2023-04-12T17:17:26+00:00

Am I The Villain?

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

I ripped this title from a song called Beach Zombies by Skye, with the lyric, “ooh, I’m tryna be a f***ing villain.” The Beautiful South is a great band who writes songs that are sometimes very, very dark but always sound like angels (Woman In The Wall, for example.) Beach Zombies sounds like a sweet love song, except for the lyrics. I’m not tryna be a villain, but I’ve at least got to consider the possibility that I am. Do villains usually know they’re the villains, or is good and bad a matter of the perspective of the one with the pen (or keyboard or Twitter or TikTok account)?

As you already know, I have a complicated relationship with youth sports. There are 2 ways to look at a successful coach. A wrong way, measured solely in wins and losses. And a right way, where the athletes are mentored in a sport by well-meaning people with character and integrity. They are taught sport and competition, but they are also shown the connection between this specific sport and a beautiful life off the field/court/pitch/etc. We have not had awesome luck with either. And I drift in and out of that dad in the stands, complaining and pointing out the obvious deficiencies.

I also coach baseball and I do not win games too often, but I bet you’d like to trust me with your kids for an overwhelming amount of time in season. And once, last year, a previous coach walked up and down the line of parents/fans loudly detailing my every flaw (through his eyes). It was disappointing and embarrassing, until he spent a whole inning informing MY WIFE, the Angel, of my ‘mistakes,’ at which point it became hilarious. A, it’s my wife and that seems like some kind of societal code violation. And B, if you want to talk about my flaws and mistakes, the Angel is already very well aware.

Am I that guy, embarrassing myself as I loudly expose my insecurities???? Am I the villain in this story??

Yes, of course these coaches aren’t doing any mentoring (well, not any particularly good mentoring – they are certainly showing a kind of example), and aren’t winning. They are obviously, publicly, having a very rough time navigating the tremendous responsibility and wonderful honor of the position.

Do you know what the main feeling I had for that guy, walking up the sidelines trashing me? Yes, of course, I felt anger, indignation, embarrassment, shame, and the need to fight in relatively small amounts, but the biggest portion by a long shot was sadness. I wanted him to be ok with himself, to not have his inadequacy the keys to his behavior. I was sad that he looked so foolish. I wanted to hug him and tell him he was enough, and that I liked him.

Why don’t I feel sad for these coaches? I know it’s because the sideline guy was attacking me, these guys are hurting my son.

But as much as we can learn from a positive sports experience, we can learn an equal amount from the inverse. How do we respond to adversity, to unfairness, to frustration, rage, and broken hearts? Can we still relate with class and dignity in our pain? How do we lose well?

We’ve been discussing these questions and ideas in my house, I’m trying to guide him on this treacherous path. But then I am sitting in the stands with my big mouth and open wounds. I think I probably am a villain, but I think we probably are all villains at some points, in some spaces.

Today is a new day. There’s a game in a few hours and it’ll drive me crazy, but it is a new opportunity to answer for myself the same questions my boy is facing. How will I respond? It’s only youth sports, but it’s an awful lot more. It’s always, always, a variation of “Who am I?” Sure, sometimes we forget, but the truth remains, and every circumstance is another chance to affirm the beauty of that answer,

When I Was 5

March 31, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The website-generated prompt today is, When you were 5 years old, what did you want to be when you grew up? Well, I wanted to be a superhero, and I’ll tell you why in a minute.

Earlier this week, yet another mass shooting happened at a Christian school in Nashville. Actually, according to current statistics, probably around 10 happened this week, the one in Nashville is the only one we’re talking about every day on the news and setting flags at half-mast.

A mass shooting is considered any where at least 4 people are shot and injured or killed. As of 2 days ago, there have been 129 this year so far. That works out to be roughly 10 per week. In Nashville, 3 of the deaths were 9 year-olds, the others were administration.

