2021-05-31T14:15:09+00:00

Is Any Of It Real?

May 31, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I have 2 teen-aged boys, so one of my favorite experiences is to introduce them to the art that moved me during my life. One cannot live on Marvel movies alone, you know? Almost, but not quite. We’ve watched The Money Pit, Predator, Naked Gun, and Lord of the Rings, listened to Nevermind and The Joshua Tree, and the younger one has started to dip his toes into Kurt Vonnegut. They don’t always get it, but I certainly do. I remember why I loved these things and most of the time, love them even more with the benefit of the extra 10 (or 20 or 30) years on this spinning ball.

Saturday we watched The Truman Show. It’s about a guy who’s been the unwitting subject of a reality show since he was born, 24 hours a day, everything and everyone a production. Except for him. When Truman asks, “Was any of it real?” Christof (the creator) answers, “You were.” It’s beautiful and even more perfect today than it was in 1998, when it was released.

I thought then that it was a pretty sharp commentary on reality tv, like Running Man, a prophesy warning of the dangers of the path ahead of us. And maybe more importantly, a vehicle for Jim Carrey to explore something other than broad stretch-faced comedy. Both of those are still there, true, and very successful, but the film is bigger than that.

In Rogue One, a character named Chirrut says, “There is more than one sort of prison, Captain, I sense that you carry yours wherever you go.”

That describes so many of us. We decide what we are and are not capable of, live lives as if “it is what it is” and “they are what they are” and worse, “we are who we are.” We build the walls that define our limits, and never test them. It’s like Truman. When asked why he never questions this artifice, Christof answers, ” We accept the reality of the world that we are presented,” and there might not be a more accurate statement in the entire film. We accept a wide variety of settling simply because it’s been presented to us as reality. The dome that encircles Truman’s world isn’t unbreakable, it’s really fear – of water, or death, of the unknown – that keeps him inside.

I often think about my fear and the steel bars that make up my own cage. What are they and what would it mean if I were to tear them down? These 2 questions are absolutely vital to explore, and like this pretend town, very nearly impossible to notice until we do, then it’s all we see.

Maybe it’s time to stop accepting so much. Stop carrying our prisons around wherever we go. Stop settling. Stop relying on old habits that didn’t work then and don’t work now. And stop calling it reality.

Just because it happens to be true today doesn’t mean it’s true tomorrow. I’ve heard it said that we move, transform, start, leave, risk, jump only when the fear of staying the same outweighs the fear of change. Truman found that space, sailed that boat into the vicious mouth of his fear and walked through the door into a new reality. Yes, it was a reality that would be missing predictability and safety, but the old one was missing honesty, authenticity, love. It was missing the things that make life so wonderful. It was missing life. And as he chose life, I could no longer hold back my tears because it’s not just Truman, it’s you and me, too.

So now what?

Outside Of A Hotel Dance Club

May 25, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I read this book last year called Misericorde, by Cynthia Morgan. It’s part of The Mercy Series (part 2 is out, called Clandestine, and now we impatiently wait for book 3 & 4). I’ve referenced it several times before because it contains this peach: “May we show our thankfulness through kindness and appreciate our blessings through generosity,” and as far as vision statements for life go, it’s terrific.

Last year, the author (who happens to be a good friend) asked me to do what she called a “Reverse Book Review,” where she asked questions, I’d respond, and that interview would become the review. It’s a great idea and of course it is, she’s brilliant.

One of the questions was “Who was your favorite/least favorite character and why?” I answered: “My least favorite is easy: Sauvage. In a space that is forgetting any resemblance of gentleness or care, his absolute lack of humanity is repulsive. My favorite has been Chevalier or Levesque for the same reason. As I raged at their apathy and unwillingness to DO SOMETHING, I knew why they didn’t (or couldn’t.) They did for the same reason we stand idly by while the least of us are utterly taken advantage of and great violence is inflicted. Morgan couldn’t have known the specific political/social landscape when she wrote it, but this story is perfect for us, now. I guess it’s perfect for any time, because we are too often Chevalier or Levesque and not enough Tzadkiel and Lourdes. (As it turns out, why I love them is that they DID finally DO SOMETHING and I am proud of them, and it gives me hope for us, for me.)”

