Month: June 2026

Lies

[I wrote this post on my other blog, it’s about 2 documentaries I recently watched. I generally try to keep these blogs separate, but sometimes, the ideas drift across the lines. At the end, I’ll suggest we find our identity, worth, value in something other than fear, but the only “something other than fear” that truly defines us, pointing to our original design, is God, Jesus Christ, and Love. So, what is defining us? Who are we? Who or what has the keys to our identity? These are questions that are absolutely vital to ask AND answer, and anything that moves us to ask them (even silly tv shows) is invaluable. Sometimes the things that move us the most move us the most because they are found in unexpected places, we simply have to have eyes that see and ears that hear.]

I watched 2 documentaries lately. Anatomy of Lies, on Peacock, and Maternal Instinct, on Netflix. Anatomy details the “life” of Elisabeth Finch, a writer on several shows you would’ve heard of, the most popular being Grey’s Anatomy. I put the word ‘life’ in quotes because most of everything she said or wrote about her life was a fabrication, a hi-jack of other people’s actual stories. She was called a “trauma vampire,” sucking other’s traumas and passing them off as her own. Instinct chooses a woman named Taylor Parker as its subject. She also lied about everything, eventually murdering pregnant woman Reagan Simmons-Hancock, and c-sectioning her unborn baby in a strange attempt to, not keep it as her own, but to lend evidence to her 9 months of false pregnancy.

These are interesting, sad stories but they are certainly not unique. There is no shortage of documentaries and “based on a true story” dramatizations of pathologically dishonest pretenders. Sometimes, once the liars are exposed, they apologize in their own non-contrite way. Like the vast majority of apologies, they’re sorry for being caught, not what they did (for which everyone else is to blame). Finch confesses only for things that can be proven false, and nothing else. Parker doesn’t confess at all, the documentarians don’t even ask, they don’t interview her at all. 

[For an interesting, related context, I was only able to watch Anatomy of Lies because I subscribe to Peacock, and I only subscribe to Peacock because it has a show called Poker Face. The show is perfect, starring Natasha Lyonne as a drifter named Charlie Cale, who has the beautiful talent we wish we all had: the ability to know when someone is lying. She says, ‘everybody lies, it’s just a matter of finding out why.’]

Think about all of the really humongous relational messes you’ve either witnessed or experienced, how many of them had some level of deceit or dishonesty as the cornerstone? Some very recent, very close catastrophes left me saying, in each case, “If anyone, at any point, had told the truth, and even better, the whole truth, all of this drama could have been avoided.”

But they didn’t. Elisabeth Finch didn’t. Taylor Parker didn’t. And I wonder why. A woman in the Finch doc believes it all comes from an internal lack of worth creating a desperate need to be someone else. That’s probably true. 

Of course, we also lie to avoid punishment. If the lamp falls, we say “not me,” so we don’t have to pay for it. That makes sense, right? Well, I mean, it doesn’t, because everybody always finds out who broke the lamp, and instead of just taking responsibility for the lamp, now we’re dealing with the lie, which is much, much worse. But there’s not an awful lot for us to do with this one, people either become adults or they don’t.

But, the other one, tied to a deeply perceived worthlessness, is a bit more interesting. Why do we want to be someone or something else? Why do we want their story or their family or house or money or whatever? 

The 10th commandment (You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s) is sometimes read not as a command, but as a reward. If you do the previous 9, you won’t want your neighbor’s wife or donkey or anything that isn’t yours, because what you have will be enough. Enough is sort of a dirty word in America, where we worship at the altar of MORE. There is never enough. We are never enough. We are steadily fed the narrative that we are always lacking, and we’ll do anything to fill that hole. We need facelifts and new boobs because who we are and what we have now is simply not enough, and getting a new whatever is the answer. 

Of course, the hole isn’t filled with more stuff or a new nose. We aren’t magically made whole with abs. 

I’m increasingly interested in why we keep trying the same methods that don’t work, and have never worked? Why do we keep thinking a new car or jeans or dishwashing liquid will fill our souls? Why do we keep thinking war will bring peace? Or a bigger account balance will bring us the joy & peace that have eluded us for so long? Or that a few well-placed lies will produce the image that will finally complete us?

Finch lied to everyone in her life, it fell apart, she lost those people – the chaos of her broken life was directly related to her truth problem, and yet, she continues to lie. Dishonesty (on any level) builds walls around us while tearing down the chance/hope of intimacy and connection. The lies are a symptom, of course, the fruit of our fear. And until we can be defined by something else, until we can find our identity in something other than terror, we’ll continue to live these same boring loops and keep making these tired documentaries.

What About Self-Control?

We discussed self-control Sunday, the last of the fruits of the Spirit. I know what’s going through my head as I study, write, and give these messages, but what’s happening in the heads & hearts of those listening? That’s always an interesting thought to me.

