2021-08-03T00:55:15+00:00

I Was There

August 3, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Yesterday we watched Cars 3. Everyone loved the first and nobody loved the 2nd. That’s interesting, right? How can the same creative team make a beautifully beloved movie AND an overstuffed misguided mess (albeit with some very nice moments)? They must’ve asked themselves the same question, and as an answer/apology, produced the 3rd installment to give a proper end to this story & these characters. It was really great. Lightning McQueen passes the mantle to newcomer Cruz Ramirez and becomes her coach in much the same way Doc Hudson became his 2 movies earlier.

Baseball season is over, and here’s how it was. Saturday, the all star team I help to coach won the state championship. During the regular season, the team I head coach didn’t win any sort of championship. I have played many years of baseball, 8 years old through college, and coached for many more, and if I was forced to choose, this year (championship and not) was my favorite.

These 2 things are related in presence and presence alone. So many times, we live sometime other than now, somewhere other than here. I remember my dad, who had so much trouble making the transition into new here’s and now’s, always remembering & mourning what had been, when he was, what he should’ve been. He’s certainly not alone, right?

It’s the unholy mosh pit of regret (past) and worry (future) stomping violently on today. These cartoons – or I guess we should call them animated features, that sounds fancy and pretentious – use colors and fantasy (cherry red cars that talk and have more expressive eyes than most people) to illustrate and invite us into authentic emotions we might otherwise be too distracted to notice. They ask us questions we might otherwise avoid. McQueen is angry and grasping to the good old days and doesn’t know how to move forward gracefully until he does, and then he learns, as Doc did, that there was shockingly more joy, purpose and fulfillment involved in leading another to victory (in life and on the racetrack… and the field;). He learned to leave his past glory where it is and allow tomorrow to breathe up ahead while he pulled his parking brake on now, an anchor to the significance of this moment.

I maybe didn’t do much to lead those 15&16 year-olds to the crown (I’ll leave that for them to decide), but what I do know is that I was allowed to watch these young men from the dugout, as close as you can get to excellence. I was allowed to coach with a brother, who continually surprised me with his smooth, easy, absolute greatness. And I was there. Not thinking about how I wish it was me playing and winning, nostalgic for my own ‘glory days,’ or if we’ll go back next year. I can’t imagine a place I would have rather been. I love those boys, am so grateful I was allowed to tag along to their march to 1st place.

I get so many things wrong, make so many mistakes, see the overwhelming gifts and blessings in the rear view mirror rather than as they are holding me in life and love. I say too many things like, “next year” or “when I was…”

But not this year, sister. You know what I can say about this year, the most important thing I can say about this year? That I was there and it was spectacular.

This Is Not A Lament

July 27, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

This Saturday, the county all star baseball team my son plays on will compete for a state championship.

I just wrote a post for the Bridge site about the aggressive passivity that is running rampant, crushing everything (including our spirits) in it’s path. The post is a lament. Marianne Williamson says, “Our playing small does not serve the world,” yet that’s what we have decided to do. We’ve chosen to lower the bar, setting it on the ground so that we never try, never fail, and consequently, never succeed and never grow.

This post, however, is not a lament.

Last week, I watched as a group of 15 & 16 year-olds gave pursue excellence. (The day before, I had the privilege of sitting with a player who had been given news that he would not play, that he was an alternate, a victim of roster limits, as he wept in disappointment. That kind of holy disappointment only happens after we’ve given everything.) 15 & 16 year-olds have a reputation, perhaps deserved, of apathy and indifference. But not on this team.

This team was full of boys who had trouble sleeping the night before, whose bellies were full of giant butterflies. This team was full of “try hards.” (“Try hard” is, inexplicably, a term of derision in schools nowadays among insecure, inadequate kids overwhelmed by their own fear.) This team was full of passion and energy, driven by, and full of, life and love.

It goes without saying that I’m proud of them. What might not be so obvious is how deeply I am inspired by them. Do you remember that movie, As Good As It Gets? Jack Nicholson says to Helen Hunt, “you make me want to be a better man.”

I am an assistant coach for these young men on this team. I throw batting practice and hit balls infield/outfield. I give high-fives. Every now and then, I try to give helpful suggestions learned from years and years of being a ball player.

A coach is in an interesting, enviable position. I am more thankful than I can tell you that I am allowed to watch from the inside. They remind me how I want to show up to my own life, every day, for ‘practice’ and for games. They don’t take days (or even plays) off, they pour into themselves and each other. They are committed. They are deeply respectful – of absolutely everything. They are gifted and grateful. They give without reservation. They bring all of them and they show up. I used a million words, but the only one that truly describes what they do is worship.

