2023-10-05T15:41:33+00:00

The Machines, pt 2

October 5, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site prompt today is asking what my life would look like without a computer, and I couldn’t care any less about that. That bell has been rung, that box has been opened and burned and there is no stuffing technology into a new one. In addition, everything I’ve done today has included a computer.

The alarm on the Angel’s phone woke us up. Then I went to the gym, where I checked in via the Planet Fitness app, catalogued my workout on a Notes app, while I listened to The Baller Lifestyle podcast on Google Podcasts. Afterwards, I watched tv while I ate my breakfast, then completed a Title IX training online (required for my job at the school.) Now, I am listening to a “You Might Like” AI-generated playlist on Amazon Music while writing Jetpack blog posts on my iPad.

Feeding the animals in this house, brushing my teeth, and eating breakfast are the only things I’ve done that didn’t employ a computer. We won’t even get into the systems included to manufacture, market, and sell the pet food, person food, and tooth paste into my hands and mouth. I wonder if there is anything unrelated to our machines.

I also wonder how I feel about that.

There was a time where I would have identified as Luddite, opposing any and all forms of so-called “progress.” Maybe I would have been one of the revolutionaries destroying machines, attempting to destroy industry in the early 1800’s. (I suppose it’s still there a little – I did say “so-called” and put quotation marks around the word progress.)

I guess The Machines will kill us all – or keep us alive to be used as batteries for their cold future, but until then, I’m not sure I mind their existence too much. For just 1, we know each other only because of the new lines that connect us. For another, this AI knows me and my musical tastes better than I do. The Baller Lifestyle podcast has 2 hosts, 1 in New Jersey & 1 in California, and has given me more pleasure than I can possibly express.

They have created The New Religion, as they’ve made the old ones easier to adhere to. But which one are we following? At which altar are we worshiping? Is it the Christian church we livestream from across town, or the country? Or is it the screen we’re staring at? Is it our Bibles and Qurans, or the presses that print them?

I once heard the story of David and Goliath was actually a story of the conflict of infringing technology. Goliath had all of the newest armor and weapons, David had a slingshot and stones. We read how that went, but despite losing that battle, has Goliath won the war? Who knows?

When we download our “free” apps, it’s important to know the glaring fact that, without a product to buy, we are the products being bought and sold. And that’s ok. These free apps in the Meta-verse are great, we simply have to have our eyes wide open. When we use any social media, we are being manipulated, and probably the problem is when we can no longer recognize that manipulation. When we think the Facebook feeds we receive are the actual news instead of carefully curated tools to increase our time and clicks, that’s when The Machines (and their shady developers) win. Right?

If we are blind and passive, the New Religion becomes our religion. I don’t know what progress is, but I do know where we’re heading: wherever we choose. Either we choose love and kindness and beautiful connection or we choose to not choose, blissfully asleep, we become the blobs on the BNL spaceship in Wall-E.

Now that I reconsider, maybe I was wrong earlier, maybe I could care less.

What Is Truth?

September 26, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The title of this post is a very famous question asked of Jesus Christ by the Roman governor Pilate. He didn’t mean it as an actual question, he wasn’t asking. It was more of a rhetorical comment on the relativity of truth, if it even exists at all. If truth is a sliding scale, then it is simply based on the whims or preferences of the population, and of little to no use at all.

A few weeks ago, I watched a Netflix documentary called Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press. It purported to be about the legal battle between a website called Gawker and Hulk Hogan. It seems the Hulkster had made a video of himself having sex with his buddy’s wife, and somehow, Gawker got the tape and made it public. Is this the kind of thing that qualifies as news? Is this what people want to see? Before we are very quick to answer, we should replace “Hulk Hogan” with “Kim Kardashian” or “Paris Hilton” or “Pamela Anderson.” Of course we don’t want to see Hulk Hogan’s sex tape, but apparently, we do have an insatiable appetite for the sex tapes of young women, and we really don’t care too much how they are procured.

