imagination

25 Years?!

[I wrote this on my other blog, and thought I would share it here, as well. It’s about a specific pop song, but it’s also about marriage, and the blessings we can sometimes miss. Maybe you’ll like it.]

What does “having it all” mean to you? That’s what the site is asking, and it is actually a pretty revealing query. It certainly tells more than most of these prompts. Maybe I’d care to dive into this another day, but not today, hosting site, not today.

Today is our 25th wedding anniversary. The Angel has been married to me for a quarter of a century. I’ll get all mushy at the end of this post, but something happened this morning that perfectly illustrates what a healthy marriage is, and how to get one. (I don’t have all the answers, obviously, but when I do happen to come across one, I like to pass it along to you. I don’t only want me to have an A+ 25-year marriage, I want everybody to have that. Incidentally, I am not particularly special or unique, what I’m about to write about has nothing to do with me, it is open to all of us. Also incidentally, I used to think this A+ healthy marriage had to do with finding the Angel, and that blessing had more to do with her being a unicorn rather than any principle or idea. I don’t, anymore. That unicorn has everything to do with my marriage, but she is not the only avenue for anyone to have a beautiful relationship.)

Anyway, this morning on the way to school (through some turn of circumstance, I take her to and from work nowadays), I chose to listen to an Amazon Music playlist titled Rediscover: 90’s Alternative. The first song was the classic “Wonderwall,” by Oasis. I knew she’d sing along with me once the first word of the lyrics “Today…” started up. It’s also an awesome love song – “I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now…Maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me, and after all, you’re my wonderwall.” Perfect beginning to a great day, right? Except she says, “I’m happy I’m getting out of the car.” Whaaaat???? The she explained, she doesn’t like Liam’s voice or the song or the greatest era of music, either. 

We had our first date in 1998, got married in 2001, and have been together almost every day since. How could I have possibly not known this? Before this moment, it had never ever crossed my mind that anyone would not absolutely love this song. I told my son, later, that “it was wildly overplayed, think “Shake It Off” (by Taylor Swift) levels of airplay, and still, it wasn’t enough.” Everyone loves “Wonderwall.” The fact that my wife doesn’t is impossible.

So, here’s what I learned… You marry someone, you learn all about them, who they are, what they dream of and care about, where they come from, what songs they love, and then they grow and change, and you learn those things again and again and again. I am not the boy she married, and I will not be the man I am now in 10 years. She is not the same woman who sat across from me in that restaurant in 1998. We are dynamic creatures by nature, made to move and evolve. (Sometimes we forget and stagnate, but that is not our design.)

My experience has been that relationships crack and break apart when we stop paying attention, stop learning each other, when we think that we know who the other is, that there are no more surprises or amazing revelations. We get bored. But we are very wrong. The harsh truth of that is, we’re not bored with them. We’re bored with ourselves, we checked out of our own lives and never came back. We’re the boring, uninterested & uninteresting, apathetic, pathetically incurious ones. 

Imagine if I believed the Angel was the college junior I met those many years ago? I would have missed countless wonderful (tiny and humongous) transformations. She looks the same, gorgeous as ever, but now she has some gray hairs and they are absolutely fantastic, adding a level of texture and interest. Imagine if I stopped looking at her so closely, so intently. Imagine if I expected her to look like a 20 year-old. I would have missed this wildly better, even more beautiful, version entirely. 

After 25 years, I’m married to the Angel, but the Angel is different, new, stronger, deeper, both more open and more assured. She’s cooler than I thought, and she’s everything I knew she was. She drives me crazy – in all the good ways as well as the bad. Of course, there have been growing pains, but they are also growing joys, growing pleasures, growing wonders, and growing peace. We have discovered each other in terrific new ways, and in not so terrific ways (like the “Wonderwall” tragedy). We have loved each other, and will continue to do so, for as long as we are given. 

