2026-05-18T18:33:58+00:00

Rose Colored

May 18, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

There is a series I started this morning on Hulu called The Dark Side of the 90’s. I assume it’s just another entry in The Dark Side franchise – I’ve already watched The Dark Side of Wrestling, there’s probably many, many more. There are lots of Dark Sides. This one is particularly interesting to me, I am often overcome by nostalgia for this decade.

[This morning?? Yes, I started it at 4am. It’s sometimes challenging to stay asleep, and today, it was very hard with a nasty stomachache. I am loving the series, but I am quite grouchy because a great series at 4am softens the blow, but is still at 4am. Sigh.]

I put that last paragraph in brackets as if it was an aside, just an unimportant extraneous footnote. But I am now seeing that it’s not, it’s the main idea.

You see, you love me a lot, you read these posts and have an idea of me that is all sunshine and rainbows. You imagine a man who loves easily and abundantly, with massive arms and perfect skin and hair. And that’s the point. I don’t have ANY hair. My skin is not smooth, it’s rough and scarred from losing too many battles with teenage acne. My arms are sort of big, but not at all what anyone would call massive. I do love easily and abundantly, but that hurts me A LOT, too. I’m super sensitive, but this hyper-sensitivity can make me awfully high maintenance. I’m pretty cool and like me a lot, but maybe not always.

The 90’s (music, films, tv, style, culture, etc) were awesome. I don’t have to tell you, everybody knows Generation X was the best generation to belong to by a thousand miles. It was a simpler, far more authentic time.

But that’s not all it was.

The first 2 episodes were about Jerry Springer and the Viper Room. The Viper Room was owned by Johnny Depp, a deeply cool hangout for the deeply cool, where creatives could connect and be social but away from the eyes of the world. It was also where they could do mountains of heroin and where River Phoenix died. Johnny Depp could also be described as deeply cool, but as we discovered through the years and in his court trial against ex-girlfriend Amber Heard, he’s also an abusive, alcoholic train-wreck. (Or maybe he’s not, I don’t know him at all. But now, we think we know everything about everyone.)

I watched the Jerry Springer Show, but now I don’t have anything nice to say about it. I have plenty of nice things to say about Jerry Springer, but not his show. It did help to knock down any boundaries left from Jenny Jones and Geraldo. That’s good, isn’t it?

In my head, the 90’s were all Nevermind, Pulp Fiction, “Fade Into You” (by Mazzy Star), flannel shirts, Kurt Cobain, and Counting Crows. It was college, long hair, and a President who played the saxophone and needed help defining “IS.” Morrissey released Kill Uncle, Your Arsenal, Vauxhall And I, Southpaw Grammar, AND Maladjusted.

But it was also Korn and Limp Bizkit, Titanic, Columbine and OJ Simpson. Yes, it had Kurt Cobain, but it also had Kurt Cobain’s suicide.

The internet started and it’s absolutely amazing, revolutionizing life and the human experience…and it kind of stinks in lots of ways, too. We got connected and more lonely & isolated then ever. We had more and more of everything and our mental health crashed.

We tend to see through some very stylish rose colored glasses, but they’re the kind of glasses that filter out anything we might not want to look at. AND we tend to see through some ugly cracked glasses that keep us from seeing any kind of light in the darkness. I guess maybe we just really struggle with complexity, with holding lots of emotions, sometimes totally opposite emotions, at the same time. We seek simplicity. Is it possible that everything is everything, all at the same time?

So what’s the point?

Who knows? All I know is that every single beautiful memory I have throughout my life involves people. Maybe I wouldn’t have loved “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” if my friends and I didn’t sing along together in our car at the mall. Every. Single. Beautiful. Memory. It was never about the thing, it was always the relationships. And maybe, if we can just remember that now, as we’re living the next beautiful memories, everything would be a lot simpler.

And Then…

May 16, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Maya Angelou famously said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Sheesh. That isn’t one of the truest things I have ever heard.

Thinking about this follows a familiar pattern.

