2025-02-11T17:38:09+00:00

The Honesty of Authentic Presence

February 11, 2025/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

10ish years ago, my sister and I had a fight on the Ocean City boardwalk. I don’t have any idea what we were arguing about now, but it made everyone uncomfortable and the rest of the family all wished they were somewhere else. Or probably that we were somewhere else.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned, but last night, my youngest son had his last high school basketball game. I’m not going to go into details about that game, (or any other game, for that matter), or my feelings for/about him. But this is the sort of event that can make a man like me very sensitive, mushy even, for quite a while.

Studies show that human beings generally recognize 3 emotions: happy, sad, and mad. Of course, this isn’t anywhere close to enough, and it’s not that we don’t feel different emotions, we just lack the vocabulary to accurately communicate those emotions. Last night was bittersweet. I was proud, disappointed, joyful, overwhelmed. I was happy, sad, and mad, at different times. Sometimes at the same time. It would have taken 1,000 hands to hold everything I was feeling.

Several times during Sunday morning’s sermon, I realized & acknowledged (in my head) my tone and my turbulent spirit. As I taught about the second chapter of Titus, I realized how much of these moments were colored by this game, this program, church dynamics, politics, relationships, how I slept, what I ate, even what shoes I was wearing. Everything comes to the party, and it should, because everything matters.

Our services begin with a silent prayer, where we come as we are, bringing what we carry, to the feet of Jesus. It is embarrassingly misguided to pretend that we can come any other way, as if we are blank slates unaffected by the world around us. The prodigal son’s words to His Father land differently after you have children. The story of Israel is different from opposite sides of empire.

And I think that’s an absolutely intentional requirement of a life of faith. One of the most important observations I learned in seminary that totally changed my life is the honesty in every word of the Scriptures. Whether it’s in Lamentations, Habakkuk, Psalms, Titus, or any other book, God doesn’t want our sacrifices if they aren’t real. He has no use for fake plastic hypocrisy. He doesn’t want our pretense and our loud, grandiose assemblies if He doesn’t have our hearts.

He has mine. And so do you. Sunday morning, you get my awe, my reverence for the God Who rescued me, my study, prayer, interpretation, faith, AND my broken, confused, euphoric, sometimes wildly contradictory spirit. My careful conclusions and my dumb jokes. My cold, broken hallelujah.

Last night, I was disgusted at the basketball program while I wept for the people in it. I never want the season to end, and I’m so happy it’s over. I think there are lots of things that Jesus needs to transform in me, and I know He loves me in a way none of us can fathom, as I am. I get so many things wrong, and I am forgiven. I don’t want to stay this me, but I really like this me. Last summer, I told the baseball players I coached that I was finished, and I was relieved & thrilled to be done, and so sorry I thought I might crumble.

Being fully present, authentically ourselves, in true relationship with Our Creator and each other means all of this.

I chose a picture for this post. It’s last week’s senior night. I’m happy and sad, proud, hopeful, and he might be holding me up because I love him so much I might die. What it is, really, is a picture of gratitude. God gave us each other. And to stand next to for all of it, this God gave me the Angel.

I told you about Ocean City because, while everybody else wished to be somewhere else, I didn’t (and I bet my sister didn’t, either.) To be as close as we are requires us to bring everything we are to this amazing party. I’d love to go back to that night, when my boys were 5 and 7, and it was summer and the ground wasn’t covered with ice, but I don’t need to, I was there, then, fighting with my sister, loving every moment of this beautiful life I have been given. And if I could/would go back, I wouldn’t have been there last night, and I wouldn’t have missed that for the world.

More Than 1 Thing

October 1, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Pete Rose died yesterday. The fear that was looming large over the new documentary was, will Baseball indict him into the Hall Of Fame before he dies? That answer, we now know, is no. I think that’s pretty sad. He certainly deserves to be there, based solely on his contribution to the game on the field. Of course, his personal character wouldn’t get him into anywhere nice and fancy, but it’s not the Integrity Hall Of Fame, it’s the baseball Hall Of Fame. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens (and many others) should be in, too. It’s impossible to tell the story of baseball without them.

