2024-02-23T20:16:42+00:00

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.

Clutter

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

Where can I reduce clutter in my life? That’s the site prompt, and it’s fairly open-ended yet aggressively incisive. What does it mean? What is clutter? Why does the Jetpack app so easily assume that I have an abundance of clutter in my life? And that I’d want to get rid of it, if I do?

I googled clutter and fell into a rabbit hole, but found an interesting article on the Denver Post. I do not recommend searching for it, or reading anything at all on the Denver Post. It’s an extraordinarily frustrating site to be on for any amount of time. Why is this? How can websites become less friendly with the passage of time? It’s like automated chat technical help lines, they’re much much worse than they were even last year. Obviously, they don’t want to engage with us, don’t want us to call or email. But it seems to me a “newspaper” would want readers. Maybe that’s why they’re dinosaurs.

Anyway, this article says, “Our stuff has a powerful grip.” A woman named Regina Leeds (I have no idea what Ms Leeds does for a living to make her an expert in the field, the Denver Post ran me off immediately) says, “People turn physical objects into magic talismans that connect them to memories (and) better times in their lives.” The author of the article (the title as well as the writer are also unknowns, casualties of the Denver Post’s aggressive defense of their information) writes, that clutter is the practice of “retaining old things well past their expiration date.”

The reason I searched at all is the nagging feeling that considering clutter as the junk I keep in drawers and the knick-knacks, papers, notebooks and non-working Bluetooth speakers that collect so much dust, is overly myopic. Those things are easy to see (however hard to get rid of). The “old things” and “magic talismans” the site prompt means are psychological, emotional, and spiritual; the ideas, beliefs, and perspectives that are “well beyond their expiration date.”

How many relationships do we hang onto, with white knuckles, that have expired long ago? We’re just attached to the memories, or we’re simply too scared or lazy to move on. Like the antiquated idea of “newspapers” like the Denver Post. Our parents read them so we think they are necessary, but, they’re not. Not anymore. We have a million spaces where we can inform and educate ourselves. How about the political ideas and parties of yesterday that, if explored, would unravel, holding so little value to the people we are today? Maybe it’s time to trash those things. And ideas about ourselves, of “just who we are,” that may absolutely have been who we were when we adopted them, but are certainly not who we are…can we pretty please let them go? The oppressive fears and limiting beliefs? Shred them with last years receipts. Religious notions that God is mad at us and is waiting for us to get it together, improve, clean up are a) lies, and b) products of old manipulations that we bought and that warped our souls. Let’s leave those chains behind. The walls we built that kept others out and us in really need to come down. The negative voices in our heads, they’re just noise, aural clutter, that always belonged in dumpsters instead of prominent places in our psyches.

I’m pretty sure growth is the process of reducing that clutter. I heard a sculptor once say that the image is inside, the art is chipping away at the surrounding stone to reveal it. The clutter in our souls and heads is hiding the people we are, and the people we are made to be, and the people we will become, if only we will liberate ourselves. Chip away at those obstructions that have imprisoned us, their grip has been too powerful for too long. We’re inside, suffocating under so much clutter. To reference a terrific popular book: Let That Sh*t Go, and you know what we’ll find? That we’re inside, and we’re awesome.

NOT Another Post on Youth Sports

January 9, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

This is not another post on youth sports. It’ll feel like it is, but that’s only because youth sports is the superficial context for a deeper reality. Sort of like superhero movies not actually being about superheroes, at all. If we make the mistake of believing The Winter Soldier is about muscles and exaggerated fight scenes, we’ve missed the metaphorical forest for the neon-lighted trees.

I think officiating basketball has to be just about the hardest thing to do in the whole wide world. There’s almost no one that can do it at a level in shouting distance of competence. My biggest issue with this is that it puts these athletes at risk for injury. A boy goes out to learn the lessons sports can teach so effectively (about himself, others, cooperation, resilience, perseverance, and on and on), and the ridiculous ineptitude of the referees leaves him open to all kinds of assault far outside of the rules of the sport. Last night, as the game transmogrified into gang warfare, twice (!!) a boy put both hands on another and threw him to the floor, another boy has his shoulder separated in what was inexplicably deemed a completely clean play by the deafening silence of the whistle. The last play of the game, as a young man went up for an offensive rebound, he was clubbed with a forearm in his chest and power-bombed to the hardwood. There was, again, no call, as the 3 officials ran from the court as if they were being chased by ravenous pit bulls.

That was last night. And now the site prompt today is, What Is Your Mission? These 2 events are related, bound tightly in my heart, soul, and mind. You see, I want to be a referee. A very good one. This sounds like a unicorn, the imaginary stuff of myth and legend, and maybe it is, but I don’t actually want to be a referee. A very good referee is, by nature, absolutely taken for granted. If a contest is officiated well, they are unnoticed, no comments on how well they did, or how they allowed the players to decide the outcome. They just showed up and did their job with excellence.

I want to live my life in such a way that I do the extraordinary in such a way that everyone in my circles can take it as a given. I want to be consistent, reliable. I want to show up to every situation, to give the best of me (the best of what I have to give, honestly and openly) in every moment.

I want everyone who sits in the congregation to know that I am well-prepared, and that, for the next 40-ish minutes, they will be taken care of. I want my boys to know, when they look in the stands at their games, that I am there…so much so, that they don’t even bother to look. That I will always be waiting in the parking lot to take them home. I want them to know I will give my life for theirs in a heartbeat.

I want the Angel to know so deeply that she is adored by her husband, who will always be interested, faithful, and engaged, and that she will always be cared for, appreciated, and loved to the moooon and back. There would be no need for comment or thanks, because it is just beautifully sewn into the fabric of her life.