You don’t need to know who Tzadkiel or Levesque or Sauvage are to know who they are, right? They are you & me. Sometimes we are the wounded, sometimes we’re the one who delivers the pain, and perhaps most disturbingly, sometimes we are those that stand on the sidewalk while the damage is done. When my often-overwhelming passivity pulls the strings on my decision making process, it leaves me crushed and discouraged. Why didn’t I just (whatever)? Why couldn’t I have just…?

And I know why here, too.

Once when I was in college, I witnessed a guy hit the woman he was with with a bottle outside of a hotel dance club. My friends were in the bathroom and I was watching the whole thing happen from the window. Sick and outraged, I waited for the guy to leave and my friends to come back, then we ran outside like heroes. Only I knew I wasn’t.

25 years ago and this still haunts me. Of course it does, how can it not? I can see him do it and I can see her face. I sure hope she didn’t then get in his car, but I’m pretty sure she did.

It’s interesting what will shape each of us into the collage that we are at any point on the timeline. Or, in this case, the mosaic that I am now. Watching such a despicable happen and choosing to bend to my fear broke me forever in ways I couldn’t understand through that hotel window. But it’s the repair, isn’t it? The beauty of a mosaic lies in the reorganization of the cracked and broken pieces.

I used to ask, anytime kindness, civility or common sense broke down, “how can they do that???” I don’t ask that anymore. I know, I know. I understand Chevalier and Levesque because they are a mirror of what we can become and an invitation to become something more of what we were created to be. I wrote that I was proud of them, that they gave me hope. And I guess what I really meant was if their story wasn’t over, mine isn’t either.

The Stairs

May 13, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I haven’t written for a minute because I’ve been sick with the COVID. Mine is a very mild case, but it does carry with it an unpredictability. Every morning I wonder if today will be a good day, if I’ll have energy, a headache, a stuffy head, or just how severe my chest tightness will be. This, of course, isn’t awesome, but over the last 2 weeks I watched a loooong documentary that I had been meaning to catch. It’s called The Staircase and details the death of a woman and the murder trial of her husband, who happens to be famous author Michael Peterson.

I suppose it’s actually about the justice system in this country, with these people, their families and communities as the backdrop.

The Staircase is 13 episodes – 8 original with the next 5 added over the last 20 years of this ridiculous saga. So, I watched every one and have no idea how this woman died. Maybe she fell, maybe she was beaten, maybe an owl (no kidding, an owl!) attacked her. Who knows? I don’t know if everyone is telling the truth or if no one is, if they’re all just doing the best with the limited information they have.

Not everyone was telling the truth. There was a crooked investigator in North Carolina named Duane Deaver who we can all be quite certain was a villain in this story. Maybe he’s not anymore, maybe in being found out, he was forced to look in the mirror and his soul and changed his life. I often dream like this. Just because we are one way today doesn’t mean we have to stay that way. The boxes inside which we put ourselves and each other are really just tape on the floor that we can easily escape…or they should be. There’s an honest discernment involved. Obviously, we don’t want this guy anywhere near evidence or in any position of authority where he can steal any more years of any more lives, but there must not be a period where a comma should be.

I did not like The Staircase. I didn’t really like any of the characters too much, especially Michael Peterson. His arrogance was gross, his pontificating was inane and endless, I even found the tone of his voice grating by the 3rd or 4th episode. I just wanted it over. I cared about the owl more than anything else.

Afterwards, I looked up on Google to find out why anybody liked it. And guess what I found? One of the women on the documentary crew named Sophie ended up in a relationship with Peterson, who was first found guilty by a jury and then finally ended up pleading guilty to the murder of his wife. This love connection sounds awfully strange, but it’s an excellent illustration of my tape on the floor description, isn’t it? She didn’t label him or classify him as anything. She simply saw him as a human being, and I like that more than I can tell you. I can’t imagine what she saw in him, but Sophie is easily my favorite person in The Staircase and the one I’ll take with me long after I forget every last minute of this American tragedy.

Shirkers

April 29, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

“There are movers. There are shakers. And there are shirkers.” That’s the very catchy tag line for the Sandi Tan documentary Shirkers that I watched today.

This is a different circumstance because all of the many colored blocks that populate the calendar on my phone had to be erased, leaving me with oodles of free time. Free time that has been suggested/issued/commanded by the PA Department of Health. In the DoH phone call to check on my symptoms (none) and/or exposure (constant), they kindly asked me if I would be complying with the quarantine order and I thought that was a nice gesture. I guess they can’t make me, per se, but I do love you a lot, so I’m on lockdown.