There’s a new documentary on Vince McMahon called “Mr. McMahon,” the visionary head of big time pro wrestling. I loved wrestling, and watching the doc was overwhelmingly nostalgic. My heart ached for the simple beauty of my experience of the time. (That’s the thing about nostalgia – it might not necessarily be an accurate depiction of the time, but it is mine, in my head.) Vince McMahon created this wonderful thing – he didn’t invent professional wrestling, but he might as well have – that was so meaningful to me, but he was, my almost all accounts, an awfully bad person. The law has been chasing him and his behavior for years and may have now caught him. We’ll see.

Another new doc is on Lyle & Eric Menendez, 2 brothers who murdered their parents. They were severely physically & sexually abused (I never know when it’s proper to use the word “allegedly”), had enough, and killed them. This story is full of conflicting truth and emotion. The parents were monsters (allegedly?), but did that mean they deserved to be murdered? Of course not. The boys were victims of horrible evil (allegedly?) and killers. They are all, at least, 2 things, probably a million more.

Lyle is apparently a husband, too. He’s been married twice while in prison. Incidentally, this is something that is totally unfathomable. Is this commentary on the sad state of men, where a woman would have to look in the prison population (locked up for homicide, no less) than at the local fitness club or on Match.com, OR is it an illustration of the mental health epidemic? Either way, it’s aggressive.

The best documentaries are interesting, in exactly this way. Lou Pearlman was a great Svengali for boy bands, pouring money & energy into these groups betting on their success. He was also a thief, building his own pyramid scheme as an altar to himself and his own greed. A prison administrator, Vicki White, was awesome, a competent worker, loving to everyone, a great friend and co-worker. She was also a woman who fell in love with a prisoner (also locked up for homicide!!!) and busted him out, and when they were finally caught at the end of their escape, committed suicide.

People are complex, with lots of facets. Some of those facets are the most glorious & pure you have ever seen. And sometimes they’re cracked and discolored. And, most of the time, we find all of them on the same person. You wouldn’t want Pete Rose as your friend, but he belonged in the Hall Of Fame, and will probably get in now. I would thank Vince McMahon if I’d ever meet him, but I kind of hope I don’t ever meet him. Barry Bonds gained 25 pounds of muscle and 2 hat sizes in 2 months, lied about how he did that, and was the best I’ve ever seen. We’re all more than just 1 thing, and empathy (or what I like to call, “becoming a human being”) is about learning to hold all of them with 2 hands.

Which One Is It?

September 27, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/2 Comments

What’s the trait I value most about myself? That is an interesting question the site is posting today… There are 2 kinds of people in the world, ones who see everything good about themselves and those who see nothing good about themselves. Of course, we all have some of both, which reminds me of an exchange in Kill Bill, vol 2 between Bud and Elle:

Budd: So, which “R” you filled with? Elle Driver: What? Budd: They say the number one killer of old people is retirement. People got a job to do, they tend to live a little bit longer so they can do it. I’ve always figured that warriors and their enemies share the same relationship. So, now that you’re not gonna have to face your enemy no more on the battlefield, which “R” you filled with? Relief … or regret? Elle Driver: A little bit of both. Budd: I’m sure you do feel a little bit of both. But I know that you feel one more than you feel the other. And the question was, which one is it?

Elle feels regret, but that’s not important. If you haven’t seen the film, you really should, it’s amazing. But I often think about these “2 kinds of people,” Beatles or Stones scenarios. Today it’s All good v. Nothing good? The site prompt wants to know which one I am. I happen to be considering something just like this – it’s actually the reason I opened this iPad this morning.

The working definition of insanity is doing the same thing expecting different results, right? And it drives me crazy when others follow the same roads that are hurting them. It’s like re-watching a horror movie where we keep yelling at the screen, “don’t go in there!!!” But they always do. They don’t do anything different, keep swinging the same wrecking ball at their lives and reaping the consequences.

