2024-05-25T20:40:21+00:00

The Best All

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

Today, the blog website is asking, “What does ‘having it all’ mean to you? Is it attainable?” I can’t say that I’ve ever considered this, even as the phrase “have it all” has been used in songs and advertising campaigns pretty much forever. It reminds me of that other mindless, subjective cliche, “live your best life.” What is this best life? Doesn’t that sound like having it all?

So. What is this ‘all?’ Is it money? How much is enough? Does anyone actually have enough? I heard a statistic once that, when people were asked how much money they needed to be comfortable, everyone, regardless of income, answered 10% more. Greed (or the lust for more) is a wild contrast with the process of transformation (or the desire for growth.) Success? What is that? Is it a great job? Is a great job one you love or one that pays very well? Great is awfully subjective, too. Is ‘all’ marriage, children, pets?

Marriage and children is fairly controversial now, I guess, but pets aren’t. Do I need a pet to have it all? And will a fish do? Or a guinea pig? A nice car? Hot tub? White picket fence? Perfect white teeth and washboard abs? Do other people have to envy me? Does this have anything to do with anyone else? Is this concept of all, or best life, universal? Or is it as individual as we are?

What about spirituality or education? Or mental & physical health? Is it as simple as having out needs met? But in this country, do we even know what we need? Or is it a matter of want? Or have we completely conflated the two? Is there a practical difference? Significance, meaning, purpose, connection…do these things matter?

If these prompts are designed to spur thought or conversation, this is a fantastic success. I suppose everyone’s answer is unique, but what probably isn’t is a sense of gratitude & contentment. It doesn’t really matter what the what is, it’s how we hold it. If we wrestle our lives and aspirations, squeezing them into submission, as we continue to climb higher and higher, desperately looking for the next rung, or mile-marker, nothing is (or will ever be) all. But if it’s what we have, here and now, and we can hold what we have been given with soft careful hands for as long as we have them, those things become treasures that are absolutely priceless. We become the kind of people who fall in love with all of this beauty, and that sounds exactly like a best life, if you ask me.

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.

Sacrifice

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

What sacrifices have you made in life? is the site prompt today. I’m not exactly certain how to answer. Each Yes comes with a thousand No’s. To choose this shirt or these shoes requires not choosing that or those. Is that a sacrifice? Living where I do, maybe we don’t know what true sacrifice is, yet relativity exists, so our perception makes our sacrifices (whether they match up with others or not) true.

The pain of a middle school heartbreak is not the pain of living in the Middle East at wartime. The anxiety of college acceptance is a different kind of anxiety than the citizens of Ukraine feel, but that doesn’t make the heartbreak less painful or the anxiety less authentic.

So, my American middle class sacrifice is real, in theory. Now, what’s mine? I chose time at home over time at work chasing a high paying job. Consequently, I do not have the nicest car in my neighborhood or a house out of a magazine. But I do have an A+ marriage, kids I actually like, and I’ve not missed a game or concert throughout school. I have 2 college degrees and am the pastor or a church we started in my house. I could have a different career – unless you are one of the legion of the pastors of a megachurch, this is not a path to obscene wealth. Maybe I could have made different decisions, but considering the joy I live with, and the happiness I feel, why would I have made them?

I could probably kiss another woman, but the Angel’s kiss is the sweetest, and I don’t ever want anyone else, even the tiniest bit. Is that sacrifice? Does sacrifice have to feel like a sacrifice? And if it doesn’t, is it simply agency?

I’ll tell you what sacrifice I’d like to make in my life, and intend to make: I’m heavier than I’ve been since 2017, and this cannot continue. Not because I’m vain or have a poor body image (which, I suppose, I do), but because my joints ache a little more than they did 15 pounds ago and because I have a pair of shorts I like that I can’t fit into (and am not wasting any money to replace), but mostly because I’d like to live as long as I can with the blessings I’ve been given. So, under either definition, this is a sacrifice. Making different choices in the kitchen is agency and it sucks. Wish me luck…

The Elusive WHY

May 16, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site is asking what is the oldest thing I’m wearing today. I have a pair of white Old Navy gym shorts that are easily 15 years old. They’re white so they always look vaguely dirty, but they fit well and I still like the way they look well enough.

I just got off the phone with a good friend, who filled me in on the happenings of her life, husband, mixed Brady Bunch family, ex-spouses, livestock, and in-laws. It’s a lot, messy and dramatic, just like the stories you & I would tell. She’s probably funnier than most of us are. But the interesting thing is that she wrapped up with the incredulous phrase, “this is exactly the life I wanted.”

