2022-02-15T17:09:29+00:00

The Worst Valentine’s Day

February 15, 2022/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

There are a lot of drawbacks to being married to me, the fact that I’m writing about a pretty terrible Valentine’s Day on the internet isn’t even close to the biggest. But it isn’t great.

The Angel and I have been together for 24ish years, and in the course of those 24ish years, yesterday was The Worst Valentine’s Day we’ve had. (Maybe it’s important to say that I’m not the best at caring about greeting card holidays, but I do love LOVE and I do love my wife, so I’ll participate;)

We often talk about youth sports in this space. Over the years, all of us of a certain age has noticed a trend that we’ll call the Sportscenter-ification of the games. What I mean is that almost nobody watches entire games, we watch the highlights on Sportscenter or YouTube or forwarded GIFs. I coach baseball for boys who have very little knowledge and/or perspective of a game. These kids have no appreciation for the ups & downs, the slow parts, and fundamentals are a completely lost art (I KNOW I sound like everybody’s dad, talking about how it was “when I was young,” and that hurts me a little. Anyway, I am somebody’s dad.) We’ve been conditioned to think a game is all dunks and home runs.

Our culture suffers from this same malady. For instance, we think marriage is the same; all highlights and clip packages, candles, bubble baths, one long music montage set to some bouncy love song. And when it’s not, we think we’re broken. That the love is gone. That we’re doing something wrong. That it’s not how it’s supposed to be.

The thing is, that whole Sportscenter-ification is a lie. Marriage is time outs and bunts and bounce passes. It’s crappy Valentine’s days and wonderful random Thursdays. Life, too. It’s not all mountain tops, it’s Monday mornings, too.

The Church has a liturgical year. Yes, there is Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter. But there’s also the rest, which is called Ordinary Time. That’s perfect, right? Ordinary Time. We go to work, change diapers, watch tv, eat in the car. Not all of our workouts are personal records, sometimes we’re tired and all we can do is get there at all.

It’s not broken. We’re not broken. We’re not doing anything wrong. I wrote a card to my wife yesterday that spelled out how overwhelming and wonderful it is that after 24 years, our relationship is so much better than it was on our wedding day. And that’s absolutely true. Kissing her slow and soft still gives me butterflies, it’s still shocking that I get to be the one that gets to do it. We make dinner together, make the bed together, change our bunny’s litter box and sit next to each other complaining about our sore backs in bleachers at basketball games. Of course, there are also fireworks and game winning half court shots and championships.

Sometimes the bands/singers on the radio are horrible, sometimes they’re just ok. It’s not always the Greatest, it’s not always Morrissey. And the songs aren’t always There Is A Light That Never Goes Out. And it’s a crazy delusion to think they would be.

The Angel & I communicate very very very well, (even so far as to discuss how the wheels fell off on our Valentine’s Day – it’s not high maintenance, it’s real, and it’s really important). We talk a lot, laugh and cry together, trust each other, find beauty in every day, love each other to the moooon even when things aren’t going perfectly. We advance the runner, catch fly balls, make our free throws and rebound. Teams that do those things win, marriages that do those things never break, and lives built on that are full and awesome, even when they aren’t.

Happy (best, worst, and everything in between) Valentine’s Day, everyone.

Like a Drip, Drip, Drip That’ll Never Stop

February 7, 2022/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Well, I watched the new Disney animated film Encanto last weekend. I can’t say that I really wanted to, but the Angel did, and I very much like the Angel and she watches A LOT of superhero movies with me, so I watched Encanto. (Also, I usually cry while these new Disney/Pixar movies take me apart – let’s not even talk about Up or Inside Out.)

So anyway, it was very good. It wasn’t Frozen good, but it was very good. What I found exceptional was how open & honest it was about difficult emotions, struggles, image-making, expectations, inadequacy, and insecurity. I know, I know, these subjects are often there, but they’re hidden a little, like Easter eggs for parents, so when we’re crying, the kids aren’t sure exactly why.

In Encanto, there’s an older sister whose gift is physical strength. She sings a song called “Surface Pressure” that we need to talk about.

