2026-06-30T19:30:29+00:00

The Shoulds

June 30, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I ran on a treadmill this morning. Well, not entirely. I walk, increasing the speed every minute, then every 9th and 10th minute, I run, increasing that speed every 30 seconds. It’s like this: minute 1: 3.7 mph, minute 2: 3.8 mph, and so on, then when I get to 8 minutes, the speed moves to 6.0 mph, then at 8:30: 6.5 mph, 9:00: 7.0 mph, 9:30 7.5 mph. I do this for 1 hour, every Tuesday and Thursday. (I lift weights Mon, Wed, & Fri.) If I were to tell you I like to run, I would be lying to you, and I do a lot of things here but lying to you is never one of them. While running is mostly horrible, it does have some psychological benefits and today, running led me into a nice train of thought that I may or may not agree with, yet.

There are 2 kinds of perfectionism. I run because I am seeking to become more and more of who I have been created to be, to show up to myself in ways I might not have in the past. Yesterday, I posted about not overreacting to disrespectful, demeaning comments. I often do. And I think rejecting the complacency of “oh well, nobody’s perfect, that’s just who I am,” is vital to our development and growth. I know the danger of the shoulds, but maybe I shouldn’t be raising my voice because I can’t control myself, right?

I want my wife to always have the best time, safe and fulfilling, in all situations and experiences, because she deserves it. If she doesn’t, maybe it’s not the worst thing to want to be better for her. I want to have a heart that is healthy to be here for the 3 who I live with, my sister, mom, my beloved church community, friends, neighbors, and the whole world, who might need what I have to bring, because they all deserve it. (Yes, that feels like the delusions of a narcissist, but I think it’s true, and I also think you can replace the “I” with “you,” the world desperately needs all of us to show up, just as we are.) If that means I run, that means I run. And if it means I run harder and harder each time, and feel some disappointment if I cut corners or blow the workout off because I don’t feeeeel like it, that is an altogether good thing.

Last Saturday, I was given the honor of officiating a wedding. This is not unusual, I get to do quite a lot. But what was unusual is that I had a moment where I stumbled over some words.

No big deal, right? Actually, yes it was a very big deal to me. You see, 2 or 5 or 15 years ago, this would have led me to acknowledge it, then and there, stopping the ceremony, apologizing, then lying awake night after night ruminating on the FACT that I had absolutely ruined their ceremony and probably their marriage. Everyone was worse for me being there, I had a responsibility and I failed. I was ill-suited for this line of work, who did I think I was, anyway? I was mistaken for believing I ever could have been good enough for something so beautiful. [This is a brief glimpse into the dysfunctional downward spiraling loops I have lived for so long.]

But Saturday, my tongue had somehow gotten itself in knots, and as someone who makes a living communicating clearly, this is not ideal. However, it was only a few short moments, I smiled, remembered to breathe, and moved forward. Maybe no one even really noticed, except for the Angel & I, and even if they did, they would have discovered that I am a person. It wasn’t a lack of professionalism or preparation. It was like tripping on a sidewalk crack, which doesn’t mean I can’t walk, or shouldn’t be walking. We just sometimes trip.

Old me was the perfectionist you imagine, unhealthy and psychologically violent. Anything less than perfect was an indictment on my value. It meant I was totally worthless, that the voices were right, I wasn’t enough and never would be. The searing noise in my head drowned out the obvious truth that those voices were lies. My identity isn’t tied at all to my production, no matter how good or bad it is. My worth isn’t found in a grade or a title or a paycheck or a status or relationship, it isn’t found in anything other than the reality of who (and far more importantly, Whose) I am.

It’s funny, I am never confused about that when it comes to you. I’m only so mean and unforgiving to me. Or maybe, I used to be…I slept like a baby Saturday night, peaceful and contented. I should prepare like I do, I should do everything as well as I possibly can, as if I’m working for God and not man. And I should give myself a break when I trip and fall. And I should definitely not listen to any voices whose shoulds might bring shame.

Maybe, in these contexts, growing is learning to tell the difference between the shoulds that kill and the shoulds that call up, that heal. And recognizing that the same word doesn’t always have the same meaning.

Mean

June 29, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

So, someone in my life is being terribly mean to me. This might sound like I’m a child on a playground, but that doesn’t make it less true. Anytime I speak or ask any sort of question, he/she is condescending & disrespectful, as if I am the dumbest neanderthal that has ever walked the earth. This is not awesome. It also has very little to do with me.

