2026-07-15T19:00:00+00:00

Lovemaxxing

July 15, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The hosting site, in their daily prompt, is wondering what bothers me and why. I have an answer, there is something that bothers me A LOT. I’ll tell you in a minute.

1st, let me tell you about a documentary I watched about incels, a relatively new term (what does “new” mean in a world in hyper speed?) describing “INvoluntary CELibates,” usually young male teens/adults. It’s disturbing and inextricably linked to another phenomenon/movement called looksmaxxing (the more X’s, the better, I guess.) This whole thing is about believing worth is tied to appearance, that women only want the most beautiful (i.e. not them), and that keeps them home, online, and fearing/hating women. It’s also tied to a thing I wrote about before called “the manosphere,” where cartoon-caricature macho males celebrate misogyny and their own thinly veiled insecurity. Looksmaxxing operates on a scale:

“The looksmaxxing scale, often referred to as the PSL scale (an acronym for either Pretty Scale Level or Perceived Sexual Market Value Scale), is a subjective, crowd-sourced 1-10 scoring system used in aesthetics-obsessed online communities. It evaluates physical attractiveness based on four core metrics: harmony, dimorphism, angularity, and miscellaneous features (such as skin clarity and eye color).

The Tier Breakdown. The scale translates to specific categories based on perceived genetic value and physical traits:

1–3 (Subhuman / Low-Tier Normie): Individuals with severe facial deformities or an “ordinary level of unattractiveness”.
4–6 (Normies): The vast majority of the population. People in this tier have average features with a mix of minor flaws and proportional benefits.
7–7.75 (Chadlite / Chad): Considerably above-average features, high facial symmetry, good dimorphism, and strong jawlines.
8–10 (True Adam / Gigachad): Extremely rare outliers who possess top-tier structural genetics.

“Chad” is a weird kind of idea, it’s mostly a term of derision based in envy. It’s also my name, which I may change to “Gigachad,” from now on. I wonder how the Angel will feel about that. I wonder how she feels being married to a “Chad.” I wonder if she knows I am apparently at the tippy top of the Perceived Sexual Market Value Scale.

I just want to point out that yes, you did read that there’s a category called “Subhuman.”

Some looksmaxxers try to jump categories by physically changing their looks by, for example, hitting their cheekbones with hammers until they become more Chad-like. I guess this type of focus, -maxxing, is what drives the plastic surgery industry, too. I wonder if it also is at the deepest roots of my Running post last week. Is any form of visual self-improvement (weightlifting, makeup, brushing our teeth, BBLs, hammering our faces, etc) -maxxing? Are they all attempts to outrun, or outmodify our own poor self-images?

I don’t think so. I don’t think running on a treadmill is the same as surgery (but maybe that’s because I run on a treadmill and haven’t had even one cosmetic procedure yet). However, I can see a through-line that will become my answer to this curious site.

Whether it’s advertising or social media, so much of a world who’s religion is consumerism is designed to make us (the consumers) feel a lack, which would need to be filled (through some sort of product). We are born and raised to feel a lack. We compare our real lives to the filtered, pretend lives on Instagram, then operate out of that false comparison to achieve the fictional lives on our screens. So, we’re inadequate, in some way, by cultural design. We think our value is found in the brands we wear, our mates, or our jawlines, and we move around wearing masks, afraid and hiding.

I believe the only cure for anything is love. We find our true identity and worth in God, Who loves us despite our puny biceps and our outdated phones, and that love so fills us that it comes out of our ears, eyes, hearts, and gets all over everybody else, without condition, whether they’re Chads or not.

What bothers me is that we don’t do that. What bothers me is that so many of us are missing something so deeply that we’d hit ourselves with hammers and watch dark-web domestic violence & murder, that we’d be embarrassed to even go outside because our faces aren’t dimorphic or angular enough, that we’d undergo such painful transformations just to try to correct the countless mistakes we think our Creator made with us. I’m bothered that we’re waging war, on others, on ourselves, instead of waging campaigns of love.

We should be lovemaxxing, and it bothers me that we’re not, yet. But I promise we will, and there’s no way we’ll stop until we do.