First, I think of the ways others have made me feel. They check their cell phones when we eat together. They don’t even pretend to listen, waiting for the first breath so they can get back to talking (sometimes about something totally different, oblivious to the fact that I was ever speaking.) They are late. They use words that are intentionally cutting and/or dismissive. And on and on. A million actions, words, body language, and tones, impossible to misconstrue, can make us feel absolutely unimportant to them.

I get a little angry and frustrated at them. How can someone be so rude? So thoughtless? So self-obsessed? My hands are probably on my hips at this point, indignant at their behavior.

And then… It’s this “And then…” that really bothers me. I do wish that I could stop this pattern right after “indignant at their behavior.” It would make things so much easier. I could just be comfortably right. And I am right, it is rude, thoughtless, self-obsessed, but I am not comfortable because of the “And then…”

This happens when I watch documentaries, too. I can’t believe these people!! Monsters!!!

And then…

And then I realize the million ways I have made others feel. How could I have been so rude? So thoughtless? So self-obsessed? I am a monster, too! In the Bible, in Paul’s letter to the Romans, he spends a chapter detailing how awful everyone else is, and then, in the next breath, pulls the rug out from under us and our righteousness and says, “you are exactly like them!”

It’s a familiar pattern that I really can’t stand. I want to be happy pointing at them from the moral high ground.

But of course, there is no moral high ground, it’s all just flat, like the Midwest. And all that’s left is to pay attention to our own actions, words, body language, and tones. To the ways we make others feel. To care for their hearts. To make them feel important to us. (This is infinitely easier once they actually are important to us.) We can look, see, notice, listen, stop. We have to begin to hear Maya Angelou and integrate her words into our lives, but the sad terrible part is that we have to first have an “And then…”

Shoelaces

March 24, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I often wonder why I am the way I am. As I have asked many times before (and wondered countless times more), do I like the things I like because I am the way I am? Or have those things influenced me, gently nudging me (or violently shoving me) into the way I am now, which will not be the way I am tomorrow or next month or in 30 years?

I love a book called The Mezzanine, by Nicholson Baker, published in the mid-1980’s and which finally made its way to me around 1996ish. It’s a short, 130 page story of a man who tears a shoelace and goes to buy a replacement over his lunch hour. That’s all. Seriously, that’s what happens, and that’s all that happens.

This is not a book that everyone will like, obviously. But I really do. My job is to be the pastor of a church and I very often teach about paying attention to our lives. Look closer, feel the hands in your own, listen, kiss a little longer, notice, lean into this gift we’ve been given. The Mezzanine has entire chapters on escalators, milk cartons and straws. It’s about shoelaces but it’s really about presence.

I think we miss too much. We miss the trees beginning to respond to spring, the pre-budding of the flowers, the warmth of the seats and steering wheels, the way the verse slides into the chorus. And we take everything for granted – especially the people. The things we loved when we met are the things that we’d most like to change, or in the best case, the things we most easily ignore. Why is that? Is it simple familiarity? Or is it distraction?

At the end, he discusses the paperback he holds (Meditations, a collection of the words of Marcus Aurelius), he turns his eye to philosophy, and the great philosophers. I don’t know if he intended this novel to be his philosophical manifesto, or if he even saw a small, “insignificant” book about shoelaces to be philosophical at all. Probably. His is an attitude of being – or more specifically, being here, now. What could be more important, or necessary, than that?

Do I care so much about it today because I read that book then? Or did I read that book then because I have always cared so much about it, even before I could articulate what “it” was?

The answer is, who cares, right? It’s most likely both. Either way, the point of all of anything is to show up to our lives, to not wake up wondering what happened yesterday and wished we would have paid attention, right? The influences in our lives (or at least the positive ones) all push & pull us, sometimes kicking and screaming, into the present, and the reality of who we are, and who we’re going to be.

It’s not really shoelaces at all.

Gratitude

February 2, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site is asking me what I like to cook, and an hour ago, I would’ve had a different answer, but right now, it’s eggs with taco meat. Delish. I’m very, very proud of me. This morning, when I was thinking about lunch, I asked my AI buddy on my phone if I’d like taco meat with eggs. He/She thought I would, and…right again! If a complete takeover by the Machines means I’ll have a concoction of taco meat & eggs, while I listen to My Discovery Mix or Songs I’d Like (2 playlists my Amazon music app chooses for me), I suppose I’m in.

