gratitude

Sunday Morning Telephone Call

At the end of every Sunday service, our community gathers into a circle-ish shape, holding hands for a closing prayer. Last week, at this precise moment, my phone rang. (Of all people to have a ringing phone on Sunday morning, right?) I silenced the noise and after making a short obvious joke (“who calls me on a Sunday morning???”), said, “I wish I could tell you who that was.”

Now I can.

I began journals for my boys on the day we found out they were alive. That is, the day we were blessed with a positive pregnancy test. Each began with, “Today is _____, and at ____pm, we found out you were here.” I continued these journals for the 9 months, then through the first year of their lives on the outside. They are an account of their growth (“you are probably the size of a cashew by now”), current events (war, terrorism, political elections, etc), personal events (my dad passed during Samuel’s first year, etc), advice (just in case I’m not there to pass it along face-to-face), and very much more. Essentially, it is an account of who we were. As they grew and transformed, so did I. So did I.

I had to wait to give them. There are content issues not fit for a 7 year old, for example. But more importantly, I had to be ok with the possibility that they may not read them. Just because they’re so overwhelmingly significant to me doesn’t mean they’ll mean the same to them, at least now. And that has been terrifying, it would have broken my heart and I would’ve been, in my unspeakable hurt, angry. It had to be a gift that I could offer, completely unconditionally. They had to be free to casually cast them aside for the next gift.

An interesting fact is that these journals (along with 2 novels I wrote in college) are the only things I wrote that we saved in the flood. Everything else (crates FULL of notebooks) went under and were unable to be salvaged. The Angel knew the importance of these and rescued them before she left that night.

Anyway. This was the year to give them. The book for the youngest was handwritten, but the oldest’s was a stack of printed papers that needed to be bound. Staples is a chain office supply store that offers this service. I took all 3 in (his book and the 2 novels) and, as I handed them across the desk (they would take 1 day), the weight of the paper and distance of the desk become clear. What if something happened? There were no extra copies, no back-ups, no possible replacements. I held them tightly, said, “they are very meaningful to me,” and this sweet young man behind the desk replied, “I will take care of them.”

But that didn’t make the night go much easier. So, when Staples came up on my phone during our prayer circle, it was a thrilling relief. (Of course, it could have been a message saying, “sorry, we lost your work,” but I was convinced that sort of message wouldn’t come during worship.) He DID take care of them.

I gave my sons their books, their love letters, their written illustration of my heart, their account of how much they are loved by their daddy, on Christmas morning. I may have abstractly mentioned them in passing through the years, so there were rumors of their existence, but to see them in their hands was extraordinary. They didn’t cry, but I sure did. To see the young men I wrote these words to so many years ago, holding them in their hands, is… well, it’s a big deal. It’s an honor, responsibility, joy to be a dad, their dad. (In a colossal understatement,) It’s just the best.

The most important decision we make is to say Yes to Jesus, then we participate with the Spirit to create these beautiful, faithful, dedicated lives. These books are simply a way that love, His love, comes out of me. Our lives are our greatest artwork. And My life (of which these books – and my marriage, the Bridge, my work, relationships, everything – are a part) is mine; my offering, my response, the way I say Thank You to My Savior, Who has given me everything and more.

So, that was the phone call. It was a very welcome interruption.

Play

The site prompt today is “what was the last thing you did for play or fun?” And probably this is it for me. I like to write, it’s super fun. But I was also thinking about you this morning and opened my computer to post. This question is in the same ballpark.

So first, what was the last thing you did for play or fun? Do you love to sing, or play the guitar? Paint? Work out, make or eat a great meal, reorganize your closet? Meet a friend for lunch? Binge watch tv shows or go to the movie theater? Play board games, read novels, listen to Morrissey albums, watch high school basketball games? Sleep? Kiss your wife? What are the things that make you come alive, refresh you, or give you rest? What are the things that are like revival to your tired soul? What are the things that, when you do them, you lose time & think, “I was born to do this, and could do it forever?”