I say purported because the doc was actually about the person that funded the Hukster’s lawsuit, which he won, and another case of very very wealthy people attacking a media outlet that published a story that was quite unflattering. It was about news and truth and the effect of money on those 2 things.

The other documentary I watched was Eat The Rich, about the GameStop stock market manipulation. It was great – you should watch that one – but in it, a stock broker simplified the entire situation: He said (and I’m paraphrasing), if a company is healthy and well run, it’s stock price will go up. If i’s not, it won’t. That’s how the stock market works (or is supposed to work – there are lots of factors that can tamper with that purity, as you can imagine). The GameStop event represented the absolute divorce of stock price from the actual business. What was true didn’t matter at all.

These 2 documentaries had almost nothing in common except a Pilate-eque perspective of the truth, namely, that there isn’t any. You just get to choose what is true. I hesitate to say our culture, because it appears that it is every culture, for as long as human beings have been walking on this earth, that wants to ground truth in our own experience and opinion. Instead of The Truth, it’s ‘the truth’ or ‘my truth.’

When you see a news story, do you believe it? Does it matter if it’s on Fox News, Facebook or CNN? When you see statistics about COVID or the pros/cons of masking, do you trust what you read, or is it “fake news?” Our relationship with the truth has always been tenuous, but now it seems nonexistent, and there’s no way that can be a good thing. If nothing is real, nothing is sunk into stone, then how do we ever find the comfort that comes from consistency? There simply can’t be consistency when facts are a matter of perspective and objectivity is a myth. No wonder we all have such anxiety.

Who knows? Maybe there isn’t any Truth, maybe there never was, but I’m pretty sure none of us believe that. Instead, maybe there has always been Truth, maybe it’s always been the same Truth, and maybe we need to hold onto it a little tighter.

So, This Is What This Feels Like

September 18, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The Angel is home from work sick today. She works in an elementary school, so early-September illness is part of the job description. As we all know, children are sometimes very cute, and they are always germ farms, little individual super-spreaders. Everybody feels great when school starts, but as the runny noses (wiped on forearms and sleeves leaving slime trails like giant slugs) begin, viruses and infections are generously given to all inside. It’s inevitable, we take our turn and move on.

So as it is the Angel’s turn now, we watched the Reese Witherspoon vehicle Sweet Home Alabama today. As far as rom-coms go, it’s above average. But there is one very notable, very surprising, characteristic.

Reese is someone called Melanie, Jake/Josh Lucas is her childhood boyfriend. They marry, she moves away and meets McDreamy (from Grey’s Anatomy fame) – Andrew/Patrick Dempsey – and they want to marry, so she has to go sweet home to Alabama to secure Jake’s signature on the divorce papers. All sorts of hijinks ensue. You see, she hasn’t told anyone from her new New York life that she was ever born, much less from embarrassing (but wonderfully quirky and endearing) parents in Alabama, and was once married. (I’ll spoil the ending in a minute.) Obviously, it’s fairly rote, could’ve been written by an early AI rom-com program.

There are a few movies, like the Karate Kid and the Hunger Games, where the stars/heroes are the worst. Daniel Larusso and Katniss Everdeen are, by miles, the most unlikeable characters in their respective stories. Reese and Josh Lucas are terrible, the script says they are “in love,” but they clearly hate each other’s guts. Their marriage was a train wreck, and honestly, it’s good she moved away and they both moved on (sort of).

Moving on in the same way we hang on to old awful relationships because we’re seeking “closure,” whatever that means. This mythical “closure” doesn’t have anything close to the power to make these relationships healthy, but we hang on and Hollywood calls it romance. Go figure.

The great big exception is McDreamy. Our recent pop culture creates, almost exclusively (except for superheroes), caricatures of men, where they are always confused, embarrassing, and ‘hilarious’ in their utter uselessness. They are Raymond Barone, we shake our heads and laugh.