Last week I watched a limited series on Peacock called The Resort. Cristin Milioti stars as Emma, 1/2 of a married couple on a vacation where they end up getting caught up in a weirdly supernatural mystery. She’s also a nightmare, distant, short & nasty to her husband & everyone else. Ms Milioti is a fantastic, magnetic actor (one of the best going, and if you don’t believe me, watch The Penguin series, especially episode 4), but wildly unlikeable as Emma. This can be an obstacle, when the lead actor is so unsympathetic to the audience, but it can also be the catalyst to our own transformation.

You see, later in the show, we begin to learn that she has lost a newborn child and made an impossible decision that left her broken and miserable. This brokenness informs every relationship in her life, isolates, and creates this aggressively aloof person that we see.

I very much like the Marvel & Star Wars universes moving into series television. It gives us time to learn more, to add depth & nuance, leading us to connect on new levels with these characters. Instead of just 1 primary thread, they are able to slowly expand and show more of the full scope of their complicated humanity. (Andor is probably the best example.)

Emma has built walls that make her as unknowable as she is unlikeable. This is not uncommon in our world, and it’s usually here that our shared story ends. We don’t get to see the why. We don’t get the privilege of backstory. It’s up to us if we have the grace to give them mercy, even if only in our heads & hearts.

This person who is mean to me, he/she is clearly lashing out at the closest safe thing. Why? Who knows? It’s obviously based in fear and insecurity. I know this, and so do you. Bullies are never the most self-assured people in the room, and the meanest are never the happiest. Mostly they’re the opposite. But I don’t know, he/she also doesn’t (can’t?) communicate this terror, this inadequacy, this desperate striving to prove his/her worth. If he/she could, we could assure him/her that he/she is already much, much more than enough.

But nobody likes to be a punching bag for someone’s identity work. It makes me angry, and I want to fight. I want to lash back.

But Emma was just so sad that it made her awful. The people that were sharp with her wouldn’t see the broken pieces she was trying to hide behind miles of thick, thick skin. I wonder if we will. I wonder if I have the courage to extend unconditional kindness, caring for his/her currently jagged edges.

Mean people are never born in a vacuum, everyone has a story. The only question is IF we can give them a break and keep loving despite…well, despite their humanity. We’re all awful & mean sometimes, and this is because we’re all broken in ways we might not acknowledge or understand. Our lives aren’t tv, but what tv certainly teaches us is to reserve our judgment, at least for now, probably forever.

Lies

June 23, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I watched 2 documentaries lately. Anatomy of Lies, on Peacock, and Maternal Instinct, on Netflix. Anatomy details the “life” of Elisabeth Finch, a writer on several shows you would’ve heard of, the most popular being Grey’s Anatomy. I put the word ‘life’ in quotes because most of everything she said or wrote about her life was a fabrication, a hi-jack of other people’s actual stories. She was called a “trauma vampire,” sucking other’s traumas and passing them off as her own. Instinct chooses a woman named Taylor Parker as its subject. She also lied about everything, eventually murdering pregnant woman Reagan Simmons-Hancock, and c-sectioning her unborn baby in a strange attempt to, not keep it as her own, but to lend evidence to her 9 months of false pregnancy.

These are interesting, sad stories but they are certainly not unique. There is no shortage of documentaries and “based on a true story” dramatizations of pathologically dishonest pretenders. Sometimes, once the liars are exposed, they apologize in their own non-contrite way. Like the vast majority of apologies, they’re sorry for being caught, not what they did (for which everyone else is to blame). Finch confesses only for things that can be proven false, and nothing else. Parker doesn’t confess at all, the documentarians don’t even ask, they don’t interview her at all.

[For an interesting, related context, I was only able to watch Anatomy of Lies because I subscribe to Peacock, and I only subscribe to Peacock because it has a show called Poker Face. The show is perfect, starring Natasha Lyonne as a drifter named Charlie Cale, who has the beautiful talent we wish we all had: the ability to know when someone is lying. She says, ‘everybody lies, it’s just a matter of finding out why.’]

Think about all of the really humongous relational messes you’ve either witnessed or experienced, how many of them had some level of deceit or dishonesty as the cornerstone? Some very recent, very close catastrophes left me saying, in each case, “If anyone, at any point, had told the truth, and even better, the whole truth, all of this drama could have been avoided.”

