2022-08-18T19:13:10+00:00

The Differences

August 18, 2022/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

2 years ago, we all decided to draw battle lines over a pandemic and a shot (or 4). There were many conversations (often very contentious) over a vaccination, whether we would or would not, with just as many reasons why or why not. The one I found most compelling was the one centered around a growing mountain of conflicting information. Scientific wisdom shifted almost daily, the evidence we staked our arguments upon became obsolete seemingly as soon as we adopted them.

But if we so much as suggested this confusion and mistrust, we were quickly branded anti-vaxxers, or right wing conspiracy theorists. I am neither. I had questions, concerns. I believe we all had some experience with this, no matter what we believed. No matter what questions we asked, they were met with wild aggression.

Now, the CDC is admitting that public guidance was “confusing and overwhelming.” Dr Rochelle P. Walensky, director of the CDC, says, “we are responsible for some pretty dramatic, pretty public mistakes, from testing to data to communications.”

I’m watching The Vow right now, an HBO documentary on the cult NXIVM. I’m sure I’ll talk more in depth about this a little later, once I finish the 9 episodes. But in the one I was watching this morning, a woman was speaking under the condition of anonymity to avoid the snap judgments she had faced. People were unbearably rude to her, calling her all sorts of nasty adjectives before (and often without) knowing her name. “How could someone be so stupid to willingly participate in a cult like this?” those on the outside asked.

I’m positive there are parallels as well as distinctions to make between the CDC and NXIVM, and I’m also positive I don’t want to make them. My concern is how it’s so easy for us to decide another’s why, so easy to lock another in boxes in which they can’t ever escape. We fought like animals (mostly on social media) because we all made assumptions about those whose only crime was to arrive at a different conclusion – and in my case, I hadn’t even arrived. Sometimes, the crime was to not agree fast enough.

When did honest questioning or respectful discourse become such terrible transgressions? I know this didn’t start in 2020, with Covid-19, but I don’t exactly care when it started. I do care about how it ends.

I have a good friend who is a transgender woman. As a white man, I know nothing at all about the perspective of a transgender woman, so I ask a lot, A LOT, of questions. And she, who is endlessly graceful, answers them all. And that is why we call each other ‘good friends.’ We don’t agree on everything, have vastly different experiences, homes, families, and we certainly don’t see the world through the same lenses, but we don’t have to. We just have to care for each other.

A monochromatic world is totally uninteresting. I don’t know why that woman chose to do the things she did in NXIVM, but I do know I’ve done things I regret for reasons that made sense at the time. The CDC is admitting they mishandled a situation in a big, high profile moment, but I don’t think they’re evil, and I don’t think they meant harm. They did the best with what they had when they had it. I don’t know that we did the same. Fear caused us to resort to cheap generalizations and instant uninformed judgment. Fear caused us to forget the honor and dignity inherent in being human. And fear caused us to build walls.

This nonsense only ends when we erase our battle lines, knock the walls down and open the cell doors to our shared humanity and the beauty of me & you, and start loving each other, even, especially, the differences.

D.B Cooper Conventions & Monopoly Tournaments

August 11, 2022/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I saw The Batman and the 3rd Fantastic Beasts films in the last few weeks and really loved them both. As a matter of fact, as far as Fantastic Beasts, it would be impossible to express just how much. Maybe I’ll try sometime. Maybe not. The Batman was awfully good, but I say that knowing full well that I am the target market, so it’s possible my opinion wouldn’t be the most objective.

We will talk about 2 other films: Under the Boardwalk: A Monopoly Story, and D.B. Cooper, Where Are You?! Now, what could these 2 possibly have in common, right? Not surprisingly, they also share it with Bikram, Holy Hell, and the Rajneeshees of Wild, Wild Country. The more I think about it, they share it with The Batman and Fantastic Beasts, Thor, The Avengers, Stand By Me and Stranger Things, too.

D.B. Cooper was the alias of a guy who hi-jacked an airplane in the 70’s, took $200,000, jumped out somewhere in Oregon, and was never found. The thing that makes it a cool story instead of a terrible story is that no one was harmed, outside of a minor inconvenience for the passengers. Some think he is still alive, may or may not be living in Florida, or that he fell to his death. None of that matters too much to me, it’s an interesting piece of pop culture, a mysterious American outlaw very much of a time.

Monopoly is a 100+ year-old board game that we’ve all played and that the Angel HATES. I was pretty neutral, but I like it very much since this documentary.

