2024-06-10T17:53:46+00:00

Luxury Living

June 10, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site wants to know what luxury I can’t live without. The definition of luxury is “the condition of abundance,’ so I suppose that’s The Angel. She is a walking, talking, smooching illustration of the abundant blessings that have rained on my life. The definition also says, “…that isn’t necessary,” but she is, right? Not everyone is married to The Angel, just me, and lots of people live wonderful lives without her. Maybe they have their own The Angel, and that’s probably their luxury, whether it’s a job or car (though I certainly hope it’s not), or a Sally or Kristen or Helen. We all hopefully have our own Angel.

In my marriage book, Be Very Careful Who You Marry, I talk about an Angel Paradigm. The idea is that I love marriage – the idea of, as well as the actual manifestation – but is that because I have The Angel and, of course, anyone who is married to The Angel would love it?

Well, yes and no. The anyone who is married to The Angel is me, and I didn’t have such a high opinion before her, when I was avoiding any hint of marriage as a reality. So, yes. But no, because nobody else has this particular Angel. But everybody has the opportunity to have their own, and work like crazy to build their relationship in a beautiful way (like we did.) So, no with an asterisk.

Of course, it’s a little dangerous to write in such a way about a great anything. JLo and Ben Affleck told everyone who would listen about their great, persevering Love. And, according to celebrity gossip, after a little over a year, that great Love isn’t persevering the way it once did. If you gave a lecture on how to be a rad salesperson, and then 2 weeks later were shown the door, how would that lecture sound in hindsight? Or if you wrote a marriage book called, say, Be Very Careful Who You Marry and then a thousand posts on abundant blessing in marriage…then, that spouse got wise to the undeniable fact that she married down and took off, then what? The man who wrote those many things might not feel so terrific about them.

But, so what? There’s nothing embarrassing or shameful about a failure. I watched this silly documentary about a trek across the Amazon, called Expedition From Hell, that purported to be the account of a maniac who led regular people on a walking tour across the big part of South America. About halfway, he was arrested and contracted dengue fever, and took a secret solo pathway (without cameras) to avoid the authorities. He, then, reappeared in Guyana for the final leg (with cameras). So, he did it, and loudly proclaimed his success. As it turned out, he lied his buns off and the secret solo pathway was a flight back to Florida for a few months before flying back to Guyana. When the producers confronted him, he continued to dig his feet into the deception.

A guy that the lying wildman earlier kicked off the tour said (something like), “So what? It doesn’t make him a failure. He tried something awesome and that’s never a failure.” And he’s totally right. JLo, Batman, The Angel & I are trying something awesome, and that something is hard and doesn’t always work out. (Maybe it could, but that’s not what we’re talking about today.) Our luxury is love and, on second thought, it IS absolutely necessary. We take our gear into some treacherous terrain, commit 100%, see if we can survive, together, and if we happen to make it, we know what abundant blessing it all is.

Why I Hate Politics

May 31, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I don’t actually hate politics. Politics is simply the way we organize ourselves, how we enact & legislate rules of law, how we govern ourselves. There isn’t anything distasteful about that at all. In fact, it’s a beautiful responsibility/opportunity to build a free society. But it’s a little like socialism. Socialism is the distribution to each according to their needs, everyone gets enough, which sounds like the Biblical Church. We take care of each other, right?

The breakdown, in socialism as well as in a democratic government (or, more accurately, a republic) or any other political system or organization, is the people in that system: the politicians.

First, as you know, I am not a political scientist, or a social studies teacher. I have business & ministry degrees. But I am interested in people, generally believing in our inherent goodness. My solutions are dreams, and I usually keep them to myself. But a seismic event occurred yesterday that I do feel compelled to offer my skewed commentary.

I am part of a generation that has never trusted our government. We were too late for Camelot or the faith in an elected official to fix anything. We were raised to Rage Against The Machine – all machines, especially in Washington D.C. We saw our government arm enemies of enemies (using the woefully misguided philosophy: the enemy of my enemy is my friend), then lied about every bit of it under oath as those ‘friends’ traded places and became the new enemies. Nations & people get very rich in a machines of war. We didn’t believe when we read lips that promised “no new taxes,” so we were never surprised.

