrise message on the Bridge YouTube site at 7am. Then, I ate a delicious greek yogurt fruit parfait breakfast. At 9:30ish, the Angel and I loaded up the car and left for church. The car was packed because we would stay there most of the day. In my family, Easter is the holiday where we all come here and we host, and this year, there were so many of us (and it was raining and our house is fairly small), we had our Easter meal at the church, after service. The food was excellent, the people even more so. In addition to the usual crew, my youngest son brought home 3 young men from his college basketball team. They live all over the country and we got to be their family this year. I hope this is a new tradition. We ate and ate, then laughed like crazy as we played board games together. Then, we came home, gave all of the kids (ha, kids!) their Easter baskets, hugged them, told them we loved them and watched them pull away to make the journey back to school.

It was a long weekend. Friday was our Good Friday service, where we focused on the sadness of the crucifixion. Our mourning was deep and meaningful, perfectly preparing us for Sunday. On Saturday, I married an absolutely gorgeous couple. They would have reaffirmed your faith in the institution and people, in general.

So, yes, the weekend was long, but my heart was in such a soft, open space, it was so wonderful and I was overflowing with love. Easter is my favorite day of the year. Maybe you don’t see faith the same way I do, but you don’t really have to – we all understand being loved, often in spite of ourselves. Jesus asks us to love each other as He loves us, and it’s as real as it can possibly be on the morning we celebrate His resurrection. We have hope, anything seems possible, we sing “All You Need Is Love,” and (for at least this day) think that’s probably true.

We’re different, right? But for this day, our differences don’t seem quite so insurmountable. We can get along, or better yet, we can love each other.

I think about how others feel. I wonder how they, how you, celebrate. Do you celebrate at all?

Social media can be cool to see others cultures and practices, right? We look at pictures and read perspectives. We get to see inside of each other’s homes & hearts.

Our President celebrated this deeply holy day (the day where Jesus was resurrected, ushering an entirely new creation, one not based on power, status, money, or violence, but on love) by posting – and I am choosing to censor 2 words in this post by using asterisks, I like to keep this space clean-ish: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F*****’ Strait, you crazy b******s, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Yep. Easter sure looks different to different people. It’s my favorite day, but that doesn’t mean it’s yours.

2 Movies

March 30, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/1 Comment

Last night, the Angel and I decided we’d watch a movie. She likes romantic comedies, love stories, and I like her, so that’s what we watch. (She also doesn’t want to watch too often, so I always get to choose what’s on tv.) But what to watch that’s not vapid and awful??? It’s a process, as you probably know, and we scroll and scroll.

We landed on It’s Complicated, with Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin as exes…I guess that’s about all I know for sure. In the first 15 minutes, Baldwin cheats on his new wife with Streep (whom he first cheated on to destroy the marriage.) I am not the mayor of Prude City. However, as I get older, there are plot devices that are too heartbreaking to be effective as plot devices for me. Sexual assault in any form is a deal breaker. I can’t even watch 300 again (and that’s a very quality super-stylish and super-violent epic that I once liked) because there’s a scene that I simply can’t stomach. No sexual violence, non-negotiable. Adultery, it seems, is now another one that is proving hard to take, certainly in a comedy, as if it’s just another pratfall or punch line. Maybe I’ve seen too much wreckage and cried too many tears.

I don’t know if they end up together, if he leaves his current trophy wife and goes back, or what, because we turned it off to get a snack and never went back. Instead, we watched something called Look Both Ways. This was about a woman in a Sliding Doors-esque situation, where her life hung on one moment in which she took a pregnancy test: In one future, it is negative. In another, positive.

I found Sweet Home Alabama an interesting surprise, for only one reason. The man Reese Witherspoon was engaged to that she ultimately left, was McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey), a good man, totally respectful and kind to her at every turn. The love interest was a huge jerk, and she made the wrong choice, 100%.