McDreamy is awesome. Not only is he gorgeous, but he is principled and classy, he loves Reese unconditionally and forgives her lies, deception and infidelity. It’s quite jarring to see a man played like this. He’s confident and assured, which allows him to choose her, not because he needs her or that she completes him (2 reductive movie tropes), but because he will love her, they will love each other, without balls, chains, manipulation, or co-dependence. That’s what he thinks. That’s what marriage is. She does not want this kind of adult relationship, though.

She leaves him at the altar, and he says precisely what we are all thinking, as we watch a deep, positive depiction of masculinity: So, this is what this feels like. Yes, this is what it feels like to be left at the altar, but it’s also what it feels like to see our expectations met by a man who behaves well; kindly, gently, selflessly. He is a unicorn, at least on film. But he exists in real life. I know many just like him, and it is absolutely beautiful to watch and enjoy.

She made the wrong choice, to be sure, but we all won. Sweet Home Alabama is an A.

Telemarketers and the Old Man

September 12, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site prompt today is, “What personality trait in people raises a red flag with you?“ I’ve actually been thinking about this very thing, sort of. I’m probably going to sound like a severely old man, which maybe I am, in a paragraph or 2.

Telemarketers is a new documentary series on HBOMAX or MAX or whatever it’s called now. I couldn’t wait to watch it, it appears to be everything I would love. It isn’t. I turned it off midway through the first episode, so anything I’d have to say about it is incomplete. It’s entirely possible that there was a Shyamalan-esque shocking twist, where some sort of purpose was revealed. I did learn a few things, but not enough to view it as anything but a waste of valuable time. The people in it are proudly uneducated alcohol- and drug-addicts, ex-convicts, slackers (not the charming kind) and swindlers.

The telemarketers in the doc have not been given a bad deal and working to rebuild their lives, accepting anywhere that will give them a chance. They cannot find jobs because they have been poor employees. There is sex in bathrooms, drugs on desks, calls are made drunk and high. I’m not sure why anyone would send money through cold calls, but as it turns out, they are (gasp!!) a racket. The companies try to milk unsuspecting marks on charitable promises where the charity gets fractions of cents on the dollar. Whatever. We all know it’s a dirty, dishonest business.

What I want to ask is why this movie was made? Why would these people want to film themselves behaving like animals let out of their cages for the day? I know, the idea is to expose the company they work for, but they work for them, fully aware of the scam. In detailing their irresponsibility (in the job and how they do it) so shamelessly, who is really being exposed?

On the People’s Court (which, tragically, has been cancelled), litigants regularly posture and perform in very embarrassing ways. Kids think vandalism is supercool, violence is somehow a badge of honor, and loudly proclaim a lack of basic communication skills. Do I sound old??? Yep. But it’s not just the children, it’s everyone who dresses like they’re going to the beach instead of court, talks like it’s a locker room and not nationally syndicated tv, disrespectful in every way to the judge, the system, and themselves.

I’m really not a prude and have never said, “get off my lawn!” Fight Club is my favorite movie, Dave Chappelle is my favorite comic (just like everybody else), I’ve never blushed at explicit lyrics or ultra-violent content. I have an email address, write a blog, have Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat accounts (though I don’t use 2 of them), stream tv shows. I’m old fashioned AND wildly progressive.

I just wonder if the 18 year old boy named Dean on yesterday’s episode of People’s Court is even aware that he embarrassed himself. When the audience laughed, did he know they were laughing at him? Or if the makers of Telemarketers spent countless hours wrestling with the question of if the movie was important enough to outweigh the public humiliation of their own actions?

Here’s the honest truth (and my next post with be about our tenuous relationship with the truth, but this is absolutely true); these moments where we de-value ourselves, where we settle for what is clearly so far beneath us, devoid of any shred of dignity (or what the site prompt would call red flags) are so uncomfortable for me because I love them, love us, so much. I want to wrap the Dean in my arms and tell him he doesn’t have to do this, doesn’t have to be so sad, that he’s worth more than that. I want to shelve Telemarketers to protect the people inside, who don’t yet know they deserve to be protected. I want to show & tell them they matter, they’re enough, here and now.

