2023-09-04T23:17:39+00:00

A Theory and A Resolution

September 4, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I have this theory. Let’s say a person is ruining their life by, for example, listening to tons and tons of Dave Matthews Band albums. This is an objective perspective, no rational human could disagree, he/she is taking a sledgehammer to his/her precious life.

In scenario A, you don’t really know him well, if at all. If you walk right up and tell him what a huge mistake he’s making, “Repent!!!!” there is a 0% chance he will change this abhorrent behavior.

In scenario B, you know her very well, you are friends (not just online social media “friends,” but actual friends), BUT she has not asked you what you think of her choices, including this DMB mistake. If you, at that point, as a good friend, give your opinion, she will take it kindly & graciously, carefully consider your words and act appropriately 7% of the time.

In scenario C, a perfect storm occurs, and a very good friend asks you what you think of her choices, especially this Dave Matthews embarrassment. Now, you have a deep, solid relationship, AND she has asked you about this wrecking ball that is devastating her soul. When you answer her specific question, there is a sky high 21% chance of action.

This begs an interesting question. If my (admittedly anecdotal) theory is even close to correct, why would we ever reach out to another? Scenario A – the equivalent of sandwich boards on street corners – has no upside and could quite possibly end with physical violence. Scenario B and C have little hope for positive outcome and often ends with hurt feelings and/or distance & division. So why would we risk it?

We love each other, and we are called to care for each other, to be our brother’s keeper, that’s probably why. If we see a car bearing down on a pedestrian, wouldn’t we push them out of the way? Isn’t it our responsibility to push them out of the way? If we didn’t, aren’t we nearly as guilty as the driver? What kind of world do we live in, if no one is looking out for anyone else?

Of course, I’m not talking about simple personal preference, sticking our noses into everybody’s business, trying to ‘save’ each other from the wrong toothpaste or type of apple. This is real life.

I don’t take it well, when somebody I know and trust pulls me aside to critique or question the path I’m on. But certainly I should. It’s incredibly hard for them to do what they did, and it probably has been sitting heavy on their shoulders for months, trying to invent any reason to not confront me. Unless they are arrogant animals, in which case, it’s not courageous at all and is instead, wildly ego-centric and completely insufferable. I think I’m going to be more open to this kind of feedback, as my New September’s Resolution.

But if I have a friend who is fixed on self-destruction, Scenario B or C, where I’m as sure as I can be that it’s not a personal preference, and is a Dave Matthews-type situation, I’m going to try a 2 prong approach. First, I’m going to offer my perspective, with no judgment or expectation, in love and in gentleness. Well, the no expectation part is the second prong, which might just be part of the first. Maybe it’s just a complex 1 prong approach. With no expectations, I will take a breath and offer my heart, and if they do nothing with it (if they’re one of the 79%), I will be ok with it. I will lay down my insatiable desire to control in deference to the relationship and my love for them. I will try be ok with it and try to lay to rest that big nasty roaring bloodthirsty control monster in my head.

This is my theory and my resolution. Wish me luck.

Why The Safety Dance Is So Important

August 29, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/1 Comment

The Safety Dance is an ‘80’s song by Men Without Hats, not the be confused with the far superior Australian legends Men At Work. The biggest difference, to help us keep them straight, is that Men Without Hats had, as far as I can remember, 1 pretty good song (and a singer with a questionable haircut), and Men At Work were awesome.

In the grander scope, Men At Work are important. Down Under and Who Can It Be Now? are the monstrosities, but Overkill is the best. Lead singer Colin Hay gave significant contributions to the Garden State and Scrubs soundtracks. We are better people with better lives with Men At Work in them.

Men Without Hats, on the other hand, are mostly forgettable without the overwhelming number of ‘80’s 1 Hit Wonder compilations. But what I didn’t realize is how valuable The Safety Dance is to us today, in our current situation.

The song has one of the very worst lyrics ever written. “We can dance, we can dance,” (and here it is, get ready:) “everybody look at your hands.” It’s horrible, only there because it rhymes, as if a 2nd grade student wrote a poem at recess while everyone else was playing 4 square. We all cringe because there’s nothing else to do with it.

Meaningless awful lyrics are nothing new, but what’s interesting is that The Safety Dance also has one of the very best lyrics. “We can dance if we want to, we can leave your friends behind” (and here it is, get ready:) “’Cause your friends don’t dance and if they don’t dance, Well, they’re no friends of mine.” Awesome. I happen to agree, but the judgment twisted into the wordplay makes it so perfect.