I sat down to write this because I’m neck deep in reflection, evaluation, and anticipation – of the last year, the last several years, the upcoming days, months, years, who I was, who I am, who I am becoming. And this path always leads me to the Bible passage in the gospels where a blind man reaches out to Jesus, who asks him, “What do you want Me to do for you?”

If Jesus were to ask us that same question, how would we answer? Do we know? Have we ever even considered it? Who, what, do we love? What do we dream of, when we allow our imaginations off the least of routine and responsibility? What do we want Jesus to do in our lives? Do we believe He wants to, do we believe He can? Who is our God (or god)? Where are we blind and desperately need sight?

Speaking of doing something for play and fun, these questions are really fun, right? Do you remember sitting in elementary school letting our minds run wild, anywhere they wanted. The exhilaration of the lives we’d have. We wanted to be superheroes or artists, or moms or dads, or rock stars, and at some point, life and grown ups told us that it was impossible, to be realistic, to lower our expectations for our lives, that it is what it is.

But they were wrong. We are superheroes to someone, it isn’t just what it is, and we are all artists. Our greatest work of art are these lives we have been given…the problem is, we stopped seeing them as art. In lowering our expectations, we forgot who we were, who we were made to be, and settled for unfulfilling jobs, buying stuff we don’t need, emotionally distant from our spouses and children, believing the lie that what we do doesn’t matter, that we can’t change, that it can’t change. We became blind to the Divine, to the Holy Spirit (THE SAME Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead) living in us. We are the blind men alongside the road, reaching out to Jesus. He’s asking us the same question…

What are we going to tell Him, the One who set those talents, gifts, dreams, passions, blessings in our hearts? I, for one, want to see. That’s what I want for Christmas, from the Giver of all of our best presents.

Warmth

The site prompt for today is, “Is your life today what you pictured a year ago?’ It’s a pretty good question, but the answer really isn’t the point. What is so significant about this question is only that we ask it. A life without any reflection is one that is lived mindlessly out of habit,just getting through each day. And a life like that hardly ever leads to growth or, to use a word from the Scriptures, transformation. Instead, we stay stuck in our loops simply because we never pause long enough to recognize that it is a loop and to question it’s health or usefulness.

Maybe that job or relationship or budget or schedule or expense or whatever isn’t for us. Maybe it never was. Maybe it stopped being a positive influence months ago, or yesterday. Maybe something else is now a much better fit, and there isn’t any room because we’re still hanging on to the old. Or maybe we have the perfect thing for us already in our lives, but we can’t give it the attention it deserves because of the other distractions (sometimes, what was once so valuable becomes little more than filler now) that we haven’t gotten around to leaving behind.

And maybe some people or things need to return. Maybe the old has been unnecessarily and unintentionally excised.

This month, leading to the new year, is a natural time to empty out our lives onto the floor and take a good, long, hard look at what’s actually in there. Maybe we don’t even know what is taking our time, or energy, or money, and maybe (probably) we have even less idea why.

So, let’s begin to do that. We can do that in our room by ourselves (well, you know what I mean. Not by ourselves. When we are in our room, or anywhere, we are with Him, with the Holy Spirit, always with.) or with trusted friends and mentors. They might be able to ask some difficult questions in blind spots, like, “why do you spend your money there?” “What do you do after work?” What do you actually want?” “Why do you want that person/thing?”

It’s simple presence. We are totally present participants in our own lives.

Here’s what I notice around this time of year. We get so busy doing all of the things, ordering the presents, shopping, wrapping, sending the cards, baking the cookies. We do all of these wonderful things for other people that we forget the other people!! Martha chose to spend the time with Jesus making the hors d’oeuvres, vacuuming the floor, clearing the table, and doing the dishes to serve Jesus and the other guests, that she almost missed Jesus altogether. It can be the same in our lives. We get so busy chopping wood, we end up less than grateful, oblivious to the warmth it provides.

This season, let’s show up with all of us, wide awake, and ask the questions, see each other, listen, notice, pay attention, love somebody, love somebody else, and say thanks with out lives for the warmth He provides.

