2024-03-04T19:51:29+00:00

The Valuable Pain of Nostalgia

March 4, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I was watching Point Break (the classic original, not the silly, pointless remake) with my son last week, and I felt the familiar pangs of nostalgia. Point Break is the movie I have seen the most times, probably between 50 and 100, though it’s entirely possible that number is higher. There were weekends my best friend and I watched it 2 or 3 times, almost beginning immediately after rewinding the VHS tape. We saw it in the theater over 20 times (this was before we’d have to work 2 full time jobs to afford to go to the movie theater)! I still love it more than is reasonable.

Later last week, I heard Round Here, by the Counting Crows, and Rebel Yell, by Billy Idol, on the radio. Also, The awesome John Cougar Mellencamp 2 disc greatest hit collection is now in my car CD player. Who knows when that’ll come out? I cried at the Wham! Netflix documentary. The heartache of this nostalgia is nearly unbearable sometimes.

Nostalgia means “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations,” and I think it’s generally regarded as fairly unhealthy. Another dictionary writes, it’s an “excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition,” and brings to mind the white-washing of the “good old days,” which in all likelihood were not so very good, certainly not as good as we remember, and a return would be cultural/social regression.

Nostalgia can also be an avoidance of mindful presence in the here & now. My nostalgia is strange to me, because there is no place I’d rather be than here & now. There is no part of the past that was better for me than right now. I am married to the Angel, to name just one very amazing reason (but I could go on and on, as you know if you’ve read any of the posts on this site.)

I love music, and for a music lover, my Amazon Music app, with it’s algorithm that knows me and what I like even better than my sister, (I am currently listening to “My Discovery Mix,” where the algorithm gives me 25 songs I’ve never heard by artists I’ve never heard of that they are absolutely right to think I’ll like) is a perfect divine gift. I write a blog, am fairly active on Facebook (because I’m a million years old), stream my tv shows, wear Bluetooth headphones to the gym where I check in via QR code on another app. I do crossword puzzles on my phone. For a Luddite, I’m not a very committed one. All of these facts make my nostalgia quite peculiar, so why is it so pronounced when I hear any ‘90’s alternative rock songs before 1995, when the genre started to eat itself?

And I think I know.

On December 2nd of 1983, the 13 minute short-film music video for “Thriller” was released. I watched it at my neighbor’s house with my cousins and our families. We all had our minds blown together. And that’s why I feel nostalgic, and why I think it’s not unhealthy at all, and is, instead, our souls crying out to us in sadness and lack. Our souls asking us to fix us.

We all watched Seinfeld together, in our own homes, and talked about it Friday morning. We all heard Round Here on the same radio stations. There is nothing like that now. When we want to talk about most of the best new songs, we have to send links first. There are so few communal activities in art anymore. Everybody watches the Super Bowl, even if they don’t like or care about football or the teams, because we all do it together, as one people. Taylor Swift and Beyoncé are sort of similar, I guess, in that we all know what they’re doing in real time.

We’re created for community, to be together, and when we are not, we feel that lonely emptiness. And we desperately search for it, and there’s few places to find it, really. On one level, I love the local church for the same reason I love the relic that was Top 40 Radio. Because we experience(d) it together. And don’t even get me started on the heartbreaking extinction of record stores.

Our hearts are begging us to find others with whom to walk through our lives. That’s nostalgia. Not because Silver Spoons or Diff’rent Strokes were particularly great, but because families watched them together at the same day, same time, each week. We laughed together, cried together, waited together. We had the same reference banks, and while that sounds superficial, I assure you that in a divided world, it is not. We have forgotten that we are all human, that we have far more in common than we don’t, and that loss of shared experience has a huge cost. We are all human beings, and we are made to love each other, in the same rooms, facing the same directions, no matter how far removed we get.

Nostalgia is just a subtle reminder that we miss it. A lot.

Fog

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

Today’s site prompt is “Do you like your job?” I loooove my job. I would have never guessed when I was fighting with my high school guidance counselors that there was a job/mission/call/life like this, or that I could possibly be so blessed to find myself in it.

