2026-07-15T19:00:00+00:00

Lovemaxxing

July 15, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The hosting site, in their daily prompt, is wondering what bothers me and why. I have an answer, there is something that bothers me A LOT. I’ll tell you in a minute.

1st, let me tell you about a documentary I watched about incels, a relatively new term (what does “new” mean in a world in hyper speed?) describing “INvoluntary CELibates,” usually young male teens/adults. It’s disturbing and inextricably linked to another phenomenon/movement called looksmaxxing (the more X’s, the better, I guess.) This whole thing is about believing worth is tied to appearance, that women only want the most beautiful (i.e. not them), and that keeps them home, online, and fearing/hating women. It’s also tied to a thing I wrote about before called “the manosphere,” where cartoon-caricature macho males celebrate misogyny and their own thinly veiled insecurity. Looksmaxxing operates on a scale:

“The looksmaxxing scale, often referred to as the PSL scale (an acronym for either Pretty Scale Level or Perceived Sexual Market Value Scale), is a subjective, crowd-sourced 1-10 scoring system used in aesthetics-obsessed online communities. It evaluates physical attractiveness based on four core metrics: harmony, dimorphism, angularity, and miscellaneous features (such as skin clarity and eye color).

The Tier Breakdown. The scale translates to specific categories based on perceived genetic value and physical traits:

1–3 (Subhuman / Low-Tier Normie): Individuals with severe facial deformities or an “ordinary level of unattractiveness”.
4–6 (Normies): The vast majority of the population. People in this tier have average features with a mix of minor flaws and proportional benefits.
7–7.75 (Chadlite / Chad): Considerably above-average features, high facial symmetry, good dimorphism, and strong jawlines.
8–10 (True Adam / Gigachad): Extremely rare outliers who possess top-tier structural genetics.

“Chad” is a weird kind of idea, it’s mostly a term of derision based in envy. It’s also my name, which I may change to “Gigachad,” from now on. I wonder how the Angel will feel about that. I wonder how she feels being married to a “Chad.” I wonder if she knows I am apparently at the tippy top of the Perceived Sexual Market Value Scale.

I just want to point out that yes, you did read that there’s a category called “Subhuman.”

Some looksmaxxers try to jump categories by physically changing their looks by, for example, hitting their cheekbones with hammers until they become more Chad-like. I guess this type of focus, -maxxing, is what drives the plastic surgery industry, too. I wonder if it also is at the deepest roots of my Running post last week. Is any form of visual self-improvement (weightlifting, makeup, brushing our teeth, BBLs, hammering our faces, etc) -maxxing? Are they all attempts to outrun, or outmodify our own poor self-images?

I don’t think so. I don’t think running on a treadmill is the same as surgery (but maybe that’s because I run on a treadmill and haven’t had even one cosmetic procedure yet). However, I can see a through-line that will become my answer to this curious site.

Whether it’s advertising or social media, so much of a world who’s religion is consumerism is designed to make us (the consumers) feel a lack, which would need to be filled (through some sort of product). We are born and raised to feel a lack. We compare our real lives to the filtered, pretend lives on Instagram, then operate out of that false comparison to achieve the fictional lives on our screens. So, we’re inadequate, in some way, by cultural design. We think our value is found in the brands we wear, our mates, or our jawlines, and we move around wearing masks, afraid and hiding.

I believe the only cure for anything is love. We find our true identity and worth in God, Who loves us despite our puny biceps and our outdated phones, and that love so fills us that it comes out of our ears, eyes, hearts, and gets all over everybody else, without condition, whether they’re Chads or not.

What bothers me is that we don’t do that. What bothers me is that so many of us are missing something so deeply that we’d hit ourselves with hammers and watch dark-web domestic violence & murder, that we’d be embarrassed to even go outside because our faces aren’t dimorphic or angular enough, that we’d undergo such painful transformations just to try to correct the countless mistakes we think our Creator made with us. I’m bothered that we’re waging war, on others, on ourselves, instead of waging campaigns of love.

We should be lovemaxxing, and it bothers me that we’re not, yet. But I promise we will, and there’s no way we’ll stop until we do.

Running

July 7, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Today is cardio day, so that meant that this morning at 6am, you would have found me on a treadmill at the gym. Lately, I’ve been doing some interval training, and I want you to know something: I really, really HATE running. I know some people like it, even love it, but they’re wrong. This relationship I have with running is complex. I hate to run, but I very much love that I ran this morning. Each step is overflowing with sadness (that this is happening), madness (that I’m making it happen), inspiration (that I would make it happen), and gratitude (that it can physically happen). At the end, I am soaked, as if I were swimming in my clothes instead of running.

