2020-08-08T17:49:30+00:00

Kurt Cobain

August 8, 2020August 10, 2020/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I am feeling better, the darkness is lifting, so I could finally get back to depressing Netflix (or in this case, Amazon Prime) documentaries without tearing at the seams of my mental health. Saturday, it was Soaked In Bleach, an account of the death of Kurt Cobain.

2 things about this. 1. I didn’t sleep Friday night, so I watched this in the middle of the night while 2 wild cats in my driveway screamed and moaned. It was an awful, but somehow perfectly fitting soundtrack.

And 2. I told my oldest son about this film. He has “Come As You Are” as his ringtone because it’s the music of the best scene in Captain Marvel, and this beautiful boy of mine (who has been hearing about Nirvana and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Nevermind since he was in the womb), flesh of my flesh, asks me, “Who’s he? Is he a singer?” I am the worst father in America.

So. The voice of my generation committed suicide in 1994, or at least that’s what we were told. This documentary cast doubt on that, instead exposing many of the whispered rumors we heard that it might’ve had more to do with his wife, Courtney Love, a broken marriage and mountains of money. And maybe it did. Maybe she was involved, maybe it was a gross miscarriage of justice. There is certainly more to the story than an addict and a shotgun. One thing that hasn’t changed is what he meant to me. Maybe because of that, I should be more outraged than I am.

What I do want to talk about, and what I’ll explain to my sweet boy after he listens to the entire Nirvana oeuvre, is that honesty matters.

In the Filthy Epstein doc, Bill Clinton denied that he was ever on the disgusting island, when he surely was. Now, maybe he didn’t ever partake in the sex trade that was going on, but if he didn’t, why would he lie? It’s the muddy waters of his character that make me very suspicious.

In the same fashion, probably Courtney Love didn’t murder her husband. But why the mountain of lies that surround her? Her deception make me very suspicious.

The lies about phone calls and island trips themselves obviously don’t directly correlate to sexual abuse and murder, but in real life, it doesn’t take evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to cast shadows and destroy trust. If she doesn’t come home and says she’s with her friend…but she’s not…that doesn’t mean she’s with him. But it sure doesn’t help, and that sort of disruption can take years and years to repair.

Life and relationships are hard enough. Every day can be very difficult and take such a toll, we simply don’t have the reservoir of energy to spend repairing a misstep of dishonesty. That’s what I’ll tell my boys. But they’re not great listeners yet, and I suppose if I had the choice, I’d rather they hear that little bit about lies than the lyrics to “Drain You.”

RAIN!!!!

August 4, 2020/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

It’s raining. Actually, that’s an understatement. Tropical storm Isaias (pronounced, I think, E – sah – E – yas, I heard it’s Portuguese and that sounds like it might be true) is pounding the east coast of the United States, which is where I live. We need the rain, the grass has been brown-ish and dry and it has been unbearably humid for weeks and weeks.

On this damned humidity: I have asthma, but I don’t usually suffer anymore. When I was a child, I did, but not much anymore. Only if I exercise outside in the winter (so I don’t) or if the humidity is so high it strangles me. This is that kind of humidity. It’s like having a serial killer just outside my front door, lying in wait to choke me the second I leave.

So, we need the rain.

But in September 2011, another tropical storm (Lee) barreled into town, loaded like a freight train and flying like an aero plane. (That is a reference to a perfect Guns N’ Roses song as well as a story about a G N’ R cover band written by Chuck Klosterman that I just loooove. The song is Nightrain, by the way.) Lee came in and set up in the sky over my town, unmoving, and 3 days later, my house and everything I owned was underwater. This event was so significant to my family and I that we often speak of our lives in before- and after- flood terms. Each of us were forever changed. People were terrific and people (mostly people in utterly broken systems, like insurance companies and government agencies) were horrible. To quote a famous novel, “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

Now we watch the weather and consume forecast models like addicts. A hard prolonged rain sets us on edge until the sun comes out. We check the basements and gutters over and over, every puddle is a sign that we should at least start to consider packing up our photo albums and overnight bags.

