2024-01-09T15:38:30+00:00

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.

Dumb Site Prompt

January 3, 2024/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The prompt is, “What colleges have you attended?” I started at a branch campus of a major state university, then quit school altogether, only to transfer to a small-ish private liberal arts college, where I’d graduate with a business administration degree (marketing concentration). Then 15 years later, earned a degree and ordination from a Bible college & seminary.

I never liked school, hated every day of the branch campus and liberal arts college. But later, in a strange twist, loved every moment of the Bible school. Who knew?

I used my business degree to get a management job at a multinational company, where I was a terrible manager. When I gave my 2 week notice on the eve of my wedding, the relief in the general manager’s face was evident. He could finally be rid of me without having to fire me.

Then, after a short stint working at a retail store in a mall, I used that degree to drive a truck, delivering medical equipment to hospice patients. The degree was useless, but the job changed my life forever. After many years there, loving dying people and their families, I took the online Bible classes (working full time with a wife and 2 small children doesn’t leave much, no, doesn’t leave any time for sitting in class), lost my home in a flood, mourned the closing of the church I attended, began a new church in my new living room, and just held on with both hands.

I thought the site prompt was dumb today, but as I’m writing, thinking about the doors that opened, that closed, with the benefit of hindsight, on the 3rd day of a new year, I don’t think it’s so dumb anymore.

If I hadn’t taken 5 1/2 years to complete a 4 year degree (due to credits that wouldn’t transfer, several switched majors, and 1 unfinished semester), I would never have met The Angel. Our first date was in that last 1/2. If I hadn’t spent years working through the night, I wouldn’t have discovered the many many treasures of the Bible and of me that I did. If that flood wouldn’t have swallowed my home, we wouldn’t be here, in this town, with these neighbors. If the old church hadn’t closed it’s doors, if the old pastor/mentor hadn’t completely broken my heart by ignoring me in the years since, we wouldn’t have this amazing Bridge Faith Community and the Bridge would have a very different pastor than the me they have now.

Every new year, I reflect on what was, what is, what could be, but I do this with soft hands. If I had tried to control my life, tried to stay within the lines of what should be, wrestling white-knuckled with the steering wheel… well, I don’t know what sort of life I’d have now, but I know it wouldn’t be this one. It wouldn’t be this messy, beautiful, full, wonderful life.

I still don’t know what my Word of the Year is, and I’m starting to think it doesn’t matter. Maybe my word is blank to illustrate the hands that are, and have always been, holding me, and the blank space where all of the should’s and supposed to’s used to go. It’s just here and now, just the next step, just faith, just trust. Just staying awake to the Love that is holding us all together. Just. Maybe that’s my word: Just. Just me. Just you. Just us. Just all of this divine energy, crackling all around us. Just loving.

Pierced

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

This is not a post on the site prompt, youth sports or the woeful state of high school officiating. I have no shortage of material on those things, I’m just a little tired of typing the word referee.

Snowpiercer is a film starring Captain America, about an environmental catastrophe that kills all living things, except those lucky (?) enough to board a train that endlessly circles the globe. It sounds like a thin premise on which to base a movie or a tv series, much better suited to a novel, but it was excellent. (I am about to ruin the end. When do spoiler ethics expire? Surely 10 years is enough, isn’t it?)

At the end, Captain America fights Ed Harris and 2 others, believing the earth had slightly warmed and could now support life, set off a bomb that crashes the train. 2 people, both “train babies” (humans born on the train, never having set foot outside or breathed fresh air), one 16ish and one 8ish, ostensibly the only survivors of the crash, walk away through the snow, where they/we see a polar bear in the distance.

My very great friend saw this as an allegory on the death of the human race. The polar bear would surely eat them. As a matter of fact, being so naive and uneducated on dangerous predators, she reasoned they would likely serve themselves up trying to pet it’s soft white fur. The animals might survive and repopulate, without the destructive influence of you & me, and the earth would quietly, beautifully heal.

