2024-10-17T11:24:30+00:00

Tolerance…

October 17, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

We’re having an event (where I’ll speak and a fantastically talented singer-songwriter will perform) at our church. You’re invited, of course, but that’s not exactly what I want to talk about right now. A very great friend sent out an all-staff email with the flyer to invite those at the company where she works. Maybe this was a horrific breach of the separation of church & state, sacred & secular, religion & profession. Or maybe this was an irresponsible use of corporate communication channels. Or maybe this was simply a woman sharing her interests with her co-workers. (It was probably all of those.) Either way, she was quickly reprimanded, because…someone was offended and complained.

Is it an issue of ‘personal use’ or religious content? Who knows, the administration is appropriately vague. I wonder if all personal communications (like “Sally had her baby!!!” “Sally has extra tickets to the Phillies game,” “Sally’s husband is in surgery right now,” or even, “Sally is raising money for hurricane relief in North Carolina”) are banned. Or just religious messages (the only religious vocabulary or imagery on our flyer was the word “faith” in the address)? And who says what’s religious? The national religions are sports and/or commerce, so does anything having to do with those topics get flagged? Can I remind people to vote? Can I send a birthday card around? Or are we automatons strictly confined to professional conversation? Is it just email? Can I still ask you about your car accident or pet’s death, or is any acknowledgment that you have an outside life offensive?

Obviously, I’m overreacting, using absurdity to illustrate the absurd. But there is something here, isn’t there? This is not “persecution” or Christian “censorship.” We sometimes lob these kinds of words like grenades that do nothing but de-value and desensitize us to actual persecution, which does exist (just not here).

If you sent out an email I don’t like – or if, in this case, if I would NEVER go to your event – I would delete it. That’s all. Then I would go on with my day. Maybe someone else would go to your event, and in that case, I hope you all have fun. In fact, I want lots and lots to go, because we are human beings and people should enjoy themselves. Even if I wouldn’t enjoy myself at their shindig. But I still want to know about Sally’s life, Joe’s passion for pickle ball, or Jim’s grass cutting business.

As the notion of tolerance grows, I wonder why we’re all so much more offendable? Shouldn’t our pretend tolerance make us all very open to your thing, whatever your thing is? This is why tolerance is a ridiculous joke – because no one actually believes it, in the slightest. I would’ve put it in the above list of American religions, but we build our lives around Sunday afternoons and Black Friday, but almost no one cares what tolerance actually is, and less than ‘almost no one’ follows it’s basic tenets.

The only time tolerance matters is when I ask you to tolerate MY idea, belief, or opinion. Tolerance is a one way street, not a revolving door. It’s a farce that’s time has come and gone. How about we let it die and Rest In Peace.

Tolerance is such a low bar, anyway. How about we love each other? How about we celebrate each other’s differences, instead of merely tolerating them, like I tolerate the ulcer in my mouth or the bunions on my feet? We’re people, not social nuisances. Sometimes people have interests that you might not, and that is wonderful. It gives us and our world texture and color. Maybe you’d like my event, even if you don’t like singer-songwriters or brownies or my face, and maybe you wouldn’t. But that’s not the point at all. The point is that pretending to worship tolerance has gotten our feelings in such a twist, we are offended at mostly everything, enjoy nothing, and our world continues to divide and shrink. Love can open us up to new people, new experiences, new stories, new hands to hold and songs to hear, and in this season of divided, small perspectives, can’t we all use a bit of that sort of new?

Which One Is It?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dancing Lessons

August 15, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The Angel & I are taking dancing lessons. We’ve learned the foxtrot, rumba, and swing – and when I say we’ve learned them, I mean we’re learning the most basic steps. Level zero. Our instructor shows us the positions, the steps, the beats, the building blocks, explains why, and hints at all of the possibilities with the higher levels (higher than zero;). It’s super fun, we like each other, laugh a lot, and I always love the way the Angel moves.

I am the leader – I recognize this is quite old-fashioned and so-not-2024, to have a man lead, but that’s how it goes. I decide where we’re going and what we’re doing, if she’ll turn or not, and if she does, under which arm she’ll go. And she’s supposed to follow.

You can see that this might present a problem. If you have ever had the pleasure of spending any time with the Angel, you know she is a born leader, an alpha, and she is the leader in nearly all of the spaces of her life. She does not like to be led, often for very good reason. (It took many years of our marriage until she was comfortable enough to trust me in any significant capacity…also for very good reason.)