I have this theory (I have many theories) that most of us don’t want advice, we simply want you to say yes, we’re right. We don’t want to change, the pain of moving from this spot has to exceed the pain of staying, and no matter how much that pain is, it’s often less than the fear of new pain. So, I walk with them (I like that about me), kindly, hoping they choose another path before they catch on fire again and I am there to help put them out. I reason that, eventually, they will open their eyes and choose a new path. That’s why you want me walking next to you. I like that about me. I’m not judgy and I’ll let you crash, if that’s what you want, then I’ll get down next to you while we pick up the pieces. (It’s also why you don’t want me walking next to you, if you happen to be the ultra-rare kind of person who wants me to grab the wheel before impact.) This is frustrating to watch the people we love self-destruct.

There is a problem with my explanation…and my frustration. I have a poor physical self-image (getting better) and poor eating habits (not yet getting too much better). These 2 things are friends and feed each other. I eat the food that makes me feel like garbage and makes my body less than aesthetically pleasing (at least to me) and, because of this, sabotage myself by eating more of that trash. This has to stop, if I want to live the sort of life I deserve.

In most areas of my life, I’m very disciplined. I like that about me a lot. But in this area, I am completely insane. My explanation has a fatal flaw, and it’s that I use the word “they,” because it’s not they at all. It’s me, it’s us. I don’t like this mirror, because I don’t like this part of me.

Now, I’m going to get to work today digging into my soul and psyche, trying to use my imagination to shift my perspective. But first, which one am I? I don’t like some things about me, that is absolutely true. But I like many more, and that number keeps growing for the same reason I keep walking paths with others long after everybody else peels off: hope. I am a genuinely hopeful man, I believe in you and I now believe in me. Of course, this is rooted in my belief in Jesus, which requires me to love us enough to hope. That’s my favorite thing about me, the trait I value the most, but I guess the truth is that it’s Jesus that is that part of me. So, He’s my favorite part of me. And He’s my favorite part of you, too. That’s why we can keep messing up, living loops, I can keep eating like a manic 6 year old, and it doesn’t define us, we are still beautiful, we are still worthy, we are still lovable, and we are still loved. And these same still’s are also why I, why we, can be free to change.

Changes

September 25, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I have an interesting job – I’m a pastor of a faith community. This is not something I would’ve ever picked for myself. In fact, quite the opposite. Pastor is not a viable career path when you don’t believe in God, and I didn’t until the last month or 2 of my college experience. Then, everything changed, and along the way I ended up here.

We began this community in my living room when our church closed down, and now we rent a church building. I tell you this because, when we started, I made the decision that we would go verse-by-verse through the Bible in our teaching. This would ensure 1) that I always had something to talk about, 2) that I wouldn’t be a prisoner of current events or my own opinions and/or pet causes, and 3) so I couldn’t avoid particularly scary, controversial passages that I didn’t necessarily want to talk about.

That strategy has served us very, very well. No matter where we are in this ancient book, it always happens to dovetail nicely with today’s cultural landscape. And we’ve had to discuss war, empire, politics, homosexuality, the MCU, Morrissey – all the big divisive pitfalls. Of course, we’ve had people leave because of an interpretation (that I hold, or held at the time) of the passages, but mostly we face the same direction and dive in together, trying hard to be unoffendable.

We’re in a space now that commands the “wives” to “submit to your husbands.” If you knew how many brides-to-be ask me not to talk about this very verse in their ceremony, you would, well, you wouldn’t be shocked at all. People have been cut up and ruined by these verses, it is absolutely understandable that they would not want to face them on a Sunday morning with me.

I begin the talk with “we go verse-by-verse, so I can’t avoid these topics. This isn’t one I’d choose to drag out into the open.” It gets a little uncomfortable laugh, and hopefully disarms some of us. The thing is, it’s not true. It certainly was true, it’s just not anymore. I wasn’t anxious at all, if anything, I was excited to “drag it out into the open.” And as I was feeling that, I said that, too.

We walk, learn, grow and change. (Hopefully, we change. That’s the plan. Imagine if we were the same people we were in 5th grade, when we were 21, last week!) We don’t care so much about the things we used to care about, we care much more about others.