The shooter was a transgender male with 7 legally obtained firearms and a long, complicated mental health history. This is all according to the specific reports I read. Maybe some of it isn’t true, entirely or at all. Or maybe it is. We don’t have his manifesto yet, it hasn’t yet been released, or at least anywhere that I can find.

On another note, my son began the games that count in his senior baseball season this week. They lost the first one. After this post, I will no longer be discussing my thoughts on this program, unless they are positive and/or illustrate growth and beauty in the wild.

But that’s after this post. The program is in ruins. The young men are being forcibly spoon fed gruel far below what they deserve, on any level. As you are well aware, I happen to not be a man who particularly values wins & losses. The W-L record might be in my list of the top 10 qualities of a successful program, maybe. But by any metric, this one is upside down, inside out, dead and stinking.

Now. As the baseball program slowly circles the drain, there doesn’t seem to be any interest in plugging said drain and rescuing the boys from this sinking mess. Everyone is obviously content to crawl along, looking at the dumpster fire, nodding, doing nothing at all but watching it burn.

I just looked up “albatross,” and when I did, the tab I had open was set on an article titled, “What’s behind the decline in teen mental health?” Yes, social media and stressful college requirements, of course, but it’s possible that another reason is that the adults in the room always seem content to do nothing at all except watch it burn, watch them burn. I don’t imagine it helps teen mental health to scream for help when none ever comes.

High school baseball is a trivial example, right? It’s just further evidence of what is either malicious violence on the human spirit or impotence. More kids get killed, we give “thoughts and prayers,” and then 9 more happen this week, and 10 more next week, and the next and the next and the next, ad infinitum.

I wanted to be a superhero for as long as I can remember because I didn’t like injustice. Watching people cry, in pain, living in fear or in despair, sits in my stomach and soul like acid, making it impossible to rest or find comfort. I wanted to fix all of it. But there aren’t real-life superheroes (as far as I know). I still want someone to show you, me and everybody else that there is someone who sees and will do whatever it takes to care for us. If we use that definition (and not simply people with cartoonish super powers), maybe we could all be superheroes?

Can we please stand up and say enough? Our politicians, CEOs, administrators, aren’t interested in extinguishing the fires that fuel benefit packages and lifestyles. Minding our own business hasn’t and doesn’t work, now or ever. The hope here is, right now, today, in our homes and communities, churches, workplaces, parks, fields, and grocery stores, to start to love each other, not only in more empty words but with hands and feet and our full, sad, broken hearts.

Eyes To See

March 22, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I go to a local store for something called creamed pearl tapioca pudding on Tuesdays. Every Tuesday. And then I drop it off with the Angel at her office, along with a fountain soda as thanks. What I tell her is that it needs to be refrigerated and I’m unable to access our fridge. I don’t need to take it to her. I take it all through the winter, when my car is colder than any available appliance, mostly so I can see her for those 30 seconds.

Yesterday was Tuesday, and while I was there, I was overwhelmed, speechless and in awe of this woman. I sent her a text from the parking lot that read, “No kidding, I can not believe I get to be married to you. You are a KNOCKOUT,” and then I added 2 emoji faces with hearts for eyes. We’ll only talk about how she looks today, but as you probably already know, the beauty on the outside isn’t close to how lovely she is on the inside. She’s pretty far out of my league, but that’s her problem, not mine.

The point is that sometimes we can be so familiar with something that we take it for granted, easily and often. I live with this Angel, see her everyday, in pajamas and in heels, I know she’s gorgeous. I know her smile in my sleep, the way her eyes shine, how her laugh sounds, her skin feels. I know all of this, but there are surely lots of moments where I don’t truly appreciate all of this.

And there are so many things just like her (well, not just like her), but equally overlooked, or dismissed as common when they are anything but.

Pizza, Lord of the Rings, vinyl, this blanket, Catfish, creamed pearl tapioca. There are things we couldn’t wait to get, absolutely had to have, and changed our lives, that we don’t even give a second thought today. I’m not sure we need a change of scenery nearly as much as we need to open our eyes to the current scenery, because at some point that new scenery is going to be the current scenery we are looking to change.