But they didn’t. Elisabeth Finch didn’t. Taylor Parker didn’t. And I wonder why. A woman in the Finch doc believes it all comes from an internal lack of worth creating a desperate need to be someone else. That’s probably true.

Of course, we also lie to avoid punishment. If the lamp falls, we say “not me,” so we don’t have to pay for it. That makes sense, right? Well, I mean, it doesn’t, because everybody always finds out who broke the lamp, and instead of just taking responsibility for the lamp, now we’re dealing with the lie, which is much, much worse. But there’s not an awful lot for us to do with this one, people either become adults or they don’t.

But, the other one, tied to a deeply perceived worthlessness, is a bit more interesting. Why do we want to be someone or something else? Why do we want their story or their family or house or money or whatever?

The 10th commandment (You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s) is sometimes read not as a command, but as a reward. If you do the previous 9, you won’t want your neighbor’s wife or donkey or anything that isn’t yours, because what you have will be enough. Enough is sort of a dirty word in America, where we worship at the altar of MORE. There is never enough. We are never enough. We are steadily fed the narrative that we are always lacking, and we’ll do anything to fill that hole. We need facelifts and new boobs because who we are and what we have now is simply not enough, and getting a new whatever is the answer.

Of course, the hole isn’t filled with more stuff or a new nose. We aren’t magically made whole with abs.

I’m increasingly interested in why we keep trying the same methods that don’t work, and have never worked? Why do we keep thinking a new car or jeans or dishwashing liquid will fill our souls? Why do we keep thinking war will bring peace? Or a bigger account balance will bring us the joy & peace that have eluded us for so long? Or that a few well-placed lies will produce the image that will finally complete us?

Finch lied to everyone in her life, it fell apart, she lost those people – the chaos of her broken life was directly related to her truth problem, and yet, she continues to lie. Dishonesty (on any level) builds walls around us while tearing down the chance/hope of intimacy and connection. The lies are a symptom, of course, the fruit of our fear. And until we can be defined by something else, until we can find our identity in something other than terror, we’ll continue to live these same boring loops and keep making these tired documentaries.

Improvement

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

The site just asked me, what’s one small improvement you could make in your life? That feels like the beginning of a very long, detailed, vulnerable answer. Maybe that’s why it only asked for 1. So, I’ll think of one.

Should it be a physical improvement (like bigger arms), or an intellectual one (like learning what data centers are)? Maybe emotional? I should probably not overreact so much, probably shouldn’t hyper-focus and ruminate, either. A habitual improvement is the answer, right? I should not watch so much tv, should eat better, should build a deck and finish the wood floors in our dining room. Or maybe I should eliminate so many “should’s.”

Does answering that prompt somehow imply an unhappiness with who I am right now? Can we be both content AND driven to improve?

I just looked it up on the internet and the first result says, no, that we should not be content ever. The guy on reddit reasoned that contentment means we will not move forward. Others say yes, you can. We can be satisfied and ambitious.

Someone named Wong Sr Chin writes, “To attain contentment, you must change the CONTENT of your improvement [that’s clever, isn’t it??] so that it caters more for the needs of your inner being, besides satisfying your outer needs.” Sometimes, people write and talk in such a way that it gets pretty confusing. In short, Wong Sr Chin is advocating spirituality – that any contentment in materiality is ultimately empty. That’s true, despite what advertisements would have us believe – that new car or gambling addiction isn’t the missing piece to our wholeness.

What is the content of my contentment? More important than ‘what’ is ‘why’ I would want to improve. Why do I want to grow or evolve or become anyone other than who I am right now? First, DO I want to grow or evolve or become? And yes, I do. Now, why?

I think we are created to grow. It is our natural state. We are one thing, a seed, say, and we are given the task to become a tree or a vegetable or a bush. If we stay static, we get dull and uninspired, wasting away inside, until there’s just a dim light barely shining. Now the question is, what kind of tree do I want to grow into? Once I answer that, I will work backwards and create the framework. What does that tree do, what is it like, what does it like, what makes up that tree’s daily routine?

I’m very happy with me. I could not always say that, but I can now, and that does not mean that I am a finished product, or that who I am is who I will always be. So, what’s one small improvement I could make? Trees (of any kind) probably don’t grow so big and strong eating Oreos and blueberry muffins, so I could not eat as much sugar.