(I don’t want to talk about COVID or quarantine guidelines & regulations. Also, because everyone is home, I can’t talk about Father Yod and the Source Family doc I began that is inappropriate for young viewers. Soon, soon.)

Now. Shirkers. It’s a pretty great documentary but I don’t think I would’ve liked the movie it’s based on at all. The film is from Singapore and at least 5 times too art school pretentious for me.

Mostly, we have our imaginations squeezed out of us by the time we make it to middle school, replaced with standardized tests and the overwhelming stress of future success hanging in the form of grade point averages. We have “what could be” beaten into “it is what it is,” “why not” into just “not.” Shirkers was founded on the idea that something new is not only possible, but here in their heads screaming to be expressed.

I don’t care if I would’ve liked the film. I want to live in a world where art exists that I find horrible or offensive, because that means I cold love it, too. You can’t love the middle of the road. You can’t love white bread. I value the risks of dreaming of a new day, where yesterday isn’t necessarily today. It might be, but it’s up to us to decide if it will be. If we sand off all the edges, all we’re left with is circles rolling in and out of our souls and lives, never making an impact.

Bad art (I’m not saying Shirkers was bad art. The truth is that I don’t know, nobody knows, some charlatan stole and trashed the audio files) is essential to forward motion. The line between compete unwatchability and the best thing you’ve ever seen is thin and blurry at best, invisible at worst. I’d like to totally ignore that line and listen to the creative impulse in each of our heads & hearts and follow that, instead. Of course, maybe it’s destined for the rubbish heap, but what if it’s not? As it says on so many inspirational plates and blocks of wood, “Oh but my darling, what if you fly?”

A Robbery

April 15, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

2 days ago I started a limited documentary series on Netflix called This Is A Robbery about a never-solved art heist. Every time I see the word heist now, I involuntarily think of the time heist from Avengers Endgame. (for this reason, I’m going to use the word as much as I can) This doc is not like Endgame. The other thing is that we know from the opening moments that the 1991 heist hasn’t been solved. The Angel can’t stand things like that, with no resolution. I don’t mind because so much of life doesn’t have nice tidy endings and we have to be ok with strings left untied.

The interesting thing about this series (and this heist) for me, was an outrage far outweighing the mild annoyance I feel at garden variety heists of institutions like banks or corporations.

A personal robbery is a different animal altogether. Taking another’s anything violently rips away any safety and security previously felt. It’s a deeply personal, psychological violation that can, and often does, haunt forever.

Obviously, I understand that there are human beings and trauma involved in banks and corporations, I’m just telling you that the sadness I felt when these one-of-a-kind paintings and artifacts were stolen and never recovered was far deeper than the loss of a 100 dollar bill. Or a zillion 100 dollar bills.

It felt like the violation was one of humanity, of culture, of society, of beauty, of creativity. Like the heist was picking the pocket of the Divine. This feeling was unavoidable to me as the filmmakers showed 1 particular painting over and over: Rembrandt’s The Storm On The Sea Of Galilee.

It’s a cool Bible story of God’s peace in the middle of an overwhelming storm. I’ve always loved the story and I like it even more now. The painting is stunning, and now no one will ever see the original again.

That’s horrible for a lot of reasons. When Rembrandt’s talent and passion (gifted from that same Christ) to craft this work of art (inspired by that same Christ) and loved by so many people (created in that same Christ) was lifted, so were all of those blessings. For God so loved us all that He gave us that masterpiece, through that artist. Art, especially great art, is a window of the Garden of Eden, where the first humans were made from love in the wildly creative image of God. Work like this shows us our intention and possibility, which is written into our souls. Work like this teaches us to dream, to imagine, to hope. Work like this shows us the beauty inherent in each of us in ways that a green piece of paper cannot.

That beauty is of course still there, heist or not. It’s just heartbreaking that a magnificent illustration of it was callously cut from frames and is now left to rot in some warehouse where it can no longer bear witness to our own striking brilliance.

How To

March 23, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Several years ago, I was working full-time delivering medical equipment, pastoring a new local church, a full-time husband & daddy, and working far more than full-time discovering and becoming who I was/am. Even though I loved all of it, individually, I was teetering on the precipice of a complete breakdown nearly every moment of every day. The illustration that makes sense is of trying to fit a gallon of water into a shot glass.