Now, maybe tomorrow I’ll write about the importance of the peace in her marriage relationship, but today it’ll be her Why. When we have a clear why, a purpose for being/doing that explains all of this, it gives the focus and strength to endure almost any What.

So, what’s mine? What’s yours? In the Bible, Jesus asks a man, “What do you want me to do for you?” I wonder how we’d respond. Do we know what we want? Do we know who we are and what we’d ask for, if the one who could provide was standing in front of us? Do we have a Why we do the things we do? Maybe the Why isn’t great, and maybe today’s Why can’t really sustain and we need a new one for tomorrow & next week. But life gets pretty overwhelming sometimes, and things don’t make an awful lot of sense, it’s nice to have a rock to tie our pieces of string around so we don’t get lost.

One Small Step

May 13, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

What’s one small improvement you can make in your life? That’s the site prompt today, and probably deserves an answer.

I watched 2 documentaries and a movie this weekend. I’m still recovering from a cold that I am getting more and more resigned to carrying for the rest of my life. And it was raining, so it was a perfect weekend to climb under a blanket and watch something other than the NBA playoffs.

Finding Andrea is a 3 episode series following the disappearance of a woman in Kentucky who, incidentally, belonged to an organization that searched for (and was instrumental in finding) missing persons. She was complex, hiding the many facets of her life to the point that very few would claim to have actually known her. She died having lived a mostly dishonest, inauthentic life with lots & lots of secret compartments. She was probably killed by her sister and her boyfriend (at least that’s the implication I took from the doc). I don’t imagine we’ll ever know, because Andrea wasn’t the only one in the family who wasn’t interested in honesty. Her own dad would rather protect the possibly guilty daughter/boyfriend (who didn’t participate in the film) than be further torn apart by the truth. I guess I can’t blame him, who knows what I’d do in his place??

Max Joseph was a co-host of the Catfish TV show, and created a documentary called 15 Minutes of Shame with Monica Lewinsky. Lewinsky knows of what she speaks, as her life was torn apart by a series of very public poor decisions and behavior. This film looked at a guy who tried to sell and sanitizer at a ridiculous price during COVID, a woman who sent an ugly joke on Facebook and became the object of national scorn, and a man who was “cancelled” over a mistaken hand gesture in a company van. We think we know these people based on 1 small aspect of their personalities or an isolated incident, sometimes misunderstood, always without any shred of context. I don’t know Andrea’s dad, and to assume I know his motivations based on 2 or 3 clips is the height of arrogant condescension. Of course, he seems like something, the hand sanitizer guy seems like a scumbag, the woman seems heartlessly callous (as do the political pundits who condemned her). The hand gesture guy is obviously pretty silly, and the product of a culture gone power-crazy. But how do we actually know? I bet I seem all kinds of ways, based on extracted phrases in any one of these posts, or in overheard conversations at my dinner table.

The movie was My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and was absolutely as great as I remembered. It’s funny and feels good. But what’s notable is that no one is played as only a fool. Everyone acts like a fool at times, everyone is embarrassing in moments, but they all just seemed like “normal people.” Sort of. Admittedly, most are caricatures, but the caricatures leaned towards a positive, good nature rather than the mean, minimizing, debasing cartoons we are usually fed. I would guess that Ms. Vardalos sees the rest of us, sees “normal people,” through beautiful lenses that believe the best. I would guess that she likes us. That her idea of “abnormal” is abuse, betrayal, and violence. I believe the same.

We are made to walk together, to hold hands, and to love each other, and I’ll never be convinced otherwise. Maybe the shamed examples in 15 Minutes weren’t sorry they were caught as much as they were heartbroken they were led down a path so antithetical to their design. I thought the fiction of the movie was far closer to truth than the documentaries, because it showed the world in which I live, where the overwhelming majority are like you, trustworthy and awesome. Monsters exist, but in such small numbers, they stand out like neon signs at midnight. We’ve just bought lies for too long, choosing to acknowledge the missteps and failures as complete pictures, that we stopped seeing the beauty in each other.

I don’t know who Monica Lewinsky is, no matter how many pages I can read on the internet about her. And I’ll say the improvement I can make is to stop pretending I do.