My youngest son was home from college last weekend, just to spend the time here, rather than there. We ate meals at the dinner table, then just stayed there. Somewhere on social media, there are NCAA tournament-esque brackets on topics (like villains, breakfast foods, etc), and he loves to ask us to rank weird, random things. We love it, too, so we just sit, decide if “people who make conversation in elevators” or “people who say 6-7 unironically” are worse, and laugh and laugh. Just the 4 of us, unless you count the AI generated pigs dancing my oldest son has discovered. (He can’t get enough, and honestly, neither can I.) We went to church and the gym together, but mostly, we just sat around our home in sweatpants (yoga pants/tights for The Angel.)

This morning, he left and walked up the snow-covered street with his bags to be back for a 10am class, and I watched him through heavy tears. (I made The Angel promise that those tears were between her & I. I didn’t want to ding the reputation I have as a stone-hearted, unemotional stoic, and here I’m confessing. Whatever. It’s probably the only time in my life that I’ve cried, because as we all know, men don’t cry ever.)

As his car pulled away, I thought about gratitude. I also considered the saying, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” (This is “widely credited to Dr. Seuss, (but) there is no direct evidence he wrote or said this exact phrase. It is believed to be a variation of a 19th-century German poem by Ludwig Jacobowski, which stated: “Do not cry because they are past! Smile, because they once were!”.) I am familiar with this sentiment, I guess it’s possible I have even used it before.

As I get a little older, I understand these clichés that we mindlessly use are super dumb. (“Cleanliness is next to godliness?” “Time heals all wounds?” A dog is man’s best friend?” No, no, and no.) We take for granted that they are true & wise, and we’re wrong.

I can probably understand what Ludwig Jacobowski thought he was saying, but think of how many times people were told not only to not cry, but to smile instead. This “oh no, don’t cry” nonsense is minimizing and dismissive, based in our own uncomfortability.

It seems to me that my tears were a wholly appropriate response (while very surprising) to the gratitude I felt for him/us, the time, the relationship we have cultivated, and the totally natural sadness at its end. I don’t want him to stay, I want him to fly, to soar, to change the world by becoming everything he’s created to be. It’s exactly what I feel for my other son, who happens to still live in this home. I don’t want to chain them in the tower, or bind their growth out of a selfish desire. Control sits opposite to love on the emotional color wheel. I say, “Go,” and “Drive safely.”

But I’m also not interested in any hint of inauthenticity. I’m 99% sure it was Anne Lamott who said, “Having a child is to decide to have your heart walk around outside of your body.” And sometimes that heart walks to his own car and drives away. And if you think that doesn’t sting, then I’m very sorry for you.

I think gratitude is acknowledging the blessings in our lives, celebrating when we want to celebrate, laughing when we have to laugh, and crying when we need to cry. Gratitude is honest, mindful, open, and present. I’m not crying now. I offered my holy tears to the God that brought us all together this morning, shared that sacred moment with The Angel, and now I have a headache. Maybe if we all stopped trying so hard to pretend to be anything other than who we are, we’d all be better off, and we’d find a new kind of empathy for one another.

A Dallas Cowboys Win

September 16, 2025/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The Dallas Cowboys are the official NFL team of the Bridge Faith Community, I’ve decided, and yesterday they barely eked out an overtime win over the hated rival New York Giants. To be honest with you, it was pretty disappointing, and as I am examining why that is, I am finding that it speaks to a reality that is far mare important than some dumb game in Texas.

Every year, I think the Cowboys will win the Super Bowl, and every year since 1995, I am wrong. This no longer ruins my year, season, month or even day, like it did when I was a teenager. They are just my favorite team. I am not a player, I have no stake in the team whatsoever. Yet, I would say I love them. [Obviously, not in the way I love my wife or any other person I actually know. I’m not an insane teenager anymore.] This is, I recognize, a ridiculous reality, but it is a reality nonetheless.

