2024-01-29T18:15:12+00:00

That Book

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

I wrote a book called Chronicles, Nehemiah, and Other Books Nobody Reads. It’s a terrific title, and I really love the whole thing. It’s not perfect, by any means. It’s a little unfriendly, there isn’t a Table of Contents and there aren’t page numbers. It’s a book of essays, so there’s no arc, and it follows no real discernible path. It’s equal parts memoir, the story of our faith community, The Bridge, and Bible commentary. It includes a number of blog posts from the Bridge site (and not this one), and a fiction piece called “Bands We Don’t Even Like.”

At the end of every service, we stand and hold hands for closing prayer, and we do that (in part) because of 2 songs: “Dance, Dance, Christa Paffgen,” by Anberlin, and “Rumors Of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated,” by Rise Against. I explain why in the book, and I also break down the bible verse that most informs my every day (Genesis 28:16 “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was unaware.”)

Incidentally, the Anberlin line is “if a touch is worth 1,000 words, then a touch is worth them all.” And I just now read an online lyric page that reads, “…then YOUR touch is worth them all.” If that is, indeed, what it says, I’m going to continue to pretend it doesn’t, and still says “…A touch is worth them all.”

The reason for the Rise Against song is, “Let’s take this one day at a time, I’ll hold your hand if you hold mine.” I can’t play this one in church because there are language issues, and I don’t play the Anberlin because it’s over 7 minutes long.

I’ve been dying to play a Morrissey song, and “Death Of A Disco Dancer” fit perfectly last Sunday, but that song is long, as well, so I just read the lyrics.

I love the book because it was my first, and it was my heart spilled onto the pages. Of course it’s not perfect, how could it be? It’s messy and feels urgent, like I had to get it out immediately or I’d never sleep again. It’s sweat, blood, joy, exhaustion, tears, confusion, frustration, brokenness and gratitude.

I didn’t think I’d write another one – I love the blog format. The sermon is such a cool art form because it’s also immediate, but electric and personal, human, flowing, physical, thoughtful, life-changing (for the giver as well as anyone who hears.) Blogs feel very similar. I’m writing this now and you can read it within 5 minutes. Books are different. I began this 2nd one a few years ago, put my head down and worked like crazy for most of last year, and finally finished it in October. The first people read a physical copy a few days before Christmas, and it won’t be approved by Amazon to sell there until late spring (hopefully). I self-publish for the same reason everybody else does, because it gets out fast and is relatively easy.

I started the process to put a little commerce store on this lovewithacapitall.com site to sell it, but it requires an upgrade, and I don’t feel like that now. As I write that last sentence, it feels silly. If I want the new book in the world, an upgrade is a small price to pay. We’ll see. It’s for sale now on Lulu.com, and it’s called Be Very Careful Who You Marry. It’s much friendlier, one subject (marriage), chapters, a Table of Contents, and even page numbers!!! I’ll tell you about it next time.

I am going to go back and clean up the last one, …Books Nobody Reads, and get that out again for summer or fall. Maybe you’ll love it like I do, but making anything is an interesting dance. Obviously, I’d love everyone to love everything, for this to be the biggest blog in the world, and for people to find tons of value in it, but the truth is, we are made to create. It’s an offering, isn’t it? We listen, live, process, and then we express it, however we express it. Maybe it’ll connect – after all, we’re all having these beautiful, and beautifully unique, intensely personal yet strangely universal, human experiences. And maybe it won’t. But it has to get out, we have to open our hearts and hands.

I tell you all of this to encourage & celebrate the impulse to build, to construct bridges between us, however we do. You either know you’re an artist, or you don’t – but you certainly are one. Let’s do this, I’ll hold your hand if you hold mine, and we’ll jump together.

Not At All About Youth Sports

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

Last night, I was at a basketball game (not misbehaving at all), wandering down paths in my head that only used this contest as context. I was thinking of the super-famous Marianne Williamson quote:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

The team, full of “brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous” young men “plays small,” and “shrinks” from their own power. So, how do we, as grown-ups, teachers, coaches, leaders, help them see themselves as children of God, help them to shine? That is the question I’m asking, and it’s also the question everyone else is asking, in some form or another. Whether the form is a basketball game or at our jobs in sales or management or ministry or in our marriages, it’s always the same question.

How are we liberated from our own fear, so that we can liberate others?

