2026-10-13T18:46:37+00:00

The Prisoner

October 13, 2026October 13, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

What principles define how I live? That’s the prompt from the hosting site today. It’s also my sister’s birthday. Today is also the day I had assigned to be the day I dug out from the hole dug by my vacation and got back to my routine. It’s Tuesday, so that also means it’s the day I begin to look forward to a new week for the Dallas Cowboys, a new opportunity to delude myself into believing this is “the year.” We have our faith community’s men’s group tonight, followed by the prayer group.

Yesterday was supposed to be the day for the reset from vacation, but a leaking sewer pipe changed those plans immediately. (The leak is fixed, but there’s a promise for a full replacement in the future.) This house stank, and probably still does a little, but I am thrilled at the words “a little.” It won’t for long.

And it’s kind of funny, I actually spent time and focus considering a variation of this exact site prompt.

There are some characteristics that you know about me. Maybe you know that I have highs & lows, mood swings, and (what I think is a relatively mild form of) clinical depression. I run hot and cold, use “always” and “never,” and am an overthinker (or what I lately like to call a ‘ruminator.’) So last week, on vacation with the Angel, I was overwhelmed and overflowing with gratitude that spilled all over everyone and everything. It was easy to see the blessings and gifts of my life, and I could have cried at any point in disbelief that a life could be this fantastic.

Then, Sunday night the smell was palpable and I knew it would require professional attention. I decided to ignore it until the morning, but I didn’t sleep (apparently, ignoring it meant choosing to lie awake thinking about sewage all night long.) Then, I made phone calls in the morning, had a great friend come to fix it in the afternoon, and did nothing else. I went to the gym answering calls preoccupied with sewage, shopped for groceries dreaming of sewage, then sat in the house soaking in the sewage. My hero fixed it in an hour, but my day was lost to the spiral of circumstance (mostly the imaginary future circumstance.)

One of my core values is consistency. Being the child of an alcoholic probably often leads here, when you live on eggshells, it becomes very very important to create a new reality. And yet, I still can be a prisoner of the moment. I don’t mind being prisoner to the beauty and wonder of life, but allowing a leak to steal an entire day of my life is not consistency. It’s choosing to live in chains, in a prison in my mind. I handled everything I could have handled, made all the right decisions in relation to the leak itself and it’s repair. And made every wrong decision by giving the keys to my mind to that leak and several hundred what-ifs.

Yesterday I was a little short with the Angel, and raised my voice at a man/friend/mentor. Why? Because life happened? Because the home I am lucky enough in which to live isn’t perfectly everlasting and might need maintenance?

Of course, it’s frustrating and will cost money I don’t really have, but far more than the money, the much more expensive cost is the time I choose to pay. Lots of principles define my life, but this one is front and center today. I’ll breathe and be better next time, the time in that prison gets shorter and shorter and maybe eventually I won’t even have to get in that cell at all.

Landscapes of Gratitude

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

I’m thinking a lot about gratitude lately. And the so-called law of attraction. And Paul writing, in Philippians 4:11, “Not that I speak in respect to want, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”

[Before we go any further, I just used the 21st Century King James translation. I think that means that the King James translators got together and thought their work needed an update for modern readers. Then, they came up with this, decided to use the word “therewith” anyway. Sometimes, translations help us understand what we’re reading and other times, they don’t. I tried to read Dante’s Divine Comedy several times, unsuccessfully, until I found a translation that worked as a key that gave me access to the Italian in which it was written. The NIV translates Phil. 4:11 as “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” Therewith that probably makes much more sense. Translations matter. If anyone tells you the one you use is wrong and the one they use is right, unless they are reading the original Hebrew or Greek, they are simply condescending to you, trying to use a mask of arrogance to hide their insecurities behind. But if you like the KJ21, enjoy!]