It’s weird that the same band wrote both, creating a sort of dissonance. Our brain doesn’t know what to do with this. Are they embarrassing songwriters, or brilliant? Can both be true? Or does one cancel out the other? Does the bad drag the good down, or the good pull the bad up? Or. Or does it not matter at all, it’s just a dumb pop song and who cares about pop songs?

What I know for sure is that the last question is totally wrong. It’s not a dumb pop song. In fact, it can have a ton to teach us about moving around in an increasingly fractured world, where so many of our perspectives are from behind lenses of fear.

We are encouraged to set up divisions based on one facet of our personalities, one particular category (whether it is how we vote, wear our hair, shoe size, our color, sex, nationality, or anything else). In other words, we separate ourselves because others have an “everybody look at your hands.” We define others easily, cutting them up into pieces and then locking them in boxes based on just 1 piece.

The thing is, most everybody has a “your friends don’t dance and if they don’t dance, then they’re no friends of mine,” too! The reason I like everyone is the same reason I like The Safety Dance, because I choose to overlook our “everybody look at your hands.” Maybe not overlook, but I do choose to not judge the entire song because of one lyric.

I have an “everybody look at your hands,” and so do you. Everybody does. Maybe mine is that I voted for Donald Trump or Joe Biden. Maybe yours is that you have an addiction or a rough, checkered past. Or that you didn’t. Or that you live there, or wear that. Those things don’t have to close every door to keep us in & them out because somebody convinces us that we should be afraid of or distrust just one lyric in an otherwise good song. Our worlds get smaller, darker, and scarier with these overreactions.

We don’t have to like every song, Dave Matthews Band and Slipknot songs still exist. But the radio is better, more textured and interesting when everything doesn’t look and sound and think the same. So are our lives. Imagine how many songs we turn off immediately after their “everybody look at your hands” moments. This is no longer an acceptable place to live.

The Safety Dance is so important because, if we can adopt a Safety Dance mentality, where we can hold each other’s 10’s and zeroes, and stop missing so much beautiful music, we can begin to rebuild our lives and our world in a brand new cool new-wave image.

Middle Ground

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

The site prompt is asking me what my top ten favorite movies are. I used to be a person who had lists like these at the ready, walking around hoping someone would ask. Desert Island discs, top 5 foods, books, drinks, moments, and on and on. Once, I made a Top 500 songs list, and took real time thinking if I actually liked Rebel Yell (Billy Idol) or I Will Remember You (Skid Row) more, listening many times to each. As it turns out, I like Billy Idol much more, but I Will Remember You won the song battle.

I can’t give you 10, but what I can tell you is Fight Club and Pulp Fiction are my top 2, and Point Break is the movie I watched, and loved, most often. I saw it more than 15 times in the theater! That was, of course, when movies were affordable, the one where I saw the most Point Break showings cost $1.

So lately I’m having a lot of trouble in my head. It’s not unusual that I think I’m losing my mind. Either the world around me is completely insane, or I am. But it has to be one, there isn’t an awfully wide middle ground.

For example, in a recent poll, more people trust Donald Trump than their anyone else in their lives; religious leaders, teachers, even their friends & family. What are we supposed to do with that? In this particular poll, he had a 71% rate of trust. Families were in the low-mid 60’s. I recognize that this was a poll of very specific people, but still. Again, what are we supposed to do with this madness?

I see us stay in relationships that are nothing more than evidence of a damaged self-image. Where partners treat us like so much garbage, and we fight to stay, because any relationship is better than none? We stay in jobs we hate that are eating our souls, because we’re terrified of ones that are awesome. Why? Is it me, am I the one that has lost my mind?

The school district in which I live is in ruins, and the school board is shockingly brazen in their ineffectiveness. They tell anyone who will listen what they can’t do, which includes everything, as far as I can tell. That’s not entirely true, they vote on who can take tickets at football games. There aren’t checks and balances, the administration is dismantling any semblance of trust or respect with almost every decision. Why? Doesn’t a crumbling district reflect on them? Of course, but rather drive the bus into a wall than be a passenger in one that arrives safely, right??? Leadership is in short supply everywhere, it’s not just our local schools and Washington D.C. that are lacking.