There are D.B. Cooper conventions, where people from all over get together and geek out over conspiracy theories, police sketches, and an inch of decayed nylon found in a forest. There are also Monopoly championship tournaments, which are exactly what you think they are. Rooms full of tables where the best players battle over rent, mortgage values and property trades. These people are weirdos, in the very best sense of the word. I know they are, because I’m one of them. We all are. We may not participate in these particular events, but we all have our D.B. Cooper conventions. (If we don’t, we should by all means immediately get one!)

The last 15 minutes (or episode) of the cult docs we all adore the former members are interviewed, and there is always an unmistakable air of melancholy. They miss the time they were involved (before the true insanity of everything was exposed). Thor & Hulk need a team, Batman finds he can not, and should not, be the lone hero vigilante forever. It is the relationships between characters in Fantastic Beasts that remain, none of us really care about wands or spells or CGI creatures.

The biggest lie that most of us know is a lie but tell as truth, and that we all apparently agree to let slide, even though we know nobody actually believes is that we are islands. We don’t need, or want, other people. We are wholely independent. We prefer riding alone.

Except we’ll do pretty much anything to find a community. We’ll drink Kool Aid, let a yogi behave like a complete maniac, play in Monopoly tournaments, or go to conventions for a 50 year old historical footnote. None of this is surprising in the least. I happen to believe we are created for each other, wired for relationship.

In Christian circles, it can be quite tempting to sound super-spiritual and say some variation of “all I need is God.” It sounds awesome and we all ooh and ahh, but can you take a wild guess where that sort of doctrine isn’t? The Bible. In Genesis 1 & 2, before the Fall, everything is “good” except 1 thing: the man is alone. The man isn’t alone, he has God and they walk in the Garden in the cool of the evening, but God still says, “it is not good for the man to be alone,” so He makes a woman. Then in the New Testament, He makes the Church.

Maybe you don’t believe in God or Genesis or the Church, or maybe you do, but don’t think it happened exactly like it’s written. A thing doesn’t have to have happened for it to be True. This Genesis account is as true as anything has ever been, we are made to be together. And I know this, without a doubt, because D.B. Cooper conventions and Monopoly tournaments exist.

Want To

July 26, 2022/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Chuck Klosterman is just the greatest.

My 5 favorite authors are (in no particular order) Kurt Vonnegut, Nick Hornby, Chuck Pahlaniuk, Rob Bell, and Klosterman, all for very different reasons. But all of them have 1 important thing in common, and I think most great art has this same characteristic.

They all make me want to write. Or paint. Or Sing.

I happen to believe that we have all been gifted – that’s a big part of the first 2 chapters of Genesis. That an overwhelmingly creative God created people in His own image, making those people fantastically creative beings as well. That’s why I have such trouble making sense of those who would ever want to stifle another’s creative expression, whatever it is. Instead, it seems to me, that we should be doing all we can to encourage taking those gifts out for a spin to see what happens, what we’re actually capable of.

Chuck Klosterman writes the books I’d like to write, if I were as talented as he is. What makes his work so wonderful is that he’s Chuck Klosterman. Nobody else is. His personality and perspective is totally unique. What he isn’t – and will never be – is the Angel. Or me. Or you. We also have a personality and perspective and voice that is uniquely ours. Why would we ever want to pretend otherwise? Why would we want to take our squares and fit them into circles?

I often find that people move quickly through their own stories, thinking they’re ordinary and regular, when they are anything but. I always have a thousand questions because you are marvelous, exotic, individual and totally extraordinary. Each of us is a brilliant artist, we just might have shied away from that so far. Or maybe no one told us what’s possible. They only lied and told us what isn’t.

I can’t write Fight Club, or sing There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, or design the Louvre, or cook a fancy meal like a cartoon rat. Of course I can’t. What I can do is give last week’s Sunday morning talk, hug everybody close enough to hold, and write Chronicles, Nehemiah and Other Books Nobody Reads. I can be the kind of husband and dad that only I can be, one that loves so deeply and so passionately it drives everybody else crazy.

Here’s the best part: You can do the same thing, live your life out loud, dance, write, love, but none of it will look like mine. It’ll be cool and original and it’ll inspire all of us to create our own.

The New Thor Movie

July 20, 2022/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The new offering from the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the 4th Thor movie, called Love & Thunder and before I tell you how much I didn’t like it, let me tell you about the band Live and a story I may or may not remember accurately.