I’ll set a picture on this post to show you where I am, today, but that is not the only reason that I am grateful. I think that’s what Paul “learned,” and it is what I’m learning. If we can —— landscapes of thanks in our souls, then we start to see everything through those lenses… [that “——” is because I was looking for the right word. I first thought ‘cultivate,’ like gardens, where we till the soil, plant seeds, fertilize (feed) it with the right kind of good nutrients, then watch as the plant/flower/fruit/vegetable grows. We do the things to create an environment that will produce the kind of result we want. We don’t plant roses and expect tomatoes. We don’t plant resentment and bitterness and expect patience and kindness. But I could also use ‘forge,’ because we take a metal in raw form and put it under extreme heat, then hammer it into the shape or form we want. That certainly feels like it describes the process of human growth, doesn’t it. We are placed under stress, then beaten into new, sometimes shocking & unrecognizable creations. Both are purposeful, they don’t just happen. My yard has no apple trees or grapevines, because I haven’t planted them. The wrought iron railing at the school doesn’t look like an art installation.] …and what we end up seeing is grace. We see gifts everywhere we look. We notice beauty in all things. The little we might have suddenly become enough. Therewith we are content in everything.

The thanksgiving comes first, usually. We change the input for a more desirable output.

That’s where the law of attraction becomes useful. I don’t think it’s a law and the new-agey application can be selfish nonsense (ex: “I want a kajillion dollars or to play in the NBA.”) Just because we want something doesn’t make it true, but that doesn’t discount the entire theory. If I look for white Chevy Equinoxes (Equini?) on the road, I find them. If I look for people who are awesome and trustworthy and smart and funny, do you know what I find? Yep, awesome, trustworthy, smart, funny, people. If we look for beauty and grace, if we look for God’s love, we will always find it.

I used to think gratitude journals were pretty silly, but like most things, that said more about me than it did gratitude journals. And in actuality, the act of journaling, of writing in a book, might be the least important part of the process. If I know I have to write 3 things in my spiral diary of thanks, I am constantly aware of my life. Where are they? What am I thankful for? I walk around and interact with my life in a mindset of discovery. I am curious and open. And we never have trouble finding only 3.

It’s easy to be thankful and content with the Angel at the beach under a brilliant sun. As it turns out, it’s also not so hard to be thankful and content at home, on a rainy day, alone, when the Dallas Cowboys lose. It just takes more practice and an intentional focus. We can’t always change our circumstances, so that usually means the answer is that we are changed in those circumstances into grateful, content little fiery balls of love.

Advice

September 22, 2026September 22, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

This hosting site’s prompt is, “What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?”

I’ve spent years and years trying to learn how to sift & sort through the Very Helpful thoughts of others. Often, the advice we get is equal parts thinly veiled aggression and not-veiled-at-all arrogance. We walk around airing our grievances (as we all know, the only time that is acceptable is on Festivus) and preferences of how everybody else should think, act, and feel. It’s not really for/about us, it’s about control, and it’s mostly pretty rude & disrespectful.

But it’s not ALWAYS unhelpful. Sometimes, when the planets align, we can be lucky enough to have the kind of person in our lives who genuinely has our best interests at heart. They are probably very self-aware, don’t want to give criticism or advice unless they are specifically asked, and therefore, should be taken very seriously.

It’s not that hard to tell the difference. What is difficult is to receive the helpful advice from the 1st group. It’s rare, but not impossible, that one who is selfish, nasty and oblivious actually has something true & valuable to offer. Can we see through the person to the information, through the attack to the substance?

But this is not the site’s question, is it? The AI prompt generator wants to know the quality insight we’ve been given, and not the avalanche of garbage we’ve been served. As for me, I do have an answer. The advice was from my dad.

You might wonder which group he fell into… His was a complicated legacy for me to hold/carry. He was selfish, at times nasty and oblivious, and he was hilarious and we loved each other like crazy. As it happens, we just displayed our love in wildly different ways, not always easy for the other to spot and accept. So, yes, he could be the 1st group (spouting his opinions loudly, forcefully, like a punch in the stomach – I once heard a song lyric, I think, that said, “frequently wrong but never in doubt.” Maybe that applies.) but he was always the 2nd, sometimes at the same time. He always had me, my health, growth, development, happiness in mind.