I hadn’t even considered this conclusion. As they walked, hand in hand, together into a brand new world, I found it unbelievably hopeful. Everything was possible, as a 2nd Adam & Eve, they could also survive and repopulate, free of their ancestors’ destructive influence, and the earth (including a new lineage of kind, innocent-ish people), would quietly, beautifully heal.

She’s right, of course. They are destined to be food. She’s super smart and hilarious, you’d love her like I do immediately.

But I don’t care about right and wrong, in this context. I don’t care about realism or food chains and predator/prey relationships. When the credits rolled, all I saw was a beginning, our beginning. Not an end. We are new and can build whatever we want, a New Creation with no ties at all to “how it’s always been.” Just because it was, doesn’t mean it is now.

It’s a pretty good illustration. The philosophy we can choose is one of hope and faith in God (that He is still here and hasn’t abandoned His creation), in us, in our divine design, that we can still remember who we are and what we’ve been called into. That, even with thousands of years to the contrary, we can live lives of love and peace instead of indifference, -isms, and war. All we have to do is blow up the old paradigm and have the courage to walk away from that garbage.

Have a fantastic Christmas, everybody.

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.

Cover Songs

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

Earlier this week, a cover of “Killing In The Name,” came across my “You Might Like” playlist. I have been very open with my acceptance of the fact that Amazon absolutely knows what I might like. I’ve even embraced the omnipotence of The Machines, if it means I get new songs by new bands on a regular basis.

“Killing In The Name” is a Rage Against The Machine song, from their first eponymous album, and it is perfect. Everything about it is perfect. Rage Against The Machine was awesome, especially for a 17 year-old boy who was socially frustrated and angry (like me).

The cover version is from something called Sueco, and it’s a shot for shot remake, like that equally superfluous Gus Van Sant Psycho remake. The problem with this sort of cover of this sort of song is that the decision to make it a carbon copy (with the only difference being the people playing it) is a guarantee that it will be worse in every way. For example, whoever sings for Sueco (maybe Sueco is his name?) is decisively NOT Zack de la Rocha. Instead, he’s a sad substitute. When I tried to look this up, I discovered that Machine Gun Kelly made the same mistake in 2020. It’s also faithful, which also just makes it worse.

If “Killing In The Name” (or any Rage song, really) is going to be covered, the artist has to be wildly different, like Tori Amos or Sarah McLachlan. That would be interesting, right? New, different aspects would be emphasized, words we missed before might be noticed, it could reach an entirely new audience. And that is the point of a cover song.

What does Sueco or Machine Gun Kelly’s version add to the world? Literally no one would listen to theirs when the perfect Rage original is available. Why would they? (Maybe Sueco’s mom would, but moms are like that, it’s like a beautifully pure form of maternal insanity.)

I care for lots of reasons. First, because I care about music and art and I care about what it says about us, individually and as a culture.

And the second is because it makes me think of the Bible. The Great Commission of Jesus is that we spread the Gospel. This Gospel never changes, but the way we present it does, based on who we are, our personalities, the things we like, and gifts & talents we have received. And as we are different, our audience is, too. We’re like walking, talking, loving cover songs, playing the original (in this case, the Gospel) authentically, from our own unique design.

What if we try to play our version by trying to sound just like somebody else’s? What if we are Sueco, playing a Rage classic, while bringing nothing that is strictly Sueco’s. It’s simply unnecessary, which makes it offensive, if you happen to care about our individual creative sparks, which I do, very much.

Maybe Sueco is terrific? Who will ever know, as long as they are trying to play somebody else’s songs, just like that somebody else? Maybe they should cover “Love Is A Battlefield” instead, but this time like Sueco, not like Pat Benatar. I’m assuming Sueco is a hard rock band, but what do I know? They could sound more like James Taylor on their originals. Now I’m assuming they have originals. The point is, they have been given something that we will never experience as long as they’re trying to be someone else.