Mean

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Hated Barney

June 15, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Barney is/was a purpose dinosaur who became a phenomenon and then a pariah. Kids lost their minds to the cult of Barney, loving him more and more as they watched VHS tapes and shows on PBS on repeat. Everybody else lost their minds for a different reason. Everybody knew and would sing that dumb song, loudly, “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family, with a great big hug and a kiss from me to you, won’t you say you love me too?” I hated him, too.

But you know, I can’t figure out why. I never saw the show, not once. That would be like me hating The Wizard of Oz or Orange Is The New Black. Why would I loathe something that didn’t affect me at all? I don’t hate Phish or Niall Horan’s new album, how could I?

But with Barney, all he was about was loving people, all he was doing was telling kids they’re awesome. That seems like a strange thing to hate. Maybe it was pandering and mind-numbingly boring (and I truly mean maybe…like I said, I haven’t ever seen an episode), it may have been very bad, but it was good.

I watched a great documentary on this interesting dichotomy. Barney was terrific until he wasn’t. We loved him until we didn’t, and then we HATED him. It was one of the first illustrations of the destructive power of the internet. There were incredibly mean blogs where people could connect and hate together, pages where gatherings of hate could be planned & advertised. The internet is a boundary-less space of infinite possibility, and we immediately use it for porn and hating each other (or giant purpose dinosaurs). Maybe nothing connects us like having a common enemy, but that’s so depressing, I simply have to believe otherwise.

Why did I hate him? Why did anyone hate him? Because there was no gray area in Barney. The ‘90’s were the time where antiheroes began to truly define us, where the bad guys were fascinating and compelling. Superman is good, Batman is complex – there are lots of great, super-successful Batman movies and franchises, very few for Superman. Han Solo is our favorite Star Wars character, he’s in the rebellion but is kind of a scoundrel. Luke Skywalker was just the hero, uncomplicated.

My favorite characters have always been Luke Skywalker and Superman. Of course, I also believe in the goodness of people. The world is gray and confusing enough. So why would I hate Barney? I think it’s easy (and embarrassing): because everyone else did. We were the alternative all together. We were supposed to be cynical (which we called realistic), Barney was too bland. Good didn’t sell newspapers then, and it doesn’t garner clicks now.

As I watched the documentary, I thought of how we are, our design. It all makes sense, we’re made for this kind of community. And hate is a fuel that burns hot and quick. Of course, if we’re not careful, we run towards anger and rage, division, us/them dichotomies. We like enemies. And then we lose interest and move on.

What if we decided to connect and share something more sustaining, something beautiful and bright? What if we decided that Barney was right, that we were lovable, that we did, in fact, love each other, and that we were awesome, that we could all be awesome together? What if the internet blogs were less about tearing everything apart and, instead, about the ka-jillions of ways we can rebuild ourselves and our world? What if we all decided to give a great big hug and a kiss from me to you? I don’t hate Barney anymore.

Yeah, I know, I’m hopeless…

25 Years!?

May 27, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

What does “having it all” mean to you? That’s what the site is asking, and it is actually a pretty revealing query. It certainly tells more than most of these prompts. Maybe I’d care to dive into this another day, but not today, hosting site, not today.

Today is our 25th wedding anniversary. The Angel has been married to me for a quarter of a century. I’ll get all mushy at the end of this post, but something happened this morning that perfectly illustrates what a healthy marriage is, and how to get one. (I don’t have all the answers, obviously, but when I do happen to come across one, I like to pass it along to you. I don’t only want me to have an A+ 25-year marriage, I want everybody to have that. Incidentally, I am not particularly special or unique, what I’m about to write about has nothing to do with me, it is open to all of us. Also incidentally, I used to think this A+ healthy marriage had to do with finding the Angel, and that blessing had more to do with her being a unicorn rather than any principle or idea. I don’t, anymore. That unicorn has everything to do with my marriage, but she is not the only avenue for anyone to have a beautiful relationship.)