I haven’t listened to The Queen Is Dead in months, and the last time I did, I skipped some tracks. It’s a perfect album, and I treat it so cavalierly that I skip tracks. We eat in front of the tv or in the car, concentrating and appreciating nothing. We see sunrises and sunsets everyday more perfect than the finest art. The Angel is so stunning she could stop clocks.

How and when did we get so distracted and jaded that we miss all of this splendor? Somewhere we were sold the lie that there was anything in this fantastic world that is “ordinary.” Ordinary is for the blind and imagination-less. In the Bible, scales fall from the apostle Paul’s eyes and he can finally see things as they are, see reality as it is. Maybe our scales need to fall, as well. I don’t really want to take anything for granted anymore, and I certainly don’t want to take people for granted ever again. I don’t want to become so familiar with laying like spoons with the Angel that it loses it’s tender warmth and simply becomes something we do. It IS something we do, but it’s not simple at all, it’s also significant and perfect.

I wonder how many other things in our everyday lives are significant and perfect, if we only had eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to feel them.

All At Once

March 10, 2023March 13, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I finally saw Everything Everywhere All At Once. If you haven’t seen it, you know what you have to do. We’re not going to talk about it in this space, specifically. Instead, we’ll talk about great art.

You watch an awesome film, like Everything Everywhere All At Once or Fight Club or Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind or Point Break or Pulp Fiction (there are a million honest examples), and the credits roll. How do you feel?

You hear an amazing song, like There Is A Light That Never Goes Out or Like A Rolling Stone or Let It Be or Party In The USA (again, a million examples), in your car as you’re driving home from work or to your sister’s house on Thanksgiving day. Where is your spirit?

You read a beautiful book, like Breakfast of Champions or Catch 22 or High Fidelity or Britt-Marie Was Here or Chronicles, Nehemiah & Other Books Nobody Reads, and close it after finishing the last words. What is the state of your heart?

I know the answer to these questions, and so do you. You feel soft and open, like you’ve been pried opened by soft, warm, loving fingers, which you have. The door is thrown wide and your mind is free to race around with no boundaries at all, free to jump and even to fly, if you’re so inclined. Anything and everything is possible. The usual rules and cynicism that keep us tethered to the rotted cracked boards that set the limits of our world no longer apply.

Someone exactly like you and me wrote the screenplay for Everything Everywhere All At Once. And we have somewhere bought the idea that “it is what it is,” we are all we’re ever be, and this is all we deserve. These are lies. And sometimes, in a chorus or scene, we are shown the undeniable truth.

Last night, Everything Everywhere won all of the Academy Awards, as it should have, and I am convinced that means we have all been aching to create something new for ourselves, our families, neighbors, strangers & enemies, for our world. Today is cold and gray outside of my window, but feels like sunshine and hope. These are the first moments of the new economy of creativity and love for everyone everywhere all at once

Another Last of the Firsts

March 6, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Today is the first day of high school baseball practice for my son, whom I love more than I can ever tell you. He deserves everything wonderful, and if you know him, you agree with me. It’ll be the last first day of practice, and that fills me with every kind of emotion you can imagine. So let’s talk about Argo instead.

Argo won the best picture Oscar in 2012. I hadn’t seen it until yesterday, I always wanted to, and who knows why I didn’t? It was a full day with lots of weight, stimulation and being “on.” After speaking publicly, I am wide open and terribly vulnerable, so I usually try to avoid much personal contact afterwards for a block of time. Yesterday I didn’t have a choice, and by the time I returned home and finished the last of my responsibilities, I crashed into the belly of my soft, comfy sofa.

Probably the best thing I could’ve watched was something I’d seen a thousand times before, like Return of the Jedi or the first Avengers. I like them and don’t have to plug in at all. The worst thing would’ve been a breathlessly suspenseful thriller that I had never seen before about the extraction of American hostages trapped in Iran in 1979-80. 81% of Google users “liked” it, which makes me wonder about the other 19. Who are they, and why do they hate movies so much? Maybe they just hate Ben Affleck?