I’m moving into some soul work on self-control, of which this is another part. I want to be a man who does very hard things because there is something bigger than comfort and ease that characterize my life.

But also, I think I have an equally complex relationship with my body that I’d like to recalibrate. I can run, sometimes fast, hike, climb many flights of stairs, row, swim. I played college baseball. I’m 50 and can still bench press 300 lbs and do as many pull-ups as I need to – I am an active, athletic person, and for that I am very grateful. I wear large shirts and have a 34 inch waist.

The BMI calculator on the internet says I am “morbidly obese,” and the voices in my head tell me I am a (lots of words I won’t type here) when I look in the mirror or my face in the Zoom screen you would see. The aggressively harsh and nasty narrative in my head for most of my life is that I am a (more words I won’t type here.) It is a million miles better than it used to be, but this monster still rears it’s face from time to time, and remains a thorn in my spirit that needs healing.

If our bodies are, like the Bible says, “the temples of the Holy Spirit, given by God,” I would not like Jesus to hear what I say about His temple. He’s given me this sacred, amazingly functional vessel as a supremely generous gift, and what is my response? If you were to give me a gift, and let’s say I hated it, I still would thank you and acknowledge your kindness. But as for this gift from God that has given and given in such fascinating ways, I can only seem to see imperfection.

But what is imperfection? Who says what perfect actually is? Is it abs you can see? Is it perfect hair and teeth? Is it performance? Is it tanned, taut skin? Is a temple defined by the fixtures and wallpaper, or is it more beautifully identified by Who or what is inside? Is it intellect, spirit, emotion? Or just veined biceps and defined quads? Why have I been so mean to this temple based on only one small aspect, that I perceive to be lacking? I am lacking nothing, and maybe running reminds me of that.

I think spiritual maturity is probably nothing more than moving into the space where we can see ourselves as we have been created, like a process of chipping away at the image the world has sold us since the day we’re born that we’ve sadly carried for too long. The voices in my head aren’t the Voice of God. They’re not even my own voice. They’re not true, and they’re not kind or helpful.

There’s a shirt in my closet that is SO cool, it’s my favorite shirt I’ve even owned. And I’ve never worn it. You see, I think it’s too tight in some places. I sometimes think of it while I run. When I lose some weight and feel better about how I look, I’ll be able to wear it. But what I’ve learned is that this perception I have of the temple has very little to do with what the temple actually looks like. When I lose some weight, I’ll still have this mistaken picture of me. When is enough? If it isn’t now, I’m beginning to think it never will be.

Maybe this post is the next step in this reclamation project, the journey to becoming all of me. Maybe I’ll wear that shirt.

25 Years!?

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

What does “having it all” mean to you? That’s what the site is asking, and it is actually a pretty revealing query. It certainly tells more than most of these prompts. Maybe I’d care to dive into this another day, but not today, hosting site, not today.

Today is our 25th wedding anniversary. The Angel has been married to me for a quarter of a century. I’ll get all mushy at the end of this post, but something happened this morning that perfectly illustrates what a healthy marriage is, and how to get one. (I don’t have all the answers, obviously, but when I do happen to come across one, I like to pass it along to you. I don’t only want me to have an A+ 25-year marriage, I want everybody to have that. Incidentally, I am not particularly special or unique, what I’m about to write about has nothing to do with me, it is open to all of us. Also incidentally, I used to think this A+ healthy marriage had to do with finding the Angel, and that blessing had more to do with her being a unicorn rather than any principle or idea. I don’t, anymore. That unicorn has everything to do with my marriage, but she is not the only avenue for anyone to have a beautiful relationship.)

Anyway, this morning on the way to school (through some turn of circumstance, I take her to and from work nowadays), I chose to listen to an Amazon Music playlist titled Rediscover: 90’s Alternative. The first song was the classic “Wonderwall,” by Oasis. I knew she’d sing along with me once the first word of the lyrics “Today…” started up. It’s also an awesome love song – “I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now…Maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me, and after all, you’re my wonderwall.” Perfect beginning to a great day, right? Except she says, “I’m happy I’m getting out of the car.” Whaaaat???? The she explained, she doesn’t like Liam’s voice or the song or the greatest era of music, either.