When we had to evacuate our home in 2011, we took only 1 tub of toys (Rescue Hero figures) because whose house really goes underwater in Pennsylvania? A few years later, we lent those Rescue Heroes to another family for their boys and they were returned 2 weeks ago, so as it pours against this window, that exact tub of toys is within arms reach.

My wife texted me an hour ago with a sad face and I know, baby, I know.

It’s interesting. If you ask me about it, I would tell you it’s one of the best things to ever happen to me. I am different and I wouldn’t be without that time of growth, of tremendous stretching. That’s true of most pain, though, isn’t it? While we don’t wish it to happen to anyone else, and likely wouldn’t choose to travel those roads again, we are thankful for who we are now. (At least I am;)

Except when it rains.

The Fling

August 1, 2020/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

On Saturday mornings, I attend a contemplative retreat. Long periods of silence and meditation aren’t everyone’s bag, but they are certainly mine. The pace and noise of life very easily prove overstimulating and leave me exhausted and empty, to check out for even an hour on Saturday mornings are like water in the desert.

This week was no different, but it is a seemingly throwaway comment made early during the hello’s and how are you’s that I wanted to talk about today. The woman, Susan, quoted a tv show called Northern Exposure: “It’s not the thing you fling, it’s the fling itself.”

I never watched the show, don’t remember the context she provided, and honestly couldn’t care less about either. The quote is absolutely perfect and vital to our every moment of every day, no matter if the show was great or terrible, no matter what they were flinging or why.

I might amend it slightly, to say “it’s not the thing you fling or where it goes (if it goes anywhere at all), it’s the fling itself.”

If I write this post for the likes or comments, with an eye towards potential advertisers and income… well, so many things will happen. I’ll probably, on some level, conscious or not, begin to tailor it to reach the most eyeballs. It will cease to be 100% honest, because authenticity is usually packaged with sharp edges. I will drift into what I think you want to read instead of who I am, carefully crafting the image of taste-making, (insert popular characteristic I can pretend to possess here), supercool famous blog rock star. I will shoehorn the “thing to fling” into the popular trend.

And if I don’t get enough response, then what? I’ll quit or I’ll put on some new clothes and opinions and try again to fit the current to achieve an imaginary idea of success. Either way, it’s superficial and fake. It’s what we used to call, back in the day, “selling out” and the internet is lousy with it.

As you may or may not know, I am the pastor of a small church and as far as I can tell, the Bible is (among other things) a library of books connected by the Art of Subtraction. We subtract all of the ways we invent to manufacture an image – in the Scriptures, it’s called hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is meant to describe actors on a stage, bending themselves into a role to be what the audience wants them to be. Except in this case, our lives are the stage and we bend ourselves so much and so often that we forget who the person is under the mask. It’s a focus on the ends, the responses, the rewards, instead of the life-giving passion and fulfillment that only comes from stripping the expectations until we are left with exactly who we have been created to be. We subtract all of the extraneous layers until we are left with the genuine true us.

Now, maybe that includes gigantic paychecks from YouTube and fame beyond your wildest dreams. Maybe I’ll be driving a fleet of Rolls Royce’s by next summer due to an avalanche of social media adoration. Maybe I’ll be the next darling of Instagram or TikTok. But if that pseudo-success includes any hint of pretense or masquerade, it’s going to feel hollow and leave us wanting more and more, trying to fill the hole that all of our different costumes can’t plug.

It’s the fling, the process, the naked transparency of being exactly who we are and doing exactly what we’ve been made to do (whatever the thing to fling or where it is flung), that tears down walls of division and builds something new, inspiring, significant and undeniably awesome.

The fling is what builds a beautiful life.

General Zod In Waco

July 30, 2020/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I told you last week that I was falling apart, right?

We’ll talk about that in a few paragraphs, but first I want to give you a quick recommendation/review. I followed up the Filthy Epstein documentary with the Waco series, also on Netflix. It’s a 6 part series based on books written by those closely involved, produced by and starring Taylor Kitsch and Michael Shannon. Taylor Kitsch hasn’t been in anything I’ve seen, but is outstanding as David Koresh. Michael Shannon has been in quite a few things I’ve seen (General Zod in the newest Superman movies, Walt Thrombey in the awesome Knives Out, etc) and is terrific in everything, including this, as the chief FBI negotiator.