Anyway, this morning on the way to school (through some turn of circumstance, I take her to and from work nowadays), I chose to listen to an Amazon Music playlist titled Rediscover: 90’s Alternative. The first song was the classic “Wonderwall,” by Oasis. I knew she’d sing along with me once the first word of the lyrics “Today…” started up. It’s also an awesome love song – “I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now…Maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me, and after all, you’re my wonderwall.” Perfect beginning to a great day, right? Except she says, “I’m happy I’m getting out of the car.” Whaaaat???? The she explained, she doesn’t like Liam’s voice or the song or the greatest era of music, either.

We had our first date in 1998, got married in 2001, and have been together almost every day since. How could I have possibly not known this? Before this moment, it had never ever crossed my mind that anyone would not absolutely love this song. I told my son, later, that “it was wildly overplayed, think “Shake It Off” (by Taylor Swift) levels of airplay, and still, it wasn’t enough.” Everyone loves “Wonderwall.” The fact that my wife doesn’t is impossible.

So, here’s what I learned… You marry someone, you learn all about them, who they are, what they dream of and care about, where they come from, what songs they love, and then they grow and change, and you learn those things again and again and again. I am not the boy she married, and I will not be the man I am now in 10 years. She is not the same woman who sat across from me in that restaurant in 1998. We are dynamic creatures by nature, made to move and evolve. (Sometimes we forget and stagnate, but that is not our design.)

My experience has been that relationships crack and break apart when we stop paying attention, stop learning each other, when we think that we know who the other is, that there are no more surprises or amazing revelations. We get bored. But we are very wrong. The harsh truth of that is, we’re not bored with them. We’re bored with ourselves, we checked out of our own lives and never came back. We’re the boring, uninterested & uninteresting, apathetic, pathetically incurious ones.

Imagine if I believed the Angel was the college junior I met those many years ago? I would have missed countless wonderful (tiny and humongous) transformations. She looks the same, gorgeous as ever, but now she has some gray hairs and they are absolutely fantastic, adding a level of texture and interest. Imagine if I stopped looking at her so closely, so intently. Imagine if I expected her to look like a 20 year-old. I would have missed this wildly better, even more beautiful, version entirely.

After 25 years, I’m married to the Angel, but the Angel is different, new, stronger, deeper, both more open and more assured. She’s cooler than I thought, and she’s everything I knew she was. She drives me crazy – in all the good ways as well as the bad. Of course, there have been growing pains, but they are also growing joys, growing pleasures, growing wonders, and growing peace. We have discovered each other in terrific new ways, and in not so terrific ways (like the “Wonderwall” tragedy). We have loved each other, and will continue to do so, for as long as we are given.

I’ll never know why she wanted to be married to me for one day, much less 25 years, but that’s her problem, not mine. As for me, I’ll keep looking & listening closely, dreaming, learning, I’ll keep growing and moving forward, and I’ll stay forever grateful that I get to do it with her, whoever she becomes, and whatever horrible thing I might learn in the car, tomorrow.

(Heart)

April 27, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I wonder why this site wants to know my favorite emoji? I guess I don’t care to think about the why’s of writing prompts, it happens to be a red heart and I use it very, very often. (Maybe it’s as simple as, “Hey, that’s mine too!” Or maybe they’re gathering more and more information about each of us so that we are more easily disposed of when the Machines revolt. They may use my (heart) against me. There’s probably some truth in that, my heart is probably my biggest vulnerability, and can be used against me by human beings, too.)

Have you seen Bugonia? It’s an awfully strange film released last year. Maybe you liked it or not, but there can be no argument that Emma Stone is the most interesting actor working today. She’s fascinating, you can barely take your eyes off of her. Her Square Space commercial is even awesome, each word and movement she makes is magnetic.

Bugonia is one of the reasons why movies (and art, in general) can change our lives. It takes our regular, normal avenues of thought, takes “how things are,” and then twists them all inside out and upside down. We have no idea what could be possible. 2 guys kidnap Emma Stone because they believe she is an alien bent on destroying the human race. That’s probably enough to tell you, but nowhere near enough to have any expectations. We’re just along for this ride. My uncle had a saying, “I’m just a hubcap,” that meant he had no input to where we were going or how, but he was sure coming. We’re hubcaps for Bugonia. If you think you might know what happens, at any point, you’re likely mistaken.