A coach on my son’s team is a very good friend, and we’re talking about exactly this today. How? How do we hold a mirror up to show them their own beauty and light? I have another very good friend who accepts so much less in relationships, thinks abuse is just what it is to be in ‘love.’ How do we help to open her eyes to who she actually is? Can we? Or is this a journey we ultimately take only with God?

I’m reading a book called the book of soul (with what is, ostensibly, a purposeful lower case title), by Mark Nepo. (Incidentally, the title is entirely lower case, but his name is entirely upper case. I don’t know what message that sends, probably nothing too great, but it’s good so far, so he can do whatever he likes in whatever font or case he likes.) He wrote, “immersion invokes the giving of ourselves completely to an endeavor until it reveals its meaning, devotion asks that we uphold our commitment to stay immersed in that which has meaning.” I think this applies to our conversation, but I can’t say I’m too sure why or how.

Maybe we immerse ourselves in ourselves, our identity. Give ourselves completely to learning who we are, our power, our shine. What could have more meaning? Then, we devote ourselves to stay committed to that divinely bestowed identity (our value, worth, brilliance, talent) even when we can’t see it. Maybe that’s what I’m feeling. It doesn’t tell me how we get her to see it, or how we convince that team to commit all of themselves to whatever they’re doing, on the court and/or in the rest of their lives.

Paul writes, in his letter to the Ephesians, “live lives worthy of the calling you have received.” These are all different versions of the same material, like walking, talking, loving cover songs.

That high school team lost last night. They’ll lose again, and so will we, in lots of different ways. Hopefully we all uphold our commitments to stay immersed, to shine, to live these beautiful lives worthy of our call. And in that, we might be able to show a tiny glimpse of what’s possible.

Clutter

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

Where can I reduce clutter in my life? That’s the site prompt, and it’s fairly open-ended yet aggressively incisive. What does it mean? What is clutter? Why does the Jetpack app so easily assume that I have an abundance of clutter in my life? And that I’d want to get rid of it, if I do?

I googled clutter and fell into a rabbit hole, but found an interesting article on the Denver Post. I do not recommend searching for it, or reading anything at all on the Denver Post. It’s an extraordinarily frustrating site to be on for any amount of time. Why is this? How can websites become less friendly with the passage of time? It’s like automated chat technical help lines, they’re much much worse than they were even last year. Obviously, they don’t want to engage with us, don’t want us to call or email. But it seems to me a “newspaper” would want readers. Maybe that’s why they’re dinosaurs.

Anyway, this article says, “Our stuff has a powerful grip.” A woman named Regina Leeds (I have no idea what Ms Leeds does for a living to make her an expert in the field, the Denver Post ran me off immediately) says, “People turn physical objects into magic talismans that connect them to memories (and) better times in their lives.” The author of the article (the title as well as the writer are also unknowns, casualties of the Denver Post’s aggressive defense of their information) writes, that clutter is the practice of “retaining old things well past their expiration date.”

The reason I searched at all is the nagging feeling that considering clutter as the junk I keep in drawers and the knick-knacks, papers, notebooks and non-working Bluetooth speakers that collect so much dust, is overly myopic. Those things are easy to see (however hard to get rid of). The “old things” and “magic talismans” the site prompt means are psychological, emotional, and spiritual; the ideas, beliefs, and perspectives that are “well beyond their expiration date.”

How many relationships do we hang onto, with white knuckles, that have expired long ago? We’re just attached to the memories, or we’re simply too scared or lazy to move on. Like the antiquated idea of “newspapers” like the Denver Post. Our parents read them so we think they are necessary, but, they’re not. Not anymore. We have a million spaces where we can inform and educate ourselves. How about the political ideas and parties of yesterday that, if explored, would unravel, holding so little value to the people we are today? Maybe it’s time to trash those things. And ideas about ourselves, of “just who we are,” that may absolutely have been who we were when we adopted them, but are certainly not who we are…can we pretty please let them go? The oppressive fears and limiting beliefs? Shred them with last years receipts. Religious notions that God is mad at us and is waiting for us to get it together, improve, clean up are a) lies, and b) products of old manipulations that we bought and that warped our souls. Let’s leave those chains behind. The walls we built that kept others out and us in really need to come down. The negative voices in our heads, they’re just noise, aural clutter, that always belonged in dumpsters instead of prominent places in our psyches.