And as far as the Bible, I can reach certain types, but I can’t reach some people that you can, or that my sister can, or that my neighbors can. But they need to be reached, so now what? How about if we all stop trying so hard to be someone else, doing what someone else is doing, the way they’re doing it, and start doing it the way we do? We’re the only ones who can – you’re the only one who can play it like you, who can love like you. And if you don’t do it like you, not only are you making pointless Sueco covers that no one will hear, but you’re not making your own songs. And we desperately need your songs, our story can’t ever be completely told without them.

Sunday the 22nd of October

October 23, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Yesterday wasn’t my favorite day. We’ll get to the site prompt (“What are you most proud of in your life?”) in a minute, but not yet.

Yesterday began in the middle of the night – I have’s been sleeping very well lately. There is quite a bit swirling in this empty head of mine, lots of emotions, responsibilities, sadness, concern. The world is burning and so are our communities. Usually, I know that’s true, but am able to see the beauty and manage to hold all of it in both hands. I can’t right now. So I don’t sleep so great.

In the middle of the night I turned on The Ringleader: The Case of the Bling Ring, which is a Max documentary on Rachel Lee, the “mastermind” of the salacious story of teenagers robbing celebrities’ houses. It was ok, I don’t know if she is actually the ringleader the title suggests, I don’t have any idea if any of the people involved have ever told the truth. Based on as many times as Ms Lee referred to “her truth,” it’s impossible to know if she knows what it is.

Then my family and I helped to clean up our local park after their annual Halloween/Fall Fest & haunted walk. Halloween is less than 2 weeks away and it can’t come and go soon enough.

Then I went to the Sunday service at our faith community and gave a sermon that went surprisingly well, given my mental/physical state. I think I might be getting sick.

Then I watched football on the RedZone and perhaps took a short nap. Then, in the evening, my beautiful family took a run at me, after I expressed a certain vulnerability. We can talk about that particular vulnerability and their particular run another time, but this is not the point of this post. (Although, neither was the Bling Ring, but I gave that a few more sentences than it warranted, in the bigger picture.)

Appreciation is for children, mostly. When you’re a million years old, as I am, you need a pat on the back far less than a 6 year old does. It’s nice, obviously, but hopefully, by this time, we have a sense of who we are that isn’t totally dependent on the opinions of others, even runs from your family. And that’s the answer to the site’s question.

There was a time where an attack from those closest to me would have been a wrecking ball that left me in ruins for weeks. My insecurities would have run wild and I might have wondered what I was doing and why I was such a bad everything. Those days are in the rear view. I did listen, and what I have learned is that all people, even those who love us the most, sometimes speak out of their own interest. I do it, and so do you. Sometimes criticism isn’t about the person to whom it’s directed, and growth is being able to tell the difference.

I remember 2 years ago a woman scolded me, in great detail, over my many faults. She hadn’t seen me in several years before that, and we had connected over a bagel for a half hour before she gave me her diagnosis. I do have many faults, but not the ones she perceived. So we let those go and move on.

My family wasn’t exactly wrong, they do know me and my weaknesses, and they doubtlessly love me to the mooooon and back, but last night’s run wasn’t meant for me. There simply isn’t anything to do with it.

But what I did see is something cool. One of the primary values in my life is the ability to create safe environments for people to take necessary journeys of discovery (of themselves, others, and God). The fact that my family was safe and able to express themselves so fully without lasting repercussion from a fragile ego, with the benefit of hindsight and a few minutes of space, served as my answer to this site. I am happy. I happen to believe and follow Jesus (if you don’t, you can call it whatever you like, I don’t mind) and have listtened to His answer to the BIG QUESTION of who I am. I am grateful, more than anything else.

I am a human being with enough faults & failures to spare, but I am growing. I am not who I was, not who I will be, but this man I am now is not so bad. The weather is nice here, I just wish I could sleep a little.

saviors

October 19, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/1 Comment

Yesterday I finished the 3 episode Savior Complex documentary on what used to be HBO, then HBO Max, now just Max. As far as documentaries go, it was pretty perfect. I think we could discuss it for days and days. That is probably the best compliment I could give to the art form.