The final scene of Fight Club is one where the 2 main characters watch buildings crumble. The system is broken beyond repair, so in a final act of domestic terrorism designed to tear it all down, absolute zero, to start anew. I am no terrorist, will never destroy cities, but it rings true for us as a metaphor. Is everything too broken to continue, are we too lost to ever be redeemed?

They stand and watch, hand in hand, and it’s beautiful. It’s strangely, deeply hopeful. Today my son is meeting a basketball coach at 7:30am at a nearby court. This coach is waking up early on a summer day to pour into my boy. I’m meeting 2 friends this morning for breakfast and bagels, we’ll look at each other, listen, talk and laugh, and maybe cry a little.

I sort of knew where this post would end. I do wonder if I’m the crazy one, if our collective psyche is too shattered to repair. But you probably know I think we’re standing in the thin middle ground. The world is incomprehensible sometimes (a lot of the time), and I am a fool. But I absolutely believe.

I believe in the power of Skid Row to ease our pain for a moment, and connect us. I believe in holding hands dreaming of better tomorrows. As a matter of fact, I dream of better todays. I believe one person can make a difference, like a coach at 7:30am, for a 16 year old boy. He will see this morning that it’s not all lost.

We put this back together, not trusting in Donald Trump or waiting for a school district to act responsibly, but in loving each other. In 2 hurting people holding hands and acting. When we look around, it appears to be a garbage dump, but that’s all a mirage. Yes, it might be garbage, but it’s not a dump. It’s not the end of the story, for the refuse or for us. It’s a gallery in waiting, where we can take these discarded pieces and make art with them. It simply takes some imagination, and the courage to jump.

Extra Cookies

August 14, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I don’t know why we do the things we do. In the Bible, in one of the most relatable passages, Paul writes, “Why do I do the things I don’t want to do, and don’t do the things I want to do?”

It’s that way with me, too. I want to make great decisions, eat, say and do the right things. And yet I don’t. Why is that? And then, there is the maddening confusion and frustration as I watch others make the choices that will hurt them, and then they do this over and over again. I know full well that, as I write the words “others” and “they,” that “they” aren’t they at all, but me, and us.

Of course it’s confusing, how could I possibly understand another’s thought process when I often can’t understand my own?

I ask my boys why they do the things they do – I ask this for good, positive decisions as well as the ones that, umm, aren’t so good and positive – and they inevitably say, “I don’t know.” That’s probably what separates us, is a sign post on the journey to maturity, the self-awareness to know why. Maybe the decisions stay poor, or inconsistent, or irresponsible, but at least we know why.

A few days ago, the Angel and I had an argument over the day’s plans. I asked and felt she didn’t communicate and blah blah blah, same as every other argument. One of us didn’t communicate as well as we thought we did, or thought we had to, the other disagreed, and sentences get short and edgy. It’s the anatomy of a silly disagreement, and it’s over in seconds, as soon as we breathe and come back. So, I want the plans because I want to eat together (I value sharing meals, and I’m not too sorry about that) and know what, where, and when (I also value control, and I am sorry about that).

I wanted to be gracious and problem solve, but I acted more like a petulant child. But I know why I snapped at her, the good reasons why, and the bad. Adults know why. I know why I had the extra cookie: my wife baked them and they were awesome. I probably shouldn’t have had the extra one, I felt a little sick afterwards, but I do know why.

And it’s the why that allows, and encourages, us to change. Or not. If I choose to lay down my need to know and/or control (maybe they’re the same), then we can constructively address the meals and time shared without egos. That I would like to do. I know why I ate the extra cookie, and maybe the sick belly is worth it. As a matter of fact, it is.

I might have chosen abs over cookies when I was 18 or tomorrow, but today, I think I can lose 10 lbs AND eat the extra cookie, because I’d like to live a life where I can metaphorically eat an extra cookie, from time to time. Maybe that relationship is more important than waking up early to get to the gym. Maybe it isn’t, who knows? Maybe sobriety weighs more than the relationship. Maybe not. Maybe being in a current horrible relationship is heavier than leaving, the fear of leaving is greater than the pain of staying. It’s our own hierarchy of worth, and it doesn’t matter what our friends or neighbors or the gossip at work thinks about it.

The confusion and frustration may still be maddening (as I watch everyone, me included) make unhealthy choices, but if they are, indeed, conscious choices, then there isn’t much to say, is there? We decide, based on weight. After factoring our values, we ask, what weighs more to us? Not eating, or eating, that cookie? Needing to know/control, or kindness and understanding? Me or you? Now or later? All of these things matter, none is less, they’re just the worth we assign as the people we are now.