We had our first date in 1998, got married in 2001, and have been together almost every day since. How could I have possibly not known this? Before this moment, it had never ever crossed my mind that anyone would not absolutely love this song. I told my son, later, that “it was wildly overplayed, think “Shake It Off” (by Taylor Swift) levels of airplay, and still, it wasn’t enough.” Everyone loves “Wonderwall.” The fact that my wife doesn’t is impossible.

So, here’s what I learned… You marry someone, you learn all about them, who they are, what they dream of and care about, where they come from, what songs they love, and then they grow and change, and you learn those things again and again and again. I am not the boy she married, and I will not be the man I am now in 10 years. She is not the same woman who sat across from me in that restaurant in 1998. We are dynamic creatures by nature, made to move and evolve. (Sometimes we forget and stagnate, but that is not our design.)

My experience has been that relationships crack and break apart when we stop paying attention, stop learning each other, when we think that we know who the other is, that there are no more surprises or amazing revelations. We get bored. But we are very wrong. The harsh truth of that is, we’re not bored with them. We’re bored with ourselves, we checked out of our own lives and never came back. We’re the boring, uninterested & uninteresting, apathetic, pathetically incurious ones.

Imagine if I believed the Angel was the college junior I met those many years ago? I would have missed countless wonderful (tiny and humongous) transformations. She looks the same, gorgeous as ever, but now she has some gray hairs and they are absolutely fantastic, adding a level of texture and interest. Imagine if I stopped looking at her so closely, so intently. Imagine if I expected her to look like a 20 year-old. I would have missed this wildly better, even more beautiful, version entirely.

After 25 years, I’m married to the Angel, but the Angel is different, new, stronger, deeper, both more open and more assured. She’s cooler than I thought, and she’s everything I knew she was. She drives me crazy – in all the good ways as well as the bad. Of course, there have been growing pains, but they are also growing joys, growing pleasures, growing wonders, and growing peace. We have discovered each other in terrific new ways, and in not so terrific ways (like the “Wonderwall” tragedy). We have loved each other, and will continue to do so, for as long as we are given.

I’ll never know why she wanted to be married to me for one day, much less 25 years, but that’s her problem, not mine. As for me, I’ll keep looking & listening closely, dreaming, learning, I’ll keep growing and moving forward, and I’ll stay forever grateful that I get to do it with her, whoever she becomes, and whatever horrible thing I might learn in the car, tomorrow.

Rose Colored

May 18, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/2 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

But that’s not all it was.

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

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

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

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

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

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

So what’s the point?

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

Puzzle Pieces

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First Cousin Once Removed

March 3, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

At some point during many of the holidays my family and I celebrate together, the conversation will turn to 1st, 2nd, 3rd cousins, once or twice removed, and what any of those terms mean. We never remember, so we discuss it more often than you’d guess. Incidentally, I am ok with this, because it’s hilarious. We just wait for it to come up.

Anyway, last weekend, I went to my first dance competition. No, I wasn’t dancing (the way I worded that last sentence sounded like maybe I was). My first cousin once removed by marriage (The Angel’s cousin’s daughter) was dancing. She is 14 and has been dancing for most of her life. I had no idea what to expect, but I absolutely knew I’d write about whatever I experienced in this week’s post.

Not only did I not know what a dance competition looks like, I’d never seen her dance before, so I didn’t know what her particular dancing looks like, either.

The event was in a MASSIVE auditorium. Each competitor had a certain time (a minute or 2) to do whatever it was they would do, to music played at a pretty mind-numbing volume. (I’m not sure if you’re familiar, but there are lots of different styles of dance. I do know this, because I watched the TV show So You Think You Can Dance.) The kids in their very sparkly spandex outfits

[Actually, that’s not exactly true. They wore very sparkly tiny spandex super suits OR they wore white flowy sun dresses, with little in between. Anyway]

took the stage and performed, in numbered order. Some were awesome and some were good, none made me wish I wasn’t there. But my first cousin once removed by marriage was clearly the best. I would say by a mile, but there’s a chance that I am slightly biased, but only slightly. Objectively, she was clearly the best, maybe not by a mile, but for sure a good hundred yards. She was graceful, controlled, both subtle and overwhelming, and I found myself overcome with emotion. Beautiful things crack open my heart like eggs and flow all over, and her performances (1 jazz and 1 contemporary) were staggeringly beautiful. I thought about her life, her commitment and passion for this art/sport (it’s both, right? Elite athleticism combined with wild creativity and expression to create its own category), how so much of her resources – money, time, energy – and focus went into these few minutes. The hours and hours of physical practice are obvious, but what is staying with me are the countless hours of what is not so obvious. What she eats, how she works out, the many things she must have said no to, all in service of her one big yes, the foundation upon which she built the rest of her life.