It’s the feel-good hit chronicling how the FBI & ATF murdered 76 people. Maybe we can talk about the things the Branch Davidians (the group led by Koresh) did wrong or that we don’t like or understand. Surely, there are plenty of those to discuss. But I’m absolutely positive none of those things deserved the death penalty. It was disgusting and when the final credits rolled, I cried and cried. It’s beautifully written and acted, an excellent miniseries.

Now back to the beginning. Nothing is new about me falling apart from time to time. I have ups and downs, like everyone, but as I am told, not everyone feels them quite like I do. When I was much younger, the dark down parts felt like they’d never end and I’d often contemplate anything to end the darkness. Now, I don’t ever think about making today my last day, because I know the darkness isn’t forever. I know the darkness will pass and it will be light again, sometime. That’s as good of a definition of faith as I can find.

It’s been dark for me for some weeks now, and as my tears dried from the horrors of Waco, my heavy heart plodded to why? After breakups in college, I would listen exclusively to the Smiths, Morrissey and Depeche Mode and the other saddest songs I could find. I’d play “Unloveable” on repeat. Why purposefully walk deeper into that abyss? As I watch the pain of Federal Agents being sent into Seattle on the news, why am I choosing the story of Waco, TX? When I’m overwhelmed with sadness, maybe the murder of women and children isn’t the best option. Or is it?

Just like in the kitchen, it really matters a what we put in our bodies. But I’m not sure what that even means when it comes to this. I refuse to ignore or avoid the pain of real life…but maybe diving in so fully isn’t the healthiest, either. Maybe I need, say, 2 Morrissey albums and then a mindless electronic dj mix, like a cold glass of water tossed in my face to remind me that a full life contains joy as well as pain, mindless superficiality in addition to matters of weight. Depth includes laughter, too. Not just tears. Who knows?

But I can’t stand electronic dj mixes. (I call them mixes – maybe that’s what they call them, too – because they’re not songs or albums, they’re just beats and pulses. They’re not really anything, are they? Besides awful, I mean.)

So. I don’t have a nice tidy ending, here or in my broken heart. We’re just having these conversations.

June 24, 2020/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I haven’t watched anything awesome lately. This space has sort of become a de facto reviews page, where I describe the documentaries (usually) and other artwork that has recently moved me. I really love to do it, art is a thing that can bring us all together in our humanity, in our shared experience and emotion.

But I can’t help but notice, as a society, we are pretty uninterested in being together. We don’t care very much about our humanity or in sharing anything.

We fight on all platforms of social media, arguing over every possible position. Scrolling through Facebook is the virtual equivalent of family holiday meals, with one huge difference. We’ve been told to steer clear of politics and religion in conversation (On the one hand, I could never understand that – they are the most fascinating topics to discuss. On the other, because of our desperate need to win and validate ourselves, these exchanges turn violent in no time flat.) and for the most part we do, in real life. But from behind our screens and keyboards, we become so aggressive and condescending to each other in ways we never would face to face. Everything has become a Fortnite battle royale, complete with guns and pickaxes.

It’s so depressing. That’s what you hear in my words. I haven’t watched anything – or at least nothing I want to write about – because this pall that’s hanging over us is more and more oppressive, dulling our smiles and spirits. I’m awfully sensitive, as well.

We have forgotten – maybe it’s due to the isolation of this pandemic – that we are deeply connected. The Facebook “friends” aren’t just pictures and profiles, they’re flesh & blood mommies and daddies, sisters, brothers, neighbors. “They” read, laugh, pray, cry, do pushups, just like “us,” wherever we choose to draw our lines between us and them. Just because he wants to open businesses or not, just because he wants to wear a mask or not, just because he’s voting for that guy or not. These decisions don’t necessarily make him a monster, it just makes him agree or disagree. Who knows why he does? We’d have to ask to find out and nobody is willing to ask, we’re far more content to guess and cast those conclusions in stone.

I haven’t given up. You know by now I’m not that guy. We’ll remember who we are, and we’ll remember how to love and care for each other. Of course we will. But sometimes, baby, it just gets really heavy.