My Sunday fear of controversy has old, deep roots. I used to be afraid someone wouldn’t like my perspective, and that they’d leave. Let me tell you, that does hurt a heart like mine, but it would be totally my fault. They didn’t like ME, I wasn’t enough. And as a pleaser since forever, that is terrifying. I spent so long twisting myself into what you, or she, or he, or they, wanted me to be. I was an actor on a stage, performing for who was currently in the audience.

So, as we grow, it’s mostly in small baby steps. Almost unnoticeably. Like when we gain or lose some weight, we don’t gain/lose 30 pounds in a night and look in the mirror at a face that isn’t our own. We don’t even notice that we’re up or down 0.2lb, and then another 0.4lb, then our pants don’t quite fit. I’m not a Democrat or Republican for my whole life then stop on my way to the polls and say, “wait a minute, no I’m not!” We just find ourselves pulling different levers because we’re no longer who we were. When did this happen? Who knows? There isn’t usually a discernible point where we were one thing and now we’re another.

And then we stand up there in front of our friends and say the things we’ve always said and realize, this isn’t true anymore. That is a wonderful feeling. And what about those who disagree? I don’t want them to go, of course, but if they are there only because I say the things they already believe, or they need me to agree with them (and some do), then that’s how it’ll be. I can no longer pretend. There’s simply no time for that. We have too much work to do to waste time on intellectual/emotional/spiritual contortionism.

Change isn’t ever comfortable, growth comes with pain, but this is me, here & now, with all of the spaces that I’m really awesome AND the spaces where I’m just the worst. I give all of them freely to everyone, in love and grace, and in that offering, I ask for the same (sometimes – more than you’d ever guess – I get it). I’m grateful for the soul-rest of knowing/liking myself. I’m grateful to be a work in progress. I’m grateful for the changes.

Judgment

September 6, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

This post, I imagine, will touch on lots and lots of different topics. So, we’ll dive in and see where this takes (and leaves) us.

I recently resuscitated my Netflix subscription, and immediately dug into the documentary wing, devouring one on Laci Peterson and another on Ashley Madison. Laci Peterson (and her unborn child) was (were) murdered by her husband, Scott. Ashley Madison is a website where married people can find other married people with whom to share their infidelity. Both of these situations are significant to me, I am married to the Angel, and I also wrote a book on marriage (called Be Very Careful Who You Marry, that you can get on this very website;).

Scott, who appears to be without any form of actual human emotion, is in prison serving a life sentence, largely due to the testimony of his extramarital girlfriend, Amber. Ashley Madison was the victim of a hack that revealed its customers and a nearly endless well of fraud. (I know, it’s shocking that a company that exists to facilitate deception and betrayal would deceive and betray it’s users. Shocking.)

Many of the participants in both docs repeated the mantra, like the chorus in a pop song, “I don’t judge,” or some version of that particular command of Jesus. It’s always interesting when we choose to refer to the Scriptures. But Scott’s family doesn’t think we should judge Scott, Ashley Madison doesn’t think we should judge it/them or their clients. Is it judgment to think dishonesty is a bad thing? Is it judgment to abhor the act of killing your family? Is it judgment to notice the emotional destruction that comes from infidelity?

I wrote about Oppenheimer a few weeks ago – is it judgment to think that, even if we can blow up the whole world, maybe that’s not something we should do? And if we do, maybe that sort of thing is wrong? And while we’re there, is it judgment to believe in the notions of right and wrong?

I watched an episode of Ashley Madison with my son and we discussed it afterwards. Is it judgment to watch this wreckage and learn a lesson, so he doesn’t have to suffer in similar footsteps? Is it judgment to tell him not to cheat on or murder his wife?

All of these questions are somewhat facetious – I’m not honestly asking. The purpose is to expose the ridiculous nature of a culture that has misidentified ‘judgment’ and has turned it into some kind of catch-all rationalization for bad decisions. To call a bad decision a bad decision isn’t judgment, it never was and never will be. To learn from other’s mistakes requires that we categorize them as mistakes, and not simply different equal paths.