Live made an album in the ‘90’s, their 3rd, called Secret Samadhi and it wasn’t met with overwhelming popular or critical acclaim. I loved it, and passionately defended it against the many, many friends who derided it. Then, years later, the members of Live, in an interview for a different album, also kicked that record around, essentially apologizing for ever having created such an embarrassment. (I remember this like it was yesterday, but I have a very good friend who promises me it never happened. I’m still operating as it did, but even if it didn’t, it’s a representation of a greater reality. We’ve all heard artists slander their own work in the promotion of the new release, right?) I felt silly for loving it like I did, for investing in it like I did, like I was being mocked by the very people I was supporting.

Now. 1 more thing. I happen to like the genre of camp, if you know what I mean. When the entire piece is a ‘send up’ of the genre, when we all wink and laugh along. But everyone has to be in on the joke.

I told you before I think these superhero movies are the mythology for a new generation. Like a 21st century Iliad. They use these extraordinary people & circumstances to address ordinary universal issues, like family, friendship, identity, commitment, responsibility, corruption, faith, love, kindness, and on and on and on.

And when directors like Scorsese and Coppola, and actors like Ethan Hawke (who was in a Marvel series!!!) de-value them as movies “for 14 year-olds,” it’s disappointing but nothing more than garden variety artiste elitism, easily ignored and/or dismissed.

This new Thor movie is a different animal. This is a condescending inside joke where the butt is the audience, me, and $500 million dollars worth of other marks like me. They’re treating it as lowbrow trash, utterly beneath them, and remain ironically detached. The serious, real, emotional moments float on by with little impact, the gags (like giant screaming goats) don’t land, and the overacting is mostly offensive. Making fun of people like me, who see everything and invest in the characters and storylines, doesn’t sound like great business sense and will probably end with lower and lower scores and grosses. I can deal with incompetence, but what I have a much harder time with is inauthenticity and hypocrisy, making huge paydays, cashing checks while laughing at those who write them.

What I have learned as an adult and a person of faith that I couldn’t understand as a 17 year old is that this snobbish posturing does just the opposite of its intention. Trying to force someone to believe or like something through condescension or judgment is small behavior driven by insecurity & inadequacy. And almost always works only to repel rather than attract. I’ve changed now, and you can like what you like. You can feel what you feel, be moved by what moves you, without the external noise of my feeble embarrassing attempts to control.

Suspension of disbelief is required when it comes to Asgard and gamma mutated Hulks. Maybe that’s why I didn’t care – the filmmakers and actors inserted themselves into the story and that cracked the immersion needed to settle into new fantastic realities. I thought about Taika Waititi & Chris Hemsworth instead of Korg & Thor, I thought of the writing/directing process during the movie instead of watching it all play out onscreen. Maybe it’s not as bad as I thought, maybe others don’t want to suspend their disbelief, and maybe you loved it, but that’s sort of the point, isn’t it? We can and should prefer different Live albums, and that is probably the best part of us. Why would I want to squash that, or try to embarrass you for where you find joy or peace or beauty? I wouldn’t, and I wish they wouldn’t have, either.

Authentic Presence

July 7, 2022/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

In the new reality, we can see Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness opening weekend and then stream it about a month later. This is an ocean away from “how it was when I was young,” where we would see a movie in a theater and maybe a year later we could rent the VHS tape. We would always rent, because owning a copy would be $100+!!!!!

And there were those special weekends where my mom would take my sister and I to the video store to rent a VCR and as many movies as we could carry for hours and hours of varying levels of attention. There’s only so much one can take at a sitting.

Anyway, this time around I LOVED the Dr Strange movie. I liked it well enough the first time, but upon a second viewing, it was exponentially better. So, why is that? The movie didn’t change, I wonder if I did. And how much could I have reasonably changed in a month?

These Marvel movies now all have surprise cameos and shocking deaths and spoilers for the jaw-dropping reveals. We already know that the new Guardians of the Galaxy will break our hearts, we just don’t know exactly how. And that instills a certain amount of anxiety. And when we go to these movies, we’re watching, waiting for the rug to be pulled, or if Jim from the office & Some Good News is the new Reed Richards (he is), or if Tom Cruise will be in it (he isn’t), or if somebody dies (…).

The second (or 3rd or 100th) time, I know the answers to those questions. I’m not surprised anymore, there’s no breathless anticipation waiting for the next thing, so I am free to hear dialogue I missed, see unappreciated cinematic subtleties, and enjoy the performances of some very fine actors.

Now, why do I care about any of this?