I’ll never know why she wanted to be married to me for one day, much less 25 years, but that’s her problem, not mine. As for me, I’ll keep looking & listening closely, dreaming, learning, I’ll keep growing and moving forward, and I’ll stay forever grateful that I get to do it with her, whoever she becomes, and whatever horrible thing I might learn in the car, tomorrow.

Graduation!

My niece graduated from high school yesterday. (Of course, it’s impossible that this young woman is old enough to finish high school. It’s a little bit like that famous creepy Wooderson line in Dazed and Confused, in reverse: every year they get older and I stay the saaame age.) Her journey has been very interesting. The family (2 adults, 2 girls, and a variety of pets) decided to leave their home and live in a motor coach for the last several years. This necessitated a remote learning situation, and she received her diploma from a Christian school based in Pensacola, Florida. And in May, they hold an in-person ceremony that looks exactly like every high school graduation looks, except most of the kids have never met each other.

The keynote speaker was the Academy President, who didn’t have to be awesome but was anyway. He gave a message with 3 main points, the first was “Never underestimate the value of daily faithfulness.”

Sunday was Mother’s Day (incidentally, I don’t really believe in participating in these holidays invented to sell product, opportunities to worship at the altar of consumerism, but that’s hardly important) and I mentioned that anyone can be great on Mother’s Day. Anyone can buy a present and call on Mother’s Day. Anyone can honor their mom on Mother’s Day. But we are not anyone. It takes someone different to honor their mom on an ordinary Wednesday afternoon, right?

Jesus commands us to love each other, even our enemies, and it’s mostly the same thing. Everybody can practice love for the people they like, or when they want to, but what about the people we don’t like, or that we disagree with, or don’t agree with, or when we’re tired and don’t feel like it? This works for everything, I suppose. Great marriages aren’t built on airport pickups, anniversaries, or honeymoons – everybody shows up for those things – they’re built on mealtimes and mornings, on kind words and patience. And a high maximum bench press doesn’t happen in a 3 hour workout, it happens through a long, long, long series of boring workouts.

My niece watched lectures, took tests, read textbooks, and wrote essays on a tour bus. She did it at all times of the day, without a desk or a classroom or bells. Most times she did it without teachers, just her and her “daily faithfulness.”

And I’m thinking about why she did that. What got her out of bed to open the books, over and over and over, who and what was she being faithful to? The answer probably isn’t one thing. I’d guess she’d tell you that she was faithful to the God who gave her the gifts she has, and the call she has been given. But I think she was also faithful to the person she is becoming, to a future version of herself, who practices quiet daily faithfulness, discipline and intention.

The hard work of building isn’t ever for today, it’s for a vision of the marriage, the bench press, the person you want to be who does those things, who loves in spite of feelings or convenience. When you see it, it’s inspiring and almost never about motivation. Nobody feels like it all the time, but she probably found that she doesn’t even ask herself how she feels, there’s not an IF in the neighborhood. The graduate that she was working towards – and that she now is – simply gets up and goes to work. We’re all proud of her, it’ll be fantastic to see who she decides to become next.

Puzzle Pieces (extended)

[I wrote this yesterday for my other site, and I keep thinking about other implications & applications for my love of puzzles, so I’m adding to it here (minus the first paragraph about favorite restaurants, which was based on the site prompt and which you probably don’t care too much about).]

This post is a little late, I usually write on Mondays, but I was in the middle of a big, beautiful Star Wars puzzle. That shouldn’t matter, it shouldn’t be an obstacle to real life for a normal person. But I’m not a normal person. I have what’s called an addictive personality, so when I begin a puzzle, we can safely figure it will take nearly every second of my free (or writing/working) time until it’s done. And that’s what it did, for a couple of days, and now it’s finished and glorious.

I love puzzles, and I often used to wonder why. Now, I know. 

The world is more and more mixed up, confusing, frustrating, and I have almost no control over what happens on a macro level. Of course, I have lots and lots of control over how I treat my neighbors or what I buy at the grocery store, or how & when I brush my teeth. But I can’t stop any of the wars happening right now or make the sun come out. I can’t erase any of the President’s increasingly problematic posts on his personal social media site. I can’t bring gas prices down or help the Dallas Cowboys win the Super Bowl. 