An interesting thing, before I get into what I really want to share: I have been sick, on some level, since November. It’s either 1 long illness, with varying degrees of severity, or 4 or 5 new, different ones. It doesn’t matter too much which of those is true, it’s been a tough year. A few weeks ago, I was quite sick (I still have some lingering symptoms, which may or may not resolve). I am no stranger to respiratory and nasal maladies, but this bout carried a certain “brain fog” (at least that is the phrase I’ve heard more and more since COVID, and it fit like a nice new sweater). I hadn’t worked, created, thought big, complex thoughts, and I hadn’t posted for weeks. I tried.

[As a side note, I plan for this time of year. Late February-March is historically a very difficult time for me, for lots of reasons. I know this time brings with it a desperate need for unaccounted-for downtime, which I have learned to take. But that does mean that I work like crazy in the spaces when I am not laid out by my broken heart & spirit. My work takes the form of one long-form piece (whether anyone else recognizes this or not). Each sermon stands alone, as well as standing together in what can best be described as a concept album of spirituality.]

When I looked at my work, during this time spent under the weather, I had absolutely no idea what the concept was. I kept asking, what was I thinking here??? What am I getting at? What am I trying to say? I didn’t post because I’d stare at my blank screen with even less than the emptiness of the screen in my head. Now, that has changed, this is my 3rd post this week. I have returned to my life.

What I meant to talk about is MIchael Jackson and Drake, Nirvana, Seinfeld, M.A.S.H., and Netflix. But we’ve gotten too far into this side street to begin. I’ll write it for next time. I suppose this is simply a celebration, instead. Of this terrific job, the lifting of the fog, today, engagement & presence. Of no longer missing moments because I am fuzzy and disconnected from my own soul. And that IS a celebration.

Silly Site Prompt

February 27, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site prompt today is, “If you could be someone else for a day, who would it be, and why?” W

hy would I ever want to be anyone else???? Why would I want a different life? And If I did want a different life, why wouldn’t I set a new course and change mine?

Maybe our lives would become different if we’d simply lean in to the beauty that is already there that we’ve been missing, wishing we could be someone else. Nope, I wouldn’t want to be anyone else. I’m very grateful and happy where and who I am right now.

A Design For Life

February 26, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

This morning, I was listening to a playlist (the modern ‘mixtape’), and the song “Internet Killed The Video Star,” by the Limousines came on. It’s a perfect title and a terrific song, and it has this peach of a lyric:

“Well, I’m a horrible dancer; I ain’t gonna lie, but I’ll be damned if that means that I ain’t gonna try. Yeah, I’m a shitty romancer, baby; I ain’t gonna lie, but I’ll be damned if that means that I ain’t gonna try. Get up, get up, get up, and dance.”

So, I texted this song and lyric to my brother and sister, and she shared with me the message from her yoga class (written by yoga master Becky Hemsley):

“I know there may have been times in your life when you’ve stopped dancing, stopped singing, stopped being yourself, because someone was watching you. Judging you….We’ve been taught that we must only be ourselves if it suits other people…The birds sing – not because we might listen – but simply with the joy of being alive….So sing as loud as you wish, and dance as much as you like. You do not exist for the enjoyment of others. You exist to be alive. Properly, fully, beautifully alive.“

Sometimes the world sends you messages so obvious, so clear, so coincidental that coincidence is impossible. It’s a specific message from the Creator of the Universe to us – in this case, a message to dance and/or romance, or share the message to dance and/or romance, or witness to the importance and imperative that we all dance and/or romance. I’m choosing to do all 3 today.

We have been conditioned into self-consciousness, even when that means we miss out on all sorts of beauty and wonder. When did that happen? When did we stop dancing (even if we’re bad at it)? Who told us we’re bad at it? For that matter, who are they to decide? When did we stop romancing (even if we don’t know how to do it yet)? When did we stop singing, stop living, and when did we replace it with just quietly getting by?