This is not a lament. This is a celebration. If they are the future, we can all breathe easily and with tremendous hope.

Man, I want them to win this championship, they really deserve it. But I guess it doesn’t really matter, they’ve already won. And so have we.

Black Widow

July 14, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Last weekend I saw Black Widow…in the theater!! I wonder how many times I’ll have to go before that loses it’s excitement and new-ness. I know the answer is more than 2 (I saw Godzilla vs Kong in March), because I had butterflies like the Angel & I were on an early date night. It wasn’t a first date, because those butterflies were large birds with talons and teeth, and lots and lots of energy. More like a date in the 3rd or 4th month, when the nerves were invigorating and pleasant.

When I was a kid, a trip to the movie theater used to be an adventure we looked forward to for days. That novelty wore off (except for BIG releases like Fight Club or Endgame) and it was just another option in an ocean of choices. I’m thrilled that feeling has returned.

I’ll tell you if the answer is 3 in September when Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings comes out.

You know, I used to go to quite a lot of live music shows. Once I got to a certain age they lost most of their draw – too many people, too loud, too expensive…well, I guess it was simply too many “too’s” for me. I wonder if I’d like to go back now.

COVID took so much from us for the past year and a half, I wonder if we’ll be surprised to find there are gifts to be enjoyed as well. Sometimes things are so familiar, so common they lose the wonder they hold, like kissing your wife, hugging your boy, driving your boys to basketball practice, sitting in air conditioning on a scorching hot day, pushups, deadlifts, spaghetti, fast dancing to music in the house with your sister, singing along to a song on the radio, those shoes, and on and on and on. When the scales fall, giving us the ability to see them again with new eyes, it’s overwhelming. Of all the people in the world, do you mean I’m the one who gets to actually kiss her??? Has the world really become a place where I can sit and watch these boys play baseball??

I recognize that lives have been lost, anxiety has ravaged our psyches, relationships have been damaged beyond the point of rescue, some of us still have trouble breathing, much less sleeping, the fear of What Could Never Happen (But Did) is oppressive, and going to a movie theater is way too trivial a thing on which to focus, even embarrassingly so. But sometimes it’s the trivial and seemingly insignificant that give us hope. That give us the strength to take one more step. That give us the beautiful notion that the world will continue and we might be ok, sometime down the road in the future, however long it takes.

We had a flood once that drowned our house and everything we owned. Our spirits were crushed under the weight of starting over from scratch, not to mention the looming fight we were inexplicably destined to lose with the insurance company, and the enduring emotional fallout. And in the middle of all of this, my wife’s best friend Laura gave me a book – one of my favorites: High Fidelity by Nick Hornby – that I had gifted to her years before. It was her way of saying “I know it’s the kind of dark and awful that feels like it might never not be dark and awful, but this is something lovely.” It was just a book, but it was so much more than a book. It was the promise of life wrapped in her sweet heart. That horrible flood ended up having a million gifts like that, where human beings were exposed as kind, caring, and generous. Most people don’t get to experience that sort of avalanche of love, and I wish they could. It was a book about a record store, and it changed me forever.

It might have been the best movie I ever saw or it might be ok. I can’t give it a proper review because it’s impossible to detach the art from the context, and I don’t want to try. To me it was perfect.

The DMV

June 25, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

RIGHT NOW, my son is at the DMV in line waiting to take his learner’s permit written test. This is not possible. He was just born yesterday. I remember pulling my work truck onto the shoulder to deal with the reality of the words I had just heard: “I’m pregnant.” Or rather, “Positive,” because we had decided to wait until I returned home from work but I simply could not and begged her to take the test with me on the phone.

This was a pretty poor choice, as it turns out. I would have loved to hold her tightly while we cried on the floor of the bathroom like in the commercials. But the way it happened I remember like it’s seared into my mind and that’s cool to remember something so significant so clearly, so I guess it wasn’t that poor of a decision. And I did get to hold her and cry soon enough in celebration and joy and gratitude.

Anyway, that was last night and now he’s 16 and as big and strong as I am and is hopefully about to get enough questions right to pass his test.

It’s moments like this that allow us to focus on where we are and from where we’ve come. Sometimes we miss it, you know? We wake up and wonder what happened, how did we get this old and how in the world is he driving?!!!!???