A Tale of Two 30 For 30’s

June 10, 2020/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

2 different documentaries were released by ESPN this year followed much the same outline: Huge star athlete brought down by scandal and where is he now? They clung pretty close to the template, but they felt like polar opposites.

Lance Armstrong won 7 Tour de France’s (Tours de France?) amid wide doping speculation that he vehemently denied, destroying the lives of all those who happened to get in his way. As it turns out, he was using performance enhancing drugs forever and if you search Tour de France winners, his name is excised. Nobody won those years.

Michael Vick transformed football by transforming the quarterback position – everything is different today directly because of his talent, success and impact…until he was jailed for nearly 2 years for dogfighting. He returned to football and was, again, successful on the field but still walks around with the criminal brand he earned.

Now, why are they so different? On the surface, it’s just 2 supremely gifted athletes who lost everything. And so what? Why do we care?

They are different because Armstrong continues to blame everyone else. He was, by all accounts, a mean, nasty, arrogant jerk. It is still not his fault. He admits his act through clenched teeth, but it is only in the context of “everyone else was doing it.” The real villains in his story are the people who blew the whistle to bring down such an American hero. The film ends and we did not enjoy it. We do not like him. We would NEVER trust Lance Armstrong.

They are different because Vick has looked (and continues to look) squarely in the mirror at his own wrongdoing. He has reasons but never excuses. He was the one responsible for his downfall. We did enjoy this film. We may not like or understand him, but we are proud of him. His is a story of redemption and beauty.

(I recognize 2 things. 1. That Vick’s crimes were far more heinous than Armstrong’s. I do not and could not ever defend what he did. 2. I never guessed that I’d call a film that included some of the ugliest behavior I’ve seen “a story of… beauty.”)

Now, so what, why do we care? Genesis 3 has a man passively, quietly stand by while the woman eats the fruit specifically forbidden. When God asks them about it, the man says, “She did it!” Then continues, “And as far as that goes, You put her here!” God asks her, and she says, “It was the serpent, he tricked me!”

Today has us all explaining that “He did it!” “She made me!” “I was scared what would happen if I didn’t go along.” I clicked because she didn’t…”

Genesis 3, Adam, Eden, 2020, me, you, Cleona, Los Angeles. “I’m sorry, but…” is just another way to say “you’re mad, but it’s not my fault.” It’s your fault, or his, or theirs. I only know it’s not mine, or if it is, I’m going to do any sort of contortion to avoid the responsibility of the action.

We care because blame is as old as human beings and it is still just as gross as it was the first time. It has never gotten less obvious or less pathetic.

The problem is that it’s such a lie. Dishonesty interrupts relationship, distracts from connection, until we are so far apart we have no idea what’s real and what isn’t. You and I will have conflict. You and I will disagree. I will let you down. You will, too. Each close relationship has countless hiccups, missteps and offenses that we endure. Blame is the wall that makes forgiveness impossible and prevents reconciliation absolutely, our arrogance in this deception keeps us behind masks of being “right.”

There is amazing power in “I’m sorry,” the kind of power that allows us to celebrate Michael Vick and shake our heads at Lance Armstrong. The kind that makes marriages work and friendships last. The kind that that gives fresh starts, leads us to grow and transform into brand new me’s and you’s and Michael Vick’s (but not yet Lance Armstrong’s), and sees what is possible instead of what has always been.

Pneumonia

April 21, 2020/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

This week, I had a chest x-ray tell me that I have pneumonia.

This year has been a very, VERY difficult year in this house, as far as staying healthy goes. We’ve all been sick several times, for weeks at a time – maybe they’re different viruses or infections or whatever or maybe they’re all the same one that simply won’t leave, like bad dinner guests. We’ve been yawning, cleaning up, putting the kids to bed while they still just sit in the living room on the sofa for hours, long past the point where we first began to wonder why they’re staying so long.

I’ve been watching Netflix and professional wrestling documentaries until the unthinkable happened yesterday: I don’t want to watch one more minute of ANYTHING. I turned off the 1 o’clock People’s Court 10 minutes early, before the verdict in the last case!