I want the staff at the gym to see me every day at the same time, that it is wholly unremarkable. I want you to know I respect and honor you in ways that may be unusual in the wild, but not here, now, with me. You will know you’re safe to try, to ask, to disagree, to jump without looking, because you know I’ll catch you.

I want you to be aware that I’ll make tons of mistakes living a full, passionate life – and take for granted that I’ll listen, recognize, acknowledge, apologize and grow from these missteps. That when it happens, (and it will), you’ll know I am committed to the art of becoming.

You should also know this is obviously not me, not yet. I’m probably much more like these high school basketball officials, allowing others to get hurt when I should be carefully protecting them. Creation can take some time, often in baby steps, and can often be embarrassingly slow. And it’s usually done alone, in the darkness of routine and practice, but since the site prompt asked what my dream, my mission, is, this is it.

Dumb Site Prompt

January 3, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The prompt is, “What colleges have you attended?” I started at a branch campus of a major state university, then quit school altogether, only to transfer to a small-ish private liberal arts college, where I’d graduate with a business administration degree (marketing concentration). Then 15 years later, earned a degree and ordination from a Bible college & seminary.

I never liked school, hated every day of the branch campus and liberal arts college. But later, in a strange twist, loved every moment of the Bible school. Who knew?

I used my business degree to get a management job at a multinational company, where I was a terrible manager. When I gave my 2 week notice on the eve of my wedding, the relief in the general manager’s face was evident. He could finally be rid of me without having to fire me.

Then, after a short stint working at a retail store in a mall, I used that degree to drive a truck, delivering medical equipment to hospice patients. The degree was useless, but the job changed my life forever. After many years there, loving dying people and their families, I took the online Bible classes (working full time with a wife and 2 small children doesn’t leave much, no, doesn’t leave any time for sitting in class), lost my home in a flood, mourned the closing of the church I attended, began a new church in my new living room, and just held on with both hands.

I thought the site prompt was dumb today, but as I’m writing, thinking about the doors that opened, that closed, with the benefit of hindsight, on the 3rd day of a new year, I don’t think it’s so dumb anymore.

If I hadn’t taken 5 1/2 years to complete a 4 year degree (due to credits that wouldn’t transfer, several switched majors, and 1 unfinished semester), I would never have met The Angel. Our first date was in that last 1/2. If I hadn’t spent years working through the night, I wouldn’t have discovered the many many treasures of the Bible and of me that I did. If that flood wouldn’t have swallowed my home, we wouldn’t be here, in this town, with these neighbors. If the old church hadn’t closed it’s doors, if the old pastor/mentor hadn’t completely broken my heart by ignoring me in the years since, we wouldn’t have this amazing Bridge Faith Community and the Bridge would have a very different pastor than the me they have now.

Every new year, I reflect on what was, what is, what could be, but I do this with soft hands. If I had tried to control my life, tried to stay within the lines of what should be, wrestling white-knuckled with the steering wheel… well, I don’t know what sort of life I’d have now, but I know it wouldn’t be this one. It wouldn’t be this messy, beautiful, full, wonderful life.

I still don’t know what my Word of the Year is, and I’m starting to think it doesn’t matter. Maybe my word is blank to illustrate the hands that are, and have always been, holding me, and the blank space where all of the should’s and supposed to’s used to go. It’s just here and now, just the next step, just faith, just trust. Just staying awake to the Love that is holding us all together. Just. Maybe that’s my word: Just. Just me. Just you. Just us. Just all of this divine energy, crackling all around us. Just loving.

Pierced

December 20, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

This is not a post on the site prompt, youth sports or the woeful state of high school officiating. I have no shortage of material on those things, I’m just a little tired of typing the word referee.

Snowpiercer is a film starring Captain America, about an environmental catastrophe that kills all living things, except those lucky (?) enough to board a train that endlessly circles the globe. It sounds like a thin premise on which to base a movie or a tv series, much better suited to a novel, but it was excellent. (I am about to ruin the end. When do spoiler ethics expire? Surely 10 years is enough, isn’t it?)

At the end, Captain America fights Ed Harris and 2 others, believing the earth had slightly warmed and could now support life, set off a bomb that crashes the train. 2 people, both “train babies” (humans born on the train, never having set foot outside or breathed fresh air), one 16ish and one 8ish, ostensibly the only survivors of the crash, walk away through the snow, where they/we see a polar bear in the distance.

My very great friend saw this as an allegory on the death of the human race. The polar bear would surely eat them. As a matter of fact, being so naive and uneducated on dangerous predators, she reasoned they would likely serve themselves up trying to pet it’s soft white fur. The animals might survive and repopulate, without the destructive influence of you & me, and the earth would quietly, beautifully heal.

I hadn’t even considered this conclusion. As they walked, hand in hand, together into a brand new world, I found it unbelievably hopeful. Everything was possible, as a 2nd Adam & Eve, they could also survive and repopulate, free of their ancestors’ destructive influence, and the earth (including a new lineage of kind, innocent-ish people), would quietly, beautifully heal.

She’s right, of course. They are destined to be food. She’s super smart and hilarious, you’d love her like I do immediately.

But I don’t care about right and wrong, in this context. I don’t care about realism or food chains and predator/prey relationships. When the credits rolled, all I saw was a beginning, our beginning. Not an end. We are new and can build whatever we want, a New Creation with no ties at all to “how it’s always been.” Just because it was, doesn’t mean it is now.

It’s a pretty good illustration. The philosophy we can choose is one of hope and faith in God (that He is still here and hasn’t abandoned His creation), in us, in our divine design, that we can still remember who we are and what we’ve been called into. That, even with thousands of years to the contrary, we can live lives of love and peace instead of indifference, -isms, and war. All we have to do is blow up the old paradigm and have the courage to walk away from that garbage.

Have a fantastic Christmas, everybody.

Love With A Capital L

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