I’m pretty sure growth is the process of reducing that clutter. I heard a sculptor once say that the image is inside, the art is chipping away at the surrounding stone to reveal it. The clutter in our souls and heads is hiding the people we are, and the people we are made to be, and the people we will become, if only we will liberate ourselves. Chip away at those obstructions that have imprisoned us, their grip has been too powerful for too long. We’re inside, suffocating under so much clutter. To reference a terrific popular book: Let That Sh*t Go, and you know what we’ll find? That we’re inside, and we’re awesome.

NOT Another Post on Youth Sports

January 9, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

This is not another post on youth sports. It’ll feel like it is, but that’s only because youth sports is the superficial context for a deeper reality. Sort of like superhero movies not actually being about superheroes, at all. If we make the mistake of believing The Winter Soldier is about muscles and exaggerated fight scenes, we’ve missed the metaphorical forest for the neon-lighted trees.

I think officiating basketball has to be just about the hardest thing to do in the whole wide world. There’s almost no one that can do it at a level in shouting distance of competence. My biggest issue with this is that it puts these athletes at risk for injury. A boy goes out to learn the lessons sports can teach so effectively (about himself, others, cooperation, resilience, perseverance, and on and on), and the ridiculous ineptitude of the referees leaves him open to all kinds of assault far outside of the rules of the sport. Last night, as the game transmogrified into gang warfare, twice (!!) a boy put both hands on another and threw him to the floor, another boy has his shoulder separated in what was inexplicably deemed a completely clean play by the deafening silence of the whistle. The last play of the game, as a young man went up for an offensive rebound, he was clubbed with a forearm in his chest and power-bombed to the hardwood. There was, again, no call, as the 3 officials ran from the court as if they were being chased by ravenous pit bulls.

That was last night. And now the site prompt today is, What Is Your Mission? These 2 events are related, bound tightly in my heart, soul, and mind. You see, I want to be a referee. A very good one. This sounds like a unicorn, the imaginary stuff of myth and legend, and maybe it is, but I don’t actually want to be a referee. A very good referee is, by nature, absolutely taken for granted. If a contest is officiated well, they are unnoticed, no comments on how well they did, or how they allowed the players to decide the outcome. They just showed up and did their job with excellence.

I want to live my life in such a way that I do the extraordinary in such a way that everyone in my circles can take it as a given. I want to be consistent, reliable. I want to show up to every situation, to give the best of me (the best of what I have to give, honestly and openly) in every moment.

I want everyone who sits in the congregation to know that I am well-prepared, and that, for the next 40-ish minutes, they will be taken care of. I want my boys to know, when they look in the stands at their games, that I am there…so much so, that they don’t even bother to look. That I will always be waiting in the parking lot to take them home. I want them to know I will give my life for theirs in a heartbeat.

I want the Angel to know so deeply that she is adored by her husband, who will always be interested, faithful, and engaged, and that she will always be cared for, appreciated, and loved to the moooon and back. There would be no need for comment or thanks, because it is just beautifully sewn into the fabric of her life.

I want the staff at the gym to see me every day at the same time, that it is wholly unremarkable. I want you to know I respect and honor you in ways that may be unusual in the wild, but not here, now, with me. You will know you’re safe to try, to ask, to disagree, to jump without looking, because you know I’ll catch you.

I want you to be aware that I’ll make tons of mistakes living a full, passionate life – and take for granted that I’ll listen, recognize, acknowledge, apologize and grow from these missteps. That when it happens, (and it will), you’ll know I am committed to the art of becoming.

You should also know this is obviously not me, not yet. I’m probably much more like these high school basketball officials, allowing others to get hurt when I should be carefully protecting them. Creation can take some time, often in baby steps, and can often be embarrassingly slow. And it’s usually done alone, in the darkness of routine and practice, but since the site prompt asked what my dream, my mission, is, this is it.

Dumb Site Prompt

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

The prompt is, “What colleges have you attended?” I started at a branch campus of a major state university, then quit school altogether, only to transfer to a small-ish private liberal arts college, where I’d graduate with a business administration degree (marketing concentration). Then 15 years later, earned a degree and ordination from a Bible college & seminary.

I never liked school, hated every day of the branch campus and liberal arts college. But later, in a strange twist, loved every moment of the Bible school. Who knew?