So we’re dancing and our instructor, Artur, is encouraging my leadership and her following where I lead. It’s the only way it works, there can’t be 2 leaders, and even if I don’t exactly know the steps, I will, and it’s impossible for either of us to learn the dance without the basic structure intact. This week, he said to her, “You are not following, you are anticipating. You are going where you want to go, or where you think you should go. And when you do that, he cannot lead you.”

I became a much worse rumba leader, because that lesson was teaching much more than dancing, and my mind started to wander. I thought of my relationship with Jesus, and how He is the leader, only I fight Him because I think I know where we should go, what we’re supposed to do, I know what the steps are, not Him, and I’m actually trying to force Him to follow me. Right?!!!??

[Maybe Jesus isn’t who you’re dancing with. I hear people call their dancing partners the Universe, an Energy Source, their Higher Power, whatever name you choose, you are dancing and you do have a partner. Like Bob Dylan said, “You may be an ambassador to England or France. You may like to gamble, you might like to dance. You may be the heavyweight champion of the world. You might be a socialite with a long string of pearls…But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” I dance with Jesus.]

We’re dancing this life He’s given me, and instead of smooth graceful sweeping purposeful movements, it’s a power struggle. Well, it’s probably honestly not much of a struggle, if I need to drive this car into a ditch, He’ll probably let me. (Like that parable of the unforgiving debtor, the King forgives, but when the forgiven won’t, He says, ok, if that’s really what you want, I guess we’ll do it by your rules.) So our dance doesn’t look beautiful, it’s wooden, clumsy, and dis-jointed. It’s visual noise, and looks like neither of us know what’s going on and neither of us can hear the music.

These dancing lessons are great, we’re having a terrific time, and I’m wondering how my life would look and feel if I just stop fighting the flow and let Him finally lead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

23

May 29, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Last time, we talked about “having it all” or living a “best life.” This week was my 23rd wedding anniversary, so maybe I should have mentioned that.

I’m a simple man, and that’s a very good thing, because my life and ministry is primarily to climb into complicated, chaotic situations. Work, for me, is connection/relationships and doing the best I can to bring peace and hope into anxious, hopeless, sometimes wildly unstable spaces. This is work, but the thing about having identical personal & vocational missions is there’s no division between on and off. I don’t really have days off. But I don’t want them, either. To me, this is purpose, and it’s heavy and keeps me up lots of nights, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

However, the truth is, I couldn’t do it at all if my home & marriage wasn’t a place of physical, emotional, spiritual rest. It’s very difficult to step into the drama of others when your life is dramatic. There’s simply not enough left to fully engage with the storms others are facing when we’re exhausted with our own raging storms. If I’m being punched in the face, it’s harder to notice your fight, much less come to your aid.

This brings me to the Angel. She’s calm and easy. It’s 23 years but sometimes feels like 100, but, at other times, feels like I met her yesterday. I don’t know what 23 years feels like, or should feel like, but what I know is that I am completely, totally open with her (as the Bible says, “naked and unashamed”), but I also get butterflies when I kiss her, just like the first time.

I told her last night, that I very often focus (at least out loud) on the ‘lover’ aspect of our relationship. I very often tell her how foxy she is, and how 23 years of marriage has done nothing to dull my attraction to her. So, on a public pie chart, that’s the biggest piece. But on the pie chart of my heart, it’s probably a smaller piece than the rest. She’s my best friend, my partner, an inspiration and model for living a life of faith. She gives strength by simply being who she is in a world that isn’t always kind to the beautiful ones. Kind, merciful, the best mother to her sons and mentor to the rest of the people lucky enough to be in her orbit. She’s creative and confident, capable, talented, driven, brilliant, gifted hand over fist by her Creator. Did I mention knock-down gorgeous? How staggering is it that when thinking/speaking about the best looking woman in the world, her looks aren’t anywhere close to the best thing about her? We’ve built a calm life from the ground up, so that we can walk anywhere, enter into any circumstance, because this soft, loving home is waiting to refill all we’ve lost outside.

We make choices, right? The best choices feel easy & obvious in retrospect, but upon further inspection, require days and years of building. The path to our particular marriage and home is marked with uncomfortability and perseverance (only Heaven knows how many arguments and sleepless nights this path has contained, so far), where it might have been easier to check out (in whatever form “checking out” takes) than to keep building. “Having it all” certainly isn’t easy, and it has lots and lots of exit ramps, but those obstacles don’t make it less of a blessing. Maybe they make it more. More significant, more valuable, more our own.