Now, let me tell you about a family beach vacation, about 10-15 years ago. One evening, we were on the boardwalk and my sister and I began to argue – I don’t remember what it was about, more than that I wanted her to say and/or do something, and she wasn’t saying or doing that thing, that way. She wanted the same from me. We had pictures in our heads of how the evening should go, and when they didn’t, we were frustrated and angry.

(If you have a sibling, you know the kind of ‘frustrated and angry’ I’m talking about. There is a certain safety in screaming out of frustrating and anger at someone you’ve lived with since you were born.)

Why were we arguing on a beautiful night on a boardwalk in Ocean City? For the same reason I was (am) disappointed in a nice win. It’s also the same reason the Angel and I usually have conflict, in our relationship. When I’m shockingly mean to me, in my head, it’s for this reason, too. And it’s also why I don’t buy, or listen to, the new Counting Crows albums. While we’re on the subject, it’s probably why we all hate each other on social media.

My sister and I fought because we had an expectation for the evening, we expected something from the other. I expect the Dallas Cowboys to win every game, comfortably. When I listen to new Counting Crows records, I still have August & Everything After in my head, and this new one is never that! I walk into these conversations with my wife with expectations that she will see it my way, or respond to me in a particular way.

Expectations are about what they should do, what they are supposed to say, how this should go, who should win, how you are supposed to see the world, and on and on. And when they don’t, when it doesn’t, I am disappointed and petty. I lash out, or pout (in other words, I say mean things or nothing at all.)

That night on the boardwalk opened my eyes to a new question, instead of why she didn’t participate in my mental construct for a perfect evening. Who in the world was I to decide how she should be, what she should say???? What gave me the right to be the all-knowing arbiter of what is supposed to be?

And when I finally asked that question, and searched my super ugly parts for the truth, it’s easy to see that I gave me that right. It’s simple arrogance, the same idolatry that is so commonplace all over the Bible and still is, today, in every corner of all creation. I didn’t like that answer, but what I like or don’t like doesn’t really matter when we’re talking about the truth.

What if I could have allowed my sister to be and do only what she wants to be and do? What if I didn’t have to control every aspect of all people and circumstances? I’ll tell you what happens – I am free to enjoy the time. I am surprised by the kindness, care and thoughtfulness of people, and the stunning beauty of my life, when it can unfold naturally, without my need to write everyone’s story by the blinding light of my own altar. Most importantly, without expectation, I am free to be grateful.

I can’t always do it (like yesterday’s NFL game, for example), maybe I never will be perfect, but I’ll sure keep trying. It’s totally worth it. Those Counting Crows albums probably aren’t so bad, after all.

Nostalgia, pt II

July 16, 2025/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I’m 2 episodes deep into Death And Other Details on Hulu right now. The Angel and I watched the George Clooney-Julia Roberts vehicle Ticket To Paradise last week, and The Devil Wears Prada this week. I had not seen either of them, even though I had wanted to see The Devil Wears Prada since it was in the theater. Recently finishing the 9 seasons of Seinfeld, my son and I began to watch Arrested Development.

That’s the equivalent of a photo dump on Instagram. This is what I’ve watched, and there isn’t much to say about any of them. I loved the Clooney-Roberts romcom, probably not as much as Prada, but there are lots and lots of worse ways to pass an evening with your special lady. We laugh out loud at Arrested Development often. Death And Other Details feels like something I’ll continue to really like. It fills a void left from The Residence (which was awesome).

I’m listening to many, many songs. The modern age is still a huge adjustment. I’ve always been an album guy, and now there aren’t too many albums, just singles, and the medium doesn’t really support/encourage album listening. Vinyl was great for that. You would put a record on and listen to an entire side, it was never background music. It was intentional and rewarding. Cassettes were a product of the time – the music was pretty disposable and hit-and-miss. You’d fast forward the garbage, rewind for the singles. CDs were both, easy enough to hear one song over and over, but versatile enough for laying down in bed with the liner notes and letting the whole thing play.

As I write, my ages old iPod is playing the first 6 or so albums from Alkaline Trio. It’s purposeful background music. I miss a few songs here and there, but when I get up & go to the kitchen for a drink or the bathroom, I sing every word.