Well, I don’t think we should do that anymore. I think we should dance whenever and however we want. It’s super fun to be so free.

And as far as romancing, the characteristic that makes each of us so sexy is confidence, passion, interest, joy. We are good dancers when we dance when we love to turn the music up and move. We are great romancers when we lean in and give our authentic selves to each other, with vulnerability, honesty, trust, and open-ness. We are great lovers when we love. And the more we practice, the better we are.

You don’t have to apologize for dancing or singing. If anything, you can apologize for not dancing and singing earlier. Have a good time. This life is a gift, and it can be very hard and hurt a lot, so we are well served to enjoy it when we can, to move our hips when whenever we feel like it.

The next song in the playlist was “Murder On The Dance Floor,” where Sophie Ellis-Bextor sings, “you better not kill this groove,” which is more solid advice as we design our lives. The point is to not kill any more grooves, to not squash anyone else’s dancing, and to sing and romance as loud as we can.

This Book

February 23, 2024February 23, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I wrote a book called Be Very Careful Who You Marry, released just before the Christmas of 2023. It is my second book. The first, called Chronicles, Nehemiah, and Other Books Nobody Reads, is a collection of many different subjects and ideas. Be Very Careful is just one: marriage – in theory and in practice. This isn’t to say it’s only for married people, any more than Marvel movies are only for superheroes or Britpop is only for the English.

As I write on the back cover, “…but it’s not only a marriage book. It’s about Jesus, the Angel, spirituality, sex, money, words, Mr & Mrs Rupert Holmes and their affinity for pina coladas, but mostly, it’s about you and me and what we choose to build.”

The image on the cover (and this post) is of 2 tiny metal figures that the Angel & I bought on our honeymoon in Aruba. Their arms are in position to embrace each other, but we didn’t always feel like embracing each other, and in those cases, we’d separate them. So many marriage relationships are victims of silent erosion, beaten down by the unrealistic expectations of “how it’s supposed to be.” We are sold a faulty premise that, when we say “I do,” we will always feeeeeeel in love, hearts in our eyes and tingly butterflies in our bellies, forever and ever. And if we don’t, even for a moment, we figure we are broken, we made a terrible decision, and there are only 2 options from here: divorce, or a life of abject misery. What we’d quickly find, if we’d only give this fear a voice, is that sometimes the figures aren’t holding each other. They are driving each other crazy, far apart on the TV stand. Nothing is broken, we haven’t “fallen out of love,” we’re simply, wonderfully married. There are times of brilliant, sweet, wonderful roses and there are times of old, dead, dried petals. The question is, what do we do then?

That’s what the book is about. What we do then is keep having dinner together, listening, talking, holding hands, having sex, opening the door for each other, and doing the dishes. We keep loving each other, even when we don’t necessarily feel like it. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. Love never fails. (I read that somewhere.) We won’t always feel hope, but that’s not what it says at all. We hope anyway.

In a marriage, we become Always and Even If people.

The exhilarating dance of creation is complicated. What makes me think I have anything new to say about marriage or relationships? What makes me think anyone will want to read anything I write (or think or say) anyway? Is it unbridled arrogance? Where do these mean, nasty voices in our heads come from when we are inspired to build? The truth is that maybe I don’t have anything new to say, maybe no one will want to read it, maybe it is arrogance. But that’s not the point at all, is it? We are creative beings, made in the image of a wildly creative God, and we have been called to offer ourselves and our hearts to each other. So, yes, maybe nobody will care. OR maybe one person will read it at precisely the right time, they’ll lean into their spouse (instead of away from), re-commit to each other, and this new connection will bless their children and neighbors and you and me and everybody everywhere. That’s how the world changes. Of course, I’m dreaming. But anything/everything significant begins as unrestrained imagination. All dreams start as an impossibility.

Maybe a billion people will read this book. Or maybe just the Angel and my mom. I want you, and I want all of your friends, to read it. I want you to love it, too. Not to make me the next big thing, but so that you can love your wives and husbands, and be loved by your wives and husbands. We were given this amazing gift of marriage, a person with whom to truly share our every part of our lives (what could be more lovely??), and I’m not convinced we’ve even scratched the surface of it’s depth and beauty.