I have no idea why she’d marry someone like me, but that’s her problem, not mine. My responsibility in all of this is to remain grateful, with wide open eyes to this amazing life I’ve been given.

Face-Melters

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

A session musician in the terrific documentary I watched yesterday (called Hired Gun) said he only plays on songs he likes. If he were to play on songs he hates, just for the paycheck, it would be a violation of his soul. Not only were they buying (renting) his skill on guitar, they were also buying everything that had ever gone into his development to get to this point. Every experience, every hour, every broken string, every ounce of sweat, disappointment, and joy. Every opportunity forgone in service of his passion & craft.

I am the pastor of a church, and when this faith community began, I promised I’d never take a salary. The lines between religion and commerce could not be crossed. To enmesh God and business is wildly offensive.

Now, here’s the problem with narrow, closed-minded thinking. On one hand, I was right. It IS offensive, having a sanctuary that exists for the merchandise table is gross. But on the other, always/never is pretty dangerous. Maybe it’s not always so disgusting. Maybe there’s a space between using offerings for private jets and closing the church doors because we can’t afford to keep the light on.

The other problem is promising, or saying, “I’d never ____,” is that sometimes, people and circumstances change. I worked full time (+ on call) delivering medical equipment, full time for the church, and much more than full time being a husband and daddy of 2. Either I suffer a painful, absolute break down (where I am not a full time anything), or something had to go. An adjustment had to be made, and that adjustment, if it was to continue the ministry we started in my living room, I would have to accept some kind of compensation.

I felt dirty for a long, long time. Then, I began officiating weddings. My first few I didn’t charge any money, accepting only what they’d put in cards handed to me as I left. Of course, this meant I did Saturday weddings away from my family for nothing at all except the beauty of the moment. These experiences were wonderful, but were they worth the cost? On my family, on my heart, on the church, on my mental/physical health, worth missing the people & things I missed?

So, I started to charge, I was always the cheapest option, and even then, always with a certain embarrassment. Some people wouldn’t pay before being asked several times. Once I had to ask up to, on the wedding day, and afterwards. Months later, my last message said, “I guess you won’t be addressing this (still too embarrassed to call it a “fee” or “payment”), so I won’t ask again.” Now, I get it before, but it’s never easy and never without the familiar, “I hate to ask this, but ____.”

Yes, familiar, but is it true? Do I honestly hate to ask? Can I love to do the thing and still charge to do it? Do you like your job? Would you do it for free? Is ministry different, in that regard? Paul writes in plenty of his letters that everybody, even ministers of the Gospel, should be paid for what they do, but the distance from our head to our heart can be very, very long.

I wrote a book on marriage that I believe could help everybody in the whole world. (Of course I do, why else would I write it? Well, I suppose also, like all art, because it’s on my heart and has to get out or I’ll never sleep again.) Yet, I apologize sheepishly for charging. Why do I do that? Because of that whole church-commerce separation, that’s why. I am not housing a fleet of Rolls Royces in my massive garage. I am not wearing suits that cost thousands of dollars. I drive a Focus with real transmission problems and wear thrift store sweaters. I’m not amassing an empire.

But I am trying to take a sledgehammer to all things that could separate anyone from the love of Jesus. And what separates us quicker and easier than greed & fortune in His name?

But that guitarist is absolutely right. He didn’t just roll out of bed today to play a face-melting solo in a vacuum. And neither did I (but a face-melting sermon, or wedding ceremony, in my case;). Everything I say on Sunday mornings or Tuesday evenings or Saturday nights was forged in middle school hell, and the grunge-ish band I was in, and my degree, and my issues, and my pain, and my family dynamics, and the times I had my heart broken, and the years I spent raging agains the machines of government and religion. My words come from hours and hours of study funneled through my unique perspective, that came from countless experiences, positive and negative. My ministry is a flaming ball of passion, life, divine gifts, and failures.

And so is yours. We’re all face-melters. My perspective is unique, but not in how it came about. We are not just slices of pie, we are pies. And to think we can have a bite without all that went into the creation of the whole is remarkably misguided. You became you in midnights and 4pms, in makes and misses, in sweats and suits, and you wouldn’t be you without all of them. And there’s enormous value in the school that produced you – it’s a priceless process and we wouldn’t have the joy of me or you any other way.

I appreciate that guy. I don’t know his name, and that’s sort of the point of the doc, but I’ll remember him forever. In fact, I’m going to double my prices, starting today. Ok, maybe tomorrow, but they’re going up.