As I write the word “discuss,” I am fully aware that discussion isn’t what we do too well in our current cultural environment. Discuss implies discourse, listening, careful consideration, and a respectful give and take of ideas and perspectives. None of that is in vogue. Outrage is. None of the earlier words apply to outrage: listening, careful, consideration, give-and-take, and certainly not respect. The most glaring lack in outrage is empathy.

Outrage finds it’s deepest roots in selfish myopia.

Political outrage requires an aggressive inability to see another’s perspective. The other side has to be full of ignorant, heartless, brainless monsters. Once it isn’t, once it’s full of moms and dads, friends and fellow Dallas Cowboy fans, who might also be educated and kind, but just happen to arrive at different conclusions, things get very complicated.

All of the intricacies and nuance are impossible to detail here, especially because the facts of the specific case aren’t our subject at all. Renee Bach and Serving His Children (her Christian mission organization) did great work, and saved many malnourished children. This is true. Renee Bach and Serving His Children used questionable tactics, which probably resulted in the deaths of other malnourished children. This is also true. There is terrific conversation to be had about the purpose of the No White Saviors action group. There is also terrific conversation to be had about those who operate No White Saviors, and if that purpose has been obscured by vanity and outrage.

I don’t know the truth. Knowing would mean that I could see hearts and motivation, which I obviously cannot. I know people do beautiful things that go spectacularly wrong and result in pain. I know that because it has happened to me. Many times, I thought I was doing the right thing, and people were wounded, given scars that could last a lifetime. I still can’t say if those things were the right things. The simple fact of negative consequence doesn’t automatically mean that they weren’t. Were the lives saved enough to sufficiently outweigh the deaths? Is 1 death too many to ever redeem the positive impact?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. I’m not outraged by anyone’s actions. I might disagree, or hold different opinions, but I understand them. I heard both sides in the documentary and I can truly understand why they might have done what they did. (Maybe it wasn’t actually why they did them, but I simply can’t ever state with absolute certainty what their why was. Maybe they can’t, either.)

Outrage is not passion. Passion can drive a tremendous amount of change that reinforces our shared humanity. Passion, or conviction, rooted in love tirelessly fights injustice and seeks to end all of the -isms that plague our species. Outrage drives Facebook clicks and paychecks through the promulgation of fear. And fear isn’t love.

There aren’t easy answers, nor are there easy questions. Empathy isn’t easy. But if we’re ever going to end the division that is killing us all, we have to try. Easy got us here, it won’t get us out.

The Machines, pt 2

October 5, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site prompt today is asking what my life would look like without a computer, and I couldn’t care any less about that. That bell has been rung, that box has been opened and burned and there is no stuffing technology into a new one. In addition, everything I’ve done today has included a computer.

The alarm on the Angel’s phone woke us up. Then I went to the gym, where I checked in via the Planet Fitness app, catalogued my workout on a Notes app, while I listened to The Baller Lifestyle podcast on Google Podcasts. Afterwards, I watched tv while I ate my breakfast, then completed a Title IX training online (required for my job at the school.) Now, I am listening to a “You Might Like” AI-generated playlist on Amazon Music while writing Jetpack blog posts on my iPad.

Feeding the animals in this house, brushing my teeth, and eating breakfast are the only things I’ve done that didn’t employ a computer. We won’t even get into the systems included to manufacture, market, and sell the pet food, person food, and tooth paste into my hands and mouth. I wonder if there is anything unrelated to our machines.

I also wonder how I feel about that.

There was a time where I would have identified as Luddite, opposing any and all forms of so-called “progress.” Maybe I would have been one of the revolutionaries destroying machines, attempting to destroy industry in the early 1800’s. (I suppose it’s still there a little – I did say “so-called” and put quotation marks around the word progress.)

I guess The Machines will kill us all – or keep us alive to be used as batteries for their cold future, but until then, I’m not sure I mind their existence too much. For just 1, we know each other only because of the new lines that connect us. For another, this AI knows me and my musical tastes better than I do. The Baller Lifestyle podcast has 2 hosts, 1 in New Jersey & 1 in California, and has given me more pleasure than I can possibly express.