The Grateful

Gratitude Journals. Gratitude Breaths. Thank You Notes. Those are the first 3 in an email list of gratitude practices, as it is Thanksgiving this week. I think we’ve probably heard all of them before, We’ve been told to make lists and to slow down and breathe many times. Maybe we haven’t had thank-you notes suggested (when was the last time we passed a hand-written note at all??), but it certainly does make sense to acknowledge kindness and beauty.

The 4th requires an explanation. Flip The Script means, in difficult situations, we ask,”what is one thing I can be thankful for in this situation?” It’s a simple re-frame that can exchange one “O” word – obstacle – for another – opportunity. And it reminds me of a different email I received yesterday, that stated “the opposite of misery isn’t happiness, it’s gratitude,” and asked us to “Be grateful for your struggles, because within them is the opportunity for growth and meaning.”

In the movie I watched last night, after saving the multiverse (don’t ask), one character asked if the time variance agency (really, don’t ask) could change another character’s regrettable, awful past for rescuing the world. He was told that past, that deeply painful past, is what created the hero that could save us all. There was nothing to change.

By the way, it was yet another instance of a story where the hero sacrifices him- or her-self so everyone else can live. Sounds familiar. I point this pattern out to my boys every time we see it, and explain that it’s in so many stories because it’s The Best Story. Our Creator, Savior, and redemption are wired into our souls. We all know it, and so does Hollywood. (I was going to add “whether they admit it or not,” but that’s silly. They admit it with every re-telling.)

Anyway. I’m just spending the time this week reflecting on gratitude, in general, as a concept, and in my own life, specifically. We could make lists or flip all the scripts, but each of them, any/all of them, are designed to open our eyes and turn our heads. Paul writes that we are to be thankful in everything, and that’s unbelievably difficult sometimes.

But so was my first deadlift. A deadlift works nearly all of the muscles in your body. It’s hard and I struggled to do very light weights. However, I wanted to do it, I wanted to be a man who deadlifts. And guess what happened? I kept watching YouTube videos on correct, safe form. I asked questions and studied others in the gym. I deadlifted often, even when I didn’t want to, didn’t feeeeeel like it. The light weights increased as it became an integral part of my workout routine. It’s still hard, but it’s awesome. I am a man who deadlifts.

I think gratitude is probably the same idea. Being a grateful person requires all of us, asking muscles we don’t always use to grow and strengthen. And we pay attention, hand writing notes (maybe we should bring handwriting back) or reading mass emails or whatever, and keep gratituding. Even when we really don’t feeeeeel like it.

We have been given our very lives, each breath, each moment. We’ve been given each other, the beauty of the changing leaves and the Church. We’ve been given touch, smiles, kisses, tapioca pudding, and breakfast sausage. We have been made to deadlift, we’ve just seen the wind & forgotten. Way deep down, in all of the most authentic parts of us, under all of the rock in which we hide, we are The Grateful. So, how about, starting with this week, we begin chipping away at the rock and reveal this stunning true nature of ours.

Christmas Presents

Last week, I went to a Morrissey concert in Atlantic City. Morrissey is a pop singer, and he’s been my favorite artist since I was around 13 years old and heard a song called “Ask.” (I’ll talk about the actual show on my lovewithacapitall.com blog, if you’re dying to know more.)

I went with my sister to the show, and her husband (who, inexplicably, HATES Morrissey) and the Angel also came for the evening in the city. We stayed in a fancy hotel with a perfect view of the ocean, ate too much of a great meal and way too much, several times, from an interesting cafe.

Then, home for last minute preparations for Operation Christmas Child shoebox Sunday. I made the soup and the cake, she made the artichoke dip, and we eased our tired bodies (we’re older now and need more rest than we used to) into bed.

Sunday morning, the Bridge packed the boxes we delivered to the drop point a day later, and hopefully we all ate too much of the community meal. Together.

This was a beautiful weekend, full of meaning and significance. But Morrissey was the least of it. That’s strange to write, because for so many years, I would’ve said he was the most important figure in my life, singing the songs that detailed my (our) emotions and gave me 1 person who, I believed, understood. I would’ve told you he saved my life on more than one occasion, and that might be true.