When President Clinton was involved in, um, extramarital activities, as he was his entire life, we didn’t care. But when an intern’s dress became public record, we pretended to care. Ok, we didn’t, but the opposing political party sure did. To them, character became the most important requirement in a politician. We immediately knew that was bullshit. Clinton’s party defended him by minimizing marital integrity. What does that matter in running a country? We knew that was bullshit, too.

I’m using Clinton & Trump as examples, not because there is a limited number of illustrations I could make, but because it’s so obvious. This is the normal violent dance of politics. Each side flips to suit their interest right now, and respects the citizenry (you & me) so little that they flip right back when the names and the now changes.

Donald Trump is at least as much as a womanizing heel as Clinton, caught on tape demeaning and sexualizing any and all women. He is now a felon, convicted of paying to quiet a porn star with whom he had sexual relations. This won’t hurt his campaign in the least, and if you think it will, I don’t know what to tell you other than I admire your sweet naïveté.

The parties play musical chairs, to switch sides, and the donkeys hide their faces and act appalled at his lack of character, and the elephants don’t even try to manufacture any conscience. We don’t believe any of them. Can we elect a person who is in prison? WIll he pardon himself? Who cares? It’s just the next act in the circus.

Yesterday I wrote about authenticity, and that’s what I meant when I totaled this essay “Why I Hate Politics.” There’s none here, they’re all such bad actors. My dream is that we wake up to the disdain these people have for us, how little they think of us, and begin again. Clear the board.

They lie because they think we are as crooked and dumb as they are. So far they’ve been right, but that can change anytime we decide to stop settling for so much less than we deserve. We are absolutely not slimy and we’re undoubtedly not ignorant. It seems to me that we can start to let them know we’ll stop playing down to their expectations. I don’t know why we started to accept this sort of behavior, but we don’t have to anymore. We can have a revolution of the mind and soul. And we can do this today, and forever after.

You & I

May 30, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site is asking me what quality I value most in a friend. I know what I value most in myself, and I’m thinking that there is probably quite a bit of overlap in the 2 lists.

Authenticity. Without a certain degree of honesty, relationship is mostly impossible, isn’t it? If you and I are talking with masks on, creating pretend narratives from behind carefully curated images…who is actually talking? Who am I? Who are you? Does it matter, at that point? If we’re only relating from behind halloween costumes, neither of us care too much. Friends trust each other, and trust is totally impossible without honesty/authenticity. Why would you ever open up in a vulnerable way while I stay safely behind walls of disguise? Right, you wouldn’t. What’s the point? Batman & Robin aren’t real-life friends (or whatever they are), they’re fictional characters, which is what we are when we live dishonest lives.

I have many more values for myself: consistency, reliability, faithfulness, loyalty. I think it’s important that I show up and give you what I have to give. I think I should be open, forgiving, non-judgmental, safe. But maybe those things don’t matter so much in friends.

Let’s say you are always late. I’ve had plenty of good friends I can’t rely on to show up on time (sometimes not showing up at all). But when they do, they are real and wonderful. I just tell them things start 30 minutes before they do. Some are pretty judgy, some of the same ones are awfully opinionated and not too safe with conflicting viewpoints (they’re very “tolerant”). That’s ok, I call it ‘principled,’ and argue with them anyway. They’re the only ones that get mad, I don’t mind at all. But outside of the “tolerant” lie, they are terrific in a million other ways.

They just don’t value the same things I do. And a lot of what I value requires that I accept that, and them, exactly the way they are. (This is why I struggle to set boundaries, and why it takes me so so so long to set them.) Maybe my first statement wasn’t right at all. There isn’t much overlap at all, just one: authenticity.

(But that’s 100% on your side – so that’s full overlap – but only, say, 5% of mine. That’s an interesting commentary on perspective, there is surely a wider application for that to be discussed.)

Ok, I’m starting to lose focus. My answer to the prompt is: Authenticity. I value real, messy, beautiful people.