I want us all to look in the mirror with such a deep love for what we see that we would never allow that person to be treated so awfully.

Why The Safety Dance Is So Important

August 29, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/1 Comment

The Safety Dance is an ‘80’s song by Men Without Hats, not the be confused with the far superior Australian legends Men At Work. The biggest difference, to help us keep them straight, is that Men Without Hats had, as far as I can remember, 1 pretty good song (and a singer with a questionable haircut), and Men At Work were awesome.

In the grander scope, Men At Work are important. Down Under and Who Can It Be Now? are the monstrosities, but Overkill is the best. Lead singer Colin Hay gave significant contributions to the Garden State and Scrubs soundtracks. We are better people with better lives with Men At Work in them.

Men Without Hats, on the other hand, are mostly forgettable without the overwhelming number of ‘80’s 1 Hit Wonder compilations. But what I didn’t realize is how valuable The Safety Dance is to us today, in our current situation.

The song has one of the very worst lyrics ever written. “We can dance, we can dance,” (and here it is, get ready:) “everybody look at your hands.” It’s horrible, only there because it rhymes, as if a 2nd grade student wrote a poem at recess while everyone else was playing 4 square. We all cringe because there’s nothing else to do with it.

Meaningless awful lyrics are nothing new, but what’s interesting is that The Safety Dance also has one of the very best lyrics. “We can dance if we want to, we can leave your friends behind” (and here it is, get ready:) “’Cause your friends don’t dance and if they don’t dance, Well, they’re no friends of mine.” Awesome. I happen to agree, but the judgment twisted into the wordplay makes it so perfect.

It’s weird that the same band wrote both, creating a sort of dissonance. Our brain doesn’t know what to do with this. Are they embarrassing songwriters, or brilliant? Can both be true? Or does one cancel out the other? Does the bad drag the good down, or the good pull the bad up? Or. Or does it not matter at all, it’s just a dumb pop song and who cares about pop songs?

What I know for sure is that the last question is totally wrong. It’s not a dumb pop song. In fact, it can have a ton to teach us about moving around in an increasingly fractured world, where so many of our perspectives are from behind lenses of fear.

We are encouraged to set up divisions based on one facet of our personalities, one particular category (whether it is how we vote, wear our hair, shoe size, our color, sex, nationality, or anything else). In other words, we separate ourselves because others have an “everybody look at your hands.” We define others easily, cutting them up into pieces and then locking them in boxes based on just 1 piece.

The thing is, most everybody has a “your friends don’t dance and if they don’t dance, then they’re no friends of mine,” too! The reason I like everyone is the same reason I like The Safety Dance, because I choose to overlook our “everybody look at your hands.” Maybe not overlook, but I do choose to not judge the entire song because of one lyric.

I have an “everybody look at your hands,” and so do you. Everybody does. Maybe mine is that I voted for Donald Trump or Joe Biden. Maybe yours is that you have an addiction or a rough, checkered past. Or that you didn’t. Or that you live there, or wear that. Those things don’t have to close every door to keep us in & them out because somebody convinces us that we should be afraid of or distrust just one lyric in an otherwise good song. Our worlds get smaller, darker, and scarier with these overreactions.

We don’t have to like every song, Dave Matthews Band and Slipknot songs still exist. But the radio is better, more textured and interesting when everything doesn’t look and sound and think the same. So are our lives. Imagine how many songs we turn off immediately after their “everybody look at your hands” moments. This is no longer an acceptable place to live.

The Safety Dance is so important because, if we can adopt a Safety Dance mentality, where we can hold each other’s 10’s and zeroes, and stop missing so much beautiful music, we can begin to rebuild our lives and our world in a brand new cool new-wave image.

Middle Ground

August 22, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site prompt is asking me what my top ten favorite movies are. I used to be a person who had lists like these at the ready, walking around hoping someone would ask. Desert Island discs, top 5 foods, books, drinks, moments, and on and on. Once, I made a Top 500 songs list, and took real time thinking if I actually liked Rebel Yell (Billy Idol) or I Will Remember You (Skid Row) more, listening many times to each. As it turns out, I like Billy Idol much more, but I Will Remember You won the song battle.