I understand judgment just fine, and that’s for a few reasons. I was born with empathy coming out of my ears, so it makes me uniquely qualified to see your perspective (or anyone else’s). However, if you get to live long enough, you see too much of the fallout of this kind of relational dynamite. And you can easily begin to get a little hardened by crying so much, so often. So, like quadriceps, you’ll have to train those muscles, so they don’t completely atrophy. These documentaries are the gym for me. I watch and my heart still breaks everytime. And I can see (sometimes from a great distance) why they may have made these particular decisions.

Inside the Ashley Madison story, there’s a couple who became internet famous as Christian marriage YouTubers. “This is how you have a healthy marriage…This is how you love God & each other…” Except he was not what he pretended to be. So.

To live an honest life of faith, or a human life, fully present and engaged with the world and those around us, it’s integral that we get comfortable with the dichotomy. He was a pretender, who was completely disrespectful to God, his wife, family, the women he cheated with, and himself. This is true. But he isn’t only that. He’s also a child of God, created in His image. And his story isn’t over. The thing about judgment is that it assumes it is over, etched in stone. He doesn’t have to continue to be disrespectful, he is not exiled, confined to that locked box forever. There is forgiveness. He can change.

Now maybe I don’t necessarily think he should get the privilege of returning to his beautiful wife, but that’s not judgment, that’s consequence. I don’t think someone needs to continue to be a punching bag in the service of a mis-defined non-judgmentalism. But my opinion doesn’t matter too much to these people I’ve never met. She thinks he should, and we can all pray he can/will change.

On this, Scott Peterson is in jail for the rest of his life for his actions, but maybe he isn’t that same person anymore. I don’t need him to be. In fact, I really really hope he’s not. I can hold both things. He did this and there are consequences, but while this is legal judgment, it’s certainly not mine to carry for eternity. Right & wrong are real (murdering your wife is wrong) AND have nothing at all to do with our status as human beings (Scott Peterson is a child of God, dearly loved, he’s a son, brother, friend).

I can see why people join cults or sign up and give their credit card information to sleazy websites or listen to Coldplay or CrossFit or go vegan or vote for either party. It doesn’t mean I will. It just means I can see why you might. (Ok, maybe I can’t see why you’d listen to Coldplay, but they’re the exception.) And when we choose to start there, and keep training those muscles, we can consciously choose our values and avoid the pitfalls that come with sleepwalking through closed-minded lives. And love somebody, love everybody, instead.

2 Aching Muscles

September 3, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

On Friday, I pulled a muscle in my back. This, I suppose, isn’t the most surprising thing in the world. It happens. What’s embarrassing about it is that I did it while throwing frisbee. Or rather, disc golf. That sounds much cooler than “frisbee.” We’ve been playing quite a bit lately, and it was a pretty good time, until I felt like I got stabbed in my back and now it hurts to breathe too deeply or dead lift or get up or move quickly or walk around like a normal person. Sigh. So there’s that. I don’t know when I got this old. I used to be able to throw frisbees with no consequence. Sheesh, its just a frisbee.

If I take some ibuprofen, it’s not too bad. I bet nobody knew on Sunday morning or yesterday visiting family. Maybe they did, you know I can be very dramatic in my self-pity.

Today it’s better – I haven’t taken anything for pain yet today – but maybe that’s because there is another thing that is affecting an entirely different muscle in my aging body.

My youngest son just left for the first day of his senior year of high school. This has been only the first leg of the “lasts.” The last high school summer league in basketball. The last summer vacation of high school. The last first day.

There’s a meme (the wisdom literature of our time, our proverbs) that says something like “one day you’ll carry your child to bed and it’ll be the last time, and you won’t know it at the time.” And it can be anything. These 2 boys used to sleep on my chest. We walked them to school, drove them to practices, watched band concerts. I used to put them on my shoulders, or better yet, in a backpack for walks, like Yoda. If I sat them on my shoulders now, there would be many more than one muscle pulled. (My older boy is bigger than me in every way, maybe I should get on his shoulders to see now.)

As we all get older, we get the gift of knowing it’s the last. I knew the last time I’d coach each of them. I knew when I handed the championship trophy to this now-high school-senior and hugged him, that it would be the last time I would ever do that. That’s why I cried in front of everyone. We know today is his last first day of high school. We know the next first day of school, he won’t be living in this house. I cry a lot in front of everyone. (Today, though, with this pulled muscle in my back, it hurts A LOT to cry, more than usual.)