You can get it from me (I have enough copies and can get more, just come to my home, message me, or come to the Bridge on Sunday morning). Or you can go to the Books, Etc page on my blog, lovewithacapitall.com, where you can click a link that will take you to a store to buy it and get it shipped to your home.

Chuck Palahniuk writes, in his novel Choke, “It’s creepy, but here we are, the Pilgrims, the crackpots of our time, trying to establish our own alternate reality. To build a world out of rocks and chaos… Where we’re standing right now, in the ruins in the dark, what we build could be anything.”

What we build could be anything, we just need to start.

Bored.

February 22, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

What bores me? That’s the site prompt today, and I don’t have much of an answer. There is a saying that only boring people are bored.

Rose Goldberg writes (on a site called Medium) that it’s actually a compliment. She reasons that we achieve a state of boredom when we’ve “drained all outside distractions,” that “being bored is being aware of yourself.” I don’t know her final conclusions, because Medium won’t let you read an entire article until you’ve created an account. I don’t need more accounts, and to tell you the truth, I don’t care enough about Ms. Goldberg’s final conclusions to add another.

What I do know is that I would not call awareness boredom. In those moments when I am free of distraction, when I am alone with myself and my own thoughts or emotions, when I am quiet, I am engaged and inspired. There, I am rested and content, not bored. When my children whine about boredom, they are restless and discontented. They are desperately searching to be entertained.

Perhaps boredom has exponentially increased as screen time has exponentially increased. When our imagination atrophied, our ability to entertain ourselves did as well. Or maybe none of that’s accurate.

I wonder what the actual definition is of boredom. Merrian-Webster says, it’s “the state of being weary and restless through lack of interest.” Cambridge dictionary calls it “the state of being unhappy and uninterested.” I’m glad I didn’t create a Medium account, now it sounds like she’s simply excusing or rationalizing, normalizing a negative. We probably do that a lot, we don’t like to be told what we feel is, in any way, not awesome. Is this ennui shaming? Who are you to tell me anything I am, feel, think, say, or feel isn’t perfect?

Maybe these emotions are like warning lights on a dashboard, asking us to address possible problem areas. Maybe they’re not destructive today, but they might become a hazard eventually. And if we re-classify the “check engine” light, we ignore the possible dangers. Boredom might be an early warning indicator for things like depression or despair, and calling it awareness is a disservice, like ignoring our skyrocketing blood pressure or headaches.

Or maybe this is an emotion that isn’t really an issue. Maybe we should sit aimlessly, facing the maddening avalanche of an overwhelming nothing with no idea of how to address it. Maybe the headache is just a headache, not a symptom of stress or anxiety. But even if it is, who says stress and anxiety are so bad? Maybe the self-esteem benefit of never hearing we’re wrong or broken or on the wrong path (or that there is even a wrong path at all) is worth any cost.

There’s an interesting disconnect with tolerance and normalizing everything. Let’s say I disagree, and think boredom or being left-handed or liking the NY Giants is wrong and mentally unhealthy. Is my opinion equally normal, or am I wrong? If we decide there’s no ‘wrong’ in the interest of validating every opinion, then what about if I disagree? If my opinion to be validated is invalidation? Can we be truly tolerant if we outlaw intolerance? I know I’m not the first to bring up these inconsistencies, and this site prompt isn’t about tolerance, it’s about boredom.

So, to answer: I’m not often bored. I don’t remember when I was last bored.

Out Of Sorts

February 7, 2024February 7, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Last week, I said I’d write a post on my new book in this space. It’s called Be Very Careful Who You Marry, and I’m not writing it today. You see, I’m a little out of sorts this week. The site post is “What do you need a break from?” And these 2 things seem to be related, but I’m not totally sure how.