Instead of watching through half-closed eyelids in my couch, I watched the last hour standing in the middle of the room. This was not a restful experience in the least.

Anyway. When Affleck arrives in Iran, meets the hostages and informs them that they will be a movie crew scouting locations for a science-fiction movie (“Argo”), they have to decide if they will participate in this human heist. The 6 men & women haven’t left the Canadian embassy for months, are in grave danger, but this plan is “the best of the bad ideas” and presents overwhelming danger, as well. Would they become paralyzed by their fear and incapable of movement? Would they risk everything? And if so, would that risk end in America or in death?

How many times are we faced with the same decision? We’re confined to a “room” we know, whether it’s a relationship, job, worldview, whatever, and leaving is terrifying. Usually someone comes through the door with an offer, an invitation – someone has to, we simply don’t leave on our own – and the scene is the same. What if it doesn’t work out? What if we fail? What if there’s nothing and no one out there for me? How will it end?

We’ve all heard that awful cliche: better the devil you know. We all hate it, too. But cliches get that way because they’re often true. We do choose to stay in rotten dead-end jobs, with abusive, unfaithful boy- and girl-friends, seeing the world though cracked lenses because the fear of the unknown is vicious and unrelenting. The questions are the same, what if what if what if how will it end????? Will I be ok? Is this the right choice? How do I know?

The bad news is that we don’t. The hostages didn’t. It could’ve easily been a very different film, the tragedy of a doomed rescue attempt. We all know friends who have forgotten who they are and why they’re here and settled for 2am texts and generations of damage and a long tradition of outdated -isms. But the first step out the door, to write the 2 week notice, to take the shot, with the adrenaline freezing in your veins, is the hardest one, isn’t it?

High school is my boy’s Canadian embassy. And mine. He’s familiar, we’re familiar, it’s (relatively) safe, at least it appears safe. He knows where the rooms are, when the classes change. He is no prisoner here, at home, he’s only confined by the chains in his mind. What will he do when there are no more last firsts? Will he take that first, hardest step?

Will he fail? Of course he will. At least I hope he does. The only ones who don’t fail are the ones that stay inside these rooms. But that’s not true, either. What we don’t always recognize is that staying is failure, too, just a different sort. I hope he shoots a million times and misses a ton of them. I hope he dreams. And I hope he breaks out of all of these rooms and really lives.

Ant-Sized Expectations

February 22, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I saw Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania Monday afternoon. After the pieces of garbage that were Love & Thunder and She-Hulk, I was unsure that I’d see it at all, much less in the theater. But I did, on opening weekend, no less. And despite the terrible critical reviews, I very much liked it. Here are a few reasons why:

Love & Thunder and She-Hulk made fun of me. They treated these movies as if they had heard the criticism of “serious” auteurs and wanted to sit at the cool table, too, so they ridiculed those of us who found ourselves entertained and stimulated by their work. Before those 2 stinkers (and less so the output of the last few years), I made the argument that these movies were the mythology of our generation. Certainly not just sugary snacks for fanboys alone, they explored social and cultural issues through the lens of extraordinary people. The psychology of the characters (and all of us) were on display and gave us all more substance than we were prepared for, if only we had eyes to see and ears to hear. They were never Pulp Fiction or The Godfather, but to lazily write-off these movies as spandex daydreams for teenage boys was an offensively grievous error. Quantumania didn’t make fun of me. It wasn’t The Winter Soldier or Civil War, but it was a stand alone story that did not patronize (or at least, I did not feel patronized.) That’s 1.