They have created The New Religion, as they’ve made the old ones easier to adhere to. But which one are we following? At which altar are we worshiping? Is it the Christian church we livestream from across town, or the country? Or is it the screen we’re staring at? Is it our Bibles and Qurans, or the presses that print them?

I once heard the story of David and Goliath was actually a story of the conflict of infringing technology. Goliath had all of the newest armor and weapons, David had a slingshot and stones. We read how that went, but despite losing that battle, has Goliath won the war? Who knows?

When we download our “free” apps, it’s important to know the glaring fact that, without a product to buy, we are the products being bought and sold. And that’s ok. These free apps in the Meta-verse are great, we simply have to have our eyes wide open. When we use any social media, we are being manipulated, and probably the problem is when we can no longer recognize that manipulation. When we think the Facebook feeds we receive are the actual news instead of carefully curated tools to increase our time and clicks, that’s when The Machines (and their shady developers) win. Right?

If we are blind and passive, the New Religion becomes our religion. I don’t know what progress is, but I do know where we’re heading: wherever we choose. Either we choose love and kindness and beautiful connection or we choose to not choose, blissfully asleep, we become the blobs on the BNL spaceship in Wall-E.

Now that I reconsider, maybe I was wrong earlier, maybe I could care less.

3 Jobs for the Site Prompt

September 29, 2023September 29, 2023/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The site prompt is to list 3 jobs I’d pursue if money didn’t matter, which is a terrific door to enter, especially today. You see, it’s my birthday, and it’s interesting how things change over a lifetime.

When I was a younger man, birthdays were about celebrating me. (Now that I say it out loud, it seems like it should be a day to celebrate my mom – I was a 10lb baby – but maybe I was the best gift for her already, right? Ha. Anyway.) But now, pretty imperceptibly over the years, they have morphed into celebrating the people that are in my life. No longer celebrating me, but celebrating you for pouring into me in such wildly different and always beautiful ways.

I try to be a pretty thoughtful person, authentic and self aware, which leads me into days and moments where I look backwards & forwards, but mostly, I look around. Where am I? Who am I, who have I become, and who am I becoming? A birthday, as my phone is busy with well wishes and funny gifs, is a good day for that sort of thing.

So, as for 3 jobs. 3. Lead singer in a rock band. I wish I could sing the songs I wish I could write. My sister and I are always grateful that we have been given the gift of feeling songs so deeply, we cry easily at chord changes and perfect lyrics. Given the choice, I would have written “I Can’t Help Myself,” by Gene or “Hey Jealousy,” by the Gin Blossoms, and been a bitchin’ front man, doing high kicks like David Lee Roth and being cool, like Billy Idol.

2. Superhero. This kind of goes without saying, we’d all put superhero at #2. We’d rescue our love interests, catch bad guys, return purses, and just generally set things right.

And at 1. Pastor of a local faith community, which, in a wonderful twist of fate, is the one I actually have. I used to say I have virtually no skills, certainly none with which I could ever make a living, but that turned out to be untrue. I’m not overflowing with cash or anything, but that never mattered too much to me. In every way that does mean anything, I am the wealthiest person I know. Falling in love with Jesus is the best thing that ever happened to me, for a million reasons.

As I look at the 3, they’re very similar, aren’t they? I never connected that, until this very moment.

So. These 48 years that brought me here, with you, have been awesome – full of loss, pain, tears, heartbreak, laughter and unspeakable joy. I’m surrounded by the greatest people, doing the things I love to do; deadlifts, puzzles, watching dumb documentaries, listening, breathing, holding hands, kissing the Angel, loving God (and everybody else), and and and. That list could go on forever, I really love to do tons of things, but mostly I love to be here, now. So, how did I happen to get here? What did I do to deserve a life like this? Nothing, nobody deserves a life like this. We just accept it, as the amazing grace that it is.

I am a very simple man, and I am overwhelmingly thankful. To paraphrase the best Dr. Seuss book, Horton Hatches The Egg: I am happy, 100 percent.

Love With A Capital L

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

Tag: Spirituality