2024-02-29T15:13:08+00:00

Fog

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

Today’s site prompt is “Do you like your job?” I loooove my job. I would have never guessed when I was fighting with my high school guidance counselors that there was a job/mission/call/life like this, or that I could possibly be so blessed to find myself in it.

An interesting thing, before I get into what I really want to share: I have been sick, on some level, since November. It’s either 1 long illness, with varying degrees of severity, or 4 or 5 new, different ones. It doesn’t matter too much which of those is true, it’s been a tough year. A few weeks ago, I was quite sick (I still have some lingering symptoms, which may or may not resolve). I am no stranger to respiratory and nasal maladies, but this bout carried a certain “brain fog” (at least that is the phrase I’ve heard more and more since COVID, and it fit like a nice new sweater). I hadn’t worked, created, thought big, complex thoughts, and I hadn’t posted for weeks. I tried.

[As a side note, I plan for this time of year. Late February-March is historically a very difficult time for me, for lots of reasons. I know this time brings with it a desperate need for unaccounted-for downtime, which I have learned to take. But that does mean that I work like crazy in the spaces when I am not laid out by my broken heart & spirit. My work takes the form of one long-form piece (whether anyone else recognizes this or not). Each sermon stands alone, as well as standing together in what can best be described as a concept album of spirituality.]

When I looked at my work, during this time spent under the weather, I had absolutely no idea what the concept was. I kept asking, what was I thinking here??? What am I getting at? What am I trying to say? I didn’t post because I’d stare at my blank screen with even less than the emptiness of the screen in my head. Now, that has changed, this is my 3rd post this week. I have returned to my life.

What I meant to talk about is MIchael Jackson and Drake, Nirvana, Seinfeld, M.A.S.H., and Netflix. But we’ve gotten too far into this side street to begin. I’ll write it for next time. I suppose this is simply a celebration, instead. Of this terrific job, the lifting of the fog, today, engagement & presence. Of no longer missing moments because I am fuzzy and disconnected from my own soul. And that IS a celebration.

Out Of Sorts

February 7, 2024February 7, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Last week, I said I’d write a post on my new book in this space. It’s called Be Very Careful Who You Marry, and I’m not writing it today. You see, I’m a little out of sorts this week. The site post is “What do you need a break from?” And these 2 things seem to be related, but I’m not totally sure how.

I haven’t been sleeping much, and when I do, I wake up exhausted. I can only think of 2 reasons for this. The Angel is convinced I have sleep apnea. I think it’s more likely that I’ve created a second personality and have been building underground fight clubs while I think I’m asleep. True, there aren’t any new unexplainable bruises, but maybe that’s just because I’m winning.

Everything looks fuzzy and a little distorted, my neck (actually, If you look up “where is my trapezius?” that’s exactly where) is so stiff, it hurts to move, my head is pounding no matter how many pills I swallow. My whole body is sore. I want to watch tv, but it’s impossible to pay attention. I’m pretty sure I’m irritable and short with responses, but you’d have to ask those in my house.

There’s a book I’m reading right now, called As Good As Dead, by Elizabeth Evans. It’s fantastic, which is no surprise, as she is fantastic, but it’s about a this married woman who was unfaithful to her future husband 20ish years ago with the future husband of her best friend. Nobody found out, and now the best friend, with whom she had lost touch, is at her front door. Probably, she now knows, and eventually, the husband will discover what happened.

I read Fargo Rock City, by Chuck Klosterman, and Generation X, by Douglas Coupland, in a few days each. The Angel, who is the greatest, has been replacing my favorite books that we lost in our 2011 flood. There are times when people like you and me read and read and read, insatiably. I don’t want to read As Good As It Gets. A brilliant author, like Evans, can put us into the narrative, and this situation is deeply unsettling. I don’t want him to find out. I don’t want to feel what he feels, when he does. I don’t want her to have done it. I don’t want hearts to break and relationships to end. I know they do, but I don’t have to accept it. And, if I’m honest, I don’t mind that it bothers me.

I don’t watch 300, either, because I absolutely hate a scene in it. I don’t need to watch it, there are plenty of ultra-violent movies without sexual assault in them. I’ll watch them. And there are so many books where writers don’t devastate me. It’s weird, the thing that makes me love her (her ability to so accurately, so beautifully, capture human emotion) is the reason I am dragging my feet to read this book.

