2024-03-19T13:27:04+00:00

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.

George Clooney v. James Franco

March 12, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I’ve watched several films lately. We’re going to cancel the cable tv in our house, so I’ve been spending a little more time on streamers than channels. There is a sort of greater truth hidden in the fact that the more channels you have, the less chance of finding anything to watch. We have access to everything, now, does that create a sort of paralysis? Is that why so many of us spend so much time on social media sites? Do we spend hours on TikTok because their algorithm decides what we’ll watch, and not us? With these apps, we are mostly passive consumers, we eat what is put in front of us.

Is that why it’s so hard to find something to order at restaurants with 15 page menus? I have grown accustomed to asking the servers what the best thing is, and just get that. Who would know better than the server? Is that the human version of scrolling through the social media algorithm? In the presence of too many options, they decide what I’ll like for me.

Anyway. The Monuments Men is one of the best movies I’ve seen, or at least one of the movies I’ve liked the most. Those 2 categories are different. Radiohead’s Kid A is a great album, and I just hate it. If I ever hear one note of it again, it won’t be because I chose to. It’ll be because I ended up in a place that would, and I’ll be looking for an excuse to leave immediately. But I really love every Alkaline Trio album, and probably none are what a critic might call “great.” I love Point Break, but Citizen Kane is a “great,” important film.

I think Monuments Men is both. It’s based on a true story, concerning the value of art in our lives, in our world, and the lengths aware, intelligent people will go to preserve all of it (even the pieces they surely don’t like.) It’s beautiful and I loved every second of it.

George Clooney directed and acted in it, and if I’m honest, I’d watch anything in which he has any part. He’s gorgeous and has all the charm and likability. I’d like to play basketball or go on a road trip with him.

I have a very great friend who was seeing a boy, who isn’t a nice person. He’s not a nice person to her, or anyone else. But there is a pattern that is difficult to understand. He has 4 children (3 mothers) whom he does not see or support financially, has spent more time in jail than out, is a violent substance abuser, and has a line of women (whether it is romantic, or sisters and cousins and a mom who all go to extraordinary lengths to enable his poor behavior) waiting to be the next to be mistreated by him. Without exception, they are mistreated and wait by the door, just in case he would choose to do it again. It’s very strange.

If he looked like George Clooney, I might understand. He doesn’t. If he acted like, or had the boundless charisma of George Clooney, I might understand. He doesn’t. If he were both, I would certainly understand, but he is neither. It’s very strange.

James Franco makes movies that usually aren’t very good, he’s not too handsome or talented or likable, and he has a solid career. He continues to make movies. Same phenomenon. Why would we continue to stand in line, to pay money to watch James Franco movies? Very strange.

But maybe the James Franco analogy really doesn’t hold up. He isn’t hurting us, isn’t manipulating us, isn’t abusing us. He’s just making bad movies. And maybe you think they’re not bad movies. Maybe you don’t like Point Break. That’s the wonder of artistic expression, and it’s why we’d fight and die for the right to create, regardless of our personal tastes. We live in a culture where the diversity of thought and opinion is awesome, where difference doesn’t subtract, it adds exponentially. We’re a better world with James Franco movies than without. (I can’t believe I just wrote that last sentence.) We don’t simply tolerate each other, we appreciate, we love each other. We hold hands and dance to wildly contrasting types of music, types of music that would not get along if they met at a party. But this isn’t a party, it’s our lives, and everybody belongs.

(Except maybe that guy my friend was dating. At least not until he stops damaging everybody he sees on purpose. Then, he’s more than welcome to come in and make himself at home.)

The Valuable Pain of Nostalgia

March 4, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I was watching Point Break (the classic original, not the silly, pointless remake) with my son last week, and I felt the familiar pangs of nostalgia. Point Break is the movie I have seen the most times, probably between 50 and 100, though it’s entirely possible that number is higher. There were weekends my best friend and I watched it 2 or 3 times, almost beginning immediately after rewinding the VHS tape. We saw it in the theater over 20 times (this was before we’d have to work 2 full time jobs to afford to go to the movie theater)! I still love it more than is reasonable.

Later last week, I heard Round Here, by the Counting Crows, and Rebel Yell, by Billy Idol, on the radio. Also, The awesome John Cougar Mellencamp 2 disc greatest hit collection is now in my car CD player. Who knows when that’ll come out? I cried at the Wham! Netflix documentary. The heartache of this nostalgia is nearly unbearable sometimes.