There’s a familiar story in the Bible about Moses and a burning bush. Now, bushes burn all the time but what was interesting about this one was that it wasn’t being consumed, like every single other thing that burns. I wonder how many walked right on by, head down getting to the next meeting or thinking about yesterday or tomorrow, distracted by anything, what my hair looks like, if I’m too fat, what they thought of me, if my shirt was the right color, whatever. And the bush burns and the invitation goes unnoticed.

My dad died 16 years ago (the same year the prospective driver was born) very suddenly. I wished for 1 more day, 1 more conversation, 1 more chance to make everything right. Then the story about that bush was no longer was a story about thousands of years ago, it was a story about me and my dad and God trying to get my attention to here and now, instead of then, there, should have, and what if.

That was the greatest lesson my dad taught me, and if you like me even a little, that’s probably what you like most. I wrote earlier that the Angel was pregnant ‘last night,’ but that’s not true. It was almost 17 wonderful years of laughter, church services, tears, angry fights, wrestling on the floor, board games, movies, dentist appointments, basketball games, Impractical Jokers episodes, hugs (sooo many hugs), kisses, fevers, doctor appointments, and countless ice cream cones ago and I’m sure I’ve missed a few moments but for the most part, the point my dad unknowingly made stuck me like a knife in the hardest parts of my heart, changing me forever. Now those parts are super soft and squishy and keep me fully present. What I can tell you is that I’ve loved him with my whole heart and all of my being for every day of his life.

Which has now become a life that has PASSED A DRIVERS TEST!!!!!!

Kong

April 8, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Last weekend I saw the movie Godzilla vs Kong.

First thing to know about me, while you might think it’s just the kind of movie I’d like, it’s not. There are roughly 2,500 movies in existence with King Kong and/or Godzilla in the title, I haven’t liked one. This wasn’t an exception. My sons loved it, so I said I did, too. I want them to like mostly everything, to not become one of those insufferable snobs who thinks it’s cool to hate. I used to be that guy. I’d tell them (and anyone else who would listen to me self-righteously pontificate) about dialogue and plot holes and blah blah blah and they’d feel silly for loving it and who wins in that? No one. I don’t believe in “guilty pleasures,” either. We can like anything we like and there’s absolutely no guilt in that. Unless it’s that song “Watermelon Sugar,” by that boy that I think used to be in One Direction. Anything else, have fun, man. Life is heavy a lot of the time, if monsters pro wrestling each other is your deal, this is your movie, enjoy!!!

That’s my review of the movie itself, but I’m writing this to tell you how much I LOVED going to the theater to see Godzilla vs Kong. I was overjoyed to buy tickets and popcorn and sit in a mostly empty deafening theater with other actual flesh-and-blood human beings having an experience together.

COVID stole a lot of things from us, and to take them back inch by inch is wonderfully satisfying. Our friends have been on screens and telephones, hugs are virtual, smiles have been obscured by masks. Theaters have been closed. There has been so much loss in these past 13 months, a monster movie in the theater is hardly the most important, but sometimes it’s the little things we might consider trivial at another time that perfectly capture the pain or the hope in any situation.

One time a flood destroyed my home and all of my things and that was horrible, but it was months later when I had a wedding to attend and realized I didn’t have dress socks that broke me into a million pieces. I wept loudly, bitterly in my truck along the highway. Dress socks were hardly the most valuable thing we lost, but as symbols go, it was priceless.

Godzilla and Kong ushered in a new mindset for me, for us, that pointed to a reality outside of quarantines and pandemics. It illuminated a hope that we would be together again, that we would connect, that we would hold each other’s hands in our own, that we would be human again.

And as far as experiences go, I can’t imagine one better than Godzilla vs Kong.

How To

March 23, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Several years ago, I was working full-time delivering medical equipment, pastoring a new local church, a full-time husband & daddy, and working far more than full-time discovering and becoming who I was/am. Even though I loved all of it, individually, I was teetering on the precipice of a complete breakdown nearly every moment of every day. The illustration that makes sense is of trying to fit a gallon of water into a shot glass.

Eventually, I scaled back the medical delivery to part-time (while still juggling the unholy on call responsibilities, which years later, cause me to shudder. No kidding. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the nightmare of thinking my phone is ringing.) which helped a little, though not as much as was necessary. My life was still a gallon and I was still a shot glass.

Many of my friends have greater capacities than mine, like a tumbler or a Big Gulp. The Angel does, too. Maybe you do. I’ve stopped feeling guilty about this. We all are created differently, different gifts, talents, passions, and different capacities.