I talk a lot about a 2 hands theology. We are asked to hold the sadness – in this case, the sadness of the loss of my little boy – AND the celebration and joy – in this case, he’s a cooler, better person than I could have ever dreamed he’d be. Both of these boys are, and that is more wonderful than I can tell you. Except they’re not boys anymore, they’re men, and that hurts worse than I can tell you. My tears are a holy mixture of pain and joy.

That mixture has a name and is, simply, gratitude. More than anything that I can’t tell you is how thankful I am. My sister & I were talking, awestruck at these lives with which we have been blessed. This is certainly not to say they have been easy or without struggle or without times we doubted and there were times we might not have felt so grateful. But the thing about a 2 hands theology is that we have always been honest about those times, and the truth is, that’s probably why we’re so thankful today. We have been there for all of it.

I remember tearing their artwork from the walls of our old house as it went underwater, but I couldn’t get it all. And I prize what I took and mourn the loss of what I left behind. My aim has always been to live a fully present life, showing up to the pleasure, the wins, and the suffering, the losses. There have been so many of both, and I wouldn’t trade any of them.

So yes, I am celebrating with an ecstatic heart at this life I’ve been given and what I get to see and experience…and there is no amount of ibuprofen that can ease the hurt of what I get to see and experience. But the best thing is that there is no world where I’d want to.

Small Towns

August 22, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Jenny From The Block filed for divorce from Batman yesterday. We probably all knew this was coming, as they were having multiple weddings (some very, very public), telling anyone who would listen, and making movies of their unstoppable love. Most likely, this news was met with an eye roll and the assignment of blame. Each of us know who’s fault we think it is, right?

I am an animal of the popular culture, and I have always been interested in things like this. I like details, and am embarrassed to say, gossip. Today, though, I feel different.

I grew up in a small town, went to college in a small town, and then stayed in that same small town. Pretty much everyone knows each other (and their business.) Maybe we don’t know their names, but we kind of know our neighbors stories, hear them fight, see the sirens of their recent DUI’s, and guess at how many times they’ve been divorced. (J.Lo will have been divorced 4 times after this one.) Batman and his soon to be ex-wife live in this kind of small town, too, except it’s comprised of the whole world.

We still don’t know what exactly happened or why, but we kind of do, we read online quotes from “sources,” and we are all armchair psychologists, reading into each facial expression, and injecting each holiday spent apart with inferred meaning. I think, while he might not hate fame or wild paychecks, he hates celebrity, and she absolutely does not, and that creates a certain tension that is difficult to navigate. He seems like you’d love to be his buddy, but that you might not love to be his partner. Like me. She seems like she would need a lot of attention. Like me. I guess I’d guess it’s his fault (because my default position is ‘it’s his fault’). But who knows???? I only know, for sure, someone who doesn’t know, and that’s me.

Small towns can be really great. I love mine, but I bet I wouldn’t quite as much if I knew what everyone thought of every decision I made without ever having as much as a conversation with me. But this is the curse of a small town. I do wish them peace, broken relationships are very hard, no matter how much money is in the bank. Maybe this sort of thing would be a little easier if our ‘small towns’ of voices and opinions were only made up of those we actually know.

A University Tour

July 30, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

My youngest son is deciding on where he will spend the 4-ish years after this one. (First, that clumsy sentence refers to him being a HS senior, we know where he’ll be this year. And second, HOW DID THIS HAPPEN??? Yesterday, he was coming home from the hospital as a newborn and today we are visiting colleges. Sigh.) Anyway, we visited a small liberal arts university in northern New Jersey. To be honest, none of us had very high hopes, but our expectations were quickly demolished and this cool little campus in the woods became the front runner.

These “welcome” days are a bit like a timeshare presentation. For a few hours, a team of admissions counselors try to sell you on their wildly over-priced institution and give you some swag and lunch if you manage to make it through. The day begins in a room with a perfectly produced video and ends with a campus tour.