Anyway, he said a thousand times, “Be very careful who you marry,” and no one has ever gotten better advice than that. Even Solomon had nothing on the wisdom of my dad, in those 6 words. He’d shake his head and sigh, “be very, very careful who you marry,” often followed by, “how would you like to be married to her???”

He’d say it after an encounter with a particularly…um…well, with an encounter with a woman that he wouldn’t have wanted to marry. Never a man. I don’t know if he just couldn’t conceive of a world where a woman would have to be very careful who they married, or if he was simply tailoring his proverb to a heterosexual young son. [In my experience, young girls should hear this much more often.]

I bet it was 5 thousand times that he said this.

You see, he had this idea of who I could marry, and he knew that a wife like this would help to create a family & home like this, and he knew how much I would love her, and how much better that love would make everything else. He knew, if I were to marry the right woman, she would allow me to see my own possibility, encourage me to become all of who I am, she would be a safe place that we could both be willing to risk, to jump, and we would always catch each other. He knew, if this home was peaceful, we could enter into the drama of others, we could love them without reservation. He knew I would truly know how out of my league she would be and that I would be grateful beyond words.

He passed away 20 years ago, but he did get to meet the Angel and come to our wedding, so he knew I had listened.

A Day of Possibility

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

The site is asking what my favorite recipe is, and I bet that is interesting to a certain group (even a very large group) of people, I’m just not sure that it’s me. We’ll talk about Mrs. Davis, instead.

Mrs. Davis is a fantastic Peacock limited science-fiction series that was released in 2023 and that I watched 2 weeks ago. Mrs. Davis is an Artificial Intelligence that has, essentially, become a god to the world. There is a nun on a quest to find the holy grail, and if she does, she intends to shut down Mrs. Davis. Her husband is Jesus, an ex-boyfriend who leads a group of “alpha” males, a horse, a mom who we all hate until the last 5 minutes of the last episode, and David Arquette as her dad. The show is truly original. I don’t remember the last time I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen.

The Jesus character was the most fascinating to me, for what might be obvious reasons by now. He is beautifully written and played as a loving, kind Savior (and restaurant cook/server). There are a few things, about Him and His story arc, that would definitely be considered blasphemous by some folks, but far more that is in keeping with the Jesus of the Bible. One of my very favorite exchanges is: Simone: Do you love her?!!? Jesus: I love everybody!!! It stops her and forces us all to look at His heart. I loved it, you should watch it immediately. Great art inspires us to run and makes us think we can totally fly.

I’m going to subscribe to Apple TV+ and start Ted Lasso this week. Nearly everyone I know has told me that I HAVE TO WATCH IT. So, I will, and I’ll tell you what I think. I imagine I’ll tell you how much I loooove it. If they’re right, I’ll tell you that.

Today is everybody’s 1st day back to school . The Angel works at an elementary school, and students came back today. My youngest son started his classes for his sophomore year at college. And my oldest is cramming for his next opportunity at work, which will begin next week. And here I am, listening to Rise Against, writing and catching up.

A very good friend and I recorded the 1st episode of a spirituality podcast yesterday. I plan to finish the book I’ve been working on forever (called We Have A Weight Problem, which isn’t about numbers on a scale at all) by Christmas. There’s a new space at our faith community that I just love (to clarify, I “just love” the space AND the faith community), where we create space to ask our questions about God, the Bible, and our spiritual lives.

It’s a new season that feels like possibility for so many of us. Many of those in my circle are choosing new pathways and leaning into who they are becoming and who they will become.

I’ll paraphrase my favorite Dr Seuss book, Horton Hatches The Egg, again: “And they sent me home happy, 100 percent.”