It’s entirely probable that my capacity was reduced by the sheer number of should’s inside, like ice cubes filling a glass before one drop of liquid could find room. Wildly important should’s like responsibilities in providing for this family, safety, security, and on and on…then stepping outside, less important should’s like ‘what will people think?!??’ When you devote so much energy and space to the negative loops of b.s. in your head, it leaves very little for elements like purpose, meaning, and life. I needed a push, either out of the boat or back into the cabin, straddling both was tearing me apart.

Then the book How To Be Here, written by Rob Bell, was released. How To Be Here was about quitting your job delivering medical equipment and taking your shot at all of those things that make you feel alive. Among other things, of course.

“Your Ikigai is your reason for being. If you’re like a lot of people, the moment the words path and vocation and calling come into the conversation, let alone a new word like Ikigai, a thousand questions come to mind. Questions about paychecks and responsibility and passion and what you wish you could do if only you didn’t have those bills to pay.”

Maybe the book wasn’t about medical equipment delivery at all, but as I picked it up to reread it today, it sure sounds like it. Books can be like anything, tied to a certain time or event. Like how if you’re a certain age, it’s impossible to hear “Stairway To Heaven” without thinking of school dances full of butterflies and self-consciousness. This book is a very good friend who walked into my life when I was in desperate need like a hurricane, gently rested both hands on my back, whispered in my ear that I could, and then shoved me into a brand new life.

Hardly anything has been easy in the transition, but it has been awesome and I just wanted to thank Rob Bell and my very good friend How To Be Here.

In Working Order

February 1, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Throughout the months of COVID isolation, like so many others, we have been swimming in screens. We binge watched the entire The Office and fell hopelessly in love with Jim and Pam. All 23 MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) movies, even The Incredible Hulk, which almost nobody watches. Now, we’re moving slowly through the Star Wars saga, including the extras like Solo and The Mandalorian. Our commitment to wholeness required us to suffer through the prequels, disappointing then and only marginally less so now. I do love the new ones, especially The Last Jedi. It’s actually my favorite of the films.

As you know, I’m reading, too. I read another Fredrik Backman novella called “And Every Day The Way Home Gets Longer and Longer.” This tiny gem is set inside the head of a man who is suffering from dementia, and losing his memories. Every day the way home to himself and his memories gets longer and longer. Obviously, it’s heartbreaking, but it’s the sort of ache that we need to have form time to time to keep our hearts soft and in working order.

I shouldn’t have read it, not now. You see, there is an unreasonable amount of death and suffering in the circles around me. I could write forever about any of them, but this is the one I will. A man lost his wife, a lovely woman, to cancer a few days ago.

I took him some bread and a card yesterday morning, half hoping he wouldn’t answer the door. (I know that sounds awful, but you know just what I mean.) He didn’t so I left it at the door and left. As I drove away, he passed me in his car. There are certain moments in your life where you see who you were, who you are, and who you are becoming. Usually these transformations happen so slowly we don’t notice. But sometimes we are able to see clearly. I wanted to keep driving. He didn’t see me, I could’ve let my card and bread be enough. I wanted to keep driving even as I was making a u-turn in the street to chase him.

He pulled into his driveway and I followed. We hugged each other, he talked, and when I could stand it no more, we both cried in the front yard.

Some things hit you harder than others. I think I know why this one leveled me the way it did. It was that it was his wife. In the book, he speaks to his deceased wife in his fading mind. And as I sat in that sadness, tears soaking my cheeks, I realized that every love story is our love story. Every lovely wife is my lovely wife. Art is of course about it’s creator but it’s also about everyone else.

Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader matter because fathers and sons matter, specifically, your father, your son, my dad, my son. My dad wasn’t an evil oppressor of galaxies, but we did have issues where I might have wanted him to be something other than what he was, I might have wanted him to see me as who I was, rather than trying to make me into what he wanted, or seduce me to the dark side of the force. As these things tell us a new story, they’re also reading the story of us to us in language we can understand.

My friend and his wife weren’t art, they were real life and real death. But what’s the difference, really? We’re all telling stories with our lives, finding connections in the dark, noticing hidden relationships, and it is in discovering the things that tie us together that real life truly becomes artwork.

Funeral

January 26, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/2 Comments

There was a funeral last Friday for a lovely woman.