“I’m the strong one, I’m not nervous. I’m as tough as the crust of the earth is. I move mountains, I move churches. And I glow ’cause I know what my worth is. I don’t ask how hard the work is. Got a rough indestructible surface. Diamonds and platinum, I find ’em, I flatten ’em. I take what I’m handed, I break what’s demanding.” This is the first verse and it’s as disingenuous as we are. It’s full of posturing. It’s full of the biggest mountain of lies. It’s you & me and everyone we see. Is Encanto a documentary?

It’s not, because she continues, “But Under the surface. I feel berserk as a tightrope walker in a three-ring circus. Under the surface. Was Hercules ever like “Yo, I don’t wanna fight Cerberus”? Under the surface. I’m pretty sure I’m worthless if I can’t be of service. A flaw or a crack. The straw in the stack That breaks the camel’s back. What breaks the camel’s back? It’s Pressure like a drip, drip, drip that’ll never stop, whoa. Pressure that’ll tip, tip, tip ’till you just go pop, whoa.” Wow, right? If I told you how many times I have felt exactly this way. I’m pretty sure I’m worthless if I can’t be of service? This was supposed to be a kids movie with singing and dancing about a house that’s alive. Drip, drip, drip.

Listen to these questions, through the song: “Who am I if I can’t run with the ball?…Who am I if I can’t carry it all?…I think about my purpose, can I somehow preserve this?…If I could shake the crushing weight of expectations, Would that free some room up for joy Or relaxation, or simple pleasure?…Who am I if I don’t have what it takes?”

Who am I? Am I more than my performance, more than these expectations? What if I can’t carry it all? I think about all of the men I know, the dads, husbands, threatening to buckle under all of this weight. (I know it’s the women, too, I just happen to relate to the men because I’m, you know, a man. I see the women. I see the pressure to be everything to everyone, gorgeous, fit, smart, independent, strong, funny, perfect moms and CEOs and lovers and yogis, to shoulder more and more responsibility, more and more stress, more and more and more.)

Of course it’s too much. This is a kids movie, so I think of the children in schools, saddled with the same amount of uncontrollable, overwhelming pressure. I picture the trash compactor scene in Star Wars, ever contracting to smush the heroes, but this isn’t a movie and R2-D2 isn’t going to stop it just in time. I think we have to stop this, to bring this hamster wheel to a screeching halt.

Who am I if I can’t carry it all? Maybe I was never supposed to carry it all in the first place. Maybe we weren’t supposed to run with the ball. Maybe what we think it “takes” was a red herring all along and it doesn’t and never did matter if we have it.

Encanto was very good, but it hit a little too close to home. I guess it needs to, right? Otherwise we will keep on ignoring the rising heat, like lobsters in a pot. It’s a good thing the songs were so catchy.

Chocolate Bunnies

January 28, 2022/The Bridge Faith Community/1 Comment

Around Easter, there are these big chocolate bunnies that look amazing, you break into the packaging, take a bite and only then realize that chocolate rabbit is only a chocolate shell. You expect a thick, rich block of yummy deliciousness but they’re completely hollow inside. Still tasty but ultimately empty.

This morning, about 20 minutes ago, I finished The Queen Of Versailles, a documentary on Amazon Prime by Lauren Greenfield (I wrote a previous post about her doc Generation Wealth). This Lauren Greenfield is a genius. Anyway, it’s about an obscenely wealthy time-share businessman, his success, family and their lives. It’s also about an obscenely wealthy time-share businessman losing everything. The Queen of the title is his wife, Jackie. I finished it this morning because when I started it days ago, I had to turn it off a half-way through believing it was simply a garden variety picture of grotesque excess and sometimes that sort of superficiality just doesn’t go down smoothly. I persevered mostly because of Lauren Greenfield, and as the crash was beginnings, I was interested in how each of them (he, she, too many children, employees, etc) would respond to the economic catastrophe.

I loved Jackie, a little surprisingly. She appeared to handle everything with class and grace, leaned into her marriage and family. She gave money (that was increasingly disappearing) to a high school friend who was facing foreclosure. She began a thrift store to support & serve her community. She showed herself a beautifully devoted, faithful wife to a man who was moving in the polar opposite direction in every way. I appreciated her more and more, even as she continued her Botox wearing a ridiculous fur coat in the kitchen complaining about not being able to afford a watch.

The businessman who was so magnanimous, so self-satisfied, so arrogant as the film started unraveled quickly. In a heartbreaking moment, he said, “Nothing makes me happy anymore.”