I can’t give you 10, but what I can tell you is Fight Club and Pulp Fiction are my top 2, and Point Break is the movie I watched, and loved, most often. I saw it more than 15 times in the theater! That was, of course, when movies were affordable, the one where I saw the most Point Break showings cost $1.

So lately I’m having a lot of trouble in my head. It’s not unusual that I think I’m losing my mind. Either the world around me is completely insane, or I am. But it has to be one, there isn’t an awfully wide middle ground.

For example, in a recent poll, more people trust Donald Trump than their anyone else in their lives; religious leaders, teachers, even their friends & family. What are we supposed to do with that? In this particular poll, he had a 71% rate of trust. Families were in the low-mid 60’s. I recognize that this was a poll of very specific people, but still. Again, what are we supposed to do with this madness?

I see us stay in relationships that are nothing more than evidence of a damaged self-image. Where partners treat us like so much garbage, and we fight to stay, because any relationship is better than none? We stay in jobs we hate that are eating our souls, because we’re terrified of ones that are awesome. Why? Is it me, am I the one that has lost my mind?

The school district in which I live is in ruins, and the school board is shockingly brazen in their ineffectiveness. They tell anyone who will listen what they can’t do, which includes everything, as far as I can tell. That’s not entirely true, they vote on who can take tickets at football games. There aren’t checks and balances, the administration is dismantling any semblance of trust or respect with almost every decision. Why? Doesn’t a crumbling district reflect on them? Of course, but rather drive the bus into a wall than be a passenger in one that arrives safely, right??? Leadership is in short supply everywhere, it’s not just our local schools and Washington D.C. that are lacking.

The final scene of Fight Club is one where the 2 main characters watch buildings crumble. The system is broken beyond repair, so in a final act of domestic terrorism designed to tear it all down, absolute zero, to start anew. I am no terrorist, will never destroy cities, but it rings true for us as a metaphor. Is everything too broken to continue, are we too lost to ever be redeemed?

They stand and watch, hand in hand, and it’s beautiful. It’s strangely, deeply hopeful. Today my son is meeting a basketball coach at 7:30am at a nearby court. This coach is waking up early on a summer day to pour into my boy. I’m meeting 2 friends this morning for breakfast and bagels, we’ll look at each other, listen, talk and laugh, and maybe cry a little.

I sort of knew where this post would end. I do wonder if I’m the crazy one, if our collective psyche is too shattered to repair. But you probably know I think we’re standing in the thin middle ground. The world is incomprehensible sometimes (a lot of the time), and I am a fool. But I absolutely believe.

I believe in the power of Skid Row to ease our pain for a moment, and connect us. I believe in holding hands dreaming of better tomorrows. As a matter of fact, I dream of better todays. I believe one person can make a difference, like a coach at 7:30am, for a 16 year old boy. He will see this morning that it’s not all lost.

We put this back together, not trusting in Donald Trump or waiting for a school district to act responsibly, but in loving each other. In 2 hurting people holding hands and acting. When we look around, it appears to be a garbage dump, but that’s all a mirage. Yes, it might be garbage, but it’s not a dump. It’s not the end of the story, for the refuse or for us. It’s a gallery in waiting, where we can take these discarded pieces and make art with them. It simply takes some imagination, and the courage to jump.

4 Quick Reviews For Films I’ll Immediately Forget

July 30, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Baseball is over, and I’m so thankful for the rest and the time that I haven’t even began to feel the hole. I’ll miss the coaches, players, their parents, and the time spent together like crazy. I will not, however, miss the drama adults create anytime egos are allowed to roughhouse without any supervision or guardrails. Not at all.

The new open time has given me a chance to catch up on some pop culture; The Monster of Wall Street, Arnold, Across The Spider-Verse, and Secret Wars. As I’m considering them, I they lend themselves very nicely to comparison.