But I couldn’t read it now, even if I wanted to, my head is a mess. So, what do I need a break from? Who knows? Maybe stimulation. Maybe the pain of the world around me – my emotional/empathetic sensitivity (I am extraordinarily high maintenance) requires time to integrate & decompress. Maybe I haven’t had that, maybe I haven’t had enough. I guess I do feel like I’ve been run over by something big and nasty. Maybe the big, nasty something is the life I have been called into, have chosen to embrace, and love more than I can tell you.

Or maybe I just have sleep apnea.

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.

Deadlifts & Public Speaking, pt 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BUT…

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

But the conviction quietly knocking, what about that?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deadlifts & Public Speaking

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2 Songs For Thanksgiving

November 21, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Bruno Mars, in “When I Was Your Man,” breaks all of our hearts with: “I should have bought you flowers. And held your hand. Should have gave you all my hours. When I had the chance. Take you to every party ’cause all you wanted to do was dance. Now my baby’s dancing. But she’s dancing with another man.”

We all know this feeling, but maybe it’s not because she’s dancing with another man. Maybe it’s because she’s gone. Maybe it’s because she can’t dance anymore. But the feeling of, “if I only knew,” is real, and universal. We all understand “should have,” right? I should have held your hand one more time, when I had the chance.

The opposite is illustrated in Thomas Rhett, in his song, “Notice,” who sings: “At that party last night. Baby, I don’t know why. I forgot to mention. You were looking drop-dead. Not even a contest. Center of attention. If I had to say every time you looked amazing. You’d think I was joking. But I brag about you. When I’m not around you. You don’t even know it.. You think that I don’t notice. How you brush your hair out of your green eyes. The way you blush when you drink red wine. The way you smile when you try to bend the truth. You think that I don’t notice. All the songs you sing underneath your breath. You still tear up at a beach sunset. And you dance just like you’re the only one in the room. You think that I don’t notice, but I do.”

I have lots and lots of faults, too many for me to count (or to list), but one thing that cannot be said is that I do not notice. The Angel played this song for me, and the truth is that it’s not something I like too much. But I do like that she does. I love how she sits when we look at her phone while it plays, how her mouth moves to the lyrics. She knows I notice, and that’s why she curled up into my arms to listen to it with me.

I didn’t always (and, if we’re honest, I probably don’t always.) There were so many old, dead relationships where I was way more Bruno Mars than Thomas Rhett. The thing about the Mars song is that it isn’t to send us down a spiral of regret and self-loathing. Instead, it is a string around our finger, a reminder that nothing is to be missed. Both of these songs are sisters of Genesis 28:16, where Jacob laments, “Surely the Lord was in this place and I was unaware.”

Thursday is Thanksgiving, and this reminder is an invitation into a new reality that begins any time we say it does. But it is Thanksgiving, and it’s a very good time to say it does.

Of course, we should have held her hand one more time, but we can’t do anything about that now. Guilt doesn’t give us that one more dance, and neither does regret. We honor those moments we chose something else besides bringing flowers or giving our hours in a different way: by choosing to not miss the hands and hours that are here now. These gifts are precious and sweet.

There will be turkey or tofurkey, filling and apple pie (which my mom, for some reason, is now calling apple gazette), and people who are absolutely the very best and can be absolutely the very worst. When I talk about my sister, you will know she has always been my hero, and she has often been my nemesis, and my heart aches thinking about how much free time I haven’t spent with her. But what I will do is soak in Thursday on her couch with my mom (who is now calling apple pie apple gazette, and so will we), brother, nephews and my favorite dog ever, I will thoroughly enjoy every second.

The Rhett song has a line, “Baby, I don’t know why. I forgot to mention. You were looking drop-dead.” The conviction we feel is to not forget to mention ever again.

Look into their eyes. Hold their hands to pray, to say thanks. Say thanks for them and for the God who created us all and gave us to each other to make these days so full of wonder and light. Kiss too deeply, hug too long, laugh too loud, and eat as much apple gazette as you can, get sick on joy and love. It’s Thanksgiving!

To Skip Or Not To Skip

November 15, 2023November 15, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Today’s site prompt is, “What part of your routine do you always try to skip if you can?” and that fits pretty well with what I was thinking about right now.

First of all, what does “if you can” mean? It is my routine, I decided it was important, and made it a practice. Now, if this means work, in general, or specific tasks at work, I misunderstand the assignment. I could skip them, but it probably also means I am skipping employment, and that seems like a different question. But if it’s my routine, I can skip it if I want. No one is making me live the way I do, I am mostly free to do or not do.