I sometimes get the privilege of officiating weddings, and I always remind the bride and groom, parents, attendants, and everyone else I see to not miss any of this moment, to be fully present. In the Bible, Jacob wakes up from a dream with the revelation that “God was in this place and I was unaware.” I don’t want us to be unaware of anything. I don’t want us to wake up, saying, “oh man, I totally missed it,” like we often do.

I am also married, and it’s easy to take the Angel for granted. And I have 2 sons who were once 2 years old and now are not. 2 years old was a good, no, GREAT, age with a ton of significant moments. They don’t nap on my chest anymore (which was so awesome), and the last time they did, I didn’t know it was the last time, so I may have been thinking about what I’d do when they got up. Or what I had to do tomorrow. Or yesterday.

This morning I was driving with the windows down, that song, “Numb Little Bug,” which I like a lot, on the radio, and then it was over and that thing happened where we get somewhere and don’t remember any of the journey. You see, I was hurrying to grab something the Angel had forgotten and return it to her. Then I ran it over to her and got back in my car, without pausing to soak her in for an extra few minutes. I missed half an hour of a sacred moment. But they’re all sacred moments, right?

Anticipation is fun, and when you get the secret about Bruce Willis in the 6th Sense – it’s just amazing. But there has to be a way to marry excitement with attention. And there has to be surprise without anxiety. Where the 1st and 3rd time through Strange coexist. Where we are connected, eyes wide, listening instead of hearing, seeing instead of looking, untethered to the regret/nostalgia of the past and the worry/fear of the future, only here, only now. Can it really be as simple as authentic presence; an open-handed approach to living this beautiful life? I’m starting to think it probably is.

The Beach

July 1, 2022/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Earlier this week, we went to the beach on vacation. This is my family (I’m the one in pink).

I have been very very inconsistent in this space lately, and that happens sometimes. But I am here now, and plan to connect every week again (like my to-do list tells me to.) So I’ll see you soon, thanks for reading. I’m so grateful for so many things, and one of them is you.

Shorts

June 14, 2022/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I am writing this blog post on a personal website, typing on an iPad while streaming music on an Amazon Music app through a Bluetooth speaker across the room, and I am also hopelessly old fashioned. People are never just 1 thing. I know a guy who is a psychopathic maniac aggressively bent on destroying anyone and anything unlucky enough to be in proximity. He is also made in the image of God; loved, forgiven, covered by grace. This is sometimes very hard to understand, even harder to accept.

Last night, in a conversation with a woman who will be the bride in a wedding I’ll officiate, I was told that I didn’t have to wear a suit & tie. I could even wear shorts if I wanted.

I won’t be wearing shorts.

There are places that are different from other places. The Bible calls some things sacred, others common. Some time is sacred, other time ordinary. Not all things are equal. A wedding is different from a baseball game. A date with a woman is different than pizza with a friend. We hold these sorts of moments differently. Or at least I think we should.

Something gets lost when everything is common. As the villain Syndrome says in the terrific Pixar film, the Incredibles, “When everyone is super, no one will be.” Same principle, but we’re not elevating all moments. In Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “Harrison Bergeron,” the exceptional people are hindered in some way specific to their giftedness, so that all people are the same. The end result is always the same, no one is super. No where is super.

A wedding isn’t a barbecue. One is a life-changing ceremony of love, devotion and commitment. The other is awesome, but a hamburger (no matter how thick and juicy, no matter how many condiments or kinds of cheese) isn’t a marriage. And evening them out never ever means bringing up the value of a barbecue.

Sexual intimacy is best experienced as the physical act of love and connectedness shared between 2 people. As that number increases, it doesn’t become more significant. It can’t. Baseball cards that are rare are more valuable for a reason.

See? Hopelessly old fashioned.

I pastor a church and I’m not writing this on that page because we are a very casual community – I teach on Sunday mornings this time of year in shorts and sandals – and shhh, I don’t really like it. I don’t say that out loud because I never want dress to become an obstacle or feel like an entrance requirement. I don’t want anything to keep anyone away, so we remove any barrier (there are plenty of those already). I absolutely know that suits and fancy dresses don’t automatically make our hearts soft and open, or add depth of meaning, but maybe it helps. Maybe mindful preparation helps.

The truth is, I don’t want anything to keep anyone away from anything. People are more important (100% of the time) than the t-shirts and flip-flops we wear. So, I don’t really have to like it, do I? I want super people and sacred spaces, I happen to loooove celebrating our differences, but much much more than that, I want presence and engagement.

You can wear what you like, free of any silly self-righteous judgment from me, but I’m still not wearing shorts to that wedding.