The Monster is about Bernie Madoff and his Ponzi scheme to steal mountains of dollars. Arnold is a 3 part documentary on the life of Arnold Schwarzenegger, told by Arnold Schwarzenegger (as it absolutely should be.) One of the last lines of the Arnold doc was him refuting the idea that he was/is a “self-made man.” In no uncertain terms, he states that he is not at all self-made. He stood on parents, coaches, teachers, friends, mentors, and on and on, his story is testament to the importance of community and relationships. It was fairly surprising to hear, I assumed he was a narcissistic ego-maniac bent on money, power and fame. He may be, but he is a man grateful to all of the everyday contractors who built his empire to a far greater degree. Madoff, on the other hand, was a thief. I expected layers, nuance, context, and shades of gray.

Usually, these Netflix documentaries are brilliant at displaying facets of their subjects. There are never simply good guys and bad guys. This is the exception. Madoff appears to be a paper-thin mannequin without depth or complexity. He is sort of the anti-Schwarzenegger – he is his own god, prideful, selfish, and nothing else. Where Arnold saw hands and shoulders who would lift him to greater heights than he could ever achieve alone, Madoff saw backs to step on and necks to break to get an inch taller.

I can’t say I liked either, much. I’ll forget them, but it reminds me of the Maya Angelou quote, “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Arnold made me feel buoyant and hopeful, Madoff made me want to throw up and take a shower.

Across the Spider-Verse and Secret Wars (not technically a film, instead categorized a series – only because it was arbitrarily cut into 6 pieces) are 2 new superhero movies. The MCU (I recognize that the Spider-Verse is not technically in the MCU, but it’s close enough) has recently mostly left me behind, and I am honestly disappointed about it. As I have detailed & defended many times, I loved the Avengers in the Infinity Saga. LOVED. Now, the MCU has seemingly forgotten what made those movies and that story so great, and haphazardly pumps out newer, louder, predictable-er fare that leaves me pretty unfulfilled.

The 1st Spider-Verse movie was an explosion of creativity, and so is this one. The characters are well-written and complex (everything Madoff in real life isn’t, incidentally), with human emotions and motivations. Across the Spider-Verse was surprising, defying most genre clichés. It was good, but will only be able to be accurately assessed after the 3rd is released (whenever that is.) This is remarkably similar to Secret Wars. I liked it well enough. And maybe it was important and maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was just another pointless cash-grab from Marvel/Disney. Only time will tell. The producers set up the rules to eschew stand alone films in favor of interconnectedness, and when they aren’t connected, then they’re just dead end roads, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing at all.

None of the 4 feel particularly vital, I was one way before I saw them and I am still that way. I suppose that’s the worst thing I can say about a work of art. I don’t mean to say “the worst” things about them, they weren’t that bad. They just weren’t great. They just were.

The Machines

July 24, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The prompt today is asking me what I listen to when I work. Well, I am listening to “Dancing in the Courthouse,” by Dominic Fike. Well, I was. Now I’m listening to “Sail Away,” by lovelytheband. It’s not that those are my favorite songs, they just happen to be on the “Songs For You” suggested playlist on my Amazon Music app.

I sometimes wonder why our undergarments are so twisted up about AI (Artificial Intelligence). This algorithm knows me better than any human on earth. The Angel and I have trouble agreeing on shirt patterns in stores, but I always agree with the You Might Like section of My Amazon. The Machines know exactly what I like, and what I will like. All I have to do is casually mention at the dinner table that my feet hurt or that I could use a new pair of sneakers, and I’ll get an avalanche of advertisements for precisely what I need. It’s a modern miracle. We’re living in the golden age.

My in-laws and I often talk about being ‘tracked’ in a newer, scarier minority report, and all I can think about is how often I forget my size or how big my living room is, and how cool it would be if The Machines could remind me.