The second is its wild visual unreality. Now, this was precisely the reason The Angel did not like it, but we are very different people. If our pop cultural preferences met at a party, not only would they not talk, mine would probably ask hers to leave immediately. Usually, our imaginations are drummed out of us as we age, we are encouraged to leave them behind and focus only on the world that we can see, touch, feel, and prove. When an artist remembers that we have been made to be fantastically creative beings, as in the Star Wars cantina (for example) or the Quantum Realm, we see our original imaging bursting through into an increasingly monochromatic landscape. There were no limits on colors, characters, no restraints on what could be possible. Of course, some of it didn’t work, but that’s what happens with shooting; sometimes, you miss. But I really love the risk of shooting. I hadn’t seen anything quite like it, and that’s inspiring to me.

But that’s enough about the actual movie (not that I don’t have anything else to say about it, I do). I’m wondering how much of my appreciation of Quantumania had to do with the steaming pile that was Love & Thunder. I think I’m sort of out on the MCU. Obviously, I’ll see the movies as they come out, I’ll watch the streaming shows, but they no longer captivate me. It was a beautiful time that I shared with my sons, we saw every one together as they were released. (Quantumania was the first one we didn’t, and don’t even get me started on the heartbreak of that.) Thor convinced me that those movies were of a time that had passed. Thor showed me what I already knew, everything changes. The movies change, we change, our reaction, our connection to them changes. With one swing of his hammer, Thor broke any idea of corporate trust or loyalty. I know, I know, the studios (including Marvel/Disney) care about me only as long as I’m buying tickets and paying for their streaming service, but the delusion is one I would have liked to keep. I took Love & Thunder and She-Hulk like a personal affront, like an act of disrespect. Why? They don’t care at all about me, they care about worldwide grosses and merchandising deals.

And on one hand, that stinks. But on the other, it’s pretty liberating. If I want to see the next one, I’ll see it. If not, I won’t. I don’t owe Disney anything. I’m a product, but so are they. (If it’s seems embarrassing for such an old man to come to such elementary conclusions this late, it’s not for me. I understand/understood perfectly, but I just didn’t want that to be the last word. I want to let my imagination run and dream, too.) I have no more expectations for quality – She-Hulk smashed that into tiny little pieces – so when something is good, like Quantumania, I enjoy myself. I don’t expect greatness, I don’t expect anything. I am free!

High School Basketball

January 18, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Earlier this week, I attended a high school basketball game and utterly lost my mind. I was embarrassed, my mother would have been mortified, everyone was looking at me in my head. It was just awful.

Now, I am very well aware of the woeful state of sports officiating. We all think it can’t get worse and then, of course, it does. It’s sort of a disorder where I can’t learn, and that means I am continually surprised. I imagine that that referees/umpires gather after games, heads down, disappointed, wondering if and how they can approach a passable level of competency. But I know some of them personally, and their posture is one of arrogant defiance, so that imagining I do is simply that, a dream with no basis in reality. Maybe they are great men, great dads, husbands, community leaders – in fact, I’d go so far as to say probably they are. They spend so much of their time in high school gyms and fields in service of these student-athletes, and that is no small feat.

It’s a pretty thankless job. Like in most things, we notice the bad and ignore the good. We scream in righteous indignation when the food is cold or the cashier is rude, and otherwise stay silent. In addition, with sports, the officials are dealing with delusional could-have-been’s living vicariously at the top of their lungs. They deserve our respect and kindness.

And in that thankless job, most officials are very, very bad. Both things can be true, and in this case, both things are. I spend most of our time post-game unpacking with my boys excusing the referees/umpires, reminding them they are human beings, how hard the job is and to remember that blame wasn’t helpful in Genesis 3 and it isn’t now.

So why was I crazy the other night? Sometimes bad calls are just bad calls: missed a strike, called a player safe, stepped on an end line, missed a travel. But sometimes, poor officials can lose control and put all of the players in danger of injury. It is no longer wins and losses, the issue is safety. The visiting team wasn’t very skilled so their game plan was much like the ‘80’s Pistons, MMA instead of basketball. I asked for fouls on both teams, tighten everything up, just something, anything, to protect the teams from each other and themselves.

When I wrote that I had lost my mind, that wasn’t entirely accurate. I hadn’t lost control, and certainly not everyone could even hear my comments. But I was embarrassed. Now what to do with that?