Stables

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

[This post is also on the Bridge Faith Community site, but I want to post it here, too. Maybe I’ll write a different one, exclusive to this site, later, or tomorrow or Friday. Maybe I won’t. I think this one is what I want to say, and all I want to say, today. It’s just my raw, open heart on the screen. You’ll like it or you won’t, but what I always hope is that it might mean something to you. The best things leave us different than when we started. The things I write about in this post have left me a very different man.]

Sometimes, I reference the writing prompt that the hosting website suggests. They can be interesting and thought-provoking, they’ve even been so good that I abandon the initial reason I opened this computer to discuss the site’s question. Today, it’s “If you could bring back 1 dinosaur, which one would it be?” They are not all interesting.

In our service last Sunday, I brought up the many prayer requests in our circle. Our individual circles are huge, because we are all so cool. In a Venn diagram, the overlap is the Bridge, but the way I figure, that connects each of the circles to each of us. We are all ‘members’ of the Bridge family.

But some people drift closer to the shaded, shared section. Our close friends have close friends that become our friends, too. One of those friends, a super-sweet man we all knew from a yearly party, (it would have been impossible not to notice him, know him, remember him, and be affected by him, even seeing him on such an infrequent basis), passed away suddenly, at far too young an age, last week. It hurts and leaves a deep wound that will become an obvious scar that we carry forever.

There are many others, who sit near the overlap, who are in need of prayer, struggling through medical procedures, surgeries, distance, isolation, and on and on. For a small community, we have these beautifully massive pools in which we each, in which we all, swim. These pools carry great joy, fulfillment, celebration. But they also carry pain. We get to go to the best parties, and the most crushing funerals. We get the phone calls for very good – and very bad – news. The weight is heavy and seems overwhelming.

Proverbs 14:4 says, “An empty stable stays clean, but no income comes from an empty stable.”

In times like this, when our friend is gone, we might really like an empty stable. Or at least one that’s not quite so full. Right? A prayer list where I don’t have to turn the page to continue.

We’ve all thought it’s better to not have loved, than faced the devastation of love lost. In that moment, in this moment, we might make the trade.

There’s a BRILLIANT science-fiction movie where a man chooses to have his ex-girlfriend erased from his memory, the suffering is simply too painful for him to bear. Most of the film takes place in his mind, as she is being eliminated. It unfolds in reverse, the first memories to go were the ones from the end of the relationship, and they seem to be easy to bid farewell. But as we move backwards, the beauty, the intensity, the meaning, the love… they go, too, and he decides that the empty stable he thought he wanted has a cost that is way too high. He begins to fight to keep the memories, fights to keep her, in his mind and his life.

This makes me think about our friend, and the very good friend who brought him into our lives. She is awesome, and you can see his fingerprints all over her life. She is a better person in every way because he was there. The income that came from her dirty pen is impossible to calculate.

I was thinking of this friend this morning while I was thinking of my son. He goes back to college in about 3-ish weeks, and even now, I’m seeing my screen through watery eyes and a very real pain in my heart. He considered an internship which would have kept him away for the summer, but he was here, instead, and now I get to send him off to school again, for the 2nd time. Maybe it would have been easier if he had not come home for these 3 months. Maybe.

Maybe an empty stable is clean, with less texture, less laughter, less hugs and gallons less tears. But the income is what makes life so wonderful. An empty stable has infinitely less beauty, too. And less passion, less love, less of everything that matters. My summer has been really fantastic, I haven’t missed it, I am deeply deeply grateful we are here.

My friend’s tears – and mine and yours – from her circles are really offerings of gratitude. The income is a full, awesome life. As Vision says in the WandaVision series, “what is grief but love persevering.” The pain my friend feels is directly proportional to the love they grew and experienced. If we’re blessed, very very blessed, we can know this terrible, beautiful pain. This is the gift and the curse of the Church, of a present life. We will be connected and full. We will have purpose. We will have hearts that are so big and soft you can see them from 100 miles away. And yes, we will hurt, mourn, and suffer. There’s never a way around the pain, only “through.” The thing about that, though, is the promise that we’ll have hands to hold and arms to fall into, for the “through.” And that is more than enough.