Hellville

May 8, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

So, I watched the Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion documentary on Max last weekend. Brandy Melville is, apparently, a wildly popular clothing store for young-ish girls that I have never heard of. I don’t know how to feel about that. Of course, a middle-aged man (and I don’t know how to feel about that, either) maybe shouldn’t be too concerned with the fashion trends & habits of girls. There is an argument to be made that a middle-aged man maybe shouldn’t be too concerned with fashion trends & habits, at all, but whatever. I happen to like to be familiar with popular culture, as it is what we generally regard as our principal connector, and as I happen to like to connect, the popular culture is important to me.

Brandy Melville was created and operated by an older man named Stephan Marsan. Maybe that’s weird. The men are pretty creepy, sexist and racist, which is worse than weird, but if we knew who runs all of the companies we patronize, it might not be a collection of the best people in the world. This guy might not be such an exception.

The idea is that our clothes are disposable and our conscienceless consumption is unsustainable. In the service of providing them to us inexpensively, the supply chain is overflowing with slavery and human trafficking. This obviously isn’t only clothing, I’m typing on an iPad that’s production story would absolutely horrify us. And our phones and tvs and food and furniture. Everything probably has a similarly sordid path to our nameless big box retailer. And afterwards, we discard the old without thinking, and they end up in landfills or on, as this doc details, on the beaches of Ghana.

Why do we need so much? When will we finally see the manipulations of marketers/advertisers as the lies that they are? These solutions for modern life that we neeeeed will not fill our holes or our broken parts. They never did, they were never supposed to – it’s how they stay in business. If those jeans or that car did make us whole, we wouldn’t buy next season’s models, which would leave them all unemployed. The consumption is an issue, but not the one I am interested in today. The disposability is.

Everything in our culture is made with a shortened shelf-life. We use them today and throw them away when they no longer serve us, and get a new one. This is troubling when we’re talking about t-shirts, but exponentially more so when we begin to talk about people & relationships. The t-shirts are cheap, temporary, and we carry that to our commitments, friends and marriages. The second they stop serving us, making us feel a certain way, we toss them aside and get a new one.

I just don’t think this sort of perspective should be allowed to exist any longer, anywhere. Maybe 4 friends we’d die for are much, much better that 4,000 “friends” we barely know. Maybe 1 pair of jeans that’ll last for the rest of our lives is preferable to 8 or 10 to last the month. Instead of trading our partners in, maybe marriages should last, even after the excitement of falling in love fades. Maybe we all feel that we’re only as good as our last conversation or report, and maybe that’s causing us all to feel very, very anxious. Maybe that’s the birthplace of everybody’s increasing perfectionism.

Maybe not, of course, maybe it’s progress, and maybe I’m just hopelessly old-fashioned… Either way, I’m going to buy less cheap garbage and keep the Angel forever.

You Just Are.

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

Here’s the first thing I read today (from Morning Brew): “In unsurprising news, middle school kids in Norway have been feeling mentally healthier and performing better academically since a public health initiative banned smartphones in schools, according to a new study. After three years of the policy, girls’ GPAs increased, while visits to mental health professionals decreased by 60%—and girls from lower-income families benefited the most. There wasn’t much effect on boys’ academic standings, but both boys and girls experienced 43%–46% less bullying after putting their phones away.”

And here’s the second (from Mark Manson’s newsletter): “We are often drawn to chaotic romantic partners because their chaos guarantees that we will feel needed…We can become insecure around stable romantic partners because we worry that they’ll never fully need us. And that’s because: they won’t.”

The first one is something we would call fairly obvious, right? Social media and screen time are behind any number of concerning effects. So, why will we not follow in Norway’s footsteps? And further, why do we need studies to make decisions to eliminate our phones in schools? Why wouldn’t we just choose to ban our own phones for hours, during the day? Why don’t we turn them off from time to time? We won’t, but studies like this make me ask why not.

The second is less apparent, maybe. I’ve often wondered why we stay in overly dramatic relationships, is it really as simple as our own insecurity? We’re not actually needed, chaos doesn’t require us, just more chaos. Drama doesn’t care what the drama is, or who is involved, as long as there is drama.

Now, is it possible they’re connected? If our phones are the new most important relationship in our lives, our de facto romantic partners, do we allow the chaos and damage they inflict, because they make us feel needed? We quickly, instinctually, reach when it beckons. Silence is evidence of loneliness, a lack of “likes” shows our irrelevance or unworthiness. I only exist if others see and comment. The internet is chaotic by nature, it doesn’t neeeed us, wouldn’t miss us if we unplugged, the ocean doesn’t care of we drown. Mental health is of no consequence to the machines in our hands. But that doesn’t mean we don’t believe we’re necessary, important, and valuable to their survival, especially the quality of their lives.