What About Joshua?

April 21, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

This is an interesting time. I don’t have anything to say – I don’t want to write about the last documentary I watched on the mafia or what I think about the shameless cash grab of rereleasing Endgame with new footage “essential” to Doomsday. Maybe I’ll write about my new love of the Cleveland Cavaliers or my mom’s cat later. But instead of leaving this space blank, I know I don’t do this often (I like to keep it relatively religion-free) but I’ll share the post I wrote on my other blog. Maybe you’ll like it…

We’re currently at the tail end of Joshua, following a Bible In A Year plan, and there are some things about this book that are surprising and others that are problematic. I wonder if everyone everywhere who has ever read the Scriptures have had these same immediate reactions, if they thought, “sheesh, there is an awful lot of killing, so much about totally destroying entire groups of people,” or “why do I care about the boundaries of each tribe’s land?” Probably.

We finished the earlier books, with all of the monotony of the sacrifices, measurements and laws, thought we were done, now we’re back into more super-specific details. What I think when I read it is not, “now, where exactly did Dan’s eastern border stretch?” Instead, it’s that there was a tribe that descended from Dan and it did stretch from one very concrete place to another. Sometimes, we can disconnect and think this all fell out of the sky. It’s easy to forget that this all happened, and it happened in this place at this time to these people. The fact that the book through which God chose to reveal Himself includes countless human beings is extraordinary, as if we’re the medium He chooses to create His masterpiece. So, now, I really like these loooong lists and details (honestly pretty meaningless in themselves, I don’t reference a map or anything, but heavy with significance at their inclusion at all.)

The genocide is another thing altogether. It hurts to read, especially to spend even an extra second in consideration. It’s a little like reading the story of Noah, not through the tiny prism of Noah & his family, but thinking of everyone else. All other people drowned. It’s a horrific story we tell to children. Or speaking of inappropriate kids’ stories, David separates Goliath’s body from his head at the end. I have a million more examples, and 1 question, in light of the last paragraph. If these are real people, in real places, at real times, then real flesh and blood people just like you and me are dying…I guess the question is: What??? If God created us all in His image, and loves us all, then what about the Amorites and Amalekites? What about Goliath?

I just Googled “Amalekites,” and here’s what it says: “The Amalekites were a nomadic, warlike tribe in the Negev desert who served as the first and most persistent enemies of Israel in the Bible. As descendants of Esau, they attacked the Israelites after the Exodus, leading to a divine mandate for their destruction. Amalekite symbolizes absolute evil in Jewish tradition, representing irrational hatred if the Jewish people.”

Ok. That sounds like the extermination of a group of people symbolizing absolute evil representing hatred of God’s chosen people by those chosen people is something we can understand, doesn’t it? It sounds reasonable, even.

Now, I don’t mean to be contrary, but there is a strange passage in chapter 5, before the battle of Jericho. Joshua meets a figure, and in his aggression, essentially asks, “are you with us or against us?” This figure, a “Commander of the army of the LORD” answers, “Neither.” Neither??Now what? What do we do with that? Also, a lot of scholars think this figure was a pre-incarnation appearance of Jesus, who would later famously say, “Love your enemies.” We can assume He meant “the first and most persistent enemies of Israel,” the Amalekites, too.

So now I’m wondering what part we don’t understand. It seems like we are very clear on the Old Testament narrative, we understand enemies and war. Good guys and bad guys, us vs them. We do understand and we honestly don’t seem to mind those parts. The complicated parts are the ones that are complicated by this Commander and Jesus Himself. Neither? Love your enemies? Their words bother us, not the book of Joshua.

And here’s what I’ll say to that: they should. We should be bothered, and we should stay bothered. The words and way of Jesus are revolutionary and radical, we have no frame of reference for the Kingdom of God. Unconditional love and grace is not what we do here, we do productivity and record-keeping. Vengeance above forgiveness.

It’s vital to stay bothered, to keep wrestling with these parts we don’t like, that confront us in the deepest parts of us. (Of course, we do have to be aware of what actually we’re wrestling with/about.) And hidden in the middle of this story is a command for how we’re called to interact with these parts. The Commander says “Neither,” then He says, “now take off your shoes because you’re on holy ground.” That’s so good. He reminds us that when we’re in relationship with Him, it’s all holy ground, and Joshua’s reaction is to fall facedown. When we read the Word, his is the only posture that will work, awe, reverence and total respect, trying to make our lives fit Him instead of twisting Him to fit us.