I’ll sometimes force my sons to attend funerals or memorial services with me, to which they usually respond, “I don’t want to,” because they’re teenagers and human. I usually ask, “why?” because I am their dad and horrible, to which they say, “I don’t like them.” Here, I lie and say, “nobody likes them.”

I tell them that lie because sometimes you have to do things you don’t like and it’s mostly better if everyone else is doing things they don’t like, too. Like eating vegetables or running.

The truth is that I love them. I know how that sounds, but it’s not to be confused with loving death, dying or anything weird like that. I’m not a psycho. They’re thin spaces, and I find thin spaces – where, according to Eric Weiner in The NY Times, the “distance between heaven and earth collapses and we’re able to catch glimpses of the divine” – absolutely inspiring and beautiful.

When you stare out of the car window, flowers, grass, guardrails, and other cars blur into one undefined smudge. Nothing is clear. You can’t even tell where the flowers start and the Honda ends. This is like my life. I have a full schedule, see a lot of people, go a lot of places, drop off and pick up from practices, grocery stores, and on and on. Too often, I hurry, don’t stop to listen, don’t pay attention.

Last March when the world stopped turning, I dreamed of a new normal where we would find that we quite liked the slower pace. Instead, almost a year later, the new normal is just the old normal with more Zoom meetings and Amazon deliveries. It’s still a blurry smudge if we’re not careful.

Funerals operate like isolated March 2020’s. They stop us where we are, open our eyes, heaven and earth collapse, and we are invited to see these divine glimpses. Now, maybe we don’t accept the invitation. Maybe we stuff our emotions and check the boxes on what “has to be done,” work like crazy until we can finally get back to work (because who knows if the company will actually be standing if we’re not there to hold it together.) Maybe we numb and check out. Maybe we pretend we’re SuperSpiritual and read from the list of cliches while we convince ourselves that it’s somehow selfish to acknowledge the honesty of the loss and stifle anything that looks like tears and feels like grief.

But, baby, if we do accept the invitation… The clean lines of the Honda, blades of grass and bright colors of the flowers come into focus and we can actually see the beauty all around us that we’re too busy to notice any other time. We cry our eyes out when we need to and often find those tears surprisingly becoming laughter and smiles at the wonder of our tremendous gratitude.

[There is a pink elephant in this room. What if the tears are of sadness but also anger or rage or bitterness or resentment? Then, there is no laughter and gratitude is in short supply. This sort of situation is even more important that we accept the invitation into presence. There’s a character in the movie Magnolia who says, “we may be done with the past, but the past isn’t done with us.” The longer we run from the fact that there are chains around our necks, the longer those chains stay around our necks, strangling us slowly, perhaps imperceptibly, just taking our lives a breath at a time. I know it’s horrible, but we face what comes, dump it on the ground, look at it, and then we maybe pick it up and do it all again next week, but at some point, we leave a little on the ground, we pick up a little less, until the tears feel less like acid and more like peace. It’s not quick and it’s not easy, but we have to believe it’s possible. If the tomb was empty once, nothing is impossible ever again.]

So, all of this mourning, grief, celebration, gratitude, looking at an empty place at the table or in the chair… well, it hurts like crazy when our hearts break. But we are awake. Our eyes are wide open to the blessings of today, and open to the blessings of yesterday, when they were here (It was awesome when they were here) and what a gift it was that, of all the people in the world, they were here with us and it was great.

New Years Day

January 1, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

This morning, 5 seconds ago, I finished the Britt-Marie book by Fredrik Backman that I was telling you about. It was amazing. It’s interesting what gets you to where you are.

A great friend gave A Man Called Ove to me for Christmas and it took me over a year to read it. Then years later, I bought My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry at the beach because I didn’t adequately plan. I bought it with Adjustment Day by Chuck Pahlaniuk, which I immediately started. My Grandmother waited months for me and then it broke my heart in every wonderful way. Then I got The Deal Of A Lifetime and Britt-Marie Was Here from the library. (I’ll buy both of them today.) The titles are perfect and the covers are better. It’s interesting how superficial some things are, but they open the doors that need opening.

The first characteristic I noticed about my wife was her smile. Then her legs and the shape of her, like a guitar. She is the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, then and now. Her fonts and cover were excellent. But fonts and covers and clever titles only go so far.

These books are full of depth and soul, and so is she. To say that The Angel is the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, then and now, is a little offensive, like only seeing one small tree in a forest as big as the ocean. She is an ocean of everything lovely, a few things that are not lovely (because she is after all a human being), and the small tree that is her cover.