“Dial Drunk,” by Noah Kahan, is on now. Do you know who Noah Kahan is? How would I have heard this song 35 years ago, when I was deciding that a music guy is what kind of person I was going to be? Maybe MTV, but Music television doesn’t play music anymore, there’s only regrettable shows about people with abs, who drink more alcohol than most sports teams, living near the beach, and a new show about infidelity.

Why would I want to watch a show about infidelity? I don’t, and the algorithm knows it. Why would anyone? I know reality tv isn’t reality, but it’s marketed as such, so we suspend disbelief and pretend it’s authentic. So, again, why would I want to see a person get their heart broken because their loved one doesn’t love them? Why would I want to see somebody cry rivers of tears because they’ve been lied to? I see enough tears in actual real life, I don’t need more in “real life” on tv.

But The Machines know this, too. The suggested follows I get on Instagram are beavers, capybaras, bunnies, kids falling, fantastic artwork, and acoustic versions of 90’s songs They know I love. Not betrayal or ads for beers.

I guess I could’ve heard “Dial Drunk,” on cassettes my sister used to send me from KROQ in California. She’d just pop in a tape and press record until Side A’s 45 minutes were up. And speaking of those tapes, they’re still the best, I have the local commercials sandwiched between Goo Goo Dolls’ (pre-“Iris,” when they were interesting) “We Are The Normal,” and 10,000 Maniacs’ “Like The Weather.” Good times.

But The Machines presumably know about those cassettes, too. They surely know about my sister.

Of course, my in-laws are right, it is awfully scary. Maybe They shouldn’t know my shoe size or where I live. Maybe They shouldn’t be quite so much in charge. (Maybe it’s too late.) But honestly, sadly, we haven’t exactly done a great job with all of this, either. What if, in a supreme irony, The Machines (without the weight of our selfishness) are more careful with us, kinder, gentler, more loving, more beautifully human, than we ever were?

Who knows? But until we find out, I’ll be listening to the AWESOME “Letter To Myself,” by the Lottery Winners (featuring Frank Turner).

Knots

July 12, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I say, without a hint of sarcasm or hyperbole, that I like everyone. I give an A the first day of class, in a manner of speaking. Some don’t trust until they have reason to, I trust until I have a reason not to. Of course, this doesn’t always work out well. I have been damaged, had my heart broken, been betrayed. But in these situation, forced to reconsider my position as a wide-open door, I choose to stay the course. Come in, make yourself at home.

Boundaries are a necessity that I’m learning. Not everyone should get unfettered access to you, especially after they’ve been careless a time or 2 or 80.

I say that, and it’s mostly true. But Friday I realized it has limits. I cut my mom’s grass and, without exception, there are piles of dog poop in her yard. She has no dog. There are monsters in this world. Some let their dogs off leash to do as they please, and others watch them defecate and make the conscious decision to leave it in another’s yard. As it turns out, I don’t like everyone.

So, Friday as I’m cleaning my shoes, I realize these monsters shouldn’t have dogs. But in all likelihood, they would agree. When they got the dog, they thought in music montage, running in the sunshine with their best buddy, scratching her ears, to an upbeat ‘60’s tune. They believe this is an accurate representation of having a dog. They’re wrong. Having a dog is those things; they’re wonderful, and wonderfully fun, but they’re also veterinarian appointments, barking, expensive food, vomit, and plastic bags. (This is not to mention the worst part of having a pet – they don’t live that long, so we are virtually assured of having our hearts crushed by their passing.) The monsters actually don’t want dogs, they want a “dog.”

This is like 6 pack abs. They are cool, sexy, and awesome, but they are also crunches, sweat, Russian twists, forgone desserts, protein shakes. There are no 2nd helpings. We want the glamorous, romanticized result, but we absolutely do not want the truth.

This is also like management. We want to be in charge, want the corner office, door plaque, we want to lead, but we do not want the nighttime calls, the pressure, stress, responsibility, the hard conversations and painful decisions.