I posted yesterday on image-making. I often post on my love of Catfish. This is certainly a there, isn’t it?

You know, in seminary, as I started to study the Bible and write a million papers, I was knocked down by a BIG theme I hadn’t noticed. I hadn’t believed in God for (what is now) half of my life because I saw it as a hypocritical exercise in superficial masquerade. Christians looked the same, perfectly behaved with perfect teeth and hair. Maybe I still see it that way, but the Bible sure isn’t. The Big Theme was, on every page, honesty. Nothing was left out, people argued, raged, lied, doubted, celebrated, danced, had sex, fought, sang, made the worst decisions, despaired, hoped, and loved. It was everything about being human, it was everything about the movies and art that I loved most, real and genuine.

But a lot of us (and lots of parts of us) are like chocolate bunnies. We construct elaborate “realities” based on very little, shells with hollow insides. When did we decide we were nothing more than what we had, or that who we actually were just wasn’t enough? When did we decide to focus on the exterior while just behind the door was either unknown or in various states of disrepair.

When COVID forced us to stay home, I wondered what we’d find. Without any images to convey, would we find our homes and families a sweet sacred space? Or would we be forced to face the emptiness? It’s hard to tell, we still had images to convey on social media.

Nothing made this guy happy, in a house full of his children, and a wife who brought dinner to his office and was harshly sent away without the kiss she asked for. What he could have found was a wife who truly didn’t care about his money, loved him for him, and a healthy family who desperately needed his affection and resilience to steer them through a storm. He could have showed them how to get back up and stand. He could have held hands on long walks and danced to loud music in a downsized kitchen. He could have done anything else. He chose to only find his value in his assets and net worth, chose to find a person who only loved himself for his money.

I understand the crushing fear of not being able to provide. When we were homeless after a flood washed away everything we owned, I couldn’t sleep, had a constant jackhammer of a headache, sickening anxiety, wanted nothing more than to run and hide. I understand the pressure of provision.

But we do have choices. We do have questions to answer about who we really are. Are we chocolate bunnies, fake profiles, P&L statements, nameplates, corner offices, the brand of jeans we wear? Or are we something else, something much better that doesn’t fade or disappear? Sure we crack, sometimes we break, but then what? When it rains, are we the sort that erodes or that sings at the top of our lungs?

I want to be one who sings, but I don’t want to sing alone. I want to be a part of an army of millions and millions of singers, dancers, artists, and lovers who are tired of chocolate bunnies.

Fueled By An Image Of Me

January 27, 2022January 27, 2022/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

There’s a fantastic line in the song ‘Disillusion’ by Badly Drawn Boy on The Hour of Bewilderbeast album: “Seems you created your own illusion fueled by an image of me.” I wrote it down several months ago in a draft here to remember. Right about that time a person re-entered my life and this lyric was oddly appropriate, as she was operating on outdated information. It seemed she had created her own illusion fueled by an image of me that was no longer me, probably was never me, but an image that would make it impossible to move forward.

And that happens, right? There are people who decide who you are based on who you were or what you do or what they are or what they do or what they heard. It is frustrating and sad. I’m not sure if the image was one I couldn’t live up to, or if the image was too low and created a watching/waiting situation, where any hint would prove the image “true,” even if it isn’t. Either way, it was a straitjacket from which I couldn’t escape and the relationship imploded soon enough. A good thing, to be sure.

The post, then, was supposed to be about others placing images and illusions and expectations on our shoulders that make it nearly impossible to transcend. But lately it’s transmogrified into the impossibly transcended images, illusions & expectations we heap on our own heads. Cages built with our own hands. Boxes we’ve constructed and tightly locked and at the same time, hold the keys to our own emancipation.

I don’t care very much about what this draft was supposed to be. The amount of control I have over what others think, what images others hold, is, in the very best case scenario, zero. So yes, frustrating and sad, but pointless to spend much time or energy trying to manage. Yet we do, and that’s where our own carefully crafted images come into play.

Who does he/she need me to be? But it’s not just that simple, is it? Who does he/she need me to be here, now, in this situation? Or how about now, in this one? It’s a sliding scale that never stops sliding. That is true oppression, yoked to an ever changing target, shape-shifting with the day and moment, until we are totally lost.