Have we let ourselves down, when it comes to self-control, did the things that we knew weren’t healthy? We knew they weren’t healthy, sometimes even destructive, knew they were beneath us, they didn’t fit in who we are and/or who we are becoming, and yet we did them anyway. Then, we looked in the mirror and felt that familiar twinge (or tidal wave) of guilt or sorrow. I can see that some of us know that emotion very, very well. Maybe others have had it, once or twice, some quite recently. Maybe one or two of us are just beginning to discover our identity, whose eyes are only starting to see that there are things that aren’t healthy, things that would be beneath our standing as children of God. Some are thinking about loved ones who are engaging in things that are tearing them (and us) apart. And probably others are thinking about lunch. Or the World Cup. Or just watching the clock.

I think about the areas where I am disciplined, and then it doesn’t take long to drift into the ones that are less so. Sometimes, it’s jarring how fast that transition moves. And then I ask, “why?” Isn’t this quality, this fruit, just an across the board kind of thing? Like, either I am disciplined or I am not. You can’t be kind of pregnant, isn’t self-control like that? What does self-control look like, anyway? If I want to work out, how much would display self-control? What if I take too many days off? (And what’s too many????) Why can I do these things but not these? Why do I have blind spots?

And while we’re at it, why do I do the things I don’t want to, at all? If I don’t want to do them, it only stands to reason that I wouldn’t do them, right? Nope. And, then, why do I not do the things I DO want to do?

Of course, in a super-well known passage in the Bible (Romans 7:15-20), Paul writes about exactly this situation: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”

Have you ever read this closely? I do not understand what I do. That makes sense, I don’t understand. Then, we see that if I don’t want to eat those cookies and I do, I agree that the Law is good? No, I don’t. And sin still lives in me? I still have a sinful nature? I do have the desire, I sure do, I don’t want to do the things that make me feel like garbage in the mirror, and I want to do the good things, I really do. But when I don’t, it’s not me????

We could unpack this passage forever. But I think what I’m trying to say, at least today, is that whatever goes through our minds, whatever we feel when we look in the mirror, is that we are not alone. Wherever we are right now is a really great place for us to be right now. I know we all can easily start to think, “I SHOULD be so much further along, I SHOULD not have this trouble anymore, I SHOULD be perfect.” But what this Romans passage tells me today is that we’re all on a path. Even Paul, a superhero of the faith, writer of much of the New Testament, struggles, does what he doesn’t want to, doesn’t do what he does want to. Even Paul doesn’t understand what he does. And sin still lives in Paul.

When my boys were very small, each of them had trouble with their weight. They fell 2 lines on the sacred growth chart, and 2 lines make the doctors absolutely freak out, so for the oldest, we had endless appointments with specialist after specialist. Every meal was of massive importance. The stress hung like a thick blanket over each bite, on him and his parents. The tests were all good news, and the moment one recommended a feeding tube, we decided to step out of this hamster wheel and take a breath…he began to eat. When the youngest followed the same pattern, we did some tests (not the whole battery his brother faced), and opted out. Of course, then he ate, too.

Our anxiety over where we SHOULD be, who we SHOULD be, is really not helping us. We’ll gain our weight as soon as we give ourselves a break from the shame of the should’s. There is nowhere we should be, and there is nowhere we are where God’s grace can’t cover us. That’s comforting, right? And it just might free us up to start moving again.

The Kindness Manifesto

This week, I read a very long quote from a man about kindness, and I want to share it with you here, where you can read it slowly. When I first saw it, it was devastating. Then today, as I read it out loud in our faith community, surrounded by our family, it was even more so. It changed, mostly because I could see faces & hearts, see the commitment to following Jesus, and what could have been a completely overwhelming, impossible task now just seems inevitable.

Dr Barry Corey writes, “I’m willing to bet that if Christians leaned more into kindness and understood more its revolutionary power, the world would see a side of us that would cause many skeptical and irate folks on the other side to take notice. Our radical gestures of kindness may be rejected. They may be received. But they will not be forgotten.

By kindness, I’m not talking about when you buy a stranger coffee or when you bring in your neighbor’s trash cans or when you tell someone they have food in their teeth. These are nice random acts. But kindness is not a random act. It’s a radical life. Kindness is not limited to grandmothers or Boy Scouts. Never mistake kindness for niceness. Kindness is all over the Bible, plentiful in both Testaments. But you won’t find niceness in the Bible once—nor the word nice, for that matter. Kindness is fierce, brave and daring. It’s fearless and selfless, never to be mistaken for niceness. They’re not the same and never were. Kindness is neither timid nor frail. Niceness is kindness minus conviction. I think we should scrub “nice” from our vocabulary. We need to stop telling children to be nice and instead tell them to be kind, and then tell them the difference. The virtue of kindness is rooted in Scripture, forged on sound Christian theology and modeled over the centuries by followers of Jesus. Since the early church, disciples have walked the risky and sometimes dangerous road of kindness. Kindness is a radical way of living biblically. It’s a fruit of the Holy Spirit on Paul’s short list in Galatians 5. It’s not a duty or an act. It’s an imperative. It’s the natural outcome of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives. We exhale kindness after we inhale what’s been breathed into us by the Spirit. Kindness radiates when we’re earnest about living the way of Christ, the way of the Spirit. Kindness displays the wonder of Christ’s love through us…Kindness is a dimension of God’s common grace through us. It’s a civility grounded in gentleness and respect. At the same time, kindness is neither milquetoast nor weak. It is fierce and passionate. The God-authored spirit of kindness in us has the power to upend the enemy and season the world around us for the good. Kindness as Jesus lived it presents the highest hope for a renewal of Christian civility, a renewal needed now more than ever.”