It’s New Years Day and I can’t tell you how thankful I am that I waited to work out until I finished Britt-Marie Was Here. It makes me feel that this year could be anything. That’s the same way I feel when she walks down the stairs everyday. Like I, we, all of us, are possible.

All is still quiet on New Years Day. She’s in this room in her pajamas on the couch. I am thankful. Content. Happy. And I can’t wait to see what’s next.

So, Let Me Tell You About Yesterday

December 11, 2020/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

So, let me tell you about yesterday.

The Angel & I took the boys to school and left immediately, driving north to Scranton (home of Dunder Mifflin Paper) for the funeral service of a friend’s father. He (James Chickson) was a terrific dad, husband, and man – exactly like my friend. At the Bridge, we would call men like him bull elephants, and the world doesn’t have enough of those, so we gathered to mourn. It was a catholic service and as a general rule, I find catholic services a little sterile and impersonal (just me, just my opinion, but I am very messy, overly sensitive, mushy and untraditional, so I would), which this one was…UNTIL my friend stood to give the eulogy. He was beautiful. He was all of the things we love about him, and probably all of the things we loved about his dad. It was awesome and exhausting, just what a funeral service should be.

Then we came home, picked my boys up from school and had some ice cream because ice cream is perfect for a broken heart.

Then at the dinner table (dinner after dessert is also perfect for broken hearts…well, any hearts, really), we discovered that there were new PA COVID restrictions that would, among other things, “pause” school sports. It was then that my boys expressed their emotions in what is sometimes the only appropriate way, with tears of sadness and rage.

Now, I know school sports are comparatively minor in relation to the widespread wreckage COVID has wrought, but it is absolutely real to them. And to me. Because we all have those comparatively minor’s, right?

Once the tears stopped and we were able to re-focus and gain a smidgen of perspective, then I began the phone calls to the core group of the Bridge to discuss what we would do, if anything, to address the new restrictions. Again, a small church in Annville is comparatively minor in the grand scheme, but it is my family and it is definitely doesn’t feel comparatively minor.

We are losing loved ones, businesses, homes. We have been disconnected and isolated, and that leaves us raw and exposed, sensitive to very fine points. I remember months after the flood took our house, I had an appointment where I would need dress socks. I rarely wear dress socks and now that I needed them, I realized, I didn’t have dress socks. The pair I had was lost in the flood. I was working, driving on a major highway towards State College, when I realized this insignificant detail (big deal, stop anywhere and pick up a new pair) and had to pull my truck off the road when my sobbing made driving impossible. Everything was overflowing, all of the months of “What are we going to do????” and utter powerlessness to answer had crested, and dress socks pierced the thin shell that barely kept it all on the inside.

High school seniors have lost proms and graduations, weddings have been moved, suspended, our lives have been radically upended, and we know that a missed dinner & dance for upperclassmen is nothing in relation to 200,000+ dead in this country alone, countless more worldwide. But that doesn’t make a canceled school dance hurt less. There isn’t a finite amount of love and care in our souls, we can deeply feel all the things in this human experience. There isn’t a cause/effect relationship where ignoring our pain leads to an increase in empathy. I would suggest if there is a relationship, it’s an inverse connection, where turning the blind eye to suffering (in any and all forms, even our own) leads to a practiced desensitization to suffering (in any and all forms).

I bring all of this up because what I notice is that we often say the words, “but other people have it much worse than me/us,” as a way of minimizing or trivializing our own pain & suffering. At funerals, we say the person is in a much better place or that God has a plan (which are both true) and pretend that we are fine, that are hearts aren’t shattered. In the Scriptures, God asks us for 1 thing above all. He asks us to bring who we are, everything we are, honestly and without pretense, to Him. He says that He doesn’t want our sacrifices, He wants our hearts. He weeps over the death of a man He intends to resurrect to validate the suffering of his community.

The Bible says, as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death… and it’s that through that makes all the difference. We can’t walk around, or avoid, or fake that it’s not the shadow of death. We can’t get through anything without going through. My beautiful buddy’s eulogy had very evident pain and loss, and it also had a lived-in gratitude that his dad was his dad, and I’m pretty sure the 2nd doesn’t come without the first.

So, I guess what I’m saying is this: Sometimes you need ice cream to ease the ache of a broken heart, or screaming rage for a 3-week break from basketball, or an offering of bitter tears over dress socks. There are no comparatively minor’s with God. There is only us, and that’s enough.

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: gratitude