[It might not be the foundation for her, she’s remarkably well rounded, maybe it’s not even what she would say is the most important thing to her…but you get the point.]

So, later, on the way home, I thought about me. I thought about my one big yes, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and my commitment to Him. She was willing to offer so much of her life to a discipline, to a love, have I? With everything she does, how she walks, carries herself, she looks to the entire world like a dancer… What do I look like? Do I look like a walking, talking, loving, follower of Christ? From head to toe, morning to night, the food I eat, what I listen to and watch, is it all in service of this identity? Am I offering the best of me? Am I offering all of me?

The truth is…well, maybe we can answer that another time. But last Saturday, that building was a church, and her dancing was a sermon, asking questions that aren’t so easily answered. I can’t tell if I’m more impressed by her dancing or her preaching, but I’ll tell you, it was an honor to sit under this 14 year old’s teaching & learn about life, love, faith, and devotion in a brand new way.

Stand Up

February 17, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Many years ago, a very good friend wrote 3 words on an index card: stand up comedy. We were in church, and in a message on risk and passion and joy, I asked everybody to write something down. Most people don’t do what I ask, of if they do, they don’t keep it and don’t reflect. They certainly don’t keep it for 8 years.

It was a little like that scene in Fight Club – “What would you wish you’d done before you die?” “Paint a self portrait.” “Build a house.” Jesus asks a blind man, “What do you want me to do for you?” What if we didn’t know? What if we never took the time to know ourselves in any kind of intimate way, where we know what gives us joy and purpose? I think it would be sad for Jesus to ask, and to have to say, “I don’t know,” to Him. When I asked, my buddy wrote “stand up comedy.”

More people list public speaking higher than death on lists of fears. Stand up comedy is like public speaking on a high wire, with no net, on a windy day.

Last week, 8 years of looking at that card in his wallet, he performed publicly for the first time. There was a group of 10ish people who also had this dream who took a class, and this was the graduation. I was there, watching and loving everything about these budding comics and the impulse that brought us all here.

My friend Paul was hilarious, he absolutely killed. The entire room howled at his stories and punchlines, he had us all in his hands from the moment he took the stage.

And I am left, as I often am, looking around, wondering what everyone’s story is. What do they wish they’d done before they die? What would they say if Jesus asked them what He could do for them? What would be worth this kind of gargantuan risk to chase, to them?

I just learned of another friend, whose was just informed that his marriage is ending. His wife had been feeling this way for years, he was just asleep to that reality. And now, he may not have the chance to reconcile, to rebuild their lives together. And how many of us are sleepwalking through each day, missing the gifts we have been given, missing our lives. Will we die without having “painted a self-portrait?” They tell us we have to love our lives, but first, we gave to build one we can love.

My friend’s courage and commitment were staggering, he may have been nervous (I’m sure he was), but he was fully present and alive. I don’t want to be here one more moment without being present, and I don’t want to live one more second without being alive.

A Political Post

January 26, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

This post comes with a warning: I am going to write about politics, as honestly as I can, from my perspective & experience. This will not address issues and/or policy. If this is not what you want to read about, I am not offended, I’ll see you next week.

Last Friday, at 9:15pm, I was in the West Wing of the White House. The events that led to this very strange, unexpected situation will probably be discussed elsewhere – but please know, it was only possible through the overwhelming generosity of people. I have been wildly blessed, so far above what I could ever earn or deserve. This life is the truest, most basic definition, of a gift.

So, I’m in the White House, walking the hallways, soaking in the Oval Office and Roosevelt Room, learning the fascinating stories of the people, paintings, books, chandeliers, and personal offices.

Washington DC is a city that is thick with significance and history. It’s impossible to be there and not feel, to not know, that we are a part of a long, beautiful human story. It’s also impossible to be in Ford’s Theater (where President Lincoln was killed) and not lament the loss of honor and integrity in politics. Lincoln’s life makes the sleaziness of today’s political system seem even sleazier.

As much as I am horrified and repulsed by politics, I quite like politics. I am interested in the idea of how we govern ourselves as a society, how we evolve culturally as human beings, here and now. Of course, I want to throw up at how this often plays out IRL.

There’s a long line of Presidential portraits on the colonnade, with descriptive plaques that have been written by the current President. (Whether they change with each administration and are written by each sitting President, or just this one, I don’t know.) Adorning nearly every wall and doorway are golden designs, bling, or what we’d call bedazzlement. If I had to choose to describe how this looks, it’s like a casino. Or maybe a monument to the one inside.