I haven’t been sleeping much, and when I do, I wake up exhausted. I can only think of 2 reasons for this. The Angel is convinced I have sleep apnea. I think it’s more likely that I’ve created a second personality and have been building underground fight clubs while I think I’m asleep. True, there aren’t any new unexplainable bruises, but maybe that’s just because I’m winning.

Everything looks fuzzy and a little distorted, my neck (actually, If you look up “where is my trapezius?” that’s exactly where) is so stiff, it hurts to move, my head is pounding no matter how many pills I swallow. My whole body is sore. I want to watch tv, but it’s impossible to pay attention. I’m pretty sure I’m irritable and short with responses, but you’d have to ask those in my house.

There’s a book I’m reading right now, called As Good As Dead, by Elizabeth Evans. It’s fantastic, which is no surprise, as she is fantastic, but it’s about a this married woman who was unfaithful to her future husband 20ish years ago with the future husband of her best friend. Nobody found out, and now the best friend, with whom she had lost touch, is at her front door. Probably, she now knows, and eventually, the husband will discover what happened.

I read Fargo Rock City, by Chuck Klosterman, and Generation X, by Douglas Coupland, in a few days each. The Angel, who is the greatest, has been replacing my favorite books that we lost in our 2011 flood. There are times when people like you and me read and read and read, insatiably. I don’t want to read As Good As It Gets. A brilliant author, like Evans, can put us into the narrative, and this situation is deeply unsettling. I don’t want him to find out. I don’t want to feel what he feels, when he does. I don’t want her to have done it. I don’t want hearts to break and relationships to end. I know they do, but I don’t have to accept it. And, if I’m honest, I don’t mind that it bothers me.

I don’t watch 300, either, because I absolutely hate a scene in it. I don’t need to watch it, there are plenty of ultra-violent movies without sexual assault in them. I’ll watch them. And there are so many books where writers don’t devastate me. It’s weird, the thing that makes me love her (her ability to so accurately, so beautifully, capture human emotion) is the reason I am dragging my feet to read this book.

But I couldn’t read it now, even if I wanted to, my head is a mess. So, what do I need a break from? Who knows? Maybe stimulation. Maybe the pain of the world around me – my emotional/empathetic sensitivity (I am extraordinarily high maintenance) requires time to integrate & decompress. Maybe I haven’t had that, maybe I haven’t had enough. I guess I do feel like I’ve been run over by something big and nasty. Maybe the big, nasty something is the life I have been called into, have chosen to embrace, and love more than I can tell you.

Or maybe I just have sleep apnea.

That Book

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

I wrote a book called Chronicles, Nehemiah, and Other Books Nobody Reads. It’s a terrific title, and I really love the whole thing. It’s not perfect, by any means. It’s a little unfriendly, there isn’t a Table of Contents and there aren’t page numbers. It’s a book of essays, so there’s no arc, and it follows no real discernible path. It’s equal parts memoir, the story of our faith community, The Bridge, and Bible commentary. It includes a number of blog posts from the Bridge site (and not this one), and a fiction piece called “Bands We Don’t Even Like.”

At the end of every service, we stand and hold hands for closing prayer, and we do that (in part) because of 2 songs: “Dance, Dance, Christa Paffgen,” by Anberlin, and “Rumors Of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated,” by Rise Against. I explain why in the book, and I also break down the bible verse that most informs my every day (Genesis 28:16 “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was unaware.”)

Incidentally, the Anberlin line is “if a touch is worth 1,000 words, then a touch is worth them all.” And I just now read an online lyric page that reads, “…then YOUR touch is worth them all.” If that is, indeed, what it says, I’m going to continue to pretend it doesn’t, and still says “…A touch is worth them all.”

The reason for the Rise Against song is, “Let’s take this one day at a time, I’ll hold your hand if you hold mine.” I can’t play this one in church because there are language issues, and I don’t play the Anberlin because it’s over 7 minutes long.

I’ve been dying to play a Morrissey song, and “Death Of A Disco Dancer” fit perfectly last Sunday, but that song is long, as well, so I just read the lyrics.