Joshua IS certainly a tough book, maybe not for the reasons we think it is, but we must not stop reading it.

2 Movies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weather?

March 23, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

What is my favorite kind of weather, the site wants to know. They’re not all great, right? You would be hard pressed to find a less interesting way to spend your writing/reading time. But then, this morning, one of the email lists I subscribe to sent these thoughts & questions (with the title “Do you wish life was different?”):

“Your life simply reflects what you’ve prioritized…What does your life tell you about your priorities? Do you wish it were different?”

We talk about values & the Biblical concept of weight (as in, what weighs more, observing the Sabbath or pulling your donkey out of a hole?) often. We discuss the foundations on which we build our lives. What do you believe about God, the world & yourself? And would your actions testify to those answers, or would they be a jarring contradiction?

This email doesn’t come from an espoused Christian, but it certainly asks a question that is inherently “Christian.” You have this wonderful gift of life, how will you spend it? What is important to you?

After I fell in love with Jesus, there were months where I didn’t open my Bible, where my fingers didn’t touch the spine, where it just sat on my bedside table collecting dust. But I would’ve absolutely told you that the Scriptures were very important to me. That’s just one of many hypocrisies that had to be addressed, before I could comfortably state that consistency was one of my core values. If it’s so important to me that you know what you’ll be getting from me, that I am authentically me all the time, that the principles I hold would be in the same room at a party, then I have to do quite a bit of work to honestly look at my thoughts, actions, motivations. I have to constantly examine myself in the harsh light of the mirror. It has been terribly frightening to confront the possibility that my boys and the Angel (the 3 who live in my house and know me the best) would not recognize the preacher at the Bridge. Would they hear me speak about the importance of the Bible and never have seen me read it? Would they hear me talk about honoring our spouses, while I am cutting and disrespectful to my own wife? Judgment, generosity, etc. I don’t know if you know, but we regularly read 1 Corinthians 13 on Sunday mornings, what if I am neither patient nor kind? What sort of example is that? Am I a Pharisee? I mean, yes, of course I am, but am I growing? Am I on the path, following Jesus? Is my life one marked by love?

We all have these spaces that confront – let’s call them invitations. That sounds much less aggressive, doesn’t it? Would we put family at number 1 but haven’t made it home for dinner in weeks, and haven’t spoken to my parents since last Christmas? Is eating right or exercise a “value” of ours, when we haven’t seen the gym lately and don’t remember the last time we’ve eaten a vegetable? Do we say we love our church community, while we don’t really go? Is giving an important discipline, but it’s often the first thing to get cut? Do we say we “love like Jesus,” but we really hate our enemies? It’s endless, and each example we give might hit a little too close to home. (Of course, the rub is: we would have to be willing to tell the truth, to and about ourselves. That’s where this can so easily break down.)

This emailer – Mark Manson – asks what our lives tell us about our priorities, and do we wish it was different? Do we wish we were more present? More faithful? More loving, caring, thoughtful? Do we wish our marriages were stronger, our families closer? Do we wish we were more responsible with our money, our time, our calories? Do we wish we were more mindfully enjoying the blessings in our lives?

I’ve been saying “more” and “better,” but that’s not the only thing we wish, right? Are we overwhelmed? Do we wish our calendars were less full? That we were less busy and distracted all the time?

What do all of these factors and characteristics say about our lives? Easter is such a great season to evaluate what goes into our hearts and lives. The resurrection is the best time to ask what we truly believe is possible. Where does the empty tomb fit into our priorities? If we answered yes to any of my own questions, do we trust that we can set a new course? That who we are right now might not be who we will be, that we just might not be done growing yet?

Easter is a time of intense hope… do we believe that? Does the way we live our lives affirm that theology? Probably not, but what better time could there possibly be to transform than right now???

Blue Paint

March 19, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site is asking what one word describes me…One word I want to describe me? Or the one that actually does? I think this is the kind of thing that is best left for others to answer. Maybe I’ll ask the Angel. Or maybe I don’t want to know.