Rather than go on, in detail, about every room and detail, I’ll give you one more juicy nugget. In the adjacent Eisenhower office building, there is a “fake” Oval Office, that was created for the previous President, whose failing health required certain adjustments. There had to be a giant teleprompter, the floor had to be specially graded, on and on. It was a facade built for TV, a superficial constructed image.

I couldn’t help but notice the contrasts, that defined the men and ideologies, and the thing that makes this whole system so distasteful. One is self-obsessed and arrogant. The other is totally inauthentic, creating a land of make believe. This machine professes to be “by the people, for the people,” and it may have been that, but it is no longer. It is a machine for those on the inside, designed to fool the rest of us, as it grows and grows, dividing us to retain (or regain) power, manipulating us to eat each other. The 2 sides are not very different.

There was a quotation displayed in our hotel, “We used to change our party to meet our principles, now we change our principles to meet our party.”

Here’s the thing, though, that I can’t escape. I think I’ve lost hope, right? I think I’d like to dismantle the whole ugly system. But walking around that city, in those buildings, hearing the stories that defined this country…well, as it turns out, I am hopeful. The White House and DC had an effect different than the one I expected. I do believe in us, I always have. Of course, I think the parties (for some sad reason, they’ve become our only 2 choices) have lost their way, and I think they’ve led us astray, but I absolutely think we’ll find our way back. I know we’re more similar than different, I know love and listening can and will change this world. Maybe not in time to avoid collapse, but in the end, it’ll be you and me building something new together. Like it was then, it’ll be again. It’s never been easy, always messy and often gross, but we grow and develop, we leave behind what is beneath us, we carry and pick up what it valuable, and we find out at least one thing has never changed: human beings are better together. And I promise that we will remember that, and that what we build (or rebuild) will be stunning.

A New Basketball Season…

January 12, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site prompt for today is, “What snack would you eat right now?” I sometimes use these prompts as a springboard, but I’m telling you today’s to illustrate that they’re not all awesome. Some of them are about snacks. Not every shot goes in.

You’re not surprised about that last sentence. I am a man who was raised to love sports (most all sports – I can even find things to like about soccer), so many of my examples and metaphors point in that direction. You know this, and you’ve probably been missing the posts I’ve built around youth sports.

So, I’ll fill you in.

My youngest son is playing on his college basketball team. He’s playing very well, and so is the team. It isn’t translating into wins yet, they’re in the process of a complete culture transformation. They’ve had several down years, so they’re re-learning what is possible for them. It’s easy to draw parallels to “real” life, away from the court. We examined & evaluated our lives, probably set some new year’s resolutions, we’re in the process of complete cultural transformations in ourselves. Now what? What happens when we lose (fail, backslide, regress) or fall? Do we listen to the voices in our heads that tell us that’s just who we are? Most new year’s resolutions are thrown away and forgotten by February. Transformation takes time and patience, and a refusal to entertain the same old story that keeps us sick.

So many of the words I’ve written here discussed the abysmal officiating (in all sports) at the high school level (and below.) This has not been the case for most of the games here. As the players improve, so do the referees. Mostly. There have been games that have been so poorly officiated, it could break your heart. The depressing thing is that the young men give so much time and energy, so much of themselves, to their craft, it feels like a huge disservice that the officials can’t do the same. (I do recognize that maybe they do, and these nights are simply aberrations, just isolated bad games in a career of competence. Maybe.) I sometimes have an urge to apologize to both teams for what we’ve collectively provided to support them. We show up to our jobs and spouses and children and communities, and we give the best we have to give, learn and grow, because it’s the way we honor Our God, and each other.

Speaking of growth, practicing grace in this space is an area in which I’m mindful. So far, it’s pretty easy, I’m constantly overwhelmed with gratitude. These days are beautiful, the environments are alive & electric, and the sport is fantastic.

And that’s the biggest connection, isn’t it? Do I “have to” go to these games, or do I “get to” go to these games? Am I missing the joy of watching these young men (including my son) explore their gifts (athletic and otherwise), choosing instead to stay angry at anything/everything else? Are these games becoming a stressor instead of a release? Do wins and losses matter more than all of the million other positive aspects of sport? Have I lost the point while living vicariously through these college students? Have I forgotten to love?