Your value isn’t tied to followers or subscribers. Or to your girlfriend or boyfriend, for that matter. All of this is based on lies that our performance is the most important thing about us, bringing us back to the first question we ask (and keep asking ever after): Am I good enough?

That answer is yes, no matter how crazy your life is or how many messages are in your inbox. You just are.

Face-Melters

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

A session musician in the terrific documentary I watched yesterday (called Hired Gun) said he only plays on songs he likes. If he were to play on songs he hates, just for the paycheck, it would be a violation of his soul. Not only were they buying (renting) his skill on guitar, they were also buying everything that had ever gone into his development to get to this point. Every experience, every hour, every broken string, every ounce of sweat, disappointment, and joy. Every opportunity forgone in service of his passion & craft.

I am the pastor of a church, and when this faith community began, I promised I’d never take a salary. The lines between religion and commerce could not be crossed. To enmesh God and business is wildly offensive.

Now, here’s the problem with narrow, closed-minded thinking. On one hand, I was right. It IS offensive, having a sanctuary that exists for the merchandise table is gross. But on the other, always/never is pretty dangerous. Maybe it’s not always so disgusting. Maybe there’s a space between using offerings for private jets and closing the church doors because we can’t afford to keep the light on.

The other problem is promising, or saying, “I’d never ____,” is that sometimes, people and circumstances change. I worked full time (+ on call) delivering medical equipment, full time for the church, and much more than full time being a husband and daddy of 2. Either I suffer a painful, absolute break down (where I am not a full time anything), or something had to go. An adjustment had to be made, and that adjustment, if it was to continue the ministry we started in my living room, I would have to accept some kind of compensation.

I felt dirty for a long, long time. Then, I began officiating weddings. My first few I didn’t charge any money, accepting only what they’d put in cards handed to me as I left. Of course, this meant I did Saturday weddings away from my family for nothing at all except the beauty of the moment. These experiences were wonderful, but were they worth the cost? On my family, on my heart, on the church, on my mental/physical health, worth missing the people & things I missed?

So, I started to charge, I was always the cheapest option, and even then, always with a certain embarrassment. Some people wouldn’t pay before being asked several times. Once I had to ask up to, on the wedding day, and afterwards. Months later, my last message said, “I guess you won’t be addressing this (still too embarrassed to call it a “fee” or “payment”), so I won’t ask again.” Now, I get it before, but it’s never easy and never without the familiar, “I hate to ask this, but ____.”

Yes, familiar, but is it true? Do I honestly hate to ask? Can I love to do the thing and still charge to do it? Do you like your job? Would you do it for free? Is ministry different, in that regard? Paul writes in plenty of his letters that everybody, even ministers of the Gospel, should be paid for what they do, but the distance from our head to our heart can be very, very long.

I wrote a book on marriage that I believe could help everybody in the whole world. (Of course I do, why else would I write it? Well, I suppose also, like all art, because it’s on my heart and has to get out or I’ll never sleep again.) Yet, I apologize sheepishly for charging. Why do I do that? Because of that whole church-commerce separation, that’s why. I am not housing a fleet of Rolls Royces in my massive garage. I am not wearing suits that cost thousands of dollars. I drive a Focus with real transmission problems and wear thrift store sweaters. I’m not amassing an empire.

But I am trying to take a sledgehammer to all things that could separate anyone from the love of Jesus. And what separates us quicker and easier than greed & fortune in His name?

But that guitarist is absolutely right. He didn’t just roll out of bed today to play a face-melting solo in a vacuum. And neither did I (but a face-melting sermon, or wedding ceremony, in my case;). Everything I say on Sunday mornings or Tuesday evenings or Saturday nights was forged in middle school hell, and the grunge-ish band I was in, and my degree, and my issues, and my pain, and my family dynamics, and the times I had my heart broken, and the years I spent raging agains the machines of government and religion. My words come from hours and hours of study funneled through my unique perspective, that came from countless experiences, positive and negative. My ministry is a flaming ball of passion, life, divine gifts, and failures.

And so is yours. We’re all face-melters. My perspective is unique, but not in how it came about. We are not just slices of pie, we are pies. And to think we can have a bite without all that went into the creation of the whole is remarkably misguided. You became you in midnights and 4pms, in makes and misses, in sweats and suits, and you wouldn’t be you without all of them. And there’s enormous value in the school that produced you – it’s a priceless process and we wouldn’t have the joy of me or you any other way.