In the past, the old tapes would have ran rampant through my head, telling me how ridiculous I am, how I am one of those parents, how I’m a quick-tempered rage monster and I always would be. Those things aren’t true. I’m none of those things. As a teenager, there were holes in my bedroom walls because I didn’t know how to process my fear, hurt, and inadequacy. I am not a teenager anymore, and now I can understand me and my heart. I am not overwhelmed with my own lack of worth anymore. What I am is a work in progress, but what I also am is new. Both of those things can be true, and in this case, both things are. Those old tapes do not apply, they are obsolete. Those statements of identity no longer describe me.

I am grateful. The self-loathing is mostly gone, taking my crippling inadequacy and insecurities with it. The tapes are quieter and quieter, sometimes I can’t even hear them at all. The cool thing about growth is that if we keep our eyes open, there are teachers on every corner, even high school basketball games and incompetent officials to show us how far we’ve come and how far we’ve yet to go.

A Christmas Life

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

I am the pastor of a small church in town. You might not know this because this space (lovewithacapitall.com) has been a separate room where I can talk about Morrissey (mostly) and other art and artists I like. At least as separate as I can be. The things we discuss here, we also discuss there – After all, I do write it, and the best, most authentic art comes from the most authentic parts of us. If I were to pretend I didn’t love Morrissey songs and Fight Club and superheroes, that would be to abandon certain important, meaningful parts of me. How can we connect on any sort of deep level while one of us is hiding or holding parts of him/her-self back and pretending to be something else,something we think the other wants us to be? Dishonesty and image making drive me insane. So, there (in the church virtual room), these cultural touchpoints relate explicitly to God and the complicated journey of faith. Here, not necessarily as explicitly, but they do relate.

Anyway, this particular faith community began in my living room, when the church to which I belonged closed its doors. That means I speak every Sunday, and each talk should probably contain one point the people who give their most valuable possession, their time, can use, just in case they don’t hear anything else. It’s shocking, but the truth is that not everyone present is hanging on each word I say. Gasp! On Saturday night, Christmas Eve, this ‘takeaway’ was that we don’t only celebrate Christmas once a year, but that we live Christmas lives.

What does that mean? What does a Christmas life look like? Maybe I should’ve given a bit more thought to that, it sounded like a pretty good phrase at the time, and maybe I did an adequate job at conveying the idea. Often times, we are having conversations in our heads & hearts, and very little has to be said to affect us in profound ways. For instance, let’s say you were feeling that you wanted to learn to play the guitar, then a character in the book you’re reading is a guitar player, then you’re listening to Howard Stern and he’s interviewing Slash, and then you come to a church service and I happen to be talking about Abraham and Campbell’s Heroes’ Journey and say, “Maybe you’re thinking of taking a new step…” And that’s all it takes. I don’t have to be eloquent or clear at all, it’s enough and your spirit and what I call God will do the rest.

I know a Christmas life doesn’t mean we spend money like wild animals buying things we don’t need and don’t really want in the first place, things we have to return or exchange. It doesn’t mean we buy landscaping and put it inside (though I guess it could mean that for you). It doesn’t mean we gain weight as if we’re preparing to hibernate for months (like I do). It doesn’t mean we make habits of superficial small talk with distant relatives (unless we actually care for them and the talk gets bigger and less superficial.)

It’s always easier to define what we are not, or who we don’t want to be, or what we don’t want to do, than it is to say Yes. But negative postures don’t change our lives. Wanting to not become my dad never got me closer to who I wanted to become, to who Chad was once the block of stone had been chipped away. What would it reveal? I wouldn’t be a groundhog or 10 million other things, but what would I be underneath it all? That’s the coolest thing about opening your eyes, what you’ll see.