I spent too much time searching for me as I was also searching for the idea of “me” that would please every single person on earth. Once I got away from “me” for a little while, I could consider who this other me was. It is a long process. Oh baby, it’s a long process. But it does happen, in glimpses and flashes. Hard, absolutely necessary work. The world doesn’t need more superficiality or inauthentic facades. The world needs more you’s and me’s and waaaaay less “you’s” and “me’s.” So maybe we could let these things float away like balloons into the sky and show up, completely present and completely us. I bet we will find us to be wonderful.

Perfect

December 17, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

In my last post, about youth basketball, I wrote: “Incidentally, what keeps me up at night is what I may have done to instill this perfectionism in him. I tried to encourage risk, value failure, while celebrating each win. I never withheld my affection or punished a loss, always gave a soft place to land, always threw my arms around him no matter the game/test result. Maybe I’ll never know. Maybe nothing.”

(I wonder how long I can call them “youth” sports. They are in high school, they are teenagers. They are still youths, but when does that stop and I can safely just call this “sports?” The summer after graduation? College?)

Anyway. While thinking about that paragraph, well… Have you ever been to the eye doctor? You know when you’re sitting behind that Clockwork Orange-esque device and it’s clicking and the letters either come into focus or quickly blur? This paragraph was the click where the G’s and Q’s become striking in their clarity.

What keeps me up at night is what I may have done to instill this perfectionism in him. What keeps me up at night is what I may have done wrong. What keeps me up at night is what I may not have done perfectly and how, ultimately, everything everywhere that happens is mine to control. I wonder where he would’ve possibly gotten the notion that he had to be perfect.

I know where this unhealthy perspective comes from, at least for me. I wanted to get it right, be awesome, because only then could I justify my worth. I hesitate to write the next sentence because my mom reads this, but the truth is that I always came after my dad’s addictions. I desperately wanted to be first, and when I was pitching well, or if I went 3 for 4 and drove in 3 runs, I was. I know he didn’t intend any of this, didn’t try to build an insecure little boy with this mountain of inadequacy to unwind. Like all of us (except for the sociopaths, of which I’m convinced there are very very few), he did his best and I loved him to the moon.

But all of life became a proving ground for my right to be here, where I had to be awesome to find a seat at the table. I had to be the best everything, ball player, funniest, coolest, whatever, which turned me into a big fat pleaser who wasn’t particularly any of those things, except an actor who would contort into any shape you wanted me to be.

Maybe you don’t believe in God or Jesus or faith or anything at all, (and that’s cool, we’re all on different paths), but as I began to fall in love with Jesus, I began to discover that my worth wasn’t tied to my performance at all. That I was good enough, loved, that I belonged as I was, as I am. Of course, this wasn’t overnight. That was 23 years, half of my life, ago, and I’m still writing sentences like the one earlier.

But here’s the cool thing. I was totally honest as I wrote that paragraph this week, and that honesty allowed the click. The boy I used to be was mistaken about his worth. He was depressed and unsure of himself and I’d really like to wrap him up in my arms and let him cry. The problem then was so little of my behavior was authentic, so much was a show, image making and fake. That dishonesty keep me fumbling in the dark for years and years.

Maybe nobody will ever read this, but it’s all true. I overshare because I’m through hiding, everything is dragged into the light and exposed. Of course it’s sometimes scary, but when it is, I know it’s absolutely necessary. I could go on forever and ever about awakening to the man that I’ve been able to meet, vital baby step by vital baby step, but it’s times like these where I can face truth without shame and (here’s the best part) give me a break.

I have responsibility, but not control. Maybe I’ve modeled an unhealthy posture, but I can also model steps towards something brand new. Nothing’s set in stone, today isn’t just yesterday, part 2, we can unwind. He’s a beautiful boy with a lot of weight on his shoulders that I’m vary familiar with. This family (the one that lives in this house that shares my name as well as the entire circle surrounding our lives) is a wonderfully safe place to test the ground. And then to jump.

Anyway

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

Sometimes I sit down at this computer (which is a actually an iPad and an attached keyboard) and don’t have a clue what to write. The blank screen is intimidating, ruthlessly mocking me, laughing at this idiot sitting in the dark illuminated only by it’s condescending blue light.

Of course, that’s only in my head. This blank screen doesn’t care about me at all. I can write or not write and it wouldn’t care less. Indifferent like the ocean, where I could swim or drown and she wouldn’t even blink.