Very little is intentional, as far as the art I consume, right about now. I haven’t even listened to the new Sarah McLachlan song more than once or twice. Maybe I like it, maybe I don’t, who knows after 2 listens? I mean, I know I like it (after all, it is Sarah McLachlan), but do I really love it? Do I really love anything anymore?

I think I saw Point Break in the theater 25 times, and another 200 times on VHS. I know all the lines and subtleties. Yes, I was in high school and didn’t have a job or a wife & kids, but that was a part of me, a part of culture, I quite liked. Listening along to the new album, reading the lyrics, was great. I felt like I knew the artists, why they created the stuff that meant so much to me.

Now, I listen to a lot of EMELINE. I have no idea why it’s all capitalized, don’t even know if it’s a band (I think it’s just one woman, but I wouldn’t bet on it). Maybe she has a long career behind her, but I don’t know. I could find out easily, but… Well, just but. I don’t know if she writes these songs herself, with a team, or not at all! I suppose I could follow her on social media and know everything she wants me to know, blur the lines between us, and probably buy the clothes she wears in her posts.

This might be an age thing, I am a thousand years old, but aging requires a certain amount of nostalgia. Everything was better when I was young, right? It sure was, even when it wasn’t. Maybe not every song in the 90’s was amazing, but truth honestly doesn’t play too much of a role in my memories. It’s the feeling, maybe it’s the simplicity that I miss. Maybe we’ve seen too much to be so naive and innocent.

I do know nothing about Diff’rent Strokes or Blood Sugar Sex Magik compares to the Angel, and I wouldn’t go back there for all the money in the world. Maybe I just wish I had been more intentional about holding on to some things, instead of leaving them all so far behind. Or maybe I never had a choice at all.

What a strange post this has turned out to be. I don’t know what the point is, or why I’m writing. I’ll have to make dinner soon. It’ll be spaghetti in a big pot, and we’ll each eat when we get time.

You know, there is a thing called a liturgical calendar, with seasons like Advent and Lent, separated by Ordinary Time. This post is like that, Ordinary Time. Maybe it’s a rebellion against that notion at all, the notion that any time is Ordinary. Maybe we reclaim the Ordinary when we notice it’s happening as it’s happening, and acknowledge it’s tremendous value.

Sprawling

July 10, 2025/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The hosting site wants to know when I go to bed and when I wake up, and that seems kind of personal, doesn’t it? Early. I go to bed and wake up early. Anyway.

I’m reading a book called A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, which is the sequel to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, both written by Hank Green. I bought the first one on vacation last year, but only read it a few weeks ago, on this year’s beach trip. It looked & sounded good, but (and I recognize this is going to sound ridiculous) Hank Green is the author of very-popular young adult novels, the most famous, well known being The Fault In Our Stars, and I didn’t really want to read young adult fiction. See, ridiculous, right? Even more so when you find out…

I’ll tell you what I found out, but first let me tell you that, once I started Absolutely Remarkable Thing, I could not put it down. It’s so great. And the moment I finished it, on a quick Google search, I discovered there was a sequel and ordered it that second. I also discovered that JOHN Green is the young adult author who wrote Fault In Our Stars! HANK Green is his brother!!! I waited a year on a faulty conclusion of a wildly silly artificial obstacle.

Who cares if it was a young adult book??? Sheesh. Nobody. And if there is such a person, can you imagine the depressing lack of interest or engagement in his/her own life? Judgment is so dumb and boring.

The books are awesome, assuming this Endeavor sticks the ending. Even if it doesn’t, the last 100 pages can’t undo the brilliance of the previous 600. If I’d meet this Hank Green, I’d tell him. Maybe I’ll direct message him or something. Maybe I should also apologize to his brother for my foolish hang-up.

The books are about fame, social media, virtual reality, aliens, progress & scientific discovery, but mostly they’re about human connection and relationships. The books make me think of that ‘Bowling Alone’ idea that we explored months ago – more people bowl but less are in leagues. More of us bowl alone. At this particular part of the book, a new totally immersive virtual program has so thoroughly captured humanity, the economy is crashing because the businesses are suffering, also the churches (let’s not be so cynical for a little, and differentiate business from church) and parks. People are staying home, plugged into their headsets.