The only thing left is the gigantic, loaded question the Scriptures always leave: Now what? Will we be fierce, brave, and daring, extending kindness and grace without condition? Will we “upend the enemy and season the world around us?” What will we do with this “revolutionary power” within us? I just can’t wait to find out.

Sirens

“Describe one simple thing you do that brings joy to your life.” That’s the site prompt today, and I sure like it. We should do this, and tell someone. And probably, if we don’t have simple things like this, then we should get one immediately. You know I do puzzles, listen to songs and sing along loudly, lift weights, watch documentaries, write these blogs, read books… I am a simple man, so it just stands to reason that I’d have a life full of simple things that bring joy. I bet there are so many who would call my life unbearably boring, and I am more grateful than I can tell you for my simple, boring, wonderful life.

This morning, I woke up to the sounds of sirens. There were many and they were so loud. As it turns out, a bar in our little town was burning. It’s the second time this business has been ravaged by a fire in 7 years. 2 adjacent apartments were affected, displacing residents. One of the families in one of those apartments has 5 elementary school-aged children (I knew this early because I happen to be married to a school employee, but I would know this now because it’s all over the news). They have lost most of everything they own.

The Angel and I cried together, separately, this morning. We also were victims of catastrophic disasters that stole everything we owned. And now I see this prompt about joy and gratitude, and it seems connected. (This isn’t surprising, because everything is connected, if we only have eyes to see. But the connections between some things are easier to notice, even without “eyes that see,” aren’t they?)

There was recently a pretty massive disruption that swept through our family, and required days and (probably) weeks of recovery. It was full of broken hearts and drama, tears, relief, uncertainty, hope, and pain. Today, when I hear these sirens and see this news, our terrible time feels smaller, in comparison.

But we don’t compare, do we? Our pain is our pain, and should never be minimized or de-valued. The people who remind us that our hurts are smaller than another’s are not our friends. Instead, they’re tone deaf and are woefully lacking in empathy. Rather than climbing into our pain with us, their uncomfortability forces them to act out of their own selfish interest to “cheer us up,” so that they don’t have to feel any darkness.

However. This morning’s tragedy does bring new perspective, like a sledgehammer. Our drama was awful, but doesn’t require us to rebuild our entire lives. We had to process human behavior, brokenness, and loss with our sons, 19 and 21 years old. But we didn’t have to hold small children, and each other, soothing them, assuring them that we were there, still together, badly emotionally and physically wounded but intact, we would mourn and we would rebuild, heal. (I remember those exact conversations like they happened yesterday, my heart still aches for my boys and my Angel.)

I guess the true thing is that we are all in this, all tethered by our spirits and The Spirit. Our pain sure isn’t magically smaller in another’s (often, people would say to us, “if it makes you feel any better…” then give a story of their loss – and it never made us feel better. Why would it??), but it does connect us in ways we could not artificially manufacture. Our eyes open (they take vital steps towards those “eyes that see”), we are jarred out of our own stories, and compelled to enter into new stories. We move to help, to carry, to pray, to hold. Our hearts grow through the pain, as we become more and more empathetic.

The site prompts like today’s are important, because we constantly return to our joy, our blessings, our gratitude. And so is our inevitable pain, our certain loss & tragedy. Sharing this human experience, all made in Our Creator’s image, invites us to acknowledge the truth that we are all His, so similar in so many ways. When we are grateful, and when we are broken, these are the times we stop looking through these lying, deceptive lenses that tell us otherwise. There aren’t divisions between neighbors and enemies in ruin, only brothers & sisters.

The End.

As I read through this, I realize that it might not be as coherent as usual, it might be messy, chaotic. That might be on purpose. I am not as coherent as usual, I am messy, chaotic. Life is complicated, with many conflicting forces all working concurrently inside of our heads and hearts. We’re just trying to make sense of all of it, but sometimes, there isn’t any “making sense of all of it.” Sometimes, it’s just trying to survive, in the midst of catastrophe. Other times, we’re so grateful we could explode. And then, there are times when both of them are absolutely real and noisily, confusingly coexist. And we (all of us, all of you, all of them) are always there, beautiful gifts from a Loving, Living God. And that’s enough.