2026-06-15T14:53:28+00:00

I Hated Barney

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

Barney is/was a purpose dinosaur who became a phenomenon and then a pariah. Kids lost their minds to the cult of Barney, loving him more and more as they watched VHS tapes and shows on PBS on repeat. Everybody else lost their minds for a different reason. Everybody knew and would sing that dumb song, loudly, “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family, with a great big hug and a kiss from me to you, won’t you say you love me too?” I hated him, too.

But you know, I can’t figure out why. I never saw the show, not once. That would be like me hating The Wizard of Oz or Orange Is The New Black. Why would I loathe something that didn’t affect me at all? I don’t hate Phish or Niall Horan’s new album, how could I?

But with Barney, all he was about was loving people, all he was doing was telling kids they’re awesome. That seems like a strange thing to hate. Maybe it was pandering and mind-numbingly boring (and I truly mean maybe…like I said, I haven’t ever seen an episode), it may have been very bad, but it was good.

I watched a great documentary on this interesting dichotomy. Barney was terrific until he wasn’t. We loved him until we didn’t, and then we HATED him. It was one of the first illustrations of the destructive power of the internet. There were incredibly mean blogs where people could connect and hate together, pages where gatherings of hate could be planned & advertised. The internet is a boundary-less space of infinite possibility, and we immediately use it for porn and hating each other (or giant purpose dinosaurs). Maybe nothing connects us like having a common enemy, but that’s so depressing, I simply have to believe otherwise.

Why did I hate him? Why did anyone hate him? Because there was no gray area in Barney. The ‘90’s were the time where antiheroes began to truly define us, where the bad guys were fascinating and compelling. Superman is good, Batman is complex – there are lots of great, super-successful Batman movies and franchises, very few for Superman. Han Solo is our favorite Star Wars character, he’s in the rebellion but is kind of a scoundrel. Luke Skywalker was just the hero, uncomplicated.

My favorite characters have always been Luke Skywalker and Superman. Of course, I also believe in the goodness of people. The world is gray and confusing enough. So why would I hate Barney? I think it’s easy (and embarrassing): because everyone else did. We were the alternative all together. We were supposed to be cynical (which we called realistic), Barney was too bland. Good didn’t sell newspapers then, and it doesn’t garner clicks now.

As I watched the documentary, I thought of how we are, our design. It all makes sense, we’re made for this kind of community. And hate is a fuel that burns hot and quick. Of course, if we’re not careful, we run towards anger and rage, division, us/them dichotomies. We like enemies. And then we lose interest and move on.

What if we decided to connect and share something more sustaining, something beautiful and bright? What if we decided that Barney was right, that we were lovable, that we did, in fact, love each other, and that we were awesome, that we could all be awesome together? What if the internet blogs were less about tearing everything apart and, instead, about the ka-jillions of ways we can rebuild ourselves and our world? What if we all decided to give a great big hug and a kiss from me to you? I don’t hate Barney anymore.

Yeah, I know, I’m hopeless…

Ratings and Scores

June 8, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The Last Word is a movie from 2017, starring Shirley MacLaine and Amanda Seyfried, that almost nobody saw or liked very much. It grossed $2.9 million (according to Wikipedia) and has a 40% approval (according to Rotten Tomatoes). It gets an average score of 4.9 out of 10. It is not widely considered a masterpiece of modern cinema.

But what does that mean, really? I wonder if those 40% absolutely LOVE it, if it’s their favorite movie? Or if it changed the lives of those who paid to see it in a theater? What if you watched it on Netflix, like I did, and it changed yours? Then, does it really matter how much money it makes or what kind of score it gets?

Episode 7 of the Star Wars saga (The Last Jedi) is often inexplicably considered the worst. Many, many Star Wars fans loudly hate it. And they’re all wrong. It’s fantastic and it would be impossible for me to care less what its Rotten Tomatoes score is (incidentally, critics give it a 91% while the audience rates it at 41%). These reviews can be interesting, but hopefully have no bearing on your own enjoyment. If it is meaningful to you, but not critics in Cleveland or college kids in Portland, it is still meaningful to you. You decide, not a legion of internet trolls. Or not even your friends.

Anyway. The movie is about an aging super-successful woman who hires a local obituary screenwriter to write her pre-death obituary. As it turns out, it’s not a great life to be remembered, so they start a journey to re-make her life into one better memorialized. As I write it, it sounds underwhelming, like one you’ve seen a thousand times. You know exactly what’s going to happen, there really isn’t anything new here. There were lots of Lifetime-esque tropes and eye-rolling dialogue.