23

May 29, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Last time, we talked about “having it all” or living a “best life.” This week was my 23rd wedding anniversary, so maybe I should have mentioned that.

I’m a simple man, and that’s a very good thing, because my life and ministry is primarily to climb into complicated, chaotic situations. Work, for me, is connection/relationships and doing the best I can to bring peace and hope into anxious, hopeless, sometimes wildly unstable spaces. This is work, but the thing about having identical personal & vocational missions is there’s no division between on and off. I don’t really have days off. But I don’t want them, either. To me, this is purpose, and it’s heavy and keeps me up lots of nights, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

However, the truth is, I couldn’t do it at all if my home & marriage wasn’t a place of physical, emotional, spiritual rest. It’s very difficult to step into the drama of others when your life is dramatic. There’s simply not enough left to fully engage with the storms others are facing when we’re exhausted with our own raging storms. If I’m being punched in the face, it’s harder to notice your fight, much less come to your aid.

This brings me to the Angel. She’s calm and easy. It’s 23 years but sometimes feels like 100, but, at other times, feels like I met her yesterday. I don’t know what 23 years feels like, or should feel like, but what I know is that I am completely, totally open with her (as the Bible says, “naked and unashamed”), but I also get butterflies when I kiss her, just like the first time.

I told her last night, that I very often focus (at least out loud) on the ‘lover’ aspect of our relationship. I very often tell her how foxy she is, and how 23 years of marriage has done nothing to dull my attraction to her. So, on a public pie chart, that’s the biggest piece. But on the pie chart of my heart, it’s probably a smaller piece than the rest. She’s my best friend, my partner, an inspiration and model for living a life of faith. She gives strength by simply being who she is in a world that isn’t always kind to the beautiful ones. Kind, merciful, the best mother to her sons and mentor to the rest of the people lucky enough to be in her orbit. She’s creative and confident, capable, talented, driven, brilliant, gifted hand over fist by her Creator. Did I mention knock-down gorgeous? How staggering is it that when thinking/speaking about the best looking woman in the world, her looks aren’t anywhere close to the best thing about her? We’ve built a calm life from the ground up, so that we can walk anywhere, enter into any circumstance, because this soft, loving home is waiting to refill all we’ve lost outside.

We make choices, right? The best choices feel easy & obvious in retrospect, but upon further inspection, require days and years of building. The path to our particular marriage and home is marked with uncomfortability and perseverance (only Heaven knows how many arguments and sleepless nights this path has contained, so far), where it might have been easier to check out (in whatever form “checking out” takes) than to keep building. “Having it all” certainly isn’t easy, and it has lots and lots of exit ramps, but those obstacles don’t make it less of a blessing. Maybe they make it more. More significant, more valuable, more our own.

I have no idea why she’d marry someone like me, but that’s her problem, not mine. My responsibility in all of this is to remain grateful, with wide open eyes to this amazing life I’ve been given.

The Best All

May 25, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Today, the blog website is asking, “What does ‘having it all’ mean to you? Is it attainable?” I can’t say that I’ve ever considered this, even as the phrase “have it all” has been used in songs and advertising campaigns pretty much forever. It reminds me of that other mindless, subjective cliche, “live your best life.” What is this best life? Doesn’t that sound like having it all?

So. What is this ‘all?’ Is it money? How much is enough? Does anyone actually have enough? I heard a statistic once that, when people were asked how much money they needed to be comfortable, everyone, regardless of income, answered 10% more. Greed (or the lust for more) is a wild contrast with the process of transformation (or the desire for growth.) Success? What is that? Is it a great job? Is a great job one you love or one that pays very well? Great is awfully subjective, too. Is ‘all’ marriage, children, pets?

Marriage and children is fairly controversial now, I guess, but pets aren’t. Do I need a pet to have it all? And will a fish do? Or a guinea pig? A nice car? Hot tub? White picket fence? Perfect white teeth and washboard abs? Do other people have to envy me? Does this have anything to do with anyone else? Is this concept of all, or best life, universal? Or is it as individual as we are?