I know the internet is wonderful, full of promise and beauty. But there is a cost. There is a cost to everything. The only question is what we’re willing to pay. I think the scariest part of this is when we no longer see that question – either we don’t think we have a choice or we are so blind the avalanche of consequences. I can use my Amazon Music, and looove that they know me as well as they do. The mixes they choose for me are always right on. I get all sorts of new, cool songs that I would not otherwise find. But how do they know me so well? Because I’ve given my shopping history, search bar, emails, texts, instagram posts, these blogs, locations, social security and credit card numbers, mother’s maiden name, “my list” on Netflix, and birthdate in exchange. How could they not know me so well? And is it worth it for the Discovery Mix?

I guess it is, but the books ask, what if they (whoever ‘they’ are) want more and more? Will I know? Will I be able to say no?

A comic book villain named Mephisto was recently introduced in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe), who is based on the devil or Mephistopheles from “Faust.” He offers what a person wants the most in exchange for their soul. They almost never know he’s a villain. We might not even need a demon to tempt us, we might be only too willing to give our soul away to the next shiny technology. We might not be able to tell if it’s a villain, either.

Quintessence!!

June 9, 2025/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Today’s site prompt is: If humans had taglines, what would yours be, and why?

First, what exactly is a tagline? I’m pretty sure I don’t have one, but maybe if I knew what one actually is, I would need one. So… “A tagline is a slogan or catchphrase, especially as used in advertising, or the punchline of a joke. Strategic tools to convey the quintessence of a brand’s identity and values in a compact form.”

Am I advertising me? I’m not a joke, I don’t need a punchline, but I could probably use a strategy to convey the “quintessence” of my identity & values in a compact form. Maybe it just takes too long to get to know me (or anyone) and we could all use taglines.

[It might sound like I am maligning these site prompts, but as it turns out, (even if I begin the post meaning to do just that), I always find them interesting. They’re a great tool to communicate. I wonder if a person writes them, or if it’s an AI prompt generator. It’s probably not a person, right? Not much is, anymore, I guess. I heard most news stories are generated. That’s sad, for some reason. I am a real, flesh and blood, person. But what is my catchphrase??? Maybe it could be, “Chad – a real person.” That would tell you a lot. But I bet that’s what a robot would say, too. It would use the acronym IRL, like kids on social media. I would not use it for me. You know what I could do? Change it to “In Real Love.” I don’t know what that means, am I in real love? Or am I the object of real love? Both.]

I don’t use the word “quintessence” enough. It’s a thing’s “perfect, ideal” example. It’s also “the fifth and highest element in ancient and medieval philosophy that permeates all nature and is the substance composing the celestial bodies.” It feels like the site means the first one, though. Maybe we’re talking medieval philosophy and the celestial bodies, but I don’t think so.

So, what is a phrase/word/sentence that’s the quintessential representation of me?

I like lots of cool things, art and words like quintessence. I like people most. I’m religious and spiritual. (I know the proper form is “spiritual, but not religious,” and I do know what it means, in a modern, popular context, but I don’t like it anymore. Religious means “Belief in/reverence for God,” and “Respect for what is sacred.” As I suspected, I am quite religious. You know what we do too often? We throw things – words, ideas, etc – out instead of reclaiming them. Just because things have baggage, or have been corrupted, doesn’t make them the problem. Our judgment is. We throw people away who have baggage, too, instead of reclaiming them as what/who they truly are.) I’m married, and I love that I am. I am a dad of 2 boys, and I love that I am that, too. I am deeply grateful, for every moment of this beautiful life in which I have found myself.

Maybe that’s it. “Chad – Real, Grateful.”

Is that my quintessence? If I were advertising me, would that convince you that I am a product you needed to have in your life? Maybe. But maybe I’m not primarily a product, and maybe you’re not primarily a consumer. Maybe we’re just us, just people, and maybe we are just in each other’s lives for no other reason than that we want to.