Eventually, I scaled back the medical delivery to part-time (while still juggling the unholy on call responsibilities, which years later, cause me to shudder. No kidding. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the nightmare of thinking my phone is ringing.) which helped a little, though not as much as was necessary. My life was still a gallon and I was still a shot glass.

Many of my friends have greater capacities than mine, like a tumbler or a Big Gulp. The Angel does, too. Maybe you do. I’ve stopped feeling guilty about this. We all are created differently, different gifts, talents, passions, and different capacities.

It’s entirely probable that my capacity was reduced by the sheer number of should’s inside, like ice cubes filling a glass before one drop of liquid could find room. Wildly important should’s like responsibilities in providing for this family, safety, security, and on and on…then stepping outside, less important should’s like ‘what will people think?!??’ When you devote so much energy and space to the negative loops of b.s. in your head, it leaves very little for elements like purpose, meaning, and life. I needed a push, either out of the boat or back into the cabin, straddling both was tearing me apart.

Then the book How To Be Here, written by Rob Bell, was released. How To Be Here was about quitting your job delivering medical equipment and taking your shot at all of those things that make you feel alive. Among other things, of course.

“Your Ikigai is your reason for being. If you’re like a lot of people, the moment the words path and vocation and calling come into the conversation, let alone a new word like Ikigai, a thousand questions come to mind. Questions about paychecks and responsibility and passion and what you wish you could do if only you didn’t have those bills to pay.”

Maybe the book wasn’t about medical equipment delivery at all, but as I picked it up to reread it today, it sure sounds like it. Books can be like anything, tied to a certain time or event. Like how if you’re a certain age, it’s impossible to hear “Stairway To Heaven” without thinking of school dances full of butterflies and self-consciousness. This book is a very good friend who walked into my life when I was in desperate need like a hurricane, gently rested both hands on my back, whispered in my ear that I could, and then shoved me into a brand new life.

Hardly anything has been easy in the transition, but it has been awesome and I just wanted to thank Rob Bell and my very good friend How To Be Here.

One Of Those

February 15, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Last week another horrible thing happened. Yet another. I’m telling you, there is no truth to the phrase, “we aren’t given any more than we can handle.” Sometimes, we are, we just don’t get to tell the story afterwards.

This has been a hard year, 2021 is taking over right where 2020 left off. I heard a man (I’m pretty sure it was Hank Fortener) say once that he was in a time of incredible stretching. Me, too. I am stretched to the point where my muscles feel like they’re about to tear into shreds. The kind of tearing that never can be put back together. But then again, I happen to be one of those insufferable types who stubbornly holds on to hope anyway. Maybe those muscles won’t tear at all, and instead the stretching will create a new strength. It doesn’t feel like that, but that’s sort of what hope is, isn’t it?

I’m learning that we will most often choose the option that hurts us the most. Of course, it might feel good now, but it leaves lasting scars. I lie but everybody finds out (everybody always finds out) and the consequences are bigger and far more painful than had I never lied in the first place. I do it anyway. I eat a bunch of sugar that tastes fantastic but (now that I’m no longer 12) I’ll feel rotten for 3 days. I eat it anyway. I stay in the relationship that leaves me feeling worthless and used because of course it’s easier than leaving but it also validates the suspicion I have that I am worthless and unloveable. I keep going to those sites where I have to erase the history but can’t erase the shame. I keep sinking a needle into my arm or wherever still has veins even though my marriage and family is feeling the polar opposite of high and picking up the pieces of that wreckage is impossible. I know this and make that choice anyway.

It seems like our deep self-loathing is insurmountable. My big dumb idea is for a pyramid scheme of love, where I love 2 people and they each love 2 people and so on until everybody is loved and we begin to act out of that abundance rather than our searing emptiness. It’s a dumb idea. Especially when all evidence points to our desperate need to cling to our brokenness, to choose self-hate over self-love, at all costs.

The big flaw in “love others as you love yourself” is that we don’t love ourselves. Maybe we are already loving others exactly like we love ourselves – not at all.

So. I’m sad today (and for the last few days). Do you know why I cry these tears? Because my eyes are wide open and my heart is in perfect working order. Why isn’t everybody?