BUT the journalist is writing a collection of essays that she lets no one read, afraid of any rejection. There’s a love interest (of course) that she keeps at arm’s length. She lives a safe unfulfilling life. The subject of the obit is a battle axe, terrible to everyone, ostracizing her family and everyone unlucky enough to have ever come across her path. Neither connects, truly, with anyone until they do with each other. One learns the joy of relationship while the other begins to find her own identity and is freed by that newfound authenticity.

Maybe we can relate, right? How many of us struggle to be ourselves, constantly choosing between vulnerable honesty and our carefully curated images? How about trust, and the fear of rejection & abandonment?

This movie was nothing special unless it was, to you. It would probably fit the description of a “guilty pleasure,” if you believe in that sort of nonsense. We’re all affected by different things at different times, sometimes it’s through a classic award-winning beloved film or a throwaway song on side 2 of a bad album. A commercial storyline or jingle can work as a sledgehammer, opening our hearts to truth. I think the best compliment any artist could ever receive is connection, that their work landed and moved even one person in the audience.

The “dumb” movie that bombed at the box office and in reviews, that I really loved, moved me and no critical score can diminish its beauty to me.

Of course, I think we’re all artists, too, and connection is the purpose of our greatest work, our lives. I also happen to think that anything we do that doesn’t move us closer to each other is opportunity squandered. We’re all looking for those sweet moments that help us feel less alone, even loved, and when we find them, they move us closer to our original divine design. That’s why they feel so right & natural, and anything else is so uncomfortable. It takes an overwhelming amount of courage to engage with our lives, and it’s possible that a movie with terrible reviews can give it to us.

Ego Was The Villain

June 1, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Guardians Of The Galaxy, vol 2, is a fine movie. It’s not that great, it’s not even the best of the Guardians trilogy (Vol 1 is). But it does have an interesting idea that I think about often. To summarize, we discover Peter Quill (the leader of the Guardians) is half human & half god, when he meets his father, Ego. Ego’s big plan is to plant pieces of himself on every planet in every galaxy, so that eventually, every planet will be an extension of him. He’ll be everything, everywhere. He wants to make Quill a part of that plan, Quill doesn’t want to be a part of that plan, so they have to fight.

When I watch it, Ego is the villain. I’ve taken it for granted that everyone sees it that way, that Ego is always the villain.

In my area, there’s a mega-church. A mega-church is just like it sounds: a gigantic church. I’m not certain what the qualifications are for organizations like this, but it’s so massive, it might be a SuperDuperMegaChurch or just a SuperMegaChurch. Maybe those who know use words like Colossal or Monstrous, or maybe have dropped the ‘church’ part altogether and just go by mega-behemoth or something. The one in my area used to be called an acronym of letters, the last 2 being Bible Church, but once they began to grow and grow, they kept the letters and changed what they meant, dropping Bible Church. I guess they outgrew the first group of words.

Like most mega-churches, they have a main campus and lots and lots of branch campuses (campi?) in surrounding towns. If you go to one of them, you can watch the preacher give the sermon live-streamed (or recorded) on movie screens. Like the Walmart effect on smaller stores, often times local churches suffer (and sometimes die), as their membership moves into the newer, fancier, bigger, trendier arms of the giant.

I wonder if the members of a mega-church think Ego is the villain? Maybe they think it’s nice to have a shared value system. McDonald’s exists on the same principle: Everyone having the same hamburger everywhere is comfortable and awesome. Maybe they like Ego, and think he’s very charismatic (he is played by Kurt Russell, who might be one of the most handsome men ever on earth) and buy into his vision for a universe united under him.

This isn’t too much of a stretch. We also try to whitewash cultures, too, trying to mash each textured, interesting area, people, history & practice into one bland piece of white bread that is for everyone and no one because it’s missing anything ethnic. If we eliminate all of the differences, then… then what?? Every store is a Target and restaurant is a Texas Roadhouse or Applebee’s, with the same fashion and corporate art on the same colored walls. The food is quite good at Texas Roadhouse, and Target has great stuff. Corporate art is pretty nice. Maybe we want to eliminate differences, and sand down every sharp edge. Amazon.

Maybe to the Roadhouse or mega-church CEO, GOTG 2 is a tragedy. Maybe he/she cries when Ego is defeated.