I have a steel hot/cold cup (the brand is Bubba) and I fill and refill it with ice and water all day every day. I fill it before I go to bed, put it in the fridge and drink it first thing in the morning. It’s several years old and the blue paint on it is flaking all over the place. It’s on my hands, in the dish water, the cup holders in the car, the kitchen counter, everywhere. You will always know where I’ve been.

This morning I was talking with my brother in law about influence. With the avalanche of information/stimulation that we encounter, there’s no way it wouldn’t influence us. Even the way we access this information is an influence. Marshall McLuhan wrote a book called The Medium Is The Message, and I can’t help but notice how our language has transformed. We speak in text fragments, accurate spelling is a relic of a time long past, our metaphors and references are often technologically based, we are forever changed by the internet & social media. The algorithms and AI buddies on our devices can shape us in the same way advertising always has. (Maybe not the same way – they’re likely much more effective.) We’re influenced by the videos, books, voices we choose, as well as the lenses we use through which we see the world. Our experiences, opinions, beliefs and interpretations are a complex web.

I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. It just needs to be an intentional thing. The days where we could delude ourselves into the notion that we can avoid any of this are long, long past. Indifference, not choosing, is simply not an option.

We need to know where we’re picking up the blue paint that’s helping to color us. And in the same way, we should acknowledge what kind of paint chips we’re leaving on others. Maybe we could start to decide what we are influenced by, what kinds of colors are mixing into our own. Maybe that’s the difference between an ugly random mess and a beautifully varied mosaic.

The world is an increasingly terrifying place. The machines will probably make us their slaves in no time, if we even leave a world for them to usurp. Maybe we’ll destroy ourselves in our mad desire to destroy each other long before the Matrix can become reality (assuming it hasn’t already.)

But I’ve always believed in the original goodness of people – that the story begins in Genesis 1, where humans are made in the image of a wonderfully loving, creative God, and not the catastrophic fall of Genesis 3. Yes, it’s terrifying, but the road in front of us hasn’t been paved, not yet. We can reclaim our creativity and build a new tomorrow, and we can reclaim our nature of love and do it together. Whether we think we can or can’t has probably been influenced to a greater degree than we’d ever imagine by the kinds of paint we’ve gotten on and in our skin. Maybe it’s time to choose that paint.

[Upon further consideration, maybe my one word is hopeful. Very, very hopeful.]

Scamanda

January 30, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

“What do you complain about the most?” That’s what the site wants to know. I’ll tell you, it’s an easy answer.

I watched a documentary this week on Hulu, called “Scamanda,” about a woman in California, super spiritual, super inspirational, and her fight with cancer. Except, of course, as you can tell from the title, the cancer was fake. She pretended to be suffering to steal people’s money. The doc was fine, easy and interesting, the kind where you just let the episodes run together. I guess it’s called binge watching. Thankfully, there are only 4 episodes, so it’s not too much of a time suck.

Now, to answer the site prompt, I complain about lies & liars, dishonesty, and inauthenticity the most.

Maybe this is because I care so deeply about relationship, and the only true obstacle to the beauty of connection is our bs. Or maybe I resent being marked as a fool, that I am so worthless I can’t be interacted with on the most basic human level. Or maybe I just don’t like when people are intentionally mean to each other. I don’t like when we manipulate or betray each other on purpose (we do enough of that accidentally, we don’t have to go out of our way to hurt each other.)

This woman created an entire existence – online, in church, in town, in the community – only to separate people from their money. I recognize that is reductive. It wasn’t “only.” I’m sure she was insecure and needed validation, needed to feel important, needed to distinguish herself. She was probably very mentally ill (instead of only a thief) to perpetrate such a vile act for so many years.

One of the most fascinating things was that this was able to continue primarily because almost no one could fathom someone lying about such a thing. That’s true. You couldn’t. And I like that about you. I like that she was right to assume that about us.

I just discovered that one I believed to be a close friend had been lying to me (looked me in the face and fed me one lie after another.) Was anything ever real? I have to assume not. It never occurred to me that any of the things he shared wouldn’t be true. This is not the best thing to discover. And it can change someone, make someone cynical, jaded, untrusting, closed.

It won’t do that to me, though, because in hindsight, even with a freshly broken heart, I like that about me. I like that he could assume I’d believe him, trust him. I did.