So, here’s what I came up with. A Christmas life is one of imagination. It takes a very open mind that dreams to consider a story of a God coming as a baby to a 13 year old girl in a barn, and what it could all mean. It takes imagination to hope for something new, for a fresh word. A Christmas life hopes. We hope for more than we see, that I can be more, that you can be more, that it isn’t what it is, that we’re not simply what we’ve always been, that we can change our world. A Christmas life is relational. We ask, listen, think the best, hold each other, kiss, put our phones down and pay attention to the fantastic blessings in front of us. We have more friends than “friends.” Mostly a Christmas life loves. We love our people, our animals, our neighborhoods, our country, our planet. But we do not love these things at the expense of other neighborhoods, countries, or planets. We love those, too. We are awake and aware, looking for people to love and ways to love them that they understand and receive. A Christmas life does not miss sacred moments, and a Christmas life realizes that they are all sacred moments if we are intentionally present.

I wonder if all of that came across in my message. Who knows? I wonder if all of that comes across in my life. I think, to that thought, what a Christmas life would say is, “if it didn’t yesterday, it sure will today.”

(One more thing. You know, I know almost nothing about promotion or reaching more eyes for this blog. And what I do know, I shy away from, for several reasons. But it’s going to be a new year. Promotion doesn’t have to be to feed my ego and/or brag about numbers, it could totally be about connection and circles that overlap.So, I would love to know you’re there, so maybe we could dream together and talk about what A Christmas Life means to you, and maybe we could do what we can to usher in a new world. Just a thought.)

Plumb Lines

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

As we race towards the end of the year and the beginning of a new one, it is my practice to reflect on where I’ve come from and look to where I’m going. I pick a focus word or 2 and make a plan to move forward (in pencil). There have been times when what is in front of me is intimidating in its scope, like staring at a smooth, slick wall stretching up into the clouds. Where do I even start?

If you’ve ever watched the show Hoarders, as the houses fall into such a state of disrepair, the people fall into a state of apathy. The work is so vast, it’s hard to see any way out. They have no idea how to clean what used to be their home but is now just a storage space for dirty dishes, trash, and junk. There is no end in sight, no light at the end of a massive tunnel.

A life can feel exactly the same. I remember many times, for seasons or years, where my soul was one of those houses. There were behaviors that didn’t serve me well, destructive habits, the worst tape loops playing in my head, self-sabotage, all buried under an avalanche of unhealthy perspectives. The task, cleaning me up, creating new pathways, was so enormous, I ended the next year with, at best, the same work ahead as the previous.

What I so clearly see now is that the answer is the same for the houses as my life, put a few dishes in the sink today. Then a few more tomorrow. In the Bible, the exiled Jewish people return home and work begins to rebuild the temple. The old temple that had been razed was so grand, fantastically ornate and glorious, how could they ever possibly rebuild that one? The prophet Zechariah wrote, “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand.” (Zech. 4:10)

There is a Japanese concept called kaisen, where continuous small, almost imperceptible changes compound, leaving the company, or process, drastically transformed.

I think this is what Zechariah is talking about, kaisen, or small beginnings. Set a plumb line – in this case, set our eyes on God and His vision for the temple, or our lives, families, communities, nations. This plumb line stays static, not swaying to meet the popular, convenient, or comfortable, and we begin to build with that as our guide. One block at a time. One dish. One moment. One lie in the tape loops that screamed in my ears. Just one. One step. We don’t need to know when the tunnel ends, or even where it will lead. We have a plumb line, and that plumb line is trustworthy and certain.

I know one step seems insignificant. We want to lose 100lbs by working out for 7 hours a day every day, but the next time that works will be the first, and we end up doing nothing. If we eat a bag of Oreos every day, maybe instead of eating none, we eat a bag minus one today. Or we do 1 pushup. Or read 1 verse.

We set the plumb line, don’t despise the small beginnings, and know that Our God, Our Creator, rejoices to see the work begin. Then, the next year, we look back and barely recognize the person who began the work. We are increasingly new. We can see our bed and sleep in it without risk of suffocating under all of the ways we harm ourselves.