I used my business degree to get a management job at a multinational company, where I was a terrible manager. When I gave my 2 week notice on the eve of my wedding, the relief in the general manager’s face was evident. He could finally be rid of me without having to fire me.

Then, after a short stint working at a retail store in a mall, I used that degree to drive a truck, delivering medical equipment to hospice patients. The degree was useless, but the job changed my life forever. After many years there, loving dying people and their families, I took the online Bible classes (working full time with a wife and 2 small children doesn’t leave much, no, doesn’t leave any time for sitting in class), lost my home in a flood, mourned the closing of the church I attended, began a new church in my new living room, and just held on with both hands.

I thought the site prompt was dumb today, but as I’m writing, thinking about the doors that opened, that closed, with the benefit of hindsight, on the 3rd day of a new year, I don’t think it’s so dumb anymore.

If I hadn’t taken 5 1/2 years to complete a 4 year degree (due to credits that wouldn’t transfer, several switched majors, and 1 unfinished semester), I would never have met The Angel. Our first date was in that last 1/2. If I hadn’t spent years working through the night, I wouldn’t have discovered the many many treasures of the Bible and of me that I did. If that flood wouldn’t have swallowed my home, we wouldn’t be here, in this town, with these neighbors. If the old church hadn’t closed it’s doors, if the old pastor/mentor hadn’t completely broken my heart by ignoring me in the years since, we wouldn’t have this amazing Bridge Faith Community and the Bridge would have a very different pastor than the me they have now.

Every new year, I reflect on what was, what is, what could be, but I do this with soft hands. If I had tried to control my life, tried to stay within the lines of what should be, wrestling white-knuckled with the steering wheel… well, I don’t know what sort of life I’d have now, but I know it wouldn’t be this one. It wouldn’t be this messy, beautiful, full, wonderful life.

I still don’t know what my Word of the Year is, and I’m starting to think it doesn’t matter. Maybe my word is blank to illustrate the hands that are, and have always been, holding me, and the blank space where all of the should’s and supposed to’s used to go. It’s just here and now, just the next step, just faith, just trust. Just staying awake to the Love that is holding us all together. Just. Maybe that’s my word: Just. Just me. Just you. Just us. Just all of this divine energy, crackling all around us. Just loving.

Pierced

December 20, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

This is not a post on the site prompt, youth sports or the woeful state of high school officiating. I have no shortage of material on those things, I’m just a little tired of typing the word referee.

Snowpiercer is a film starring Captain America, about an environmental catastrophe that kills all living things, except those lucky (?) enough to board a train that endlessly circles the globe. It sounds like a thin premise on which to base a movie or a tv series, much better suited to a novel, but it was excellent. (I am about to ruin the end. When do spoiler ethics expire? Surely 10 years is enough, isn’t it?)

At the end, Captain America fights Ed Harris and 2 others, believing the earth had slightly warmed and could now support life, set off a bomb that crashes the train. 2 people, both “train babies” (humans born on the train, never having set foot outside or breathed fresh air), one 16ish and one 8ish, ostensibly the only survivors of the crash, walk away through the snow, where they/we see a polar bear in the distance.

My very great friend saw this as an allegory on the death of the human race. The polar bear would surely eat them. As a matter of fact, being so naive and uneducated on dangerous predators, she reasoned they would likely serve themselves up trying to pet it’s soft white fur. The animals might survive and repopulate, without the destructive influence of you & me, and the earth would quietly, beautifully heal.

I hadn’t even considered this conclusion. As they walked, hand in hand, together into a brand new world, I found it unbelievably hopeful. Everything was possible, as a 2nd Adam & Eve, they could also survive and repopulate, free of their ancestors’ destructive influence, and the earth (including a new lineage of kind, innocent-ish people), would quietly, beautifully heal.

She’s right, of course. They are destined to be food. She’s super smart and hilarious, you’d love her like I do immediately.

But I don’t care about right and wrong, in this context. I don’t care about realism or food chains and predator/prey relationships. When the credits rolled, all I saw was a beginning, our beginning. Not an end. We are new and can build whatever we want, a New Creation with no ties at all to “how it’s always been.” Just because it was, doesn’t mean it is now.