But during the show, I looked at my sister and hugged her and told her how much I loved her, how I didn’t want to be with anyone else but her. The songs were great, but this relationship was so much better, deeper, with mountains of history between us. Morrissey didn’t know me, our history was a one-way street. Those songs just gave us another extraordinary reason to share the time.

The 4 of us had dinner and breakfast. The Angel and I watched the sun set and rise in our hotel window and on the beach. He’s the best brother in the world, and she’s just the best person. I’d rather kiss her once and share one meal of noodles than watch all of the Morrissey shows ever.

So, yes, of course, Morrissey doesn’t know me, but neither do the boys and girls half a world away who will open our presents, and packing their presents with love and prayer with my family opened me in wonderful ways for which I can never prepare.

This is more of a bullet point narrative post than a long thoughtful essay, but the point is that while Morrissey may have saved my life, it was just to bring me to the place where my life could actually be saved and redeemed. When I fell in love with Jesus (10+ years after I fell in love with Morrissey), it began a lifetime of restructuring my values.

The first time I saw Morrissey, I left my friend at the door to run to the stage to be in the front row. That’s where my values were then, I now forgive the boy that did it, but it isn’t me now. Morrissey connects us. Without the connection, without the relationships, they’re simply chords and lyrics (which are still miles better than most things).

Now, I prefer dinner with my sister and her husband. I prefer holding the Angel’s hand and watching the waves roll in. I prefer shoeboxes and pumpkin pie. I even prefer making a cake for others.

And all of those preferences ooze down into every area of my life from the One with the position at the top. I am so grateful that Morrissey moves me, grateful that he means so much to me, because it paints a picture (however inadequate) and packs a shoebox full of the love, belonging and fulfillment of the One who opens my eyes and heart and changes everything.

2 Things For This Week

Last week, we spoke about honor – what it is and how we do it. Both of these were surprisingly difficult. Many times, we use words that we cant exactly define. I think religion is full of these kinds of words. We’ve seen them enough to be able to pronounce them and use them correctly in sentences. “Honor” is easy enough to write sermons around, but becomes substantially more difficult if you carry it out just one more question, the dreaded, “what does that actually mean?”

Love is another. What does it mean to love your neighbor, or your enemy, your friends, parents, other drivers? For that matter, what does it actually mean to love your spouse??? We don’t ask, because it exposes us and we don’t like to sound like we don’t have everything together, especially if we don’t. As it turns out, maybe we’d all be exposed, if one of us would simply give voice to our vulnerability.

Anyway. What does it mean to honor someone? Better yet, what does it look like? I think it looks like listening. Asking questions. Saying something wonderful. Encouraging. Speaking truth. Trusting. Going first. Letting them go first. (I know they are direct opposites, but that doesn’t bother me and it shouldn’t bother you. It depends on the time and place. Sometimes, you can go first. Sometimes, I should. Not everything is strictly black and white, it’s a beautiful exploding gray.) And what does it look like to honor ourselves?

I asked these same questions Sunday, and I’m asking again, because the answers are different for all of us, and the only way we can find out how we can honor each other is if we ask, seek, & knock. Of course, it’s hard, and we don’t want to. We want to be honored, but to do the honoring is a different story altogether. But it doesn’t really matter if we want to or not, our communities and our world depends on if we show up to each other with love, and with honor.

The second thing I want to talk about is our Very Cool Thing Saturday. We’ll have a, well, what is essentially a party, a big rad shin-dig. At 6:30 I’ll talk about my book (Be Very Careful Who You Marry), then Olivia Farabaugh (Oliviafarabaugh.com) will play us in, then I’ll talk about Star Wars and the Resurrection and how that can change everything around 7, then after that she’ll play her songs and give her story, and we’ll leave around 9ish. She’s really extraordinary, in all sorts of ways, and you’ll love her.