This Look Both Ways was surprising in the same kind of way. The 2 romantic leads were the new Superman, David Corenswet, and the new MCU Falcon, Danny Ramirez. The main character has a best friend, parents, and a boss. The dad was Luke Wilson. I mention all of the men because they were so exceptional, as characters. None of them are no-integrity cads. None of them behave in the abysmal way in which boys are too often depicted.

It’s become pretty common to watch and listen to really negative depictions of human beings, and the lives we make, and sometimes fall into, and call it real life. Breaking Bad is supposed to be real life. Antiheroes are the rage. We think villains are more layered and interesting, but as it turns out, they’re not.

Look Both Ways carries conflict, hurt, confusion, and there are bad decisions, but the people remain…well, I guess there’s no other word to use than good. The people remain good. They don’t always do the good or right thing, and some of the things they do drive me crazy, some are self-destructive, some are immature, but we understand why they did them. They’re not mean spirited or immoral or violent or even particularly selfish.

They’re just real. They are all of the people I know. They’re trying to move forward, to make themselves happy, proud, satisfied, trying to find their purpose and someone to love. They’re trying to take the next best step, and sometimes they fail at that, but they keep trying. They’re actually the real ones, the slice of life we find far more often. They’re the ones we trust, that sometimes hurt us, but never because they decide to hurt us, but just because we sometimes do. They’re the ones trying to help, trying to take care of their neighbors, opening themselves and loving themselves and others despite the possibility (inevitability) of pain.

Sometimes we find treasure in the strangest places. Superhero movies can be more honest than documentaries. And sometimes, a silly rom-coms is the most accurate portrayer of truth going.

I don’t know what happened with Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep (2 of the finest actors ever on screen), and their excellent director and great cast and pedigree of a fantastic film, and I don’t care at all. It’s the other one, with its positivity and hope for us, that matters. I really, really loved it.

Shoelaces

March 24, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I often wonder why I am the way I am. As I have asked many times before (and wondered countless times more), do I like the things I like because I am the way I am? Or have those things influenced me, gently nudging me (or violently shoving me) into the way I am now, which will not be the way I am tomorrow or next month or in 30 years?

I love a book called The Mezzanine, by Nicholson Baker, published in the mid-1980’s and which finally made its way to me around 1996ish. It’s a short, 130 page story of a man who tears a shoelace and goes to buy a replacement over his lunch hour. That’s all. Seriously, that’s what happens, and that’s all that happens.

This is not a book that everyone will like, obviously. But I really do. My job is to be the pastor of a church and I very often teach about paying attention to our lives. Look closer, feel the hands in your own, listen, kiss a little longer, notice, lean into this gift we’ve been given. The Mezzanine has entire chapters on escalators, milk cartons and straws. It’s about shoelaces but it’s really about presence.

I think we miss too much. We miss the trees beginning to respond to spring, the pre-budding of the flowers, the warmth of the seats and steering wheels, the way the verse slides into the chorus. And we take everything for granted – especially the people. The things we loved when we met are the things that we’d most like to change, or in the best case, the things we most easily ignore. Why is that? Is it simple familiarity? Or is it distraction?

At the end, he discusses the paperback he holds (Meditations, a collection of the words of Marcus Aurelius), he turns his eye to philosophy, and the great philosophers. I don’t know if he intended this novel to be his philosophical manifesto, or if he even saw a small, “insignificant” book about shoelaces to be philosophical at all. Probably. His is an attitude of being – or more specifically, being here, now. What could be more important, or necessary, than that?

Do I care so much about it today because I read that book then? Or did I read that book then because I have always cared so much about it, even before I could articulate what “it” was?

The answer is, who cares, right? It’s most likely both. Either way, the point of all of anything is to show up to our lives, to not wake up wondering what happened yesterday and wished we would have paid attention, right? The influences in our lives (or at least the positive ones) all push & pull us, sometimes kicking and screaming, into the present, and the reality of who we are, and who we’re going to be.

It’s not really shoelaces at all.

Love With A Capital L

A journey towards living an inspired life of love in the modern world