Here’s the thing. When my heart isn’t broken and I am seeing clearly (instead of through these blurry pools where my eyes used to be), I know my pyramid scheme idea is a good one. Well, maybe it’s not a good one, but I really like it. I’m a man who sees a beach full of drying starfish and throws them back into the water 1 at a time. Maybe it won’t make a difference in the grand scheme…yeah, sigh…maybe it won’t. But I’m still that person doing it anyway. What I can tell you is that sometimes you will love someone and walk next to them and they kill themselves anyway. Yes, that’s true and real and happened last week. And you will, like me, wonder during restless nights if you could’ve/should’ve done more, if you should’ve walked closer for longer. And maybe if we did, they would’ve killed themselves anyway.

So we’ll sit on the beach for a little while looking at all the starfish wondering why in the world they keep ending up here. And then we’ll stand up and pick one up and throw it back into the water. And then another. And then 2 more. And then we’ll start dreaming again, wondering why a pyramid scheme couldn’t work, why love couldn’t work. Now maybe it couldn’t, but the way we’re going sure isn’t working, and it’s all I have.

Us Against You

February 11, 2021February 11, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I’ve been telling everyone who will listen how much I love the author Fredrik Backman. Last month I read and wrote about Beartown, a devastating novel about a community and a horrible thing that happens that threatens to tear it to shreds. Reading it was a rough experience. So you can imagine how surprised I was to be reading its sequel, Us Against You. The story continues to detail the fallout from this horrible thing in this community. We often think the horrible things are like band aids; we tear them off and then throw it in the garbage and we don’t have a band aid anymore. It’s really more like a tattoo; it might fade but that’s about the best case scenario. It will probably leave traces behind so we can always see where it was, how and when we got it and how much it hurt. We are different afterwards, changed.

This horrible thing leads to a vastly transformed landscape. Relationships deteriorate between spouses, parents & children, neighbors, teammates. Maybe the most damaged is the relationship they have with themselves and the people they thought they were.

I learned a lot about me through these 800 pages across 2 books, about who I am and who I want to be and how far apart those people still are, sometimes.

These characters are faced with decisions to respond, to stand…or not.

The choice to speak or not. To move forward or not. To build or destroy.

Some make great decisions that cause them such unbelievable pain and loss.

Some act in shameful ways and their careers advance, their teams win.

Sometimes relationships fall apart for no more complex reason than we don’t hold them together.

We don’t know how to come home, so we stand on the porch unable to turn the handle while those inside ache at our absence as if we were worlds apart instead of on the other side of the door.

The whole narrative could’ve changed, reconciliation was still possible, if only we could turn the knob. If only we could take 1 step, tell the truth, say something, stop. If only.

This horrible thing happened between 2 people and ravaged an entire town for generations. There are no victimless crimes. But it would also be a mistake to suppose that the horrible thing was the only ravager. The entire town, over generations, carelessly set the scene for this horrible thing between 2 people. Everything is connected. By the end, it was so hard to tell who were the victims and who were the perpetrators, but this writer didn’t seem to mind leaving it to me to figure that out. And (with the exception of 1 15 year-old girl) I couldn’t. What I discovered is that it’s a lot like real life, that the brainless simplicity of us/them is never adequate. Maybe its authenticity is what made it so uncomfortable.

This is a very difficult post to write, not because I can’t think of anything to say, but because there’s just too much. My head and heart are overflowing with ideas that I delete, false starts and a screen that is blurry through new tears.

Earlier, I typed “the whole narrative could’ve changed,” and I think that’s what is so heartbreaking to me. It takes work and attention, food and water, but often we don’t have those to give, for whatever reason. So the distance between us grows and we stop seeing, stop listening, stop saying.

The books were amazing. I’m sad but, like always, hopeful. This story in Beartown is our story and like that one, we can change it. We don’t have to stop listening, seeing, saying. We don’t have to stay on the porch, we can come in and fall in love again. One Sunday there was an empty tomb, a moment where everything changed forever, and there can be one today, too.

Results

January 6, 2021/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Of course this is happening. How could it be any other way?

Supporters of President Trump are protesting the results of the election and have entered the building, forcing a lock down which effectively delays the confirmation of November’s vote. Maybe tomorrow, who knows? Eventually, the politicians will certify Joe Biden’s win. Or they won’t and the practice of citizens voting for our leaders will be taken out back and shot, like a suffering wounded animal.