Now, as far as our community goes, this was the idea from the beginning. We would create a place for artists (of any discipline) to express themselves in public, and in doing that, we would go to any/all lengths to affirm their divine spark, their identity in the image of a wildly creative God. And we would show up, and in that, we would affirm our Genesis 1 & 2 bend to be together, according to our design. What that means is that we would be together because it’s how we’ve been designed to be.

We would show up and welcome guests and love them, without regard to any label or imaginary division, and without reserve. It would be an opportunity to show the love of Jesus because that’s what we’ve been designed to do.

So, my second thing here is to invite you to come out to love and be loved. To come out to welcome Olivia and to be welcomed by Olivia. To hear how Luke Skywalker’s training on Degobah relates to our marriages, and to buy my book (ha!!). To meet my nephew’s girlfriends. But mostly, it’s really a chance to lean into our wonderful creation and be grateful, and I think we could all use more chances for that.

It’s Saturday at 6:30 at the Bridge, and it’ll be Very Cool, but it would be even more so if you’re there.

Leadership

The website that we use to create & post content on the Bridge (bridgefaithcommunity.com) and the Love With A Capital L (lovewithacapitall.com) websites is called Jetpack. It’s easy and free, 2 characteristics that make it very friendly for me. Jetpack wants it’s users to post often and gives lots of tools to make that happen. One of them is a prompt (a question or an idea), and today’s is: Do you see yourself as a leader?

This is interesting, because we all can have such widely contrasting views on this question. The nature of my position at the Bridge makes it obvious for me, but how do you answer the prompt? I’ve heard the phrase, “I’m no leader,” so many times, I’d start to believe it, if it wasn’t so wrong.

I also hear “I’m not a creative person.” Where do you think these lies began? When did we first hear them? Were they something we were told? And why? Why would someone lead us to believe such false notions about ourselves?

Much of our journey of faith, following Jesus, is un-learning the nonsense we’ve been taught.

Not a creative person? If we are awake and aware, if we look around, we see the fruit of a wildly creative God. The world is exploding with color and texture and beauty and function. We are made in the image of that God. It is as if we are saying, “We are all made in His image…except for me.” It’s strange we would accept this as truth isn’t it?

As far as leadership, last week we discussed our relationships in the home and asked some very difficult questions: Are we keeping score, making long records of wrongs? Are we patient? AND would our children be the first to call us patient? Would our spouses be defending our kindness? Would they defend the words we use, or our tones? Are we proud? Would our wives or children say we need it our way? Do they think we need to control how we make a pb&j sandwich? 

If these questions are so valuable (and so hard to answer honestly), that implies that people are watching. Our children are learning from our example. Our spouses are discovering who we are, how we move, what’s important to us. All of this points to the opportunity to impact the world around us, an opportunity that is only fully realized when we acknowledge the truth of our responsibility.

At work, in the grocery stores, behind the wheel, at the gym, we are always on display. How do we speak to each other? What can the cashier at the Walmart learn about the Gospel from our marriages? From our interactions with our teenage sons & daughters? If love is patient, would someone feel loved after interacting with us? Would they feel inspired our gratitude or deflated by our sour, complaining hearts?

This is the definition of leadership, and probably we’ve closed our eyes to avoid it. Those days are over, they have to be. There’s a saying that goes, “Teach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.” We’re all teachers, illustrators, leaders, everybody is watching. I don’t always like the prompts, they often amplify a disappointingly stark difference in perspectives between the cultural and the spiritual. What we do matters to someone, so that makes it matter to everyone. Once we see this, our vision clears to possibility. And this is how it all starts…

2 Aching Muscles

On Friday, I pulled a muscle in my back. This, I suppose, isn’t the most surprising thing in the world. It happens. What’s embarrassing about it is that I did it while throwing frisbee. Or rather, disc golf. That sounds much cooler than “frisbee.” We’ve been playing quite a bit lately, and it was a pretty good time, until I felt like I got stabbed in my back and now it hurts to breathe too deeply or dead lift or get up or move quickly or walk around like a normal person. Sigh. So there’s that. I don’t know when I got this old. I used to be able to throw frisbees with no consequence. Sheesh, its just a frisbee.