[Lunch was sort of horrible. We ate in a cafeteria filled with a million soccer-campers, sweaty, dirty & screaming, running amok like in a comedy movie about an overwhelmed substitute teacher who, by the end, discovers how to reach these hellions, teaching them about themselves, self-worth, cooperation, and learning about himself in the process, before running to the love interest he has overlooked for too long in the climax. We never got to the redeeming part, we only suffered through Act I.]

They split us up and assigned us to a leader. Our tour guide introduced herself. She was a lovely young woman, who was seemingly active in every club and activity they offered. And as we started, I realized how mistaken I was about the nature of this tour. She ran ahead, pointing and gesturing, possibly about the information she was maybe giving. It’s impossible to know for sure, no one could hear her. We could barely keep up. We flew into a couple of buildings and out the other side. I wasn’t aware of a time limit or a competition between the guides to finish first, but one clearly existed. Maybe she told us about it. Who knows? I stopped to use the bathroom at the end and came out to find my group gone. I retraced my steps and walked outside, hoping for a glimpse of someone/something I recognized. My son called to me from the porch of a building I had never seen (I still don’t know what the building was).

I’m thinking about it today and laughing. Especially as the school advisors hit such home runs as to make the silly, pointless tour race unimportant.

A few observations.

She would sometimes turn around and say, “Any questions?” And it was hilarious, reminding me of how the Angel will sometimes say, after compiling a list of some kind, out of the clear blue sky, “Anything else?” I have no idea what is on the list, making it impossible to know if there’s anything else. As for the tour, questions about what? How about, “what is this building?” “Where are we? What is this place?”

And that reminds me about life. If there is a guide, they seem to have a different objective. Where am I? What am I doing here? My son and I wandered off the path a few times to explore, I waited for a woman who stopped to fill her water bottle, we all connected over our shared circumstance. It’s confusing, but the people make it all worthwhile. Maybe the stated plot isn’t what we’re doing at all, and the side trails and parentheticals are where the learning takes place. Are we the kind of people who run through our responsibilities, chopping wood, getting the tour done at any cost, or are we open and available for others? What is this place? And why?

We were in one room, and as the Angel took her camera out to snap a photo of our son, the guide (maybe unaware of her intentions?) turned the light off and left. I wonder if our guide sits down to eat?

What are our expectations for things, people, activities? Are we able to see past them, to see the beauty in what is actually there, instead of the static notions/beliefs we have in our heads? (Those questions make me think of political debates and the new Deadpool movie.)

What are we doing here? Everywhere we go, every situation, is asking, isn’t it? But maybe, yesterday, my boy heard and will, ironically, end up finding out his answer there, in the very place where a lovely young woman posed the question to all of us during her ridiculous running tour.

July 22, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site is asking what I’d change about modern society. Probably a lot. But that’s not what I’m thinking about this weekend. You already know I’m a man that reads the Bible, and one of the passages I came across last week was one where Peter said I am a slave to whatever controls me. Passages and verses in the Bible are different as we are different. We don’t ever read the same book twice, because even as the words stay the same, we don’t.

So. What controls me? I’ve decided it’s food, the gym, and sex. This is complicated because all 3 are wonderful gifts from a Loving God.

To not make any of us uncomfortable, I’ll use the gym as the example we’ll discuss. I lift weights (and do a small amount of cardio). Exercise is a healthy lifestyle, fitness is positive, it’s a good thing to take care of myself. I should tell you I’ve always had a weight problem, and this is still sort of true. (I am classified as ‘morbidly obese,’ if you listen to the doctor’s charts.) Sometimes, the thing that gets me to the gym is not fitness, not positive, it’s the outpouring of an angry heart that is operating out of old tapes in my head. It is punishment. It is not a choice, or even a reward, the local Planet Fitness is my master. Or rather, the mean voices in my head that tell me I’m not enough, unless… or that I’m whatever and I’ll always be whatever, they become the masters of me.