I love the book because it was my first, and it was my heart spilled onto the pages. Of course it’s not perfect, how could it be? It’s messy and feels urgent, like I had to get it out immediately or I’d never sleep again. It’s sweat, blood, joy, exhaustion, tears, confusion, frustration, brokenness and gratitude.

I didn’t think I’d write another one – I love the blog format. The sermon is such a cool art form because it’s also immediate, but electric and personal, human, flowing, physical, thoughtful, life-changing (for the giver as well as anyone who hears.) Blogs feel very similar. I’m writing this now and you can read it within 5 minutes. Books are different. I began this 2nd one a few years ago, put my head down and worked like crazy for most of last year, and finally finished it in October. The first people read a physical copy a few days before Christmas, and it won’t be approved by Amazon to sell there until late spring (hopefully). I self-publish for the same reason everybody else does, because it gets out fast and is relatively easy.

I started the process to put a little commerce store on this lovewithacapitall.com site to sell it, but it requires an upgrade, and I don’t feel like that now. As I write that last sentence, it feels silly. If I want the new book in the world, an upgrade is a small price to pay. We’ll see. It’s for sale now on Lulu.com, and it’s called Be Very Careful Who You Marry. It’s much friendlier, one subject (marriage), chapters, a Table of Contents, and even page numbers!!! I’ll tell you about it next time.

I am going to go back and clean up the last one, …Books Nobody Reads, and get that out again for summer or fall. Maybe you’ll love it like I do, but making anything is an interesting dance. Obviously, I’d love everyone to love everything, for this to be the biggest blog in the world, and for people to find tons of value in it, but the truth is, we are made to create. It’s an offering, isn’t it? We listen, live, process, and then we express it, however we express it. Maybe it’ll connect – after all, we’re all having these beautiful, and beautifully unique, intensely personal yet strangely universal, human experiences. And maybe it won’t. But it has to get out, we have to open our hearts and hands.

I tell you all of this to encourage & celebrate the impulse to build, to construct bridges between us, however we do. You either know you’re an artist, or you don’t – but you certainly are one. Let’s do this, I’ll hold your hand if you hold mine, and we’ll jump together.

Not At All About Youth Sports

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

Last night, I was at a basketball game (not misbehaving at all), wandering down paths in my head that only used this contest as context. I was thinking of the super-famous Marianne Williamson quote:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

The team, full of “brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous” young men “plays small,” and “shrinks” from their own power. So, how do we, as grown-ups, teachers, coaches, leaders, help them see themselves as children of God, help them to shine? That is the question I’m asking, and it’s also the question everyone else is asking, in some form or another. Whether the form is a basketball game or at our jobs in sales or management or ministry or in our marriages, it’s always the same question.

How are we liberated from our own fear, so that we can liberate others?

A coach on my son’s team is a very good friend, and we’re talking about exactly this today. How? How do we hold a mirror up to show them their own beauty and light? I have another very good friend who accepts so much less in relationships, thinks abuse is just what it is to be in ‘love.’ How do we help to open her eyes to who she actually is? Can we? Or is this a journey we ultimately take only with God?

I’m reading a book called the book of soul (with what is, ostensibly, a purposeful lower case title), by Mark Nepo. (Incidentally, the title is entirely lower case, but his name is entirely upper case. I don’t know what message that sends, probably nothing too great, but it’s good so far, so he can do whatever he likes in whatever font or case he likes.) He wrote, “immersion invokes the giving of ourselves completely to an endeavor until it reveals its meaning, devotion asks that we uphold our commitment to stay immersed in that which has meaning.” I think this applies to our conversation, but I can’t say I’m too sure why or how.

Maybe we immerse ourselves in ourselves, our identity. Give ourselves completely to learning who we are, our power, our shine. What could have more meaning? Then, we devote ourselves to stay committed to that divinely bestowed identity (our value, worth, brilliance, talent) even when we can’t see it. Maybe that’s what I’m feeling. It doesn’t tell me how we get her to see it, or how we convince that team to commit all of themselves to whatever they’re doing, on the court and/or in the rest of their lives.