This is also like marriage. We want the A+ relationship, but that’s only if it’s the hazy rose-petal dream of the movies. We certainly don’t want the tears, the fights, the “worse” part of “for better or worse,” the sacrifice, the communication and work of an A+ marriage.

We don’t want to pick up the poop.

I think that’s probably why we have such trouble committing. Maybe the reason our marriages fail in such high numbers, the reason why our relationships don’t last and are so superficial, why churches, bowling leagues, and teams have declining membership. We only want what we like, what is comfortable and convenient, we want idealized versions, and when the dogs stop in my mom’s front yard or there’s morning breath or the pastor says something we don’t agree with or we’re sore and don’t feel like going, we’re out. When the unrealistic picture we’ve been sold doesn’t match reality, we run from reality (rather than the other way around). We leave the excrement there for somebody else to clean up.

The thing that we don’t understand is that those rough patches add the most texture, the most value. We navigate the differences, disagreements, hold their hair when they’re sick, and we’re deeper and stronger as a result. The negatives aren’t negative at all, they’re the tension that makes knots tighter. And I’d suggest we all need tighter knots.

Bowling Alone

June 23, 2023June 25, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I read that more people are bowling, but leagues are suffering. The reason is because we are bowling alone!??! Bowling alone. Have you ever seen those social media posts that say, “tell me you’re ____ without telling me you’re ____.” Tell me your society is busted without telling me your society is busted: Bowling alone is increasing while bowling together is down.

I recognize that relationships are out of fashion. Our religion is individuality and self-reliance. The main tenet of the social contract is superficiality. I’m fine, it’s fine, everything is fine. Even when, especially when, I’m not and it’s not. Membership is suffering everywhere, because commitment is suffering everywhere. This seems like a relatively insignificant consequence of modern life. Who really cares if we don’t commit to institutions through such an antiquated concept as membership? Maybe. But the list of problems with bowling alone is infinite.

But most, if not all, of these problems can be traced back to a self-obsessed view of the surrounding world. How do you make me feeeel? How does it make me feel? What are you giving me? Are you feeding me enough of what I want? If the answer to any of these is less than positive, treating me like I deserve to be treated, I will move on and never look back.

Close relationships need friction to grow – up and down. Beautiful flowers we can see and enjoy, but also the kind of roots that go deep enough to withstand all kinds of weather. Mark Manson writes, “Greater commitment allows for greater depth. A lack of commitment requires superficiality.”

The Angel and I, we know things about each other, love things about each other, that no one else sees. We only see them because we have committed to any terrain, any obstacles. We only see them because we committed to each other, regardless of…well, anything. Our roots go very, very deep. We bowl together.

Community is an inherently unselfish activity; a community is a selfless organism. We give up certain rights, privileges, and responsibilities for others to gain certain rights, privileges, and responsibilities. The illogical part is that, in becoming smaller, we find a new significance and value that we couldn’t have dreamed otherwise. Illogical, but absolutely true. I sacrifice the ability to date any and every other woman, when I say yes to the Angel, but that sacrifice is hardly loss, considering the knowing, intimacy and love we have built over 20+ years.

When we join a bowling league, we give up some flexibility and individuality, but we have partners, teammates. When we’re not there, we are missed. How many spaces care if we don’t show up? If no one knows my name at the mega church, no one will know my name when I’m not there. There’s a humongous difference between “Where’s that guy that sat there 2 weeks ago?” and “Where’s Chad? He doesn’t usually miss. I’ll text him, see if he’s ok.”

I’ve believed that I am an island, that I can do it myself, and I’ve been way too proud to admit when I can’t. I’ve hurt my back more times than I can count moving furniture rather than call somebody to help. But I don’t believe that anymore. Instead of disappearing when my heart or spirit breaks, I make some calls and tell the truth. All of it. And the dark periods get shorter, more manageable, less dark.

I wish we’d tear up that social contract, shred the pages with all the lies of isolation as virtue, and write a new one. We can start creating a new world right now, today, but none of that happens by ourselves, alone in a cave. This is something we can only do together.

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: culture