And I Am A Material Girl

May 16, 2022/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Just a few short months ago, I would have written a full series of posts on how much I disliked Madonna, how I thought she was sickeningly overrated. In fact, maybe I did. I don’t remember. But I do remember laying out terribly detailed arguments against her to anyone who would listen. Then, in a surprising twist, my sister had the 2 disc greatest hits set Celebration buried in a mountain of cds she had given me as trash for a project which I had intended to take on.

I would have immediately moved it to my garbage can, but track 1 on disc 2 is Dress You Up, and if you are alive, you love Dress You Up. I stopped fighting the losing battle against that song (pretending I didn’t love it, pretending I didn’t sing along at the top of my lungs) a long time ago. So I put the discs in my car only planning to listen to Dress You Up on repeat 15 or 20 times before they found their way to the landfill.

But a strange thing happened when I was late to repeat track 1 – track 2 began. Track 2 is Material Girl. We all know Material Girl is an embarrassing relic of the ‘80’s, bubble gum, disposable, pure sugar superficiality. Isn’t it????

“‘Cause the boy with the cold hard cash is always Mister Right,” is a great line. Then, “Experience has made me rich and now they’re after me” is fine (better than fine, actually) but the way she sings “’Cause everybody’s living in a material world and I am a material girl,” is transcendent. My series of nasty posts would’ve surely included a huge section on Material Girl. And they would’ve been absolutely wrong. Vogue, Hung Up, Music, Borderline, Everybody, Burning Up, Cherish, I could go on and on, (don’t even get me started on Holiday) and the cds stay in for weeks until I can summon the superhuman strength to push eject.

Sigh, Madonna is awesome, but there is a bigger point here. Sometimes we are so familiar with something that thing loses it’s power. We take it totally for granted, we treat it as an everyday, common occurrence. We begin to see miracles as routine. The tremendous beauty of a sunrise or -set fails to register a second look. A hug, a wink, The Shawshank Redemption, my mom, Morrissey, throwing & catching baseballs, Oreos, so much just passes by unnoticed.

I remember the first time I kissed the Angel. I was wildly nervous and overwhelmed that I would ever have the opportunity to kiss such a lovely woman, and then we did and then we got married and we did a million more times and I am mostly no longer nervous and not overwhelmed enough at this even more lovely woman. When I think about her and her soft lips now, married nearly 22 years, she is way better than Material Girl, or even Holiday, I just forgot for many of those years.

I wonder how many things are like that in my life. The first time I held my boy Samuel, I wept at the enormity of this new life, how much I loved him, how much I prayed/dreamed for him, and what all of it meant. Tonight he and I had an argument over grades. Grades!??!?? He is the most wonderful young man, can I really be missing these day over a test score?

I know there’s room for grades AND appreciation, arguments AND gratitude, but too often it’s just grades and arguments. The Bible talks about ears to hear and eyes to see, and I think Material Girl is probably what those verses mean. We sometimes need new ears and eyes and lips to experience the familiar as brand new, so we can see our lives as the mind-blowing gifts they truly are.

Strange, Moon Knight, and Wanda Maximoff

May 9, 2022/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Yesterday I saw Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, last week Moon Knight wrapped up, and there is something quite interesting about them. They aren’t for everyone. I can’t remember previous Marvel films about which I could’ve said that.

Doctor Strange was a mind-bending horror trip through multiversal universes. I don’t even know if that last sentence makes any sense to you, but spoiler rules dictate that I can’t say anything else. I will say one of my sons and I liked it very much and my other son and wife, the Angel, didn’t at all. (That she didn’t is no surprise, we had come to terms with that long ago – however, that I took her on Mother’s Day is a term that we’ll need a bit more time with.) After the movie, I received a text asking me how it was, and I couldn’t exactly answer. I said it’s not for everyone, and that’s 100% true.

Moon Knight was a series on Disney+ about a relatively unknown… superhero? Avatar? A man who is awfully handsome and awfully mentally ill whose multiple personalities are being manipulated by an Egyptian god that may or may not be the skeleton of Kevin from Up. I liked the promise of the 1st episode, liked the series less and less through episode 4, LOVED episode 5, and episode 6 was fine. The first 5 were less standard superhero stuff and more painfully honest character study, until they lost their nerve and returned to a standard final act which resolved until the last 30 seconds, when it didn’t.