This might sound like I don’t think Amazon or McDonald’s has a place in our world, they certainly do, I just think it’s not a better place when they have ALL the places. I happen to like the pastor of the church on the corner near my house, he has a cool quirky delivery and is awfully likable. And, full disclosure, I might have a bias, I pastor a local church, and I love my job and our small community. Even if I don’t like the pastor on the corner, I do like the world that has space for him/her. I value places where we know and are known, where we can’t hide, where we can engage and connect. (YES, I KNOW that this can happen at mammoths, it’s just not the rule.) I prefer the record shop clerk who recommends a new album you’ve never heard “but will just love,” to the cashier who doesn’t remember your face or name, much less your favorite album. I love differences & new perspectives. I like opinions (even, maybe especially, if I don’t agree) – I want more than 2 political parties. I want to hear about your life & experiences, how you see the world around you. I don’t want to get on an airplane for 3 hours, get off, and not know I’m anywhere new. I love you and your story.

Ego was the villain to me.

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.

Another Cult Documentary

May 5, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I watched a cult documentary on Hulu last weekend: The Rise & Fall of the Jesus Army. I wouldn’t say I liked it, but maybe it was educational. But even in that, I don’t know if I learned anything truly new. These accounts use the same template. Part I is the beginning, a community forms and people find acceptance, belonging, and meaning. It’s uplifting, the music is buoyant and light. Of course, it doesn’t end after part I so the beauty is tempered by the promise of pain to come. Part II brings that pain, the leader starts to demand more from the members (some combination of money & sex, always money & sex), he (with very few exceptions, always a he) begins taking advantage of his position. People begin to notice, very quietly at first, then finally those people start talking to each other and the water begins to boil. Part III is the reckoning, where the authorities get involved – arrests and death usually follow – and the community dissolves. The end.

The Jesus Army piled up so many offenses (so many), most of which were hidden and eventually unprosecuted.

These docs leave us wondering how the teachings of Jesus lead to manipulation (sexual and otherwise) and violence. It just doesn’t make any sense at all. How do we take the actual Bible (not just the one we’ve been sold on tv), a book about love and life, and make it about hate and death?

Yes, I’ve heard that absolute power corrupts absolutely, but is it that simple? Do these people plant these beautiful spaces, and then turn monstrous when they are held up as superheroes? Do they mean well at the beginning, then lose their way? Do they just see an opportunity to satisfy their desires and leave Jesus behind? OR are they using the Gospel and Christianity as vehicles they can drive anywhere, even to hell?

I like to think there are no such things as monsters, just degrees of confusion and brokenness (which, of course, lead to monstrous behavior.) I think these people are very similar to everyone else, just wildly misguided at some particular significant point in their lives. Maybe that’s not true.

Morrissey asks in his great song “Sister, I’m A Poet,” “Is evil something you are? Or something you do?” And I believe the answer is that it’s something we do, not what we are. But is that just the optimistic naivety of a sucker? Are there people who are evil, through and through, who have corrupted their created nature?

Maybe more importantly, when are we all going to learn anything from this template? I never blame the followers, I know why and how they get tangled up in these cults. But the repetition of the leadership is maddening. That saying, those who don’t know the past are doomed to repeat it, is nonsense. We know it very well, and yet we keep running it on a loop, over and over again.

Now that I’m thinking, maybe all of this finding who we are from what we do is the thing that isn’t working. Maybe the real answer is to discover who we really are, and let that inform everything we do, instead.

…And maybe I’ll just stay a hopeful sucker forever. I hope so.

(Heart)

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

I wonder why this site wants to know my favorite emoji? I guess I don’t care to think about the why’s of writing prompts, it happens to be a red heart and I use it very, very often. (Maybe it’s as simple as, “Hey, that’s mine too!” Or maybe they’re gathering more and more information about each of us so that we are more easily disposed of when the Machines revolt. They may use my (heart) against me. There’s probably some truth in that, my heart is probably my biggest vulnerability, and can be used against me by human beings, too.)

Have you seen Bugonia? It’s an awfully strange film released last year. Maybe you liked it or not, but there can be no argument that Emma Stone is the most interesting actor working today. She’s fascinating, you can barely take your eyes off of her. Her Square Space commercial is even awesome, each word and movement she makes is magnetic.

Bugonia is one of the reasons why movies (and art, in general) can change our lives. It takes our regular, normal avenues of thought, takes “how things are,” and then twists them all inside out and upside down. We have no idea what could be possible. 2 guys kidnap Emma Stone because they believe she is an alien bent on destroying the human race. That’s probably enough to tell you, but nowhere near enough to have any expectations. We’re just along for this ride. My uncle had a saying, “I’m just a hubcap,” that meant he had no input to where we were going or how, but he was sure coming. We’re hubcaps for Bugonia. If you think you might know what happens, at any point, you’re likely mistaken.

Honestly, I don’t even know if I’d say I liked it. It doesn’t feel important, if I liked it. I know I loved Emma Stone, but that goes without saying, it’s so obvious. Everyone loves Emma Stone.