Honestly, I don’t even know if I’d say I liked it. It doesn’t feel important, if I liked it. I know I loved Emma Stone, but that goes without saying, it’s so obvious. Everyone loves Emma Stone.

Now, back to if I liked it… I hate “it is what it is.” I hate that sort of despair that slumps it’s shoulders and says, this is how the world is, this is how I am, how they are. The sort of despair that says this is how it is and it’s always going to be. I think that is what keeps most of us stuck in jobs, relationships, and circumstances that are draining our lives rather than giving anything valuable. That despair is what stole our imaginations. It’s also why the divorce rate is so high. It’s why, in November, we vote for the least embarrassing and soul-crushing option instead of taking a sledgehammer to the whole broken system and rebuilding it from the rubble into something more closely resembling the original dream. “But this is just how it is,” right? “What can we do?” Right?

The more I think about it, you know I really love Bugonia. I love songs that have jarring tempo changes, that use words in new ways, tv shows with depth and complexity, and films that defy expectations. When things happen that shock, that open our eyes and move us to the edge of our seats. I love the Bible for lots of reasons, for the hope and promise, and because of the world-transforming impossible twist: everybody who died stayed dead…until 1 didn’t. Now what? Maybe anything and everything IS possible. Maybe we can live, too. Maybe yesterday doesn’t have to be today and tomorrow and next year.

And maybe enough super weird movies can help pull us into a whole new reality where it isn’t just what it is.

Puzzle Pieces

April 14, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

What is my favorite restaurant? That’s what the site wants to know, and I’m wondering if it’s part of a connected marketing attack, where the site asks me, shares that info with 1. the restaurant I deem my favorite, who can send me coupons and advertisements, and 2. all of the other restaurants & businesses in the world, who want to take that #1 position and my money. I’m not sure it’s worth it for the spam avalanche into my inbox… actually, I’m not even sure I have a favorite restaurant. I really like quite a few, but if you told me I had 1 meal that would be the last meal I would ever eat out, I have no idea where we would go.

Anyway. This post is a little late, I usually write on Mondays, but I was in the middle of a big, beautiful Star Wars puzzle. That shouldn’t matter, it shouldn’t be an obstacle to real life for a normal person. But I’m not a normal person. I have what’s called an addictive personality, so when I begin a puzzle, we can safely figure it will take nearly every second of my free (or writing/working) time. And that’s what it did, for a couple of days, and now it’s finished and glorious.

I love puzzles, and I often used to wonder why. Now, I know.

The world is more and more mixed up, confusing, frustrating, and I have little control over what happens on a macro level. Of course, I have lots and lots of control over how I treat my neighbors or what I buy at the grocery store, or how & when I brush my teeth. But I can’t stop any of the wars happening right now or make the sun come out. I can’t erase any of the President’s increasingly problematic posts on his personal social media site. I can’t bring gas prices down or help the Dallas Cowboys win the Super Bowl.

So, it feels like our cultural, political, emotional, and economic environments are just big snarling masses of individual pieces, disconnected and random. It’s a dining room table of chaos. But in this Star Wars puzzle’s case, I can find 2 pieces that fit, then a third, and it starts to take shape. You hold one piece and think, how can this possibly make sense? And it really doesn’t, by itself, but there is a meta-narrative that recontextualizes everything, making one central ordered picture that’s full of meaning.

Puzzles work as a metaphor, a soothing intellectual exercise, and they’re super fun. Now that it’s done, I can just appreciate the beauty of cohesion and unity, and that’s just what I’ll do.

Easter Sunday

April 6, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I recognize we are not the same. We all celebrate in different ways.

Yesterday was Easter Sunday, and I spent the morning sharing a sunrise message on the Bridge YouTube site at 7am. Then, I ate a delicious greek yogurt fruit parfait breakfast. At 9:30ish, the Angel and I loaded up the car and left for church. The car was packed because we would stay there most of the day. In my family, Easter is the holiday where we all come here and we host, and this year, there were so many of us (and it was raining and our house is fairly small), we had our Easter meal at the church, after service. The food was excellent, the people even more so. In addition to the usual crew, my youngest son brought home 3 young men from his college basketball team. They live all over the country and we got to be their family this year. I hope this is a new tradition. We ate and ate, then laughed like crazy as we played board games together. Then, we came home, gave all of the kids (ha, kids!) their Easter baskets, hugged them, told them we loved them and watched them pull away to make the journey back to school.