If I take some ibuprofen, it’s not too bad. I bet nobody knew on Sunday morning or yesterday visiting family. Maybe they did, you know I can be very dramatic in my self-pity.

Today it’s better – I haven’t taken anything for pain yet today – but maybe that’s because there is another thing that is affecting an entirely different muscle in my aging body.

My youngest son just left for the first day of his senior year of high school. This has been only the first leg of the “lasts.” The last high school summer league in basketball. The last summer vacation of high school. The last first day.

There’s a meme (the wisdom literature of our time, our proverbs) that says something like “one day you’ll carry your child to bed and it’ll be the last time, and you won’t know it at the time.” And it can be anything. These 2 boys used to sleep on my chest. We walked them to school, drove them to practices, watched band concerts. I used to put them on my shoulders, or better yet, in a backpack for walks, like Yoda. If I sat them on my shoulders now, there would be many more than one muscle pulled. (My older boy is bigger than me in every way, maybe I should get on his shoulders to see now.)

As we all get older, we get the gift of knowing it’s the last. I knew the last time I’d coach each of them. I knew when I handed the championship trophy to this now-high school-senior and hugged him, that it would be the last time I would ever do that. That’s why I cried in front of everyone. We know today is his last first day of high school. We know the next first day of school, he won’t be living in this house. I cry a lot in front of everyone. (Today, though, with this pulled muscle in my back, it hurts A LOT to cry, more than usual.)

I talk a lot about a 2 hands theology. We are asked to hold the sadness – in this case, the sadness of the loss of my little boy – AND the celebration and joy – in this case, he’s a cooler, better person than I could have ever dreamed he’d be. Both of these boys are, and that is more wonderful than I can tell you. Except they’re not boys anymore, they’re men, and that hurts worse than I can tell you. My tears are a holy mixture of pain and joy.

That mixture has a name and is, simply, gratitude. More than anything that I can’t tell you is how thankful I am. My sister & I were talking, awestruck at these lives with which we have been blessed. This is certainly not to say they have been easy or without struggle or without times we doubted and there were times we might not have felt so grateful. But the thing about a 2 hands theology is that we have always been honest about those times, and the truth is, that’s probably why we’re so thankful today. We have been there for all of it.

I remember tearing their artwork from the walls of our old house as it went underwater, but I couldn’t get it all. And I prize what I took and mourn the loss of what I left behind. My aim has always been to live a fully present life, showing up to the pleasure, the wins, and the suffering, the losses. There have been so many of both, and I wouldn’t trade any of them.

So yes, I am celebrating with an ecstatic heart at this life I’ve been given and what I get to see and experience…and there is no amount of ibuprofen that can ease the hurt of what I get to see and experience. But the best thing is that there is no world where I’d want to.

Cookies

Sunday’s message ended with the wildly unreasonable command of Jesus to gouge out our eyes if they cause us to lust, to cut off our hands if they cause us to sin. Obviously, He couldn’t have actually meant that, right??? It’s this kind of passage, in the Sermon On The Mount, no less, that causes us such trouble and leads us down paths of discussion on hyperbole and exaggeration – which gives us a very nice, convenient out.

I’m reading Judges right now. (My practice is to read 2 passages, one from an Old Testament book and one from a New Testament book – the New Testament is Revelation. Just some light, easy reading. Ha!) In chapter 2, Israel does what Israel does – what we do – and is disobedient. Maybe it’s pretty subtle, but disobedience nonetheless. They have been told to “drive out” all the people in the Promised Land, and the chorus of the first chapter of Joshua is “____ failed to drive out the people living in _____” This refrain is in verses 19, 27, 29, 30, 31, and 33. Now, maybe they failed to drive out any of them or maybe just not all, but it’s still the same idea. They were given instructions and didn’t follow them.

In chapter 2, we are told Israel “abandoned the LORD… They chased after other gods, worshiping the gods of the people around them.” Now, why were the people around them? Because they didn’t drive them out. Because they didn’t do what God asked of them, commanded them.

If I keep cookies in the house, I’m going to eat them.