The right answer to the prompt is Leg Day. I lift weights, separating days into Push (chest, shoulders, triceps), Pull (back, biceps), and Legs. This morning was Leg Day, and now my legs, back, buns, feet and toes hurt, my neck and head are heavy and tired. I know tonight I’ll have to go to bed, and that means I might have to crawl up the stairs. Maybe I’ll sleep on the couch down here. Sleeping next to the Angel is wonderful, but my legs.

My routine is made up of items like feeding the many pets in this house, working out, showering, eating breakfast, brushing my teeth, reading the Bible, lunch, dishes, writing, picking my boy up from school, and lots of other things I don’t remember now. But the number of things or even what they are aren’t the point. The point is that I created this routine.

We decide what’s important, what we value, and then we (hopefully) implement them. We brush our teeth because clean teeth matters to us. We eat breakfast, or we don’t, because we’ve given assigned a heavy weight to either one. None of them are necessarily convenient, but they are the blocks we use to intentionally build our lives.

I sat in my chair this morning with precisely this situation in my lap. Of course, I didn’t want to. I know what Leg Day is, and I no longer love it like I did even a few years ago. But I wouldn’t skip it, any more than I’d skip getting dressed. I am a man who lifts legs. I like that I am that man, it means something, it says things about me. It says I’m consistent, reliable, that I do hard things. Legs aren’t really the point, those characteristics are, and legs are how I remind me of them, and the man I want to be. I’m not always reliable, don’t always do the hard things, but getting up early on Wednesdays to lift legs without choosing the easy excuses moves me further along the path towards who I will be.

I can skip Leg Day, but why would I compromise on future me. We too often settle. I too often settle. And I guess I think part of reclaiming our worth as human beings is not settling for the crumbs that fall from the plate on the way to the trash, when we belong at the table.

I could be consistent most of the time, when it fits the schedule or the company. I could do hard things, unless it’s too hard. And I can do leg day, except for those days I don’t feel like it. But I’ve settled for a very long time. I am already well aware of the boy “when I feel like it” makes. I can’t wait to see what happens, to find out who I become, if I stop settling for so much less.

Last Night

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

With this blank screen in front of me, I know what I want to say, I just don’t know how to say it. Or even if I should, Our words should be used to build, and that is usually what I try to do in this space, but sometimes the point is in our bad behavior, hidden in our our most regrettable moments. And writing anything is about honesty, especially in a non-fiction blog situation. If we feel like the writer is curating an image, what on earth is the point? Anybody can wear a mask and lie. The only way to find connection is through a mutual authenticity, and sometimes that is ugly on the outside.

Last night the baseball season ended. The first day, I sat the boys down and said something like, teenage boys are awful a lot of the time. But that’s only because they usually deal in Lord of the Flies type social dynamics. They’re mean, sarcastic, cutting. They mock and tease, try to shrink others to make themselves appear taller. This is ridiculous and rooted, as everyone knows, in fear and a raging insecurity. They wear masks to try to hide the overwhelming inadequacy in their hearts.

Of course, this is not just teenage boys. It’s just as much women at your office or men at the grocery store. We act out of our perceived lack, and that makes us nasty and awfully dangerous.

So I tell them we will not do that here, we will operate from a different reality. You don’t have to be insecure here, you don’t have to be afraid. We’ll stand up straight, support and love each other. And that’s largely what happened. Errors and mistakes were easily forgotten, lots and lots of encouragement was poured out like water, and we won everything there was to win.

A side note: It’s not often enough that the best people are the best performers. The kindest, gentlest, most caring people don’t always win. When they do, as was the case this season, it must be acknowledged and savored. As written in the masterpiece Horton Hatches The Egg, “and it should be, it should be, it should be like that!”

Last night was the league celebration, where they got the trophies they had earned through hard work and commitment – to themselves, their gifts, the game, and each other. The second place team in the year end tournament was also there to collect theirs, as well.

Then the coach was invited to give the medals to the players, and he (clad in sunglasses and a skull t-shirt instead of a team/sponsor/uniform shirt), wearing an uninterested disguise, walked to the front, using foul language and disrespect as weapons.

Another side note: I don’t mind foul language, not much is offensive to me, but there is a time and a place. A youth sports event, in front of the league administration, players and parents, is not the place (whether they’ve all ‘heard it before’ or not.)

He handed his medals to the players without regard for them and their work. Then as we got ours, he made a derisive comment and they all refused to acknowledge any of us, as we collected tournament and league championships, and our players received their all-tournament & MVP awards.