What about spirituality or education? Or mental & physical health? Is it as simple as having out needs met? But in this country, do we even know what we need? Or is it a matter of want? Or have we completely conflated the two? Is there a practical difference? Significance, meaning, purpose, connection…do these things matter?

If these prompts are designed to spur thought or conversation, this is a fantastic success. I suppose everyone’s answer is unique, but what probably isn’t is a sense of gratitude & contentment. It doesn’t really matter what the what is, it’s how we hold it. If we wrestle our lives and aspirations, squeezing them into submission, as we continue to climb higher and higher, desperately looking for the next rung, or mile-marker, nothing is (or will ever be) all. But if it’s what we have, here and now, and we can hold what we have been given with soft careful hands for as long as we have them, those things become treasures that are absolutely priceless. We become the kind of people who fall in love with all of this beauty, and that sounds exactly like a best life, if you ask me.

Donkeys

May 24, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Who would I like to talk to soon? That’s the prompt today, and the answer is you. I made a decision, perhaps tentatively and surely doomed to fail, to write every day as form of gratitude and evangelism (not the crazy tv preacher/political posturing type, but the type that is telling others something awesome, like a new album or documentary or why there’s meaning, purpose, and joy in my life.) Then, this week, I haven’t written at all. This New Leaf lasted 3 days.

I have been busy this week, lots of appointments, meetings, youth sports, work, yesterday I spent in the Philadelphia Phillies stadium watching them beat the Texas Rangers with a very good friend. So, I could have cut all of those things short, or excised them altogether. And in my free time, I could have either answered the prompt or given my absolute attention (and smooches) to the Angel. I chose to not write.

I think that was a good decision.

Sometimes there are a million good things, and we choose based on our values and how we’ve assigned weight in our lives. There’s a story in the Bible about rescuing donkeys on the Sabbath. You can either obey the law and not work on the Sabbath. That’s a good thing, a right answer. Or you can rescue the donkey that’s fallen into a hole. That’s also a good thing. Now what?

Almost always, I’ll choose the donkey over rules and ritual. Maybe you wouldn’t, and you wouldn’t be wrong. That would simply be what weighs more to you. So, what and who are my donkeys? I chose the Angel, my sons, friends, family, cutting my mom’s grass, prayer, the baseball team, and working out, and I’m not too sorry about that. The thing about weight is, it’s actually a choice of presence and opportunity over obligation and distraction.

However, before I leave this house and this computer to meet a friend, before a Zoom meeting about a wedding, before I go to work, then a ballgame, the most important thing is this. Is here, now. Is you. You’re my donkey. And I’m not sorry about that, either.

Sacrifice

May 17, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

What sacrifices have you made in life? is the site prompt today. I’m not exactly certain how to answer. Each Yes comes with a thousand No’s. To choose this shirt or these shoes requires not choosing that or those. Is that a sacrifice? Living where I do, maybe we don’t know what true sacrifice is, yet relativity exists, so our perception makes our sacrifices (whether they match up with others or not) true.

The pain of a middle school heartbreak is not the pain of living in the Middle East at wartime. The anxiety of college acceptance is a different kind of anxiety than the citizens of Ukraine feel, but that doesn’t make the heartbreak less painful or the anxiety less authentic.

So, my American middle class sacrifice is real, in theory. Now, what’s mine? I chose time at home over time at work chasing a high paying job. Consequently, I do not have the nicest car in my neighborhood or a house out of a magazine. But I do have an A+ marriage, kids I actually like, and I’ve not missed a game or concert throughout school. I have 2 college degrees and am the pastor or a church we started in my house. I could have a different career – unless you are one of the legion of the pastors of a megachurch, this is not a path to obscene wealth. Maybe I could have made different decisions, but considering the joy I live with, and the happiness I feel, why would I have made them?

I could probably kiss another woman, but the Angel’s kiss is the sweetest, and I don’t ever want anyone else, even the tiniest bit. Is that sacrifice? Does sacrifice have to feel like a sacrifice? And if it doesn’t, is it simply agency?