Paul writes, in his letter to the Ephesians, “live lives worthy of the calling you have received.” These are all different versions of the same material, like walking, talking, loving cover songs.

That high school team lost last night. They’ll lose again, and so will we, in lots of different ways. Hopefully we all uphold our commitments to stay immersed, to shine, to live these beautiful lives worthy of our call. And in that, we might be able to show a tiny glimpse of what’s possible.

Who I Am.

January 22, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

There are a few works (Barbie, Echo, Strange World) I’d like to discuss. Well, sort of. The site asked me my first name and what it means in the prompt. It’s Charles, but I have gone by Chad forever. Don’t ask me how you get Chad from Charles, I’m not sure that’s a usual shortening, but if it matters that much, you’d have to ask my mom. It was her decision. Why does the site care? Why would it prompt me with that?

I think the site believes that we can learn a bit more about each other, if we explore the meanings and etymology of our names. It’s wrong, of course. What does Charles, or Chad, say about me, who I actually am? Chuck Klosterman, in his book Fargo Rock City, says any review says almost nothing about the actual whatever (film, album, etc) being reviewed, and everything about the one doing the reviewing. If that’s the case – and it is – then you already know who I am, in the most significant way. Much more than if you knew my given first name is Charles or that I’m a Junior.

Barbie is both dumber and smarter than I expected. It’s purposefully cheesy and embarrassing, in parts, and deep and nuanced, in others. It’s really a fascinating film, perfectly cast and surprisingly well written. The characters are plastic, but developed as flash and blood, with lots of authentic facets of the human experience. I loved it and my mom hated it, which is one of the best compliments I can give. Nobody hates vanilla ice cream. It’s nobody’s favorite, but nobody thinks it’s gross, either. We all like it. Morrissey is my favorite singer, and my brother cringes at the sound of his voice. You can’t really love something without edges. The things that truly matter are, on some beautiful level, polarizing. Barbie is.

Echo is one of the best Marvel series on Disney+. Echo is a deaf Native American woman named Maya, the show is culturally wonderful and very violent. The most important sections of Black Panther were the music and practices of Wakandan culture. This is why the Tolerance Crew’s virtue of “colorblindness” is so dumb. Why would we all ever want to be the same???? My ancestry doesn’t have powwows or quinceaneras, and that’s too bad. But I have other things. I don’t want to lose my traditions and I certainly don’t want to eliminate theirs. I want us all to live in the most vibrant, colorful world as possible, where we are not simply tolerated (which is an offensively low bar to aspire to) but appreciated and loved. Echo was great.

Strange World was totally average, with amazing graphics.

I wonder what these last 3 paragraphs say about me. Probably you know that, as a target demographic, I am very easy to please. I want to like everything, so when I don’t, it’s depressing to me. Maybe when I don’t, it’s because I’ve just had an argument with the Angel, or my stomach hurts, or I’m preoccupied with the drama of friends and family. Books are a little exempt from this, because they take much longer to consume.

I’m reading one now, called As Good As Dead, by Elizabeth Evans, that has an act of unfaithfulness as it’s inciting event. I don’t know if I’ll finish it, even though Elizabeth Evans is awesome. That kind of betrayal hurts my soul and my soul is damaged enough simply living an engaged life in the world. Enough real life unfaithfulness exists to suffer. Maybe I don’t need the nauseous response of a fictional anxiety.

Yes, that last paragraph reveals much more of who I am than the 4 letters of my name ever could. Listening to There Is A Light That Never Goes Out is more important to me and who I am than a German lineage.

The first thing I wanted to know when I began talking to a prospective romantic interest is what sorts of cds she owned, not her middle name. (Incidentally, the Angel’s collection was awful, but she’s so jarringly gorgeous, exceptions were made.) I don’t care as much, now that I’m not a teenager, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care at all. Or that it’s irrelevant.

The honest truth is that it matters if you like Pulp Fiction, and why or why not, and it will always paint a more accurate self-portrait than any of us will admit.

Love With A Capital L

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

Author: The Bridge Faith Community