It’s a pretty good illustration. The philosophy we can choose is one of hope and faith in God (that He is still here and hasn’t abandoned His creation), in us, in our divine design, that we can still remember who we are and what we’ve been called into. That, even with thousands of years to the contrary, we can live lives of love and peace instead of indifference, -isms, and war. All we have to do is blow up the old paradigm and have the courage to walk away from that garbage.

Have a fantastic Christmas, everybody.

Deadlifts & Public Speaking, pt 2

December 13, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

(That’s where the first post ended, but now I realize it was unfinished.)

At a particularly tense high school basketball game last night, emotions (including mine) ran high. And I wrote this last week: “On the way home, I expressed to the Angel that I can’t continue to get so worked up, that that isn’t who I am. But the thing is, I immediately realized, it is exactly who I am. I am a fiery, passionate man who loves sports and competition. I get excited easily at everything, highs and lows and everything in between.

Then, the next night, after committing to being even-keeled and calm, I pointed out that one boy was pushing another in the back with both hands over and over and over. It should have been helpful to the officials, because the 3 of them were obviously having a lot of trouble with the speed of the game and their responsibilities. It should also have been lost in the noise of the crowd, but everyone got dead quiet at that precise moment and my voice was the only one in the gym. So, I am that guy.

After the game, a family laughed at me – kindly, but still… And they wondered if I was like that on Sunday mornings. You have no idea. The answer is yes, of course.

A real problem (in every space, maybe especially the church) is hypocrisy, being different people in different spaces, pretending to be the image the situation wants. You can make a long list of my faults, but this is no longer one of them. I am just me. But like everything else, there’s no such thing as “just.” And like most everything else, the best thing about me is also the worst thing about me.

A wonderful development in my life is how I’m finally meeting the real, authentic me, and finding that I don’t hate that person at all. In fact, he’s alright. I just wish he’d calm down a little at high school games.”

Now, what you need to know is that I do not get confused; I am well aware that this is high school sports, and has no bearing on anyone’s worth or value, and has little consequence on a grander scale. Of course, that’s not to say they are meaningless. We could sing the praise of sports forever, detailing the endless positives we can all learn – about ourselves, others, gifts, teams, and our lives together.

So in these posts, the point was to be deadlifts & public speaking, and not hating ourselves because we’re not squats or scrapbooking.

BUT…

After last night, I was gripped with what can only be called regret, very low level, but regret nonetheless. My mission is to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ, does this sort of behavior build walls or bridges? And the truth is, I’m not sure. Maybe for some, I’m a lunatic and this erects a thick wall, but for some, it might make me relatable and authentic and easier to approach. I am a lunatic in lots of ways, but an authentic, approachable, easy one. Those are all true. It’s the best and worst about me.

But the conviction quietly knocking, what about that?

I reached out to two trusted friends to ask, but didn’t need a response. The question was enough. We don’t ask what anyone thinks of drinking water or eating vegetables.

What if I’m not supposed to be a deadlift anymore. What if the Spirit is asking me to be a kettlebell swing? Should I continue to say, “I am a deadlift,” and isn’t that the opposite of humility and growth?

This is why a relationship with Jesus is so important, why true, working wisdom is vital to our lives. Maybe 2 weeks ago, the lesson was to love and accept me where I was, as a deadlift. But now, today, maybe the lesson is to not resign myself to always being a deadlift. I am a fiery, passionate man in the service of The King, not in the service of me, or “that’s just who I am.”

Lots of work in a meaningless pursuit is just plain silly, but which is the meaningless pursuit: change or acceptance? I can love the me God so lovingly created, and I can be transformed.

It’s almost New Years, a life of faith requires examination, what are the things to hold on to, and what are the things to leave behind? What is the work to do? I don’t need to be everyone’s favorite song, but the song I am must not be rooted in pride and rebellion.

Sports teaches a million lessons, this is just another one. I’m very thankful I have a Guide, and a community like you to walk alongside.

Deadlifts & Public Speaking

December 12, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

My favorite physical activity is a deadlift, and yes, I have given speeches and spoken on a stage. (These are my answers to the last 2 days of site prompts)

When asked, people are more afraid of public speaking than death. This seems strange at first, but I lost my house and everything in it in a flood in 2011. Many of us did. Others had inches or feet in their basements and first floors. The ones who lost everything put all of our ruined things on the front yard for dump trucks to pick up and haul away, and the house was bulldozed a year later. We didn’t have to deal with too much of the physical clean-up. The psychological, emotional and spiritual clean-up was a different story. Home can (and should) represent safety and security, and that was drowned with the carpets and doorknobs. You can buy a new end table, no stores sell peace. And watching your possessions scooped up onto industrial equipment as garbage is not a picture that quickly fades.