Am I remembering to love the players, the other parents, fans, staff, the depth, complexity, and beauty of the game, remembering to love it all? Am I remembering to love the time? It won’t always be here, we won’t always have this opportunity – I wonder if we’ll think about the results of the games ever again. We get to drive the hours together to sit in a gym and watch our boy become a man, watch all of these boys become men.

Last night, a parent was inconsolable, screaming in the stands about coaching decisions. It reminds me of Jacob, in the Bible, who wakes up and says, “Surely God was in this place and I was unaware.” I think this dad is going to say the same thing.

I have before, and I don’t want to say it ever again. It’s a new season, but I have the same focus: to be fully awake & present to this wonderful life.

At The Hollywood Bowl

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

It is my practice to listen to music while I write. This morning, the music is an entire Morrissey concert from the Hollywood Bowl on YouTube. [The opener was “The Queen Is Dead,” and now, it’s “The Last of The Famous International Playboys.”] This was a very good decision.

You see, I woke up on the metaphorical wrong side of the bed. I just wrote an apology email to the Angel, for my attitude. Nothing happened, specifically, just an overall tone that didn’t feel…

[A quick note: he’s playing “Ganglord” now, which is a b-side and a very pleasantly surprising inclusion in a live show.]

…didn’t feel great. Do you know when you have a t-shirt on and throw a sweater over it, and the sleeves of the t-shirt get twisted and bunched? Like you still have a t-shirt and sweater, maybe nobody else knows what’s gong on underneath, but you’re constantly fidgeting because it’s just not quite right, a little off? That’s what it felt like, and I assume my unease was communicated to her. I am mostly incapable of hiding anything, every thought and emotion is worn on the outside, so that seems a fair assumption.

[“The National Front Disco.” I recognize that Morrissey can be somewhat problematic, but so is everybody, if you read certain perspectives. Admittedly based upon nothing but his lyrics and older interviews, I happen to not believe any of the racism allegations against him. He’s not problematic in the least to me.]

Last night, I told her that I am the most authentic person she knows (this was half-joking and with context, not just an odd random statement). This is probably true, and not always anyone’s favorite characteristic. I used to be sort of a human chameleon, trying to fit into whatever you wanted me to be/say/do/think.

[His shirt is off and an audience member has a souvenir.]

But the more time I spent in the Bible, the more I learned to value honesty. If God doesn’t want my pretending, faking the “right” answers, and if I was willing to expose my true heart to Him, then I could to everyone else, too. And so many relationships stall because of an unwillingness to relate in any real, transparent way, I decided not to be the unwilling obstacle anymore.

[He’s just given the microphone to a woman in the 1st row, who is thanking him. That’s interesting. Now, “The Boy With The Thorn In His Side.”]

Of course, it’s not always been easy or simple, and has caused it’s own fair share of relational strife. This kind feels much better, though. The way I figure it, if you’ll have a problem with me, it’ll be with me, not some silly construct or mask I’ve chosen to wear. It has led to many emails like the one I just wrote. She’s a very good woman, and forgives easily. Maybe that’s what marriage is all about, choosing to love each other enough to truly forgive, almost on a continual basis, to where it’s natural and instinctual. You are you and I am me, and we are here, together. Maybe forgiveness like this is the most obvious indicator of a healthy selflessness.

This has been a strange post, I don’t know what I’m trying to say, if I’m trying to say anything. This concert is so good, I’m still awfully tired, but my spirit is noticeably lifted. Beauty has a tendency to do that. Maybe if we all had more beauty in our lives, things would look much different than they do now. If world leaders would spend a moment reading books and listening to great albums, maybe we’d not be in such a constant, overwhelming mess. If we all listened to The World Won’t Listen before we left the house, I bet we’d start to find ourselves predisposed to kindness, that love would be our default setting.

[“Disappointed.” Nice. And “I’ve Changed My Plea To Guilty.” He sounds as good as I have ever heard him. The Smoking Popes have a song lyric, “I don’t know if you saved my life, but you changed it, that’s for sure.” That’s exactly how I feel about this person on my tv. I don’t know who I’d be today, if I’d be today, but I sure wouldn’t be who I am. I am grateful to be here. “Everyday Is Like Sunday.”]

I guess what I really think, in the deepest parts of me, is that this life doesn’t have to just be anything, that it can be what we make it. We get to choose what we see & hear (what we search and select on YouTube), and we get to choose our output just as easily as our input. And maybe we could be the ones creating the beauty that begins to unwind the chaos that currently defines, replacing the noise with the truly inspired chords and melody that we’d all love to hear.

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: beauty