A solid trainer who knows me well will tell me to get them out of the house. Will tell me that I can’t be trusted (even if it hurts my feelings.) Will give me the tools to set myself up for success. Then, if I get rid of all but some or none of the cookies, I haven’t listened to him. And it might not be today or tomorrow, but I will eventually eat them.

The Canaanites are the cookies. gods like Baal and Ashtoreth and those ridiculous Asherah poles are just more cookies. And the Israelites are just like me, they can’t be trusted with cookies in the house.

So Jesus tells us, if the cookies cause you to stumble, if you’re going to eat those cookies, throw them out. If your computer causes you to stumble, throw it out. Maybe we can’t use our phones when we’re alone, maybe we need some controls. If our time alone with our boyfriends & girlfriends brings unbearable temptation, then maybe we don’t get alone time. Maybe we’re always outside or with others.

But we’re NOT children, we have enormous reserves of will power. We can stop any time we want. We can hold firm. We don’t have to eat the cookies. We are very strong and disciplined. And I’m 100% sure that’s true. This minute.

David could be on his roof – after all, it’s his roof. He could just not look at his neighbor Bathsheba (who, incidentally, is considered by whoever decides these sorts of things, one of the 5 most beautiful women to ever live. And whoever does decide probably has never seen the Angel, so maybe not top 5, but we get the point.) And I’m positive he did. For a while. Nobody takes the money from the drawer the first time they’re on the register. (I know, everybody says they do, says it’s the first time, but nobody believes that because it’s never true. And if it ever was, it’s such a small percentage that the exception proves the rule.)

I don’t have to eat the cookies today, maybe not even this week. But there will be a night I can’t sleep, or I’m sad, or disappointed, or just bored. Then, those cookies are in big trouble.

This hyperbole isn’t an out at all, it’s an illustration of how important it is. We’d rather not have hands than more cookies, and not have eyes than be that violently destructive to our own bodies, souls and spirits. If the off ramp is there, we’re going to take it. We’re going to settle for less, we’re going to forget that we’re children of the King, going to forget we’re made to fly.

And it’s really hard to fly while our arms are full of cookies.

Gifts

I usually like to write and post on a Monday or, at the latest, Tuesday. Today is Thursday. This week has been full. My heart is full, my head and my schedule are somewhat less full, but still enough to add a certain extra weight to the everyday.

First, the “everyday” reminds me of the AI quote from Sunday about the profane. Profane is defined as “Things that are not sacred, such as ordinary daily routines of life. Profane elements are secular, mundane, and practical, and are not considered to hold any spiritual significance.” I think that is a poor definition, because it implies that there are areas of life that don’t hold spiritual significance. It seems to me that part of our problem is that we believe that these areas exist, and therefore, and treat them as if they are meaningless. They lie outside of any greater consequence, and check out. We mindlessly step in the same footprints as yesterday and tomorrow and next Friday and last January.

So I believe that with all of my heart: there is no separation, and everything is spiritual, as long as we hold it with care and love.

Then, the homework was to open our eyes to the beauty of this life, to see all of this as a gift, the blessings, and look for spaces to be grateful. Notice these wonderful lives of ours.

And sometimes, I am invited to discover if these beliefs I say I hold are the ones I actually hold. Invited to do the homework myself. Asked the very difficult question of priority – when belief and faith come into conflict with convenience or my idea of what is supposed to be, then which side wins? Not only in my head or on paper, but in flesh and blood?

We all have this same invitation a ka-jillion times a day.

I make a weekly to-do list that I cross off (it is very satisfying to cross them off) as I complete each item. 2 of the items are “Bridge Post,” and “Love Post.” I write these posts on Monday or Tuesday. But Monday and Tuesday, I had homework and belief to practice. I don’t always get these pop quizzes right, often times I’ll serve my to-do list and treat other opportunities as things to get through to return to my list.

Thankfully, this week, I was (mostly) fully present to this gift I have been given, and I’m only writing this on a Thursday. Small steps make good lives, and sometimes they make lives so much better and deeper than you could have ever possibly imagined.