Weirdos

April 17, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I watched Asteroid City and Red, White, & Wasted last weekend. They’re quite different, but they share some characteristics. Or, at least I thought they shared some characteristics.

Asteroid City is a film made by Wes Anderson, the famously quirky creator of gems like The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. He’s totally unique, his movies look like no one filmmaker’s. Not only did no one else make them, no one else could possibly have made them As a matter of fact, he’s a pretty big exception.

Every genre, begins with a true innovation (inasmuch as anything is true innovation), and is immediately followed by a B group that drives roads recently paved, then C, D, E, & F groups, that simply copy a commercial blueprint. When this happens, the genre is “Dead,” and we all mourn the A’s and move on. Take grunge music, for example. Nirvana, Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Mother Love Bone, and others were the A set, cutting paths into landscape where none exist. Then, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, et al, came along, who were sometimes great, followed by a few averages, then by absolute trash like Puddle of Mudd and Ugly Kid Joe, who looked the part and sometimes sounded the part but lacked the soul of the A’s and B’s, for whom the music wasn’t a moneymaking enterprise, and was dna.

Wes Anderson has no B’s. No one even tries to be as idiosyncratic as he is.

I liked Asteroid City very much, but I love weird things. I love cultures, people and ideas that are different from my own. This is an odd movie. I don’t pretend to know what it means, or really even exactly what happened, but my understanding isn’t always necessary to an experience.

Now, Red, White & Wasted is a documentary that, on the surface, seems up my alley. I appreciate weirdos doing their weird things, freaks who are freaks – in other words, people being just who they are, who are different and embrace that other-ness. They’re weirdos, just like you and certainly like me and probably all of our favorite people. The caveat to my love of these films is that the filmmakers cannot judge the subjects. If the people behind the camera are making fun of the people in front of it, it’s mean, smug and condescending, and I can’t stand mean, smug, and condescending. Different people aren’t lesser people, obviously, they’re just different. Wes Anderson knows this.

ANNND, the documentary has to have an arc; a beginning and an end. That’s the genius of documentary filmmakers, they find the narratives in our real life clusters. Maybe Red, White, & Wasted didn’t laugh at it’s people, but they didn’t celebrate them, didn’t appreciate them, and didn’t show any sort of movement. Now, it’s entirely possible there was no movement among all of the gross -isms and the horrific degradation of human beings, especially the women. But I have trouble believing that. There is always movement, always understanding. (Ok, maybe not always.)

So, Asteroid City was beautiful and weird, and it didn’t matter too much that I didn’t perfectly understand what in the world was going on. That sounds just like life, and I sure love that, so maybe that explains my perspective.

Red, White & Wasted, on the other hand, was weird and ugly, and I knew very well what was happening. I just love people too much to like it.

March

March 19, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I struggle in the month of March. This is the month of several anniversaries that are quite painful, the end of a long dark gray winter, loss, overwhelming responsibilities, and this one in particular carrying some very good friends who are suffering as they carry heavy burdens and I walk alongside, trying to ease their weight with an extra pair of hands to hold.

I didn’t always know that March affected me the way it did (maybe it didn’t always), I just knew it was another part of regular emotional/psychological cycles, like any other. But that’s not really true. Once the Angel and I noticed, it became obvious. So, for the last many years, I/we have made provision for this disruption, and that was smart. All year, March looms large, and in winter, plans are made to address it, well before the first symptoms emerge.

But there is an interesting question here. What if March is no longer a problem? The responsibilities, relationships, and pain of friends could just as easily occur in September or June, maybe March has no impact anymore. How would I know? Is March causing the mindset or is the mindset concerning March the problem?

Parents & politicians used to argue about a genre of music called gangsta rap. NWA was brilliant & the most often targeted, and everybody wondered if the songs were simply reflecting cultural observations of a specific reality, or the songs, that were perhaps born out of a concerning reality, had outgrown and were now shaping the reality.

Are our lives creating our words or are our words creating our lives?

In the Bible, God spoke and created everything that is, and maybe you don’t believe that, but even so, it does contain an important truth: words have undeniable power. If you say you can’t do a pull-up, you almost certainly can’t. Luke Skywalker is attempting to lift the X-wing out of the swamp on Dagobah with his mind, can’t, and says, “I don’t believe it.” To which Jedi master and supercool sage Yoda replies, “that is why you fail,” and then does it himself. How much do we write the future when we say, “that’s just who I am/who he is/how she is?” I am convinced more than we would ever realize.