Now, back to if I liked it… I hate “it is what it is.” I hate that sort of despair that slumps it’s shoulders and says, this is how the world is, this is how I am, how they are. The sort of despair that says this is how it is and it’s always going to be. I think that is what keeps most of us stuck in jobs, relationships, and circumstances that are draining our lives rather than giving anything valuable. That despair is what stole our imaginations. It’s also why the divorce rate is so high. It’s why, in November, we vote for the least embarrassing and soul-crushing option instead of taking a sledgehammer to the whole broken system and rebuilding it from the rubble into something more closely resembling the original dream. “But this is just how it is,” right? “What can we do?” Right?

The more I think about it, you know I really love Bugonia. I love songs that have jarring tempo changes, that use words in new ways, tv shows with depth and complexity, and films that defy expectations. When things happen that shock, that open our eyes and move us to the edge of our seats. I love the Bible for lots of reasons, for the hope and promise, and because of the world-transforming impossible twist: everybody who died stayed dead…until 1 didn’t. Now what? Maybe anything and everything IS possible. Maybe we can live, too. Maybe yesterday doesn’t have to be today and tomorrow and next year.

And maybe enough super weird movies can help pull us into a whole new reality where it isn’t just what it is.

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.

2 Movies

March 30, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/1 Comment

Last night, the Angel and I decided we’d watch a movie. She likes romantic comedies, love stories, and I like her, so that’s what we watch. (She also doesn’t want to watch too often, so I always get to choose what’s on tv.) But what to watch that’s not vapid and awful??? It’s a process, as you probably know, and we scroll and scroll.

We landed on It’s Complicated, with Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin as exes…I guess that’s about all I know for sure. In the first 15 minutes, Baldwin cheats on his new wife with Streep (whom he first cheated on to destroy the marriage.) I am not the mayor of Prude City. However, as I get older, there are plot devices that are too heartbreaking to be effective as plot devices for me. Sexual assault in any form is a deal breaker. I can’t even watch 300 again (and that’s a very quality super-stylish and super-violent epic that I once liked) because there’s a scene that I simply can’t stomach. No sexual violence, non-negotiable. Adultery, it seems, is now another one that is proving hard to take, certainly in a comedy, as if it’s just another pratfall or punch line. Maybe I’ve seen too much wreckage and cried too many tears.

I don’t know if they end up together, if he leaves his current trophy wife and goes back, or what, because we turned it off to get a snack and never went back. Instead, we watched something called Look Both Ways. This was about a woman in a Sliding Doors-esque situation, where her life hung on one moment in which she took a pregnancy test: In one future, it is negative. In another, positive.

I found Sweet Home Alabama an interesting surprise, for only one reason. The man Reese Witherspoon was engaged to that she ultimately left, was McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey), a good man, totally respectful and kind to her at every turn. The love interest was a huge jerk, and she made the wrong choice, 100%.

This Look Both Ways was surprising in the same kind of way. The 2 romantic leads were the new Superman, David Corenswet, and the new MCU Falcon, Danny Ramirez. The main character has a best friend, parents, and a boss. The dad was Luke Wilson. I mention all of the men because they were so exceptional, as characters. None of them are no-integrity cads. None of them behave in the abysmal way in which boys are too often depicted.

It’s become pretty common to watch and listen to really negative depictions of human beings, and the lives we make, and sometimes fall into, and call it real life. Breaking Bad is supposed to be real life. Antiheroes are the rage. We think villains are more layered and interesting, but as it turns out, they’re not.

Look Both Ways carries conflict, hurt, confusion, and there are bad decisions, but the people remain…well, I guess there’s no other word to use than good. The people remain good. They don’t always do the good or right thing, and some of the things they do drive me crazy, some are self-destructive, some are immature, but we understand why they did them. They’re not mean spirited or immoral or violent or even particularly selfish.

They’re just real. They are all of the people I know. They’re trying to move forward, to make themselves happy, proud, satisfied, trying to find their purpose and someone to love. They’re trying to take the next best step, and sometimes they fail at that, but they keep trying. They’re actually the real ones, the slice of life we find far more often. They’re the ones we trust, that sometimes hurt us, but never because they decide to hurt us, but just because we sometimes do. They’re the ones trying to help, trying to take care of their neighbors, opening themselves and loving themselves and others despite the possibility (inevitability) of pain.

Sometimes we find treasure in the strangest places. Superhero movies can be more honest than documentaries. And sometimes, a silly rom-coms is the most accurate portrayer of truth going.