Yet I still sit down at this computer (iPad with attached keyboard), ideas or not. I start and delete, start and delete, getting 5 or 6 words or 5 or 6 paragraphs before I trash it all and begin again. I listen to music and type the lyrics, poetry that no one will ever read, paraphrased Bible verses, weather forecasts, anything. Just moving my fingers, really, trying to jar some form of muscle memory, as if the inspiration is in my hands. Maybe it is. Maybe they remember. Maybe after 2 hours, I close this tablet with nothing at all.

I do this anyway. No matter what. It’s like the dishes. I don’t ever feel like doing the dishes, am never inspired to clean up the sink, but I do it anyway. I set reminders on my phone for Mondays and Fridays, and do you know why? Because my wife likes when I do them. We’ve been married for 20 years and our marriage is better than it has ever been, and it’s not close. There were moments, days, years, where we didn’t feel like doing the dishes (whatever the ‘dishes’ were, whether dinner or sex or trash or kindness or laundry or whatever.) We have this practice where we come to the front door to meet the other when they get home. Sometimes the chair or couch or bed is comfortable or extra-extra comfortable, and we come anyway. We don’t always feeeel like it. And we go anyway. I pastor a church and there are times where I don’t jump out of bed on a Sunday morning. I don’t always hurry to the gym because I’m sooo in the mood to work out, either.

I think it’s important to write here. I’d decided this about me before I ever sit down, topic or not. I love my wife like crazy. I am also going to love my wife like crazy. These 2 statements are not about circumstance or situation or the weather or motivation or inspiration, they are simply what I do, what I will do. They are non-negotiable.

So I sit down here and give the time, like an offering. I don’t have to think about if I want to anymore, I cannot be talked out of it, it’s value isn’t in question. It is now who I am.

I discovered who I am after many, many years of searching. Many, many years of weight & priority, of digging into my heart and learning what I truly value. I read the Bible, not necessarily because I always want to, but because I want to be the sort of man who reads the Bible.

And when I don’t… Of course I don’t. I’m not anywhere close to the neighborhood of perfect. My Bible can get dusty, the dishes don’t always get done on a Monday and Friday, the Angel doesn’t always know I love her to the moon and back, not every decision is consistent with the me I’m becoming. So when I don’t…well, I also want to be the sort of man who is kind, forgiving, peaceful and loving to everyone (including me) anyway.

Enemies

December 2, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

In the Bible, Jesus says to “Love your enemies.” This is the sort of thing in the Scriptures that we’ve heard several thousand times and sounds very spiritual and evolved. But sometimes…

Well, you know the song “Irreplaceable,” by Beyoncé? When it was released, it was in constant rotation. You could hear it almost any time of the day or night on one of the local pop radio stations. (It’s like Olivia Rodrigo – right now, I can guarantee that you can find one of her songs on one of the presets in your car.) But in listening to it so much, “Irreplaceable” lost something. It didn’t lose it’s shine, we just lost our sensitivity to the light. It was still AWESOME (listen to it again, I promise you’ll remember how much you love it), we just fell asleep. It was so familiar, it became routine background noise instead of soul-rattling.

There are lots of things like this. Seinfeld. Endgame. The Beatles. Your spouse. Your kids. Steph Curry. Kisses. Pizza.

Loving your enemies is a topic we talk about in churches where we all nod and pretend that we understand and have checked off a to-do list long ago. Yeah, yeah, love your enemies. Now what?

The problem is that this pretense is all well & good, right up until the point where we actually have an enemy. (Well, once we have an enemy AND are finally unable to successfully hide it behind some imaginary religious self-righteousness.) With this enemy’s face forefront in our minds taunting us, reminding us how awful he/she is, the true impact of His words is revealed. And it is here, right here, that we discover that we don’t in fact like this passage at all.

Like “Irreplaceable,” it was so familiar, it became unfamiliar. Unknown. Totally Foreign. We forgot that this is a shockingly humongous ask. It’s practically impossible. Which, I’m well aware, is probably the point. And this impossible dream is very easy to miss as long as we continue this ridiculous practice of image-making, masquerading as perfect plastic people.

The truth is, there are quite a few real-life enemies walking around hurting those we love (hurting our friends and family is waaay worse than hurting us, right??) over and over and over and over on purpose. They are psychopathic in their malice and leave a wide path of wreckage in their wake. Love them? Is that really the command?