Anyway, the others with less water had to hire restoration companies, mold remediators, they had to replace their things, carefully watch weather reports… Yes, of course, no one’s house goes underwater, except ours did, and it certainly doesn’t twice, but try to sleep with statistical improbability when you’ve woken up to impossibility. In lots of ways, they had to deal with the catastrophic disaster in a much more present manner. Like public speaking. If you are terrible, you have to look at those faces again and again, they may remember and feel embarrassment for years.

Dying, like our experience, is walking away into a new blank space. We remember where we came from and what happened to our home, who knows if dying is like that? But we won’t have to look into the audience’s eyes and watch them struggle for comforting words. It’s why you don’t write a poem for your special lady and read it to her. You hand it to her on your way out the door after dinner and a goodnight kiss.

Love poems and death aren’t exactly the same, but the analogy holds up, I think. The vulnerability can feel like dying, and that’s what we’re afraid of, probably. Opening ourselves up to another, waiting in agony to see if we will be accepted or rejected. Will they like our speech and it’s content? Or will they like us, our personality, our way?

I quite like it now. Not everyone likes me, not everyone has to. That’s a new development, that I don’t have to be everyone’s favorite song. Some don’t like me at all. An old man left before the closing prayer like his hair was on fire after one Sunday sermon. I have some sharp edges and disagreeable positions, but that’s also why I might someday be somebody’s favorite song. Nobody cares too much about white bread, it’s nobody’s favorite, nobody’s worst. It just is fine. Like McDonald’s. It’s fine, kind of gross, but not gross enough to really matter.

Walking is fine. Bicep curls and lateral raises are good enough, but nobody hates them, so nobody loves them, either. Deadlifts and squats, on the other hand… Mention Leg Day to your gym buddies and you will hear one of 2 responses. “I LOVE Leg Day,” or “I HATE Leg Day.” You either wake up early or look for any excuse to miss.

My brother can’t stand the sound of Morrissey’s voice. Nobody hates Coldplay. We all say we do, but that’s just for show. Coldplay is white bread. We don’t send sandwiches back because they’re on white bread, we don’t turn the radio station when “Yellow” comes on.

I don’t know what the point is. Maybe that we could be deadlifts and public speaking, if that’s what we are, instead of Coldplay and Applebee’s, manufactured to be sterile, inoffensive, and reach the widest audience. We can be exactly who we are, flaws, faults and rough spots, and many will love you just like that. Of course, many will not, and some people will even tell you that they don’t and why.

Perhaps the point IS absolutely to be deadlifts and public speaking, to open our hearts and souls and show vulnerability as whole, realized human beings, because to pretend to be anything else is just too much work. And lots of work in a meaningless pursuit is just plain silly. We have other things to do.

saviors

October 19, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/1 Comment

Yesterday I finished the 3 episode Savior Complex documentary on what used to be HBO, then HBO Max, now just Max. As far as documentaries go, it was pretty perfect. I think we could discuss it for days and days. That is probably the best compliment I could give to the art form.

As I write the word “discuss,” I am fully aware that discussion isn’t what we do too well in our current cultural environment. Discuss implies discourse, listening, careful consideration, and a respectful give and take of ideas and perspectives. None of that is in vogue. Outrage is. None of the earlier words apply to outrage: listening, careful, consideration, give-and-take, and certainly not respect. The most glaring lack in outrage is empathy.

Outrage finds it’s deepest roots in selfish myopia.

Political outrage requires an aggressive inability to see another’s perspective. The other side has to be full of ignorant, heartless, brainless monsters. Once it isn’t, once it’s full of moms and dads, friends and fellow Dallas Cowboy fans, who might also be educated and kind, but just happen to arrive at different conclusions, things get very complicated.

All of the intricacies and nuance are impossible to detail here, especially because the facts of the specific case aren’t our subject at all. Renee Bach and Serving His Children (her Christian mission organization) did great work, and saved many malnourished children. This is true. Renee Bach and Serving His Children used questionable tactics, which probably resulted in the deaths of other malnourished children. This is also true. There is terrific conversation to be had about the purpose of the No White Saviors action group. There is also terrific conversation to be had about those who operate No White Saviors, and if that purpose has been obscured by vanity and outrage.