Nostalgia means “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations,” and I think it’s generally regarded as fairly unhealthy. Another dictionary writes, it’s an “excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition,” and brings to mind the white-washing of the “good old days,” which in all likelihood were not so very good, certainly not as good as we remember, and a return would be cultural/social regression.

Nostalgia can also be an avoidance of mindful presence in the here & now. My nostalgia is strange to me, because there is no place I’d rather be than here & now. There is no part of the past that was better for me than right now. I am married to the Angel, to name just one very amazing reason (but I could go on and on, as you know if you’ve read any of the posts on this site.)

I love music, and for a music lover, my Amazon Music app, with it’s algorithm that knows me and what I like even better than my sister, (I am currently listening to “My Discovery Mix,” where the algorithm gives me 25 songs I’ve never heard by artists I’ve never heard of that they are absolutely right to think I’ll like) is a perfect divine gift. I write a blog, am fairly active on Facebook (because I’m a million years old), stream my tv shows, wear Bluetooth headphones to the gym where I check in via QR code on another app. I do crossword puzzles on my phone. For a Luddite, I’m not a very committed one. All of these facts make my nostalgia quite peculiar, so why is it so pronounced when I hear any ‘90’s alternative rock songs before 1995, when the genre started to eat itself?

And I think I know.

On December 2nd of 1983, the 13 minute short-film music video for “Thriller” was released. I watched it at my neighbor’s house with my cousins and our families. We all had our minds blown together. And that’s why I feel nostalgic, and why I think it’s not unhealthy at all, and is, instead, our souls crying out to us in sadness and lack. Our souls asking us to fix us.

We all watched Seinfeld together, in our own homes, and talked about it Friday morning. We all heard Round Here on the same radio stations. There is nothing like that now. When we want to talk about most of the best new songs, we have to send links first. There are so few communal activities in art anymore. Everybody watches the Super Bowl, even if they don’t like or care about football or the teams, because we all do it together, as one people. Taylor Swift and Beyoncé are sort of similar, I guess, in that we all know what they’re doing in real time.

We’re created for community, to be together, and when we are not, we feel that lonely emptiness. And we desperately search for it, and there’s few places to find it, really. On one level, I love the local church for the same reason I love the relic that was Top 40 Radio. Because we experience(d) it together. And don’t even get me started on the heartbreaking extinction of record stores.

Our hearts are begging us to find others with whom to walk through our lives. That’s nostalgia. Not because Silver Spoons or Diff’rent Strokes were particularly great, but because families watched them together at the same day, same time, each week. We laughed together, cried together, waited together. We had the same reference banks, and while that sounds superficial, I assure you that in a divided world, it is not. We have forgotten that we are all human, that we have far more in common than we don’t, and that loss of shared experience has a huge cost. We are all human beings, and we are made to love each other, in the same rooms, facing the same directions, no matter how far removed we get.

Nostalgia is just a subtle reminder that we miss it. A lot.

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.

A Design For Life

February 26, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

This morning, I was listening to a playlist (the modern ‘mixtape’), and the song “Internet Killed The Video Star,” by the Limousines came on. It’s a perfect title and a terrific song, and it has this peach of a lyric:

“Well, I’m a horrible dancer; I ain’t gonna lie, but I’ll be damned if that means that I ain’t gonna try. Yeah, I’m a shitty romancer, baby; I ain’t gonna lie, but I’ll be damned if that means that I ain’t gonna try. Get up, get up, get up, and dance.”

So, I texted this song and lyric to my brother and sister, and she shared with me the message from her yoga class (written by yoga master Becky Hemsley):

“I know there may have been times in your life when you’ve stopped dancing, stopped singing, stopped being yourself, because someone was watching you. Judging you….We’ve been taught that we must only be ourselves if it suits other people…The birds sing – not because we might listen – but simply with the joy of being alive….So sing as loud as you wish, and dance as much as you like. You do not exist for the enjoyment of others. You exist to be alive. Properly, fully, beautifully alive.“

Sometimes the world sends you messages so obvious, so clear, so coincidental that coincidence is impossible. It’s a specific message from the Creator of the Universe to us – in this case, a message to dance and/or romance, or share the message to dance and/or romance, or witness to the importance and imperative that we all dance and/or romance. I’m choosing to do all 3 today.

We have been conditioned into self-consciousness, even when that means we miss out on all sorts of beauty and wonder. When did that happen? When did we stop dancing (even if we’re bad at it)? Who told us we’re bad at it? For that matter, who are they to decide? When did we stop romancing (even if we don’t know how to do it yet)? When did we stop singing, stop living, and when did we replace it with just quietly getting by?