Yes, it is. Maybe I don’t love mine, at least not today, but I’m finally hearing the song, and that’s something.

What Is The Truth?

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

I’m thinking about the well-known saying, “There are 3 sides to every story; his, hers, and the truth,” and am discovering that I don’t agree at all. In the Bible, the Roman Governor Pilate asks Jesus, “What is truth?” And I’ll ask that now. When we say “his, hers, and the truth,” what are we talking about? Simple facts? Can something be true without being strictly factual? Is truth only what can be objectively stated? Can something be real, genuine, authentic and not be true? Or are real and true interchangeable synonyms?

Maybe.

Maybe there are different kinds of truth. Sometimes truth changes with more research or information, changes with years and generations, changes with circumstance. And there is the Truth that stays exactly the same forever.

I’m talking about the 1st kind, and in that case the cliche should read, “There are 2 sides to every story; his & hers, AND they’re both true.”

This idea began to take shape for me when I got married. A general maxim is that “perception is reality.” If one believes/feels that the other works too much, there is no amount of data that can change that one’s mind. 99 out of 100 can think he/she does NOT work too much and 99 out of 100 don’t matter at all. What does matter is the one who lives in that house who is empty and disconnecting because their spouse works too much. There aren’t enough PowerPoint presentations that can convince him/her otherwise.

When my wife felt neglected or in second (or 10th) place, I had work to do and changes to make. I couldn’t reason my way out of it by invalidating her experience, even if I wanted to (which I really really did, then). Her neglect was completely true.

This tiny shift has allowed me to hear with new ears. I don’t have to, in fact I can’t, decide if someone is right or wrong, I just have to accept the existing paradigm. I just have to be present without judgment or taking a side. Actually, maybe they’re not new ears, maybe they’re just ears. If we could be free of the natural tendency to pass judgement and declare winners and losers, we could simply listen and truly practice empathy. What happens if we don’t have to know who is right and who is wrong? What happens if we are able to just be where our brothers and sisters (and selves) are, compassionately, totally engaged?

I don’t so much care what happened anymore. Sometimes I do. Maybe that makes sense. Life and relationship require us to not only know the right thing, but the right thing at the right time. And harder still, when the right thing at the wrong time is no longer the right thing. Unless it is.

There are 2 verses in the Bible – Proverbs 26:4 and 26:5 – that are direct opposites. 4: “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him.” And 5: “Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.”

They didn’t make sense to me before, now they do. They make perfect sense and are both absolutely true.

46

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

This Wednesday is my 46th birthday.

As birthdays so often do, that new number brings with it a certain amount of conflicting emotions. I am no longer 20, can no longer be considered a young man. In fact, even with what has always been a bit of a baby face, I am no longer mistaken for being significantly younger than I am. That’s not too awesome. I have so many lines on my face and gray hairs in the growth on my face (but not on my head…I have been shaving that since before I started to lose it).

I’ve learned quite a lot and have become a very different person than I was yesterday, much less 20 years ago. That is pretty awesome.

Here’s a cool example from last week that illustrates the distance traveled. I re-connected with an old friend, after 10ish years. We spent a bagel together catching up and she had so thoroughly figured me and all of my many sins/inadequacies/fears/broken parts out that she felt an offer to extend her perhaps considerable psychological talents to help me was in order.

Now, I happen to believe relationship is a pre-requisite for unsolicited diagnosis, trust a foundation for mentorship, but that’s sort of besides the point here.

The point is that for most of my life, I would have immediately defended myself and my character, giving detailed examples to prove my position. My stomach would churn for days, maybe weeks, and I would drag this ridiculously meaningless dance out for at least that long. I would neeeed the other to see my side.

But when I got her offer Saturday, I thanked her and will not respond again. AND I slept like a baby Saturday night, after thanking God for bringing me along slowly until I could walk away without a second thought of if I had “won” or, more importantly, if I was liked. I would have given this person the keys to my peace & happiness, but at 46, I simply don’t care. It doesn’t matter if she ever knows the truth about me and who I am here, now, today. Some people won’t, and that is ok.