You see, I have been thinking about something I read. We create the world we want to live in by living that way now. I want to live in a world of kindness, so I am kind. Of trust and vulnerability. Of authenticity. Of love. So it is up to me and you to go first. We live as if that is how the world is, how we actually are. I don’t want to live in a world where we are suspicious of our neighbor/friend/family member/YouTuber with a cancer diagnosis. I don’t want to live in a world where I question everything my friends say. This is how we circulate our humanity. We believe in each other. We love, first, and invite everybody else to come along.

Yes, of course, this means we’ll get kicked by the psychos. And those kicks will hurt and we’ll never get used to them, it’ll be like the first time (shocking & vicious) every time. It’s part of becoming the revolution. We choose what to build, and they shouldn’t be able to change the blueprints.

Messages

January 19, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site prompt (every day, the hosting website for this blog suggests a topic to encourage regular interaction) for yesterday was, “If you could un-invent something, what would it be?” And today, it’s “What makes a good leader?”

I receive just a few mass emails, one is from a man named Mark Manson, and his email is called Your Next Breakthrough. The first section is entitled, “One Thing For You To Think About,” and today, that thing is: Actions are your values made real. You can talk and talk, but at the end of the day, your actions never lie. Then, the next is, Two Things For You To Yourself, and they are: Is there something you tell yourself you value but your actions don’t follow? Is there something you tell others you value but your actions don’t follow?

Another list I belong to is WiRE (if there’s a reason for that particular capitalization, I have no idea what it is), by Justin Camp. He gives a short teaching, today it ends with, “For community to work, for truth to flow properly, we must understand and appreciate each other. And we begin by telling our stories. If we don’t begin there, we’re likely to damage community and to do damage to each other—like when we give advice and try to “fix” a person, or a situation, we don’t fully understand.” Then, he asks, “Okay, so what do we do?” and answers, “Do you know your brothers’ stories? If you haven’t already, give each man an hour—at least—to tell his story, completely. Have each man start at the beginning and bring his story current. Encourage transparency. Ask no questions. Give no advice. Just listen.” (WiRE is directed at men, but is obviously not only for men.)

I’m sharing this because we are under a near-constant barrage of information, every sense stimulated (over-stimulated?) everywhere we go, everywhere we are. What do we do with all of it? How do we filter what is valuable from what is not? Do we even recognize how much is fighting for our attention? And, then what? Are we intentional with what we take in, do we engage with it, or simply go where the wind of the algorithm pushes us?

You might think I would suggest we unplug from all of this, and avoid the avalanche of messages. But if you do, you’d be mistaken, because I recognize that it is absolutely impossible to escape our current, modern reality. It’s like those people who swear they aren’t affected by advertising or marketing – I don’t know if they’re lying or just wrong. McDonald’s has sold “billions and billions” of hamburgers, and it’s certainly not because they’re good.

So, since we can’t drop out, what do we do? I suggest we lean in, in the spaces we choose. The above examples are perfect. There are only 2 emails – I got 30+ today that I either unsubscribe, block, or delete – and I’ll consider those 2 carefully. I’m going to ask myself those 2 questions about the consistency of my values & actions. (I already know I am not perfectly aligned, I can easily think of 2 areas, and I’m sure there will be more.) And, as far as WiRE, I’m already on board with what he’s saying, but it does give me a new way to say it (and in my line of work, any new ways to communicate ideas are valuable.)

The prompts are not always awesome, but when they are, they can be quite enlightening. What would you un-invent? That might be a light to a new path for you. We’ve heard it said that the things that make us angry can open our eyes to our hearts, show us the places where we may need to get involved. And leadership?? 2 things. First, I can’t imagine there could be better time to think &. talk about this. And second, we’re all leaders to someone. How are we holding that opportunity/responsibility? What kind of leaders are we? Then, to neatly tie these together, is it the kind of leader we want to be? Are the things we say we believe, the things we care about, clearly seen in our lives?

We might be too busy or distracted or worried or whatever to sift and sort the stampede of stimulation. But I think it’s possible that it becomes it’s own circle, we are too distracted to sift, which keeps us distracted, so we can’t sift, which keeps us distracted, repeat forever. It’ll take our attention, intention, and interest in the creation of our own lives.

It’s all in front of us, there’s no going back, the only question is if we’ll seek His hand, open our eyes, wake up and jump into this beautiful gift and what we’ll make, together.

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: honesty