The latest report, 9 minutes ago, says that “Lawmakers given gas masks on the House floor,” because there’s “tear gas in the rotunda.”

I wonder if anyone is embarrassed. Probably not. It’s taken pretty many small, insignificant steps to get to the point where this is just another. At some point in our history, this was inconceivable, just impossible, and now it’s not. Now it’s just what we do.

Politicians will pretend to be shocked. We will, too. As if someone else is driving the cars in the demolition derby. But we’ll all know deep down that this, like Thanos, was inevitable.

Across the street from the elementary school in my town, a banner reads “Trump 2020 No More Bullshit.” I pass 3 more like it on my way to the grocery store. The party of family values and the religious right (“But what about the CHILDREN?!!!?”) now has the signs I have to explain to my kids. Yes, I know there were riots in the streets on the other side of the aisle until the election, and I heard righteous indignation from those who have now apparently brought tear gas into the rotunda. Because the only opinion that matters is mine and the only thing that matters is that I win. Names change, sides change, positions change, principles change. The ones who bring the tear gas change. The ones who are inside change.

It’s all about The Other. Them. They are obviously wrong and misinformed and stubborn lying cheaters who can’t count votes or don’t want to and who knows what’s worse. And then “They” switch sides like musical chairs and the lying cheaters who can’t count now have tear gas. It’s the same us vs. them story that never goes out of style.

But you know it’s all just us and sometimes a year like 2020 where riots or protests (whatever you want to call them today) don’t even make the front page anymore and our values shift with the wind based solely on power and popular opinion can bring bright lights into dark corners and crack us wide open. That’s good. It hurts a lot, but it’s good. Necessary.

Then, the only things that change are our hearts and “They” disappear, we see we’re all just human beings on a rocket ship to ruin unless we can bury hatchets or whatever cliche you prefer. When we’re all just “we” and “us.” We were always going to end up here, but it’s here that we find the absolute most important and exciting question: Now what?

Where do you even start? There’s a joke that’s not really a joke that goes, “How do you eat an elephant?” “One bite at a time.” I wonder if this will be the straw that pushes us all one step closer to eating that elephant. I hope so.

Hurt

December 28, 2020/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

There’s this show called Song Exploder on Netflix and of course I love it. It is exactly my type. When the Angel and I walk around a clothing store, when we see a striped long sleeve shirt (or ‘top’), we both know and instinctively stop. This show is my long sleeve striped top. Or MaryAnne on Gilligan’s Island. Princess Leia. Janet Wood. I have opinions and specific tastes. Song Exploder is perfect.

This morning I watched the episode detailing ‘Hurt,’ by Nine Inch Nails, on the album The Downward Spiral. Released in 1994, it was a big hit and for 1994-me, it’s themes of loneliness and inadequacy were, um, familiar. The problem with the album was that it always gave me a headache and made me feel a little physically ill as I listened. In this Song Exploder show, Trent Reznor (who is Nine Inch Nails) explained that there were things you could “hide” in a song to make the listener “uncomfortable,” or “unsettled.” My physical reaction was totally unconscious but purposeful in it’s creation, and now looking at the album through 2020-me eyes, it’s even more brilliant.

I don’t really like the songs on the album too much anymore, but this one still moves me. It was covered by Johnny Cash and was reborn, for a new generation. And as it turns out, for it’s creator. The loneliness, inadequacy and pain that made it so relatable for me weren’t pretense at all. They were absolutely authentic, and he spoke about when the Johnny Cash version happened, he was questioning his worth, ability, talent, if he was enough.

This is the universal narrative for me, and to tell you the truth, it’s mostly why I do any of the things I do. To try to speak fresh words to this very human affliction, which is not affected by class, image, status, money. The voices in our heads scream us down just the same. Nine Inch Nails was famous, successful, popular, and unfulfilling. Johnny Cash covering that song was a re-telling of the looped false story in Reznor’s head, that told him he was not now, not ever, going to be enough. That beautiful cover was a crack in that wall.

Now, he seems easy and assured in interviews. I’m sure it comes and goes, like it does for all of us, but at least it comes now, right? It’s almost the new year and that means it’s time for dreaming. Wouldn’t it be cool if our lives could be covered by Johnny Cash and we could finally see them with new eyes? If we could finally see ourselves as we actually are, free of the sledgehammers in our heads? The song sounds different to him now. And to me. It’s not so hopeless anymore.

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: imagination