The only things that are unacceptable, in actuality, are to not know why, to not know the values, and to not use our internal scales. Once we can accept the ownership of our choices, we are free to change them if/when we want, as we change, as we transform into the kind of people who stay or leave, who stay up late or wake up early, or the kind of people who eats the extra cookie. Or doesn’t. We’re all different, and we’re vastly different from ourselves a month or a year or a decade ago. The things we valued then might not be the things we value today, we have to allow for growth in our lives. But we have to know ourselves enough to recognize what they are, to tell the difference between life and death.

Reminders

August 8, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site prompt is to find an “entirely uninteresting story,” and consider how it relates to your life. I don’t understand it at all. There is almost nothing that is entirely uninteresting, and as everything is connected, considering doesn’t take much time or effort. Maybe finding uninteresting things requires being uninteresting ourselves, and we are lots of things, but uninteresting is not one of them. If anyone told you otherwise, they lied to you.

I watched 2 movies – fiction, not documentaries, as is my usual practice. Both were excellent. Well, maybe they weren’t excellent, but I sure loved them. I would, because they were pretty sweet and very hopeful. I shed buckets of tears at both, which felt like a beautiful soul-cleansing rather than the anguished expulsion of the broken-hearted.

The first excellent movie was Puss In Boots: The Last Wish. I was surprised, too. Dreamworks isn’t Pixar, after all. There aren’t any Up’s or Inside Out’s to be found on their slate, and with few exceptions (the How To Train Your Dragon and Kung Fu Panda trilogies), they’re all sort of average. Shrek is mostly ok, but the sequels bring the property values waaay down. I wouldn’t say I wanted to watch The Last Wish, but my son suggested it, and I like him a lot, so much so that it would more than make up for an hour and a half of garbage. But it was great, the feel good hit of the summer, as they say. I don’t know or care about any of the characters, but mortality, family, the battle between selfishness & selflessness, and love transcend studios or personalities. Everything negative said about it is true, it was predictable and broad. But we like what we like, and there doesn’t have to be a good critical reason. Some Britney Spears songs are terrific.

Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was the other. Finding original material instead of sequels/prequels/re-makes/re-imaginings is apparently quite difficult. The MCU has been on a losing streak lately, scattered and sophomoric, and this affected my expectations for GotG3, which I chose not to spend the million dollars to see in the theater. And maybe there are mountains of negative press for this, too, and probably they’re accurate, too.

I watched it twice in 2 days. The second viewing was better than the first. I have a bit of anxiety when I watch a new movie, ignoring (or trying to ignore the) questions: What’s going to happen? Will these characters live or die? And then, I don’t want them to die, I want them to live happily ever after. I like when the good guys win, evil is vanquished, the one ring is destroyed, and the emperor dies. So I can’t relax while I focus on plot and consequence. Afterwards, I can think about writing and performance, cgi and music. I can finally see the film.

Anyway, if you didn’t like it (and some in this house didn’t), that doesn’t matter to me. I wish you would have, obviously, but that’s because I want you to have a great life and enjoy the things you eat/see/hear/read/experience. I want you to feel the significance & delight in his/her lips when you kiss them. I want you to dance wildly and sing out loud. You deserve wonderful things.

Anyway (again!!), it doesn’t matter because I did. I don’t need you to, I don’t even really need it to be great high art. Like The Last Wish, it’s mortality, pain, meaning, selfishness v selflessness, identity, family, and most of all, love. I love it even more as I’m thinking about it now.

I guess that’s the point that young me so often missed, it doesn’t have to be “great” to be awesome. Kid A is a masterpiece and clearly a superior work than The Bends. But The Bends is perfect, something we all can listen to forever, and Kid A is horrible.

The things that matter touch us in ways we can’t always explain, but they leave us transformed. I might not be able to articulate why I love Local Natives cover of “Right Down The Line,” (which you should listen to as soon as you can), I don’t know the chords or the time signatures, but I do know it makes me get so lost in the Angel that the 2 become inextricably linked. It’s not Dylan, but baby, it’s .

The Last Wish and Guardians 3 are not Taxi Driver or Pulp Fiction, but not everything has to be. We just have to feel them. They remind us we’re alive, and what better compliment could there ever be??

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.