I don’t know what happened with Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep (2 of the finest actors ever on screen), and their excellent director and great cast and pedigree of a fantastic film, and I don’t care at all. It’s the other one, with its positivity and hope for us, that matters. I really, really loved it.

Shoelaces

March 24, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I often wonder why I am the way I am. As I have asked many times before (and wondered countless times more), do I like the things I like because I am the way I am? Or have those things influenced me, gently nudging me (or violently shoving me) into the way I am now, which will not be the way I am tomorrow or next month or in 30 years?

I love a book called The Mezzanine, by Nicholson Baker, published in the mid-1980’s and which finally made its way to me around 1996ish. It’s a short, 130 page story of a man who tears a shoelace and goes to buy a replacement over his lunch hour. That’s all. Seriously, that’s what happens, and that’s all that happens.

This is not a book that everyone will like, obviously. But I really do. My job is to be the pastor of a church and I very often teach about paying attention to our lives. Look closer, feel the hands in your own, listen, kiss a little longer, notice, lean into this gift we’ve been given. The Mezzanine has entire chapters on escalators, milk cartons and straws. It’s about shoelaces but it’s really about presence.

I think we miss too much. We miss the trees beginning to respond to spring, the pre-budding of the flowers, the warmth of the seats and steering wheels, the way the verse slides into the chorus. And we take everything for granted – especially the people. The things we loved when we met are the things that we’d most like to change, or in the best case, the things we most easily ignore. Why is that? Is it simple familiarity? Or is it distraction?

At the end, he discusses the paperback he holds (Meditations, a collection of the words of Marcus Aurelius), he turns his eye to philosophy, and the great philosophers. I don’t know if he intended this novel to be his philosophical manifesto, or if he even saw a small, “insignificant” book about shoelaces to be philosophical at all. Probably. His is an attitude of being – or more specifically, being here, now. What could be more important, or necessary, than that?

Do I care so much about it today because I read that book then? Or did I read that book then because I have always cared so much about it, even before I could articulate what “it” was?

The answer is, who cares, right? It’s most likely both. Either way, the point of all of anything is to show up to our lives, to not wake up wondering what happened yesterday and wished we would have paid attention, right? The influences in our lives (or at least the positive ones) all push & pull us, sometimes kicking and screaming, into the present, and the reality of who we are, and who we’re going to be.

It’s not really shoelaces at all.

Is Everything Related?

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

Today the new Morrissey album, Make-Up Is A Lie, was released (or “dropped” as the kids may still say). It’s really, really awful. If you have been with me for more than one second, you know how much that pains me to say. But this isn’t a review.

I’m instead wondering about the head- (and heart-) space of an artist.

When a good-to-great artist (in this case, a transcendent artist) completes and readies (what we consider) a subpar album for release, does he/she feel: 1. This is awesome, maybe the best material I’ve ever done. Now, of course, he/she might be wrong, or we are. 2. This may not be my best work, but it’s totally solid. At this point in my life/career, with much success, this is another excellent work. 3. This isn’t great, but the media/label/public pressure is heavy and something new needs to come out NOW. I hope it’s better than I fear. Or, I suppose there is a 4th: This is a stinker, but there are so many people out there who will buy it no matter what. Who cares about them? Money is money.

The specific is this album, but the real question is, how do we see each other? What is in the soul of a human being? Are we ultimately lacking integrity and looking to use each other as means to our own selfish end? Or do we genuinely mean well, even if things don’t turn out the way we hope? Can we be trusted? Who are we?

And, since I see most things through a spiritual prism, when a religious person or group uses Scripture to beat up another person, shame and ostracize them, when they use verses as excuse for violence and hate, is this because they are simply looking for an excuse for violence and hate? Or, at the point of inception, do they truly believe that they are doing God’s/god’s will? Is it from their authentic faithfulness that their actions flow? Or is it spiritual abuse and garden variety manipulation, the convenient means that justify their own ends?

I know, it’s just an album, and maybe something so trivial shouldn’t have any connection to our deepest held values. Or maybe what we believe about one thing is what we believe about everything. Or maybe that’s how it shouldbe. I’m not sure that this album matters at all, but I am absolutely certain our perspective of every human being matters, and maybe they’re related.

I think he thinks it’s great. Maybe it’s not The Queen Is Dead, but he’s not that guy anymore. He’s this one, and he believes Make Up Is A Lie is an A+. He’s not a bad guy, not a schemer, not a thief, not a guy with bad character, he just happens to be wrong. I’m not out on the old stuff, or the next album (if we’re lucky enough to get another one). I still trust him, and still love him the same, and will still wake up early to listen to his new songs.

Now that I think about it, they probably are related.

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: culture