It was so so sad. It might have been something, anything else if the behavior wasn’t so hollow and obvious. I wanted to cry and give him a hug.

My question was, why? Why would anyone want to discount or diminish an achievement, any achievement, of another? But I already know. The desperate quest for proving your worth, and the accompanying terror of not knowing if you’ll ever find it, is very powerful and has crushed far more than just him.

I don’t know if my team made the connection. When we were alone, I reiterated the importance of living free of the inadequacy/insecurity that weighs down so many of our moments – I wonder if they recognized that they were given a perfect illustration of the result of a lifetime under the boot of unworthiness, like the ghost of Christmas future.

As for the boys I coached, I told them they were beautiful, that I was so proud of them (championship or not), and that they were loved. I told them every minute we spent together was an honor for which I could never adequately express. Then we said goodbye for the last time this season.

As for that guy, I wish he hadn’t embarrassed himself so thoroughly. But more, I wish and pray that he finds some sort of peace in who he is and feels the familiar arms of a loving God around him, whispering in his ear that he is, and has always been, loved.

And as for me, (to again borrow from Horton and his egg), they sent me home happy, one hundred percent.

Baby Steps

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

There is this Japanese concept called Kaizen, where small, nearly imperceptible, steps stack up and we find that we are miles from where we began. Usually, we decide we need to change something (exercise, food, any pattern/habit you can think of) and jump into the deep end. Our diet is bad, we feel like garbage, so we cut out carbs, sugar, soda, AND dairy. We are healthy and awesome, for 15 minutes, and then we binge on all of the things we recently excised. We’re stuck on the couch, maybe we’ve never worked out before, so we commit to going to the gym, deciding to lift heavy weights every day for 3 hours/day. We are strong and believe our shirts are much tighter around the arms, we are fit and ripped. Until the morning of day 3, when we’re in so much pain we can’t put pants on or brush our teeth, and that’s the end of that.

Kaizen laughs at this “strategy” – we’ll call this method Foolish. In the diet example, if every day we are eating an entire package of Oreos, today we eat that package minus one. We can do that easily enough, so we do. We throw the extra one away. Then tomorrow, we eat the package minus 2. And so on. But the time we even consider going a day without Oreos, we’ve already had 30ish successes and are feeling quite good about our chances.

In the Foolish paradigm, we fail, fall off wagons, and end up worse than when we started (mostly because we have yet another false start and the automatic negative voices in our heads have more evidence of our lack of will power.) We totally bought the lies of no pain, no gain. If it’s not, at least, uncomfortable (searing pain is much much better) it’s not worth doing.

But Kaizen takes time. Sometimes lots and lots of time. We barely notice just how far we’ve come, but we are completely transformed. The pounds stay off, the gym is a lifestyle, we read, learn, grow, our relationships are stronger, we are more flexible and consistent, we are new.

In a culture whose religion is instant gratification, Kaizen doesn’t play well. We don’t want to deadlift the bar for a month to fine tune our form, we’d rather load it up until our spines bend and crack and we break. We don’t want to lose 1 pound this week when we can lose 10 with snake oil supplements and the latest trend in thermogenic diarrheal cleansing. We don’t want Meditation for Beginners, 1-5 minutes a try for a thousand tries before we level up to 6-10 minutes, we’d rather lock ourselves in a closet for an excruciating hour once.

We’ve exchanged patience for boredom. Small, consistent growth is boooooring. Small, consistent growth is also awesome and lasting.

[Of course, some things require drastic immediate change to save your life. Kaizen is not the best choice for heroin addiction or alcoholism. There is no weaning off an extramarital affair. Some things must be amputated now, with a swift motion. We are not talking about those things.]

If our marriage is lukewarm and we are drifting apart, losing our connection, maybe a monthlong intensive 1-on-1 immersive experience is counterproductive and will magnify our small annoyances and increase the space between us. Instead, let’s turn our phones off and have dinner tonight, just tonight. Then again next week (or even next month), then maybe twice. Maybe we start to look forward to it, maybe we begin to remember why we got together in the first place. Or if we’ve lost physical touch and intimacy, committing to a weekend sexfest might not be the best path. Maybe if we hold hands in the car on the way to pick the kids up, or a quick kiss on the cheek goodbye, would be more effective to tearing down those walls.

The walls won’t come down today or tomorrow or next months, but the relatively comfortable baby steps continue, steady and slow, until those walls are down and we’re heading out to that sexfest with our special people 35 pounds lighter with thick arms and a robust meditation practice, not missing the Oreos even a little.

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.

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: presence

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