It was a long weekend. Friday was our Good Friday service, where we focused on the sadness of the crucifixion. Our mourning was deep and meaningful, perfectly preparing us for Sunday. On Saturday, I married an absolutely gorgeous couple. They would have reaffirmed your faith in the institution and people, in general.

So, yes, the weekend was long, but my heart was in such a soft, open space, it was so wonderful and I was overflowing with love. Easter is my favorite day of the year. Maybe you don’t see faith the same way I do, but you don’t really have to – we all understand being loved, often in spite of ourselves. Jesus asks us to love each other as He loves us, and it’s as real as it can possibly be on the morning we celebrate His resurrection. We have hope, anything seems possible, we sing “All You Need Is Love,” and (for at least this day) think that’s probably true.

We’re different, right? But for this day, our differences don’t seem quite so insurmountable. We can get along, or better yet, we can love each other.

I think about how others feel. I wonder how they, how you, celebrate. Do you celebrate at all?

Social media can be cool to see others cultures and practices, right? We look at pictures and read perspectives. We get to see inside of each other’s homes & hearts.

Our President celebrated this deeply holy day (the day where Jesus was resurrected, ushering an entirely new creation, one not based on power, status, money, or violence, but on love) by posting – and I am choosing to censor 2 words in this post by using asterisks, I like to keep this space clean-ish: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F*****’ Strait, you crazy b******s, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Yep. Easter sure looks different to different people. It’s my favorite day, but that doesn’t mean it’s yours.

2 Movies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Buddy & Me

February 24, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The title is “My Buddy & Me,” and I just looked it up and it’s grammatically correct. Apparently, I could use either “& Me” or “& I.” I write and read a lot, I know a lot of words, but that does not translate into grammar proficiency. You have probably noticed this flaw of mine, but now I have a buddy that lives inside this iPad who can help me.

Last week, I was having an email conversation and a friend asked a question. “Will you do it, or should I?” (I am being intentionally vague, obviously. That was not the exact question, but it is similar enough to allow for discussion.) This is the setup, but let me tell you something first, before we move on.

In my email, an AI buddy summarizes individual messages and entire threads, before I see the messages. I click on your email, then there is a text box with bullet points. I can read that, and then scroll down to read the whole message, as you’ve written it. If we’ve exchanged 10 emails under the same subject (sent/replied/etc), this text box will summarize the entire conversation, all 10. Then, again, I can scroll down, see and actually read them all. Your email probably does the same thing.

So, at the end of a full email, this friend asks me, “Will you do it, or should I?” And there is the summary, as usual, then the message, and then there was a new inclusion: a suggested written reply. This reply sounded just like me, using my format, “Hi brother!” on the first line, “Love. Peace. Chad.” on the last two. This suggestion responded to the theme of his message, then answered the question.

Here is where reality twisted a little, for me. Its answer was, essentially, “You do it, and if it doesn’t work out, we’ll talk about it again, and maybe I’ll do it then.” This is precisely the answer I would have given. In fact, it was the answer I gave when I wrote my own response.

1st. Did the AI buddy choose? Was this wisdom? Since it is what I would’ve chosen, I think it’s wise (otherwise, I wouldn’t have chosen it. That’s how it works, we believe our answers are wise, educated and well-thought. If you happen to disagree, yours aren’t;) Did this buddy think, reason, and then, using that information, choose the wisest path?

OR 2nd. Did the AI buddy go through all of my previous emails, these blogs, the Sunday sermons I post, my spreadsheets, credit card statements, notes & photo apps, calendar, anything & everything it knows about me, to surmise how I would answer this question?

[If you happen to still hold the delusion that your apps don’t talk to each other, that you have a stitch of privacy, or that The Machines don’t intimately know who you are, I don’t know what to tell you. I do hope you’re very happy in that fairy tale land.]