I appreciate that guy. I don’t know his name, and that’s sort of the point of the doc, but I’ll remember him forever. In fact, I’m going to double my prices, starting today. Ok, maybe tomorrow, but they’re going up.

A Heartbreaking Disappointment

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

For Christmas, the past several years, I’ve taken my son to an NBA basketball game. We live in Pennsylvania, so we go to a game when the 76ers play the Dallas Mavericks.The Mavericks are his favorite team because Luka Doncic is his favorite player by a mile. Last Christmas, I thought it would be amazing to take him to Dallas (his first flight) to see them at their home arena, to play a team other than the 76ers – in this case, Steph Curry & the Golden State Warriors. This was a bigger decision than it might sound, because we can’t exactly afford a flight, hotel, car, and game, but sometimes paying for a debt all year is absolutely worth it. The game is next week, and the season has gone in a direction for both that makes it a very big game. How exciting, right?

Well, apparently the Dallas Mavericks and/or the NBA thought so, too, so they rescheduled the game. The first, the one I bought and gave as Christmas gift, was Tuesday, April 2, Warriors AT Mavericks. Yesterday, I received confirmation for my tickets: Friday, April 5, Warriors at Mavericks. Tuesday, the Mavericks are now going to Golden State. My game tickets are still good, the game has just been moved. Just.

Sometimes, NFL games are “flexed” and change times or even dates, depending on the importance of the game. That is usually ok with me, because, like everybody else, I don’t think much about the impact of a dumb game on others. Things mostly only matter to me in direct correlation to their proximity to me. In other words, I only care if it happens to me. I recognize that isn’t something exclusive to me, it’s a human disease, and if we are interested enough to change, we spend our whole lives taking baby steps to open our minds and hearts to notice and understand the lives of others.

I did think of those poor suckers who have sports tickets to a game to only get it flexed, or rescheduled, away. Today, I am that poor sucker. I am not the usual poor sucker, I know full well that tv contracts drive sports leagues far more than ticket sales. And I know the ticket sales of once/year fathers & sons really doesn’t move any needles at all. Yes, I know these things, and today, I don’t care. I think it’s awful. And I think it’s awful I have to tell my boy the biggest part of the trip we’ve been planning for months has disappeared. I wonder if it’s worth it to fly to Dallas to rent a car and stay at some hotel to eat a few meals out? I wonder if the trees or sun look different there.

Of course, like everybody else, we’d like to see the stadium where the Cowboys play… Is it worth a year of debt? If they let us work out in the team weightroom with the team, maybe. But now that I think about it, I like the Cowboys because of the star on the helmet far more than the name on the back of the jersey (at least since Troy Aikman retired). If I don’t ever do curls with Dak Prescott, it’s not a loss I’ll regret.

When I say it’s awful, I do it in full awareness that in the eternal scope of things, a family missing an NBA game is very low. But relativity simply doesn’t matter when it comes to heartbreak. When a teenage girl breaks up with a boy, the tears don’t come less because the Middle East is in a perpetual war. The diagnosis of a 90 year old woman in Tennessee certainly isn’t as big as the bombs in Ukraine that will kill many, many more over a line on a map (yes, it’s an oversimplification, but you get the point). But it’s not inconsequential to that woman in Tennessee or to her family. It’s seismic and earth-shattering. The boy who has lost his first girlfriend will find another, we all know that, but it doesn’t make it better, it never has and never will.

Our pain is just that, ours. And it doesn’t have much at all to do with relativity. Yours is yours and mine is mine, and one moment spent comparing the 2 is pointless and disrespectful. A broken finger is not a fractured rib, but it still hurts like crazy. We talk honesty here, right? How many times has it made sense when a friend told you what they were walking through but didn’t want to tell you because others have it worse? None. Not one. Not now, not ever.

Because we hurt doesn’t minimize their suffering. We can hold them all in our great big beautiful hearts. I’m angry and disappointed over this ticket catastrophe, but in no way do I confuse it as being a monumental global disaster. Or even as any bigger than it is. But I do think the God that created and loves me cares. A LOT. And is disappointed with us (not in us). I bet He saw that reschedule and all of the fathers & sons who will lose the experience and was disappointed. I bet He saw me when I read that email and longed to hold me with His human arms and ease the storm inside my chest. And that’s good enough for me.

So maybe I’ll see you in Dallas, on Tuesday, at some awesome bbq restaurant or working out with the offensive line. And maybe I won’t.

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.

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: Spirituality