Yes, of course, Cheer is uplifting and awesome. So is every episode of The Dark Side Of The Ring. And so is Bumblebee. And The Toys/Movies That Made Us is always dependably perfect. The Bulls doc on ESPN called The Last Dance started last night and that’s great, too. As far as being quarantined with pneumonia goes, it’s not the worst time.

I’m lucky. The people in my faith community text or call me every day several times to ask about my wife and I, it’s super cool to see a church be The Church, well suited for, to paraphrase Mike Tyson, a global punch in the face. I’m starting to think I’m not, quite as much. You see, I’m frustrated and angry and impatient right now. I haven’t kissed my wife in weeks and, in addition to how nice it is to kiss someone, I read last week on a blog of the many, many benefits (physical as well as psychological) of a simple smooch.

I can be lucky AND madder than a wampus cat in a rainstorm. (I just learned that sweet expression, which has now become my favorite EVER, through a google search – I needed something that I wouldn’t have to censor and all I can think of are expressions I would have to censor.) I can be thankful. I can love Jesus more than anything. AND I can be frustrated with Him and ask Him at the top of my lungs, “Why?!!!???” Maybe there isn’t a why. Maybe the why doesn’t matter.

Probably, what does matter is that I keep asking, keep seeking, keep listening, keep talking, keep walking together in relationship, authentically. There are parts of the Bible I don’t understand, but one of the parts I absolutely do states (in Hosea, a book almost no one reads), in no uncertain terms, “I don’t want your sacrifices—I want your love; I don’t want your offerings—I want you to know me.” What that means is that God doesn’t want my pretend faith, me going through empty motions trying to “get it right.” Instead, He wants my honest everything.

And sometimes my everything is messy, honestly.

Both Hands

March 18, 2020/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

We are all quarantined (except for those on the beaches in Florida, I suppose.) The schools are closed, most businesses are affected, and it is causing a great deal of tension. We are not a society of people who take very kindly being told we can not. It seems like an infringement, an act of violence, even if the thing being taken away is undesirable or harmful.

This virus could kill us, or those close to us. But I wanna go to the mall or the movies or ANYWHERE!!! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said or heard that we’d want nothing more than to check out for a minute, stay home, lower the volume on the world and take a nap. Now we have to, and we are losing our collective mind about it.

But that’s people, it’s who we are.

I don’t really want to write about that, what I do want to write about is the truth of feeling, talking, living, fully engaged, able to see and hold wide ranges of emotions. A philosophy of “Both Hands.”

The virus is horrible. People are in pain, suffering and, in some cases, dying. The wide reaching state of emergency is heaping stress and anxiety upon countless more. How will we make it? How will we pay the rent, the bills, the groceries? What will we do??? Some of us are alone and lonely, the quarantine emphasizing our heartbreaking isolation.

At the same time, the quiet is lovely. The time at home, with my wife, my boys, is like water healing every broken or cracked part of me. The house is full of laughter and smooches, and this is a season where we would never have found this unhurried time to spend together. We play games, watch movies, music is always playing and we’re eating healthy around the dinner table. I called my mom yesterday, a gift I’ve neglected due to the demands of every day.

I am more thankful than I can express for the time. And I pray for it to end. This is the paradox of a life in between.

I sometimes get the blessing and honor of officiating funerals and nowhere is this more pronounced than in that thick space. We are sad and our hearts are aching…and we are hopeful for the promises of Jesus and grateful for the time we spent with the person we mourn. It’s a “both, and” situation, not “either, or.”

The problem is, we hide, we pretend, we try to fit an image we’ve decided is fitting, important, or spiritual. This masquerade requires us to eliminate one of our hands in the service of the great lie. We decide it is not Christian to weep, to ask why, to allow our sadness room to breathe, so instead we plaster on a smile and recite our practiced platitudes. And we suppress our pain and encourage others to do the same, which only results in super secret wounds that never heal. The only way is through.

Yes, this is the worst. It’s also the best. Sometimes in the very same moment. I have a good friend who says, “How can hell be any worse?” And I answer, “How can Heaven be any better?” We’re both right. And we’re both wrong. This is our prayer, it can only be offered from our open, honest hearts.

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: honesty