There is an old adage, an answer to the question, “How do you eat an elephant?” One bite at a time. Maybe this year, we start taking bites.

Church on a Thursday

November 22, 2022/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Last night I took my son Samuel to see his first live music show. 2 artists (American Authors and the unfortunately named Phillip Phillips) in the Midtown Arts Center in the state capital. Adding to the excitement of the adventure, there wasn’t any parking and the building was barely marked and so easily missed that we weren’t entirely sure we had arrived even as we were walking inside.

So, we go in and sit and wait for the doors to the concert area to open, watching people and talking like friends. It is a beautiful under-acknowledged gift to actually like your children. Of course, we love them, we sort of have to. Also of course, there are times they drive us craazy. But to like them? That is an unguaranteed, unexpected, overwhelming blessing that is not to be overlooked.

American Authors opened – they were the reason we went, he feels like he discovered them and loves them like they’re pretty much his secret – and were terrific. He even got his picture taken with them that I’ll show you when I see you. But they played this one song, Deep Water, that is providing the thread that stitched us all, the entire night, this entire season of our lives, together, and is sliding seamlessly into the narrative of our communities (at church, work, school, towns & cities.)

Before I give you the lyrics, there’s a story in the Bible where the prophet Elijah is fleeing an evil king and queen and ends up hiding in a cave. He thinks he’s alone, but it’s there that he is ministered to by God – definitely not alone. Elijah is scared and complains that he’s being chased, and why is he being chased, what is going on, why why why, and that he’s the only one left. God answers the way God usually answers, without answering any of Elijah’s questions, BUT what He does is tell Elijah that there are more just like him and where to find them. God knows what we so easily forget; we don’t need answers, we just need someone to hold our hand. We just need someone to walk alongside. We just need someone to listen, to care, and to love (and who will love us.)

Now, Deep Water – the singer-songwriter referenced some heavy struggles (the deep water of the title) and his gratitude for the people who willingly waded into that water, sometimes to rescue, other times just to tread the same water in which he was treading.

“Please, tell me I won’t wash away. When it pulls me under, Will you make me stronger? Will you be my breath through the deep, deep water? Take me farther, give me one day longer Will you be my breath through the deep, deep water? When I’m sinking like a stone, At least I know I’m not alone.”

It’s not a superficial pretending that there isn’t water, or that the water isn’t deep, or that he wasn’t sinking like a stone. There was, it was, and he was. It’s not the need to fix that overflows from our fearful uncomfortability of this deep water. It’s only presence, sensitive to the times where we can “tell [him he] won’t wash away,” “make [him] stronger,” to “be [his] breath,” or to simply be in the water when he’s “sinking like a stone.”

This is our call.

I looked through watery eyes at my son who is, and will be again, in deep water. Just like the rest of us in that room and in every room. I pray that he has a tribe who will hold him up and be his breath, and that he can become the kind of person who will be theirs.

The most beautiful thing about a concert is that we are all there, we are all now, connected by the purity of our shared love. Life can be hard and we can think we are very, very different, but in the dark, on a Thursday night, affirming the creative spark that has been generously given by our Creator, we were all human, nothing more and nothing less.

Then, Phil Phil performed his biggest hit, Home, with these lyrics: “Hold on to me as we go, As we roll down this unfamiliar road. And although this wave (wave) is stringing us along, Just know you’re not alone ‘Cause I’m gonna make this place your home. Settle down, it’ll all be clear. Don’t pay no mind to the demons, They fill you with fear. The trouble, it might drag you down. If you get lost, you can always be found. Just know you’re not alone ‘Cause I’m gonna make this place your home.”

Well, this is just great, now I’m writing through watery eyes as I think about him again, about those who I have held onto as we go, who have been my breath, who found me when I was lost, about you. I know I’m not alone, you have all made this place my home.

The thing that gives me the most hope is my love pyramid scheme dream. If we can do this for each other, and we have, and we will continue, eventually we can all know we’re not alone and that we are all extravagantly loved.

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: imagination