I’ll tell you what sacrifice I’d like to make in my life, and intend to make: I’m heavier than I’ve been since 2017, and this cannot continue. Not because I’m vain or have a poor body image (which, I suppose, I do), but because my joints ache a little more than they did 15 pounds ago and because I have a pair of shorts I like that I can’t fit into (and am not wasting any money to replace), but mostly because I’d like to live as long as I can with the blessings I’ve been given. So, under either definition, this is a sacrifice. Making different choices in the kitchen is agency and it sucks. Wish me luck…

The Elusive WHY

May 16, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site is asking what is the oldest thing I’m wearing today. I have a pair of white Old Navy gym shorts that are easily 15 years old. They’re white so they always look vaguely dirty, but they fit well and I still like the way they look well enough.

I just got off the phone with a good friend, who filled me in on the happenings of her life, husband, mixed Brady Bunch family, ex-spouses, livestock, and in-laws. It’s a lot, messy and dramatic, just like the stories you & I would tell. She’s probably funnier than most of us are. But the interesting thing is that she wrapped up with the incredulous phrase, “this is exactly the life I wanted.”

Now, maybe tomorrow I’ll write about the importance of the peace in her marriage relationship, but today it’ll be her Why. When we have a clear why, a purpose for being/doing that explains all of this, it gives the focus and strength to endure almost any What.

So, what’s mine? What’s yours? In the Bible, Jesus asks a man, “What do you want me to do for you?” I wonder how we’d respond. Do we know what we want? Do we know who we are and what we’d ask for, if the one who could provide was standing in front of us? Do we have a Why we do the things we do? Maybe the Why isn’t great, and maybe today’s Why can’t really sustain and we need a new one for tomorrow & next week. But life gets pretty overwhelming sometimes, and things don’t make an awful lot of sense, it’s nice to have a rock to tie our pieces of string around so we don’t get lost.

Every Day

May 15, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Today’s site prompt is “Are you a leader or a follower?” They have a new one every day. Apparently, to build a huge audience as an internet influencer, you have to create lots and lots of content. Anyway, the answer is, of course, both. We are followers (or as Paul says, ‘slaves’) of the Risen Christ, but we are leaders in the world. We lead others to the life we’ve found in Jesus – we lead to follow. I wonder if leadership, in this context, is actually more posting. Maybe we learn to follow through daily engagement. Which, strangely, is exactly what I intended to write about today.

Anything worthwhile isn’t a 1-time thing. It’s not now, today, and we’re finished. The wounds bubble to the surface after we thought they had disappeared, the weight climbs back onto our shoulders and hearts. This is not surprising. Eating right or exercise isn’t just something we do today and then never again. We don’t love our spouses or grow relationships once. Alcoholism, addiction, negative habits aren’t kicked on a Wednesday, they are confronted every Wednesday. Not just Wednesdays, every day, every hour, every moment. We transform through an endless series of choices. Nobody changes by accident, or without commitment to the process.

The older I get, the more I value consistency. I don’t think to show up is all that important anymore. I think showing up all the time is. Anybody can go to the gym for a good workout today, hardly anybody does every day. I recognize we shouldn’t go to the gym every day – rest is just as valuable. But it’s not rest without work, it’s just the boredom of stagnation and complacency.

A beautiful marriage doesn’t simply happen. And it’s probably not beautiful every day. Well, at least not in the ways we usually think. The beauty is in the pouring of ourselves, our love, into the other, even when they are sometimes, honestly, pretty hard to love. We’re also pretty hard to love sometimes.

The beauty is in the pouring of our love into ourselves, too.

As the wise philosopher Princess Leia says, “if you only believe in the sun when you can see it, you’ll never make it through the night.” If we only show up when we feel like it, the night will probably never end. We are worth it. Our divine call is certainly worth it. Forgiveness is worth it. The other is worth it. Growth is worth it.