This is not ‘name it-claim it,’ ‘speak it into existence’ popular, flawed philosophy. Like most clever names, it’s not that simple. But also like most clever ideas, there is truth at the root. I might not be able to dunk a basketball, no matter how much I believe it, or if I say I can – but I for sure can’t if I’m convinced I can’t. The high school basketball team, historically, were beaten before the bus parked because they knew they were about to lose. They didn’t even have to play the game to find out.

When I tell you I’m a mess in March, I don’t even give myself a chance to find out if it still is. Maybe I WAS, maybe it WAS, but we absolutely need to give ourselves, ideas and realities the opportunity to grow and transform. Just because we were doesn’t mean we still are, right? I used to be lots of things I am not today. And I used to not be a million thing I am now. These boxes we build need to be dismantled with extreme prejudice, not with screwdrivers and care, but with wrecking balls and dynamite. Leave nothing left with which to rebuild. Start fresh, write a new story, imagine, dream, become.

Now, as it turns out, March actually is a bitch. But now I know.

Silly Site Prompt

February 27, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site prompt today is, “If you could be someone else for a day, who would it be, and why?” W

hy would I ever want to be anyone else???? Why would I want a different life? And If I did want a different life, why wouldn’t I set a new course and change mine?

Maybe our lives would become different if we’d simply lean in to the beauty that is already there that we’ve been missing, wishing we could be someone else. Nope, I wouldn’t want to be anyone else. I’m very grateful and happy where and who I am right now.

Bored.

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

What bores me? That’s the site prompt today, and I don’t have much of an answer. There is a saying that only boring people are bored.

Rose Goldberg writes (on a site called Medium) that it’s actually a compliment. She reasons that we achieve a state of boredom when we’ve “drained all outside distractions,” that “being bored is being aware of yourself.” I don’t know her final conclusions, because Medium won’t let you read an entire article until you’ve created an account. I don’t need more accounts, and to tell you the truth, I don’t care enough about Ms. Goldberg’s final conclusions to add another.

What I do know is that I would not call awareness boredom. In those moments when I am free of distraction, when I am alone with myself and my own thoughts or emotions, when I am quiet, I am engaged and inspired. There, I am rested and content, not bored. When my children whine about boredom, they are restless and discontented. They are desperately searching to be entertained.

Perhaps boredom has exponentially increased as screen time has exponentially increased. When our imagination atrophied, our ability to entertain ourselves did as well. Or maybe none of that’s accurate.

I wonder what the actual definition is of boredom. Merrian-Webster says, it’s “the state of being weary and restless through lack of interest.” Cambridge dictionary calls it “the state of being unhappy and uninterested.” I’m glad I didn’t create a Medium account, now it sounds like she’s simply excusing or rationalizing, normalizing a negative. We probably do that a lot, we don’t like to be told what we feel is, in any way, not awesome. Is this ennui shaming? Who are you to tell me anything I am, feel, think, say, or feel isn’t perfect?

Maybe these emotions are like warning lights on a dashboard, asking us to address possible problem areas. Maybe they’re not destructive today, but they might become a hazard eventually. And if we re-classify the “check engine” light, we ignore the possible dangers. Boredom might be an early warning indicator for things like depression or despair, and calling it awareness is a disservice, like ignoring our skyrocketing blood pressure or headaches.

Or maybe this is an emotion that isn’t really an issue. Maybe we should sit aimlessly, facing the maddening avalanche of an overwhelming nothing with no idea of how to address it. Maybe the headache is just a headache, not a symptom of stress or anxiety. But even if it is, who says stress and anxiety are so bad? Maybe the self-esteem benefit of never hearing we’re wrong or broken or on the wrong path (or that there is even a wrong path at all) is worth any cost.

There’s an interesting disconnect with tolerance and normalizing everything. Let’s say I disagree, and think boredom or being left-handed or liking the NY Giants is wrong and mentally unhealthy. Is my opinion equally normal, or am I wrong? If we decide there’s no ‘wrong’ in the interest of validating every opinion, then what about if I disagree? If my opinion to be validated is invalidation? Can we be truly tolerant if we outlaw intolerance? I know I’m not the first to bring up these inconsistencies, and this site prompt isn’t about tolerance, it’s about boredom.

So, to answer: I’m not often bored. I don’t remember when I was last bored.

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: imagination