At 46, I have many trusted people in my life who love me and exercise an unreasonable concern for my heart. Maybe that’s why every year is better and better, my circle is expanding. The Angel, these boys, this family, this faith community, these neighbors, you. You know, if you asked me when I was 18 to dream of a wonderful life, I could not have come anywhere close to the beauty of this one and the absolutely overwhelming blessing of it all. Of course, it hasn’t been easy or without heartbreak, floods of tears, or tragedy. I haven’t erased the depression or the issues in my head. But it has been real and it has been full. I have loved and I have been loved.

I’ve learned to release my grip on how you see me, what you think of me, what I should do, who I should be, and instead jump from the top of that hell into the wildly loving arms of a Savior and an endless sea of others who will not only catch me, but walk with me every step. I’ve learned to believe what is true about me rather than the nasty destructive lying voices that have always been in my head (more or less;). I can give the keys to me back where they belong.

46 is a lot of years full of days, moments, and all I can really say is that I’m grateful. So if today is my last day or if I get 46 more years, it will have been, as it is right now, a very, very good life.

Y Chromosomes

September 2, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

[I recognize that I don’t usually write about religion/church/spirituality in this space. I am, though, today. It’s all just me. Next week, I’ll probably write about Netflix documentaries or the new Killers album, but for now…] Last night there was a prayer walk at the school district in my town. Maybe you don’t believe in prayer, don’t think it does anything, is just a silly dog and pony show. That’s ok, I don’t mind. Maybe it does do something, maybe it affects the energy in the universe in a positive way, maybe it is the first step in making the impossible possible. Who knows, for sure? It is a good thing to do, people coming together to think about the well-being of other human beings can’t ever hurt. Especially now – it’s a pretty hard time to be someone with a working heart.

Prayer looks and sounds a lot of different ways. (Which is only natural, we look and sound lots of different ways, why wouldn’t our prayers?) But if you were at this prayer walk last night, you’d be forced to believe that it’s an exclusively feminine practice. There were quite a few people there and my boys, myself, and 1 other grandfather were the only ones with a Y chromosome.

That’s disappointing, right? Of course. Unless there’s another explanation. Maybe it’s corporate prayer that men shy away from, that they have full, vibrant prayer lives but it’s alone, safely in their bedrooms. Hmm. Maybe. I wonder if full and vibrant and alone and safe all sit in the same sentence comfortably. The words seem to contradict, like they are seconds away from losing their restraint and throwing hands at any moment.

I read a quote last week from Charles Spurgeon, a famous old-time preacher, “Christ never contemplated the production of secret Christians, – Christians whose virtues would never be displayed, – pilgrims who would travel to heaven by night, and never be seen by their fellow-pilgrims or anyone else.” And I think he’s probably right. It seems pretty solidly steeped in western philosophy to consider independence and privacy spiritual virtues.

Anyway. (That last paragraph might be a different discussion and not just a line or 2 in this one.) It’s not just that prayer group. It’s not just prayer groups at all. We have a book study and, when we’re lucky, we have 2 men. [It’s no longer “last night” that the prayer walk was, it is last week. But nothing is different in my heart and mind.] I wonder why the men largely aren’t showing up for their (our) spirituality, why prayer groups are women’s prayer groups and book studies are women’s book studies.

So I did what you would do in my situation: Asked Google. Google, what’s the statistical difference between men & women in the church? I expected vast differences in these numbers, but the only thing I found was that all numbers are falling in church and participation in spiritual development. Of course, there are more women than men, but it’s not as striking as my experience has led me to believe.

Why is this? It’s probably some mixture of religious abuse, self-reliance, fear, disillusion with organized everything, politics, depression, our neighbors, (it’s easy to forget that I am someone’s neighbor, too, and likely one of the reasons some have walked away from spiritual communities) and any number of other probably pretty valid reasons.

I have no idea why I’m writing or what I’d like to say in regard to this exodus from the local church. I know I wish there would be more men AND women in these groups and on Sunday mornings, more men AND women loving everybody all the time. Maybe that’s the most glaring reason that none of us want to acknowledge. Maybe we’ve confused love with church attendance as the highest call on our lives. Maybe we haven’t been loving everybody all the time and that’s what’s emptying the pews and thinning prayer walks. Maybe we’ve been busy fighting over politics that we don’t want to sit next to ‘those people’ and if we don’t, why would anybody else?

Maybe we’ve forgotten that it’s love, not division or doctrine, that defines. Maybe we all need to be reminded.

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: honesty