So, we keep walking the path, whatever path we’re walking. Maybe the internet needs more influencers of this sort. A relentlessly positive influencer that speaks of this life, truth, love, unity instead of division, might be what we all need. And, like we always say, maybe we’re the answer to our own prayers. Maybe we should all say, “maybe it’s me,” a lot more often. Maybe the site (WordPress or Jetpack or whatever it is on your device or browser) is right, posting once in a while isn’t how anything works. The site that publishes my books says the same thing, that I’ll never sell books, that nobody will read my books, if I don’t keep talking about it, posting, showing up to the work. The Bible makes no distinction between spiritual and non-spiritual, probably for the same reason. We follow God all the time, or it’s just another hobby, like puzzles or video games.

I think I’ll start posting everyday. Of course, the question is begged: do I have the time??? I seem to always have time to do online crossword puzzles or watch cult documentaries… I bet I have time to express my gratitude by showing up for a new creation, too.

One Small Step

May 13, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

What’s one small improvement you can make in your life? That’s the site prompt today, and probably deserves an answer.

I watched 2 documentaries and a movie this weekend. I’m still recovering from a cold that I am getting more and more resigned to carrying for the rest of my life. And it was raining, so it was a perfect weekend to climb under a blanket and watch something other than the NBA playoffs.

Finding Andrea is a 3 episode series following the disappearance of a woman in Kentucky who, incidentally, belonged to an organization that searched for (and was instrumental in finding) missing persons. She was complex, hiding the many facets of her life to the point that very few would claim to have actually known her. She died having lived a mostly dishonest, inauthentic life with lots & lots of secret compartments. She was probably killed by her sister and her boyfriend (at least that’s the implication I took from the doc). I don’t imagine we’ll ever know, because Andrea wasn’t the only one in the family who wasn’t interested in honesty. Her own dad would rather protect the possibly guilty daughter/boyfriend (who didn’t participate in the film) than be further torn apart by the truth. I guess I can’t blame him, who knows what I’d do in his place??

Max Joseph was a co-host of the Catfish TV show, and created a documentary called 15 Minutes of Shame with Monica Lewinsky. Lewinsky knows of what she speaks, as her life was torn apart by a series of very public poor decisions and behavior. This film looked at a guy who tried to sell and sanitizer at a ridiculous price during COVID, a woman who sent an ugly joke on Facebook and became the object of national scorn, and a man who was “cancelled” over a mistaken hand gesture in a company van. We think we know these people based on 1 small aspect of their personalities or an isolated incident, sometimes misunderstood, always without any shred of context. I don’t know Andrea’s dad, and to assume I know his motivations based on 2 or 3 clips is the height of arrogant condescension. Of course, he seems like something, the hand sanitizer guy seems like a scumbag, the woman seems heartlessly callous (as do the political pundits who condemned her). The hand gesture guy is obviously pretty silly, and the product of a culture gone power-crazy. But how do we actually know? I bet I seem all kinds of ways, based on extracted phrases in any one of these posts, or in overheard conversations at my dinner table.

The movie was My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and was absolutely as great as I remembered. It’s funny and feels good. But what’s notable is that no one is played as only a fool. Everyone acts like a fool at times, everyone is embarrassing in moments, but they all just seemed like “normal people.” Sort of. Admittedly, most are caricatures, but the caricatures leaned towards a positive, good nature rather than the mean, minimizing, debasing cartoons we are usually fed. I would guess that Ms. Vardalos sees the rest of us, sees “normal people,” through beautiful lenses that believe the best. I would guess that she likes us. That her idea of “abnormal” is abuse, betrayal, and violence. I believe the same.

We are made to walk together, to hold hands, and to love each other, and I’ll never be convinced otherwise. Maybe the shamed examples in 15 Minutes weren’t sorry they were caught as much as they were heartbroken they were led down a path so antithetical to their design. I thought the fiction of the movie was far closer to truth than the documentaries, because it showed the world in which I live, where the overwhelming majority are like you, trustworthy and awesome. Monsters exist, but in such small numbers, they stand out like neon signs at midnight. We’ve just bought lies for too long, choosing to acknowledge the missteps and failures as complete pictures, that we stopped seeing the beauty in each other.

I don’t know who Monica Lewinsky is, no matter how many pages I can read on the internet about her. And I’ll say the improvement I can make is to stop pretending I do.

Love With A Capital L

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

Author: The Bridge Faith Community