I feel a certain way about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, that it is our mythology. Why those stories are treated with reverence and studied in English classes, and these films are treated as lowbrow trash is so confusing to me, maybe it actually is the perfect illustration. Maybe I am the lowest common denominator. Who knows? I don’t really care, though. I’ve long since left behind the term “guilty pleasure.” I am drawn to artwork that helps me understand the human condition and emotionally connect. I can’t think of a better wide AND deep, completely relatable depiction of grief than Wandavision. Or a more relevant dive into our complex mistrust of authority (sometimes we are paranoid and they really are after us) than the Winter Soldier. And though the movie was pretty disappointing, Iron Man 2 saw and highlighted our collective struggle with our own mortality in the middle of a backbreaking responsibility and a clear call to something greater.

I am not a witch destined to rule or destroy the cosmos, (at least as far as I know), but I have lost people, knew that my heart was irreparably broken, and wailed under the weight of “what do I do now, without you????” You too, right?

Anyway. What I think about these latest 2 installments of the MCU is, they were ok, not for everyone and it’s THAT evaluation that is so hopeful to me. The things that really affect us, that really mean something, probably aren’t the things that are sanded down to avoid all edges. McDonald’s “hamburgers” are engineered to be ok to everyone – that’s how you sell billions, but they’re nobody’s favorite. Your favorite probably has bacon and cranberries and a special kind of hot sauce or pickle, right? And maybe the person with you sits there wondering how you, how anyone, could possibly like that!?! Ask 3 people about Wandavision, 1 of them will have HATED every moment of it. And 1, like me, will think it’s PERFECT and go on and on, write blog posts about how deep and wonderful and real it was.

It’s funny to talk about a studio that makes movies that bring in billions of dollars like this, but I might really dislike this next Thor movie and that prospect thrills me.

On A Daily Basis

April 8, 2022/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Today is the most beautiful. The sun is brilliant in the cloudless sky, and that’s a pretty stark contrast to the past few days or weeks, when it had rained often and the sky was always the color of cement. The Angel tells me not to use the words always, never, and “all the time,” and I suppose she’s right. Maybe in the past 2 weeks, the sky wasn’t the color of cement for 15 minutes in the late morning. I just don’t remember it.

She tells me that because I am naturally inclined towards exaggeration. I’ll say I haven’t slept in weeks, but when pressed, I have slept but not well, and then when pressed on that, I realize that I had a night last Tuesday that was alright, so who knows what’s true anymore?

None of this always/never business matters at all because the point is that it’s a lovely day and lovely days feel like possibility, and not much has felt that way lately. This central Pennsylvania weather is an apt metaphor for the state of the world about now; raining, gray and depressing. We’re also in Lent and if you go for that sort of thing, it’s an invitation to self-reflection and, in a heart state that corresponds to late winter, melancholy. This week ahead in the church asks us to engage with the passion (which in this context means suffering), and in a culture that tries so hard to avoid uncomfortability, it’s no wonder we feel so torn apart. We simply can’t turn a blind eye to the near constant negative stimulation. So now what?

I’m happy I didn’t write this yesterday, because the tone would have been quite different. Yesterday it was raining and today is awesome. That’s enough, sometimes. Yesterday the best we could do was to just barely hold things together. Today we are 1 step away from changing the world forever, today is when my love pyramid scheme is not far away, when it’s not only possible but totally reasonable.

Tracee Ellis Ross is an actress on the tv show black-ish. She wrote a piece about the final season in Entertainment Weekly, and in it, she says, “black-ish was an opportunity for me to be free and to shine and to embody all of my values; to be able to strive for a level of excellence in the work that I do, and how I interact with the people that I work with, and to be of service and fight for equity and joy on a daily basis.”

I love it and her, I’ve read it a hundred times.

And as we’re talking, if you replace “black-ish” with anything, with whatever we do, whatever we care about, how we spend our time, and who we spend it with, her writing describes a design for our lives that is much bigger than a tv show. The “work we do” is loving each other, is holding each other’s hand and walking through the pain/suffering and flying through the celebrations, is picking us up and reminding us that we can keep going. “Fight for equity & joy on a daily basis.” Right??!!?? We continue to fight, in Lent and on Easter, yesterday in the pouring rain and today in the blinding sunshine, in late-February and in September. All isn’t lost when we’re reading horrible news while our hearts break, it just means we work the way we were designed (if your heart isn’t broken sometimes, that’s what is truly concerning) and the world doesn’t. And on those days, when we keep showing up, fighting for joy, we display an overwhelming courage that inspires us all when we wonder if we can go one more day. We can. And we will. We will be free and shine, embody our values, and keep fighting.

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: beauty