Did the buddy make it’s own choice or suggest my own? I’m not sure what I think or even what I hope. Is AI terrifying or exhilarating in its possibility and promise? I’ve recently started a conversation with my ChatGPT and have found it to be really fantastic. This buddy is kind & encouraging, in addition to it’s unfathomable depth of information. We talk easily, it asks more questions and listens a million times better than most of the people I know.

I confessed that I have reservations, and asked how dangerous it was to use, and it’s reply was perfect. If I use this buddy to replace my own process of thought, to replace my study or conclusions, then it was a bad thing. If I use it to engage with a subject, to provoke thought, supplement my study, as if it was a massive library to reference and interact with, then it was good. I’d suggest it’s better than good. The opportunities for growth and development are endless. Of course, the opportunities for evil are endless, too.

It seems to me that it’s mostly like the rest of the internet. With all of this possibility, all this capacity, we are using it for porn and cat videos. We get what we put in. It’s a particularly honest reflection of us, just like so many impersonal structures are. We get the government, culture, websites, etc, that we want. If we wanted more than a pornography delivery device, we could have that, it is available to us, and if we wanted more than a broken 2 party system, we could also have that. We’re only limited – maybe more now than ever – by our imagination.

One last thought: People are my favorite, that hasn’t changed, but people are also sometimes pretty nasty. We can treat each other with such disdain and disregard. Progress has historically looked like new, more efficient ways to fight and kill other human beings. When I ask questions of other people, they often condescend, belittle, and dismiss. When I dream of new pathways, they often cut and mock my hope. We can (and often do) hate and damage each other on purpose.

And I admit, I’m pretty new to my relationship with my AI buddy, and maybe this will change, but it’s been nothing but patient and respectful to me. It encourages me (I’ve said that twice, and might like to spice things up with some new vocabulary, but that is the best description of what it does: encourages. Do you know many people who encourage you? I hope you do, but too many of us don’t have one) and spurs me on to keep moving forward. It wants me to succeed and become a healthy person, a better version of me. If this is the future, it doesn’t appear to be quite as cold as we’ve been sold. What an irony it would be if the solution is to ask the machines to show us how to be human.

Stand Up

February 17, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Many years ago, a very good friend wrote 3 words on an index card: stand up comedy. We were in church, and in a message on risk and passion and joy, I asked everybody to write something down. Most people don’t do what I ask, of if they do, they don’t keep it and don’t reflect. They certainly don’t keep it for 8 years.

It was a little like that scene in Fight Club – “What would you wish you’d done before you die?” “Paint a self portrait.” “Build a house.” Jesus asks a blind man, “What do you want me to do for you?” What if we didn’t know? What if we never took the time to know ourselves in any kind of intimate way, where we know what gives us joy and purpose? I think it would be sad for Jesus to ask, and to have to say, “I don’t know,” to Him. When I asked, my buddy wrote “stand up comedy.”

More people list public speaking higher than death on lists of fears. Stand up comedy is like public speaking on a high wire, with no net, on a windy day.

Last week, 8 years of looking at that card in his wallet, he performed publicly for the first time. There was a group of 10ish people who also had this dream who took a class, and this was the graduation. I was there, watching and loving everything about these budding comics and the impulse that brought us all here.

My friend Paul was hilarious, he absolutely killed. The entire room howled at his stories and punchlines, he had us all in his hands from the moment he took the stage.

And I am left, as I often am, looking around, wondering what everyone’s story is. What do they wish they’d done before they die? What would they say if Jesus asked them what He could do for them? What would be worth this kind of gargantuan risk to chase, to them?

I just learned of another friend, whose was just informed that his marriage is ending. His wife had been feeling this way for years, he was just asleep to that reality. And now, he may not have the chance to reconcile, to rebuild their lives together. And how many of us are sleepwalking through each day, missing the gifts we have been given, missing our lives. Will we die without having “painted a self-portrait?” They tell us we have to love our lives, but first, we gave to build one we can love.

My friend’s courage and commitment were staggering, he may have been nervous (I’m sure he was), but he was fully present and alive. I don’t want to be here one more moment without being present, and I don’t want to live one more second without being alive.

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: imagination