The gym is awesome, and I love it. I don’t even so much mind that it’s not really a choice anymore, in a manner of speaking. It is so much a part of the fabric of me that I don’t have to. However, a rest day is not evidence of some defect, it’s a necessary facet of self-care. But too often, I spend rest days with some level of guilt and shame. These feelings are no longer oppressive, but I’d be lying if I said they weren’t there at all, and they are often the impetus to get me to the gym instead of beauty or gratitude or pleasure or even agency. This is mastery.

Food is a little different. It’s healthy and nourishing, relational, a blessing. But I very often don’t choose what to eat out of self-care and thanksgiving, I choose out of simple primal desire for whatever tastes best (like processed sugar-laden junk) that will damage me. Maybe it’s not that different, it’s a master that isn’t concerned with my well-being, and is, instead, bent on the opposite.

Anything we can’t stop, or that distorts our moods and emotions when we do stop, is a master. And we are it’s slave.

These things are gifts, I am not a slave to the socks I got at Christmas. I am not a slave to the Church, or Three’s Company, or my favorite songs. These are gifts, they add color and texture, and make my life so much better. So does food and sex and the dead lift. Until they don’t. Until they are the stern task/master that is holding the keys to me.

So now what? What do I do with this? I can’t cut them out, nor would I want to. I simply want them in their right place, as blessing instead of curse. Maybe that means more rest days. (It’s funny, most people’s New Years Resolutions are to go to the gym more often, mine would be to go less often. Weird.) Less sweets, or more mindful sweets? Maybe it means more and more sex, though. Haha. Probably it means that. But maybe “mindfulness” is the solution to all of this. If I am here, now, rooted in my identity, making conscious decisions, instead of some animal led around by unquestioned natural instincts, then I might be able to break free of their chains, and who knows? Maybe these things take on new meaning and overwhelming beauty that was impossible to see from underneath them.

People Are Strange

July 2, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

There’s a documentary on Max, called How To Create A Sex Scandal, detailing a horrific story about child sexual abuse in Texas. A foster family brought in 3 kids, whose parents were facing a list of drug charges, and the kids had, after being trained at a “sex kindergarten,” been forced to “work” as strippers and sex workers at a local swingers club. It was absolutely sickening, and the perpetrators were tried and given life sentences.

Except none of it was true. Well, the foster mom still stands by her accusations, so this is probably a case where we should say “alleged” liars, “alleged” mean-spirited cash grab, “alleged” shenanigans in an “alleged” dirty, filthy courtroom. The convictions were sort of turned over – they were released with scarlet letters for child sexual abuse felonies. Their children were all taken from them. Not just the 3 initially involved that the foster home “allegedly” manipulated, but all of the others children, as well. All convictions but 1, a man who died in prison before the wheels of justice could turn for him.

The last words of the series were from one of the accused, who said (something like), “I don’t trust anyone, and I learned that people are mean.”

Is that true? Are we mean? Jim Morrison wrote, “people are strange,” (which is a pretty decent Doors song, not just wildly overrated, like most Doors songs…and the Doors overall). Some of these faces looked very ugly in this doc, and I am very happy to say the Lizard King was 100% right, we are strange, but am I willing to say we’re mean? Some of us are, of course, and all of us can be sometimes, but is that enough for such a sweeping generalization?

These foster parents certainly were, allegedly. In Men In Black, Tommy Lee Jones’ character says, “a person is smart, people are dumb,” and I found that pretty profound (especially in the middle of an embarrassing presidential election season.) So, I think I’m happy to use that framework in this case. A person is mean, people are alright. Strange, but alright. Not always, probably, but a person isn’t always smart, either.

I don’t blame this woman, she’s had her whole life destroyed because of the nastiness of 2 foster parents and an allegedly crooked judicial system. To her, people are awfully mean. But just because the sky might look red behind red lenses, it doesn’t mean the sky IS red. She’s right, she sees a red sky, and in most cases, perception is reality. At least, practically, it is.

But by a very large majority, I believe that people are strange, well-meaning and awesome. That’s why stories like this are so shocking. We are knocked down by the depths some folks can sink, allegedly, because it’s so far outside of the reality we experience every day. 2 monsters aren’t representative of the foster parent population, are they? And some mess in Texas doesn’t indict us all, either, right?

Right?

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: honesty