Running

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

25 Years!?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gratitude

February 2, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site is asking me what I like to cook, and an hour ago, I would’ve had a different answer, but right now, it’s eggs with taco meat. Delish. I’m very, very proud of me. This morning, when I was thinking about lunch, I asked my AI buddy on my phone if I’d like taco meat with eggs. He/She thought I would, and…right again! If a complete takeover by the Machines means I’ll have a concoction of taco meat & eggs, while I listen to My Discovery Mix or Songs I’d Like (2 playlists my Amazon music app chooses for me), I suppose I’m in.

My youngest son was home from college last weekend, just to spend the time here, rather than there. We ate meals at the dinner table, then just stayed there. Somewhere on social media, there are NCAA tournament-esque brackets on topics (like villains, breakfast foods, etc), and he loves to ask us to rank weird, random things. We love it, too, so we just sit, decide if “people who make conversation in elevators” or “people who say 6-7 unironically” are worse, and laugh and laugh. Just the 4 of us, unless you count the AI generated pigs dancing my oldest son has discovered. (He can’t get enough, and honestly, neither can I.) We went to church and the gym together, but mostly, we just sat around our home in sweatpants (yoga pants/tights for The Angel.)

This morning, he left and walked up the snow-covered street with his bags to be back for a 10am class, and I watched him through heavy tears. (I made The Angel promise that those tears were between her & I. I didn’t want to ding the reputation I have as a stone-hearted, unemotional stoic, and here I’m confessing. Whatever. It’s probably the only time in my life that I’ve cried, because as we all know, men don’t cry ever.)

As his car pulled away, I thought about gratitude. I also considered the saying, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” (This is “widely credited to Dr. Seuss, (but) there is no direct evidence he wrote or said this exact phrase. It is believed to be a variation of a 19th-century German poem by Ludwig Jacobowski, which stated: “Do not cry because they are past! Smile, because they once were!”.) I am familiar with this sentiment, I guess it’s possible I have even used it before.

As I get a little older, I understand these clichés that we mindlessly use are super dumb. (“Cleanliness is next to godliness?” “Time heals all wounds?” A dog is man’s best friend?” No, no, and no.) We take for granted that they are true & wise, and we’re wrong.

I can probably understand what Ludwig Jacobowski thought he was saying, but think of how many times people were told not only to not cry, but to smile instead. This “oh no, don’t cry” nonsense is minimizing and dismissive, based in our own uncomfortability.

It seems to me that my tears were a wholly appropriate response (while very surprising) to the gratitude I felt for him/us, the time, the relationship we have cultivated, and the totally natural sadness at its end. I don’t want him to stay, I want him to fly, to soar, to change the world by becoming everything he’s created to be. It’s exactly what I feel for my other son, who happens to still live in this home. I don’t want to chain them in the tower, or bind their growth out of a selfish desire. Control sits opposite to love on the emotional color wheel. I say, “Go,” and “Drive safely.”

But I’m also not interested in any hint of inauthenticity. I’m 99% sure it was Anne Lamott who said, “Having a child is to decide to have your heart walk around outside of your body.” And sometimes that heart walks to his own car and drives away. And if you think that doesn’t sting, then I’m very sorry for you.

I think gratitude is acknowledging the blessings in our lives, celebrating when we want to celebrate, laughing when we have to laugh, and crying when we need to cry. Gratitude is honest, mindful, open, and present. I’m not crying now. I offered my holy tears to the God that brought us all together this morning, shared that sacred moment with The Angel, and now I have a headache. Maybe if we all stopped trying so hard to pretend to be anything other than who we are, we’d all be better off, and we’d find a new kind of empathy for one another.

A Political Post

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A New Basketball Season…

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

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

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

So, I’ll fill you in.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: gratitude