Knots

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

I say, without a hint of sarcasm or hyperbole, that I like everyone. I give an A the first day of class, in a manner of speaking. Some don’t trust until they have reason to, I trust until I have a reason not to. Of course, this doesn’t always work out well. I have been damaged, had my heart broken, been betrayed. But in these situation, forced to reconsider my position as a wide-open door, I choose to stay the course. Come in, make yourself at home.

Boundaries are a necessity that I’m learning. Not everyone should get unfettered access to you, especially after they’ve been careless a time or 2 or 80.

I say that, and it’s mostly true. But Friday I realized it has limits. I cut my mom’s grass and, without exception, there are piles of dog poop in her yard. She has no dog. There are monsters in this world. Some let their dogs off leash to do as they please, and others watch them defecate and make the conscious decision to leave it in another’s yard. As it turns out, I don’t like everyone.

So, Friday as I’m cleaning my shoes, I realize these monsters shouldn’t have dogs. But in all likelihood, they would agree. When they got the dog, they thought in music montage, running in the sunshine with their best buddy, scratching her ears, to an upbeat ‘60’s tune. They believe this is an accurate representation of having a dog. They’re wrong. Having a dog is those things; they’re wonderful, and wonderfully fun, but they’re also veterinarian appointments, barking, expensive food, vomit, and plastic bags. (This is not to mention the worst part of having a pet – they don’t live that long, so we are virtually assured of having our hearts crushed by their passing.) The monsters actually don’t want dogs, they want a “dog.”

This is like 6 pack abs. They are cool, sexy, and awesome, but they are also crunches, sweat, Russian twists, forgone desserts, protein shakes. There are no 2nd helpings. We want the glamorous, romanticized result, but we absolutely do not want the truth.

This is also like management. We want to be in charge, want the corner office, door plaque, we want to lead, but we do not want the nighttime calls, the pressure, stress, responsibility, the hard conversations and painful decisions.

This is also like marriage. We want the A+ relationship, but that’s only if it’s the hazy rose-petal dream of the movies. We certainly don’t want the tears, the fights, the “worse” part of “for better or worse,” the sacrifice, the communication and work of an A+ marriage.

We don’t want to pick up the poop.

I think that’s probably why we have such trouble committing. Maybe the reason our marriages fail in such high numbers, the reason why our relationships don’t last and are so superficial, why churches, bowling leagues, and teams have declining membership. We only want what we like, what is comfortable and convenient, we want idealized versions, and when the dogs stop in my mom’s front yard or there’s morning breath or the pastor says something we don’t agree with or we’re sore and don’t feel like going, we’re out. When the unrealistic picture we’ve been sold doesn’t match reality, we run from reality (rather than the other way around). We leave the excrement there for somebody else to clean up.

The thing that we don’t understand is that those rough patches add the most texture, the most value. We navigate the differences, disagreements, hold their hair when they’re sick, and we’re deeper and stronger as a result. The negatives aren’t negative at all, they’re the tension that makes knots tighter. And I’d suggest we all need tighter knots.

Bowling Alone

June 23, 2023June 25, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I read that more people are bowling, but leagues are suffering. The reason is because we are bowling alone!??! Bowling alone. Have you ever seen those social media posts that say, “tell me you’re ____ without telling me you’re ____.” Tell me your society is busted without telling me your society is busted: Bowling alone is increasing while bowling together is down.

I recognize that relationships are out of fashion. Our religion is individuality and self-reliance. The main tenet of the social contract is superficiality. I’m fine, it’s fine, everything is fine. Even when, especially when, I’m not and it’s not. Membership is suffering everywhere, because commitment is suffering everywhere. This seems like a relatively insignificant consequence of modern life. Who really cares if we don’t commit to institutions through such an antiquated concept as membership? Maybe. But the list of problems with bowling alone is infinite.

But most, if not all, of these problems can be traced back to a self-obsessed view of the surrounding world. How do you make me feeeel? How does it make me feel? What are you giving me? Are you feeding me enough of what I want? If the answer to any of these is less than positive, treating me like I deserve to be treated, I will move on and never look back.

Close relationships need friction to grow – up and down. Beautiful flowers we can see and enjoy, but also the kind of roots that go deep enough to withstand all kinds of weather. Mark Manson writes, “Greater commitment allows for greater depth. A lack of commitment requires superficiality.”

The Angel and I, we know things about each other, love things about each other, that no one else sees. We only see them because we have committed to any terrain, any obstacles. We only see them because we committed to each other, regardless of…well, anything. Our roots go very, very deep. We bowl together.