Well, I don’t think we should do that anymore. I think we should dance whenever and however we want. It’s super fun to be so free.

And as far as romancing, the characteristic that makes each of us so sexy is confidence, passion, interest, joy. We are good dancers when we dance when we love to turn the music up and move. We are great romancers when we lean in and give our authentic selves to each other, with vulnerability, honesty, trust, and open-ness. We are great lovers when we love. And the more we practice, the better we are.

You don’t have to apologize for dancing or singing. If anything, you can apologize for not dancing and singing earlier. Have a good time. This life is a gift, and it can be very hard and hurt a lot, so we are well served to enjoy it when we can, to move our hips when whenever we feel like it.

The next song in the playlist was “Murder On The Dance Floor,” where Sophie Ellis-Bextor sings, “you better not kill this groove,” which is more solid advice as we design our lives. The point is to not kill any more grooves, to not squash anyone else’s dancing, and to sing and romance as loud as we can.

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.

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.

Who I Am.

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

There are a few works (Barbie, Echo, Strange World) I’d like to discuss. Well, sort of. The site asked me my first name and what it means in the prompt. It’s Charles, but I have gone by Chad forever. Don’t ask me how you get Chad from Charles, I’m not sure that’s a usual shortening, but if it matters that much, you’d have to ask my mom. It was her decision. Why does the site care? Why would it prompt me with that?

I think the site believes that we can learn a bit more about each other, if we explore the meanings and etymology of our names. It’s wrong, of course. What does Charles, or Chad, say about me, who I actually am? Chuck Klosterman, in his book Fargo Rock City, says any review says almost nothing about the actual whatever (film, album, etc) being reviewed, and everything about the one doing the reviewing. If that’s the case – and it is – then you already know who I am, in the most significant way. Much more than if you knew my given first name is Charles or that I’m a Junior.

Barbie is both dumber and smarter than I expected. It’s purposefully cheesy and embarrassing, in parts, and deep and nuanced, in others. It’s really a fascinating film, perfectly cast and surprisingly well written. The characters are plastic, but developed as flash and blood, with lots of authentic facets of the human experience. I loved it and my mom hated it, which is one of the best compliments I can give. Nobody hates vanilla ice cream. It’s nobody’s favorite, but nobody thinks it’s gross, either. We all like it. Morrissey is my favorite singer, and my brother cringes at the sound of his voice. You can’t really love something without edges. The things that truly matter are, on some beautiful level, polarizing. Barbie is.

Echo is one of the best Marvel series on Disney+. Echo is a deaf Native American woman named Maya, the show is culturally wonderful and very violent. The most important sections of Black Panther were the music and practices of Wakandan culture. This is why the Tolerance Crew’s virtue of “colorblindness” is so dumb. Why would we all ever want to be the same???? My ancestry doesn’t have powwows or quinceaneras, and that’s too bad. But I have other things. I don’t want to lose my traditions and I certainly don’t want to eliminate theirs. I want us all to live in the most vibrant, colorful world as possible, where we are not simply tolerated (which is an offensively low bar to aspire to) but appreciated and loved. Echo was great.

Strange World was totally average, with amazing graphics.

I wonder what these last 3 paragraphs say about me. Probably you know that, as a target demographic, I am very easy to please. I want to like everything, so when I don’t, it’s depressing to me. Maybe when I don’t, it’s because I’ve just had an argument with the Angel, or my stomach hurts, or I’m preoccupied with the drama of friends and family. Books are a little exempt from this, because they take much longer to consume.

I’m reading one now, called As Good As Dead, by Elizabeth Evans, that has an act of unfaithfulness as it’s inciting event. I don’t know if I’ll finish it, even though Elizabeth Evans is awesome. That kind of betrayal hurts my soul and my soul is damaged enough simply living an engaged life in the world. Enough real life unfaithfulness exists to suffer. Maybe I don’t need the nauseous response of a fictional anxiety.

Yes, that last paragraph reveals much more of who I am than the 4 letters of my name ever could. Listening to There Is A Light That Never Goes Out is more important to me and who I am than a German lineage.

The first thing I wanted to know when I began talking to a prospective romantic interest is what sorts of cds she owned, not her middle name. (Incidentally, the Angel’s collection was awful, but she’s so jarringly gorgeous, exceptions were made.) I don’t care as much, now that I’m not a teenager, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care at all. Or that it’s irrelevant.

The honest truth is that it matters if you like Pulp Fiction, and why or why not, and it will always paint a more accurate self-portrait than any of us will admit.

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.

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: perspective