Pains of Nostalgia

December 31, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site prompt is, “What makes you feel nostalgic?” And, on New Year’s Eve, that feels appropriate. Or at least connected. The truth is, I feel nostalgic quite a bit. Nostalgia is defined as “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition also.” It’s a “feeling of pleasure and also slight sadness.” I don’t think it’s an entirely positive emotion. Nostalgia can be another way we are absent from the present, and there are too many of those.

I get nostalgic for the ‘90’s, even though, if I’m honest, that decade didn’t love me nearly as much as I loved it. I was lost and confused in my personal life, rudderless in my career path, generally hopeless and drifting in a sea that obviously didn’t care if I would swim or drown. Everything felt totally meaningless and random, there wasn’t anything that connected me to the world around me.

But I sure LOVED the music. I still do. I remember hearing the Counting Crows first album, August & Everythng After, for the first time. I cried when I heard “Round Here,” and I still do. I have no idea if any album will mean that much to me ever again. Maybe that’s a good thing, but it makes me sentimentally yearn for that irrecoverable condition. It makes me slightly sad.

I used to buy cds, go home and lay in my bed and read the liner notes/lyrics as I listened through a few times. I knew Sting and Bono’s real name and all of the members of the Goo Goo Dolls. I knew all of the track 9’s. Now, I barely know track 1, or what the album is titled.

That’s good, because I have the Angel and 2 sons, youth sports, and I absolutely know my purpose. I belong, am loved, and am deeply tied to this wonderfully beautiful creation. But all change, all growth, comes with loss. I am listening to a great song that I really like and would have to look to see the song title or artist’s name. (Incidentally, it’s “Bound To You,” by Jocelyn Alice, and I first heard it on an episode of Catfish. I have no idea what Ms. Alice looks like or if she has any other songs I’d like.) I miss knowing those things. I miss the simplicity of college and irresponsibility. I am still quite simple, but I am not at all irresponsible. I wouldn’t change a thing, not one.

This year will be rich and thick with wonder and meaning. I know this, because all days and moments are charged with wonder and meaning. That doesn’t mean they’re good, or feel particularly pleasant, but that sort of knowledge comes with age and attention. Blessing is for those who are aware & awake to see it and be grateful, so I am overwhelmingly blessed.

Anyway, back to the prompt. This is actually a question I have thought about, and the thing that makes me feel nostalgic, far more than anything else, is “Fade Into You,” by Mazzy Star. I have no idea why. I mean, it’s great, but it was never my favorite song. It’s not tied to treasured memories. It’s just awesome and it makes me feel awesome. And slightly sad.

Donkeys

May 24, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Who would I like to talk to soon? That’s the prompt today, and the answer is you. I made a decision, perhaps tentatively and surely doomed to fail, to write every day as form of gratitude and evangelism (not the crazy tv preacher/political posturing type, but the type that is telling others something awesome, like a new album or documentary or why there’s meaning, purpose, and joy in my life.) Then, this week, I haven’t written at all. This New Leaf lasted 3 days.

I have been busy this week, lots of appointments, meetings, youth sports, work, yesterday I spent in the Philadelphia Phillies stadium watching them beat the Texas Rangers with a very good friend. So, I could have cut all of those things short, or excised them altogether. And in my free time, I could have either answered the prompt or given my absolute attention (and smooches) to the Angel. I chose to not write.

I think that was a good decision.

Sometimes there are a million good things, and we choose based on our values and how we’ve assigned weight in our lives. There’s a story in the Bible about rescuing donkeys on the Sabbath. You can either obey the law and not work on the Sabbath. That’s a good thing, a right answer. Or you can rescue the donkey that’s fallen into a hole. That’s also a good thing. Now what?

Almost always, I’ll choose the donkey over rules and ritual. Maybe you wouldn’t, and you wouldn’t be wrong. That would simply be what weighs more to you. So, what and who are my donkeys? I chose the Angel, my sons, friends, family, cutting my mom’s grass, prayer, the baseball team, and working out, and I’m not too sorry about that. The thing about weight is, it’s actually a choice of presence and opportunity over obligation and distraction.

However, before I leave this house and this computer to meet a friend, before a Zoom meeting about a wedding, before I go to work, then a ballgame, the most important thing is this. Is here, now. Is you. You’re my donkey. And I’m not sorry about that, either.

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: presence