Community is an inherently unselfish activity; a community is a selfless organism. We give up certain rights, privileges, and responsibilities for others to gain certain rights, privileges, and responsibilities. The illogical part is that, in becoming smaller, we find a new significance and value that we couldn’t have dreamed otherwise. Illogical, but absolutely true. I sacrifice the ability to date any and every other woman, when I say yes to the Angel, but that sacrifice is hardly loss, considering the knowing, intimacy and love we have built over 20+ years.

When we join a bowling league, we give up some flexibility and individuality, but we have partners, teammates. When we’re not there, we are missed. How many spaces care if we don’t show up? If no one knows my name at the mega church, no one will know my name when I’m not there. There’s a humongous difference between “Where’s that guy that sat there 2 weeks ago?” and “Where’s Chad? He doesn’t usually miss. I’ll text him, see if he’s ok.”

I’ve believed that I am an island, that I can do it myself, and I’ve been way too proud to admit when I can’t. I’ve hurt my back more times than I can count moving furniture rather than call somebody to help. But I don’t believe that anymore. Instead of disappearing when my heart or spirit breaks, I make some calls and tell the truth. All of it. And the dark periods get shorter, more manageable, less dark.

I wish we’d tear up that social contract, shred the pages with all the lies of isolation as virtue, and write a new one. We can start creating a new world right now, today, but none of that happens by ourselves, alone in a cave. This is something we can only do together.

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.

Round Here

May 30, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/1 Comment

The site prompt today is asking if I remember life before the internet. Yes, I do. For some reason, I’m often very nostalgic lately, so at those times that life B.I. seems preferable. Whether the time actually was more simple, or I was, doesn’t really matter in my head.

I like to put together jigsaw puzzles. Don’t ask me if I do that on an app – you already know the answer. I still read physical books, still turn pages. Now that I think of it, it’s mostly for the same reason. When life gets noisy and heavy, finding pieces that fit perfectly (or opening a book and turning pages) turns that volume down. These small acts reduce the complexity of everything that surrounds me. It’s a little like that aphorism: a journey of a million miles begins with a single step. We can’t finish a puzzle now, we can only give our time and focus to finding the next piece.

The puzzle on the dining room table is one called Rock ‘n’ Roll, and is made up of artists, album covers, ticket stubs, and instruments. It’s pretty good puzzle artwork, the overwhelming sadness in Kurt Cobain’s eyes is obvious and as heartbreaking on my table as it was in real life. There is Ray Charles, The Beatles & The Stones, Joan Jett, and Kiss to name only a few. There is also the album cover from the 2nd best album ever recorded: August & Everything After, by Counting Crows. (The best is, of course, The Queen Is Dead.)

So now I’m listening to the live version of August & Everything After. It’s the whole thing, in order, and it’s unusual in that Counting Crows live versions are mostly unrecognizable from the studio album tracks. You have to know the lyrics to know Mr. Jones at a concert to realize it’s Mr. Jones, but you still can’t sing along. This particular release, though, sounds like the original, but…extra. They’re a terrific band, even as they sort of under-achieved, never building on the perfection of this debut. But how could they, honestly? I am sometimes angry at the Goo Goo Dolls. I want them to make an entire great full-length album, and they don’t, they won’t. It’s like an act of rebellion. But Counting Crows made this 100% A+ masterpiece, and they deserve a pass forever.

Round Here is the first track and makes me cry every time I hear it (with both hands, it’s so sad and so beautiful. Like the great philosopher Rob Base once said, “joy and pain.”)

My wedding Anniversary was Saturday, and my son graduates high school on Friday. Those are the bookends to a week marked with the challenge of holding 2 life-changing events carefully and joyfully. I married the Angel 22 years ago, and the term soul mate is casually tossed around but rarely appropriate. She is easily mine and I hope I’ve risen to even 3% of what she deserves. My son is 18 and steps into an adult life that I get to watch from a front row seat, the best one in the world. He is everything I dreamed he’d be and more.

This week will have baseball games and work and blog posts about music puzzles and phone calls and workouts, but the majority of the week in my heart will be a staggering gratitude. I began this by talking about nostalgia, and I sort of miss Swatch watches and Atari 2600’s and getting up to change between 3 TV channels, but preferable? Baby, I wouldn’t change one thing about this amazing, messy, wonderful life that I have been given, and I wouldn’t miss these people and this week for anything.

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: Spirituality