I don’t know the truth. Knowing would mean that I could see hearts and motivation, which I obviously cannot. I know people do beautiful things that go spectacularly wrong and result in pain. I know that because it has happened to me. Many times, I thought I was doing the right thing, and people were wounded, given scars that could last a lifetime. I still can’t say if those things were the right things. The simple fact of negative consequence doesn’t automatically mean that they weren’t. Were the lives saved enough to sufficiently outweigh the deaths? Is 1 death too many to ever redeem the positive impact?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. I’m not outraged by anyone’s actions. I might disagree, or hold different opinions, but I understand them. I heard both sides in the documentary and I can truly understand why they might have done what they did. (Maybe it wasn’t actually why they did them, but I simply can’t ever state with absolute certainty what their why was. Maybe they can’t, either.)

Outrage is not passion. Passion can drive a tremendous amount of change that reinforces our shared humanity. Passion, or conviction, rooted in love tirelessly fights injustice and seeks to end all of the -isms that plague our species. Outrage drives Facebook clicks and paychecks through the promulgation of fear. And fear isn’t love.

There aren’t easy answers, nor are there easy questions. Empathy isn’t easy. But if we’re ever going to end the division that is killing us all, we have to try. Easy got us here, it won’t get us out.

Artists

October 10, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Who are my favorite artists? That’s what the site wants to know today, and I have lots and lots of answers.

I recognize the idea is to lists singers, writers, painters, filmmakers, right? Morrissey & Rodin, Roth & Tarantino. There would have been a time that I would have jumped at the opportunity to make a list and explain (in great detail) why for each. Actually, I would still love, and may, in fact, do just that.

But I’ll start this list, not with Morrissey, but with my sister, who spent last week seeing U2 play at that new ball in Las Vegas, then Cirque du Soleil then next night, then visiting Red Rocks the next. I have a picture where she was, apparently, flying. In another one she was doing handstands on sand – I get those a lot. She’s a yoga master, and like all yogis, she yogas everywhere. She is now in her 50’s and has figured things out, to where her life is wild, imaginative and blindingly vibrant.

Next are my neighbors, who are teachers and young parents. Their daughter is a fireball of talent, which is fairly predictable, because her parents are overflowing with abilities, like musical superheroes. They’re also kind and funny, and last month brought home materials and built a deck onto their home. I guess their superhero-ism isn’t only musical.

You see, I think the greatest works of art are not albums or films, but our lives. We’ve all been created with limitless creativity and possibility, and when we can spot it, it’s exciting and hopeful. We are all inspired to do the same. It’s like invitations into our own lives, where we are free to run as fast as we can (whatever that means, whatever “running” is for any of us.)

The last one in this list is the one I’m most familiar with: The Angel. As the walls of her employer crumble, she is graceful and more and more stunning every moment, even as some of her dark hair is replaced with gray. Everybody with sense is abandoning that ship, yet she stays, she says “to care for her people.” Her people are, of course, all people. Now, completely superficially, she’s the most beautiful woman I know. I sometimes have to be careful on Sundays, I can easily lose my train of thought when I see her. But in a surprising twist, she’s way better inside, and I can think of no better compliment than that.

These artists, and their creations, aren’t perfect – it’s no accident that 2 of them are 2 of the people I know the deepest, and have had the biggest arguments with – but great art never is. We love Kurt Cobain and Against Me, we connect with them in ways we never could with Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys. The latter are sterile and produced, and the former are authentic and messy. Notes are missed, we might not understand the words, they’re flawed, with sharp edges. We love them. This is art, it’s the expression of the soul, not necessarily technical prowess, but humanity and, in that, intimate connection.

My favorite artists are Jetpack WordPress bloggers, self-publishers, youth sports coaches, RNs & CNAs, realtors, landscapers, therapists, teachers, secretaries – There’s no end to this list, I really could go on and on. I picked 4 to name here because…well…there isn’t a why. Part of my artistic call and talent is to point out awesome wherever I find it. There are constraints to this format, but there are no constraints to my life. And if every moment I can recognize and appreciate the countless artists I see, if every moment I can love another person and their art, then my life will be a masterpiece, too.

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: imagination