So, it feels like our cultural, political, emotional, and economic environments are just big snarling masses of individual pieces, disconnected and random. It’s a dining room table of chaos. But in this Star Wars puzzle’s case, I can find 2 pieces that fit, then a third, and it starts to take shape. You hold one piece and think, how can this possibly make sense? And it really doesn’t, by itself, but there is a meta-narrative that recontextualizes everything, making one central ordered picture that’s full of meaning. 

I think that’s what the Bible is: our meta-narrative that gives the chaos order. It’s our big picture. Each piece is important to the whole, even if we can’t see it now, and it takes lots of patience and hope to continue. The pieces might be love, generosity, or kindness – each individual act or moment – and alone, don’t appear to make much of a difference. However, there is a masterpiece being created, and each of those “random,” “nonsensical” pieces are absolutely required for the final product. What does this mean for us? Well, it means we stay at it, persevering, moving the puzzle pieces, even when it doesn’t look like we’ll ever get done, like these pieces of ours will never matter, because we trust there is a giant Story being told and our pieces are integral. We keep showing up, even as the chaos rages and the temptation to quit rises. We keep showing up, loving The Creator of this Story and each other, in faith.

Puzzles work as a metaphor, a soothing intellectual exercise, a Gospel illustration, and they are super fun. Now that it’s done, I can just appreciate the beauty of cohesion and unity, and that’s just what I’ll do.

Steps.

In 2 Corinthians 13:11, Paul writes, “Dear brothers & sisters, I close my letter with these last words: Rejoice. Change your ways (or Repent). Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you.”

As I was reading this passage, I thought of the new book I’m working on, it’s called We Have a Weight Problem. (I probably thought of it, because it’s what I was working on right before I opened my Bible, until I had to charge the battery on my laptop.) It’s about our values, the weight we assign to everything, and why & how we change our lives.

I thought of the Pharisees, too, who read the Scriptures and try to help people understand and apply the truth of God’s word. They’re also wildly hypocritical and phony, but at the root of the matter, they’re most of us. We read, study, learn and try to figure out how to integrate it into our everyday moments, taking this beautiful Gospel into the world, knowing it’s as contagious as we think it is. And we’re pretty hypocritical, sometimes, too.

Anyway. Earlier in the 1st Corinthians chapter, he asks us to “examine…test” ourselves, to ask questions about who we are and what we believe. How? What questions? How would we know to change our lives? Then he gives these last few words that, I think answer both questions. They give us a baseline and an action plan.

1st. Rejoice. Are we full of joy? Do we rejoice in the blessings all around us? Do we have the eyes to even see them, or are we too overwhelmed and/or distracted by anything else? Probably, all of those answers are “sometimes.” Sometimes, we can’t help but see the sunshine, the blooms on the flowers, each breath…but honestly, we’re pretty overwhelmed and distracted, so that “sometimes” is less & less often and less & less impactful.

No. 2: Repent. Are we doing the things that make us love us less? Are we living lives beneath the honor & dignity that God has bestowed upon us, living below our call, below our identity as His children? That one is surely, sadly, “yes.”

3 & 4. Encourage each other, Live in harmony and peace. What do our relationships look like? Are we encouraging one another, or are we existing in division and discord? Are we kind? Do we call each other up, or do we simply tear each other down? Do we live in harmony and peace, together? How about within ourselves? Do you feel peaceful? At peace? Sigh.

Now what? We’ve been opened up, and haven’t particularly liked the reflection in the mirror Paul has held up. How do we change this? How do we re-engage with our God, ourselves, and our families, friends, communities?

Rejoice. If we don’t rejoice, let’s start. Slow down, open our eyes, look, listen, notice – there’s heart-exploding beauty all around. Find it. Rejoice. If we haven’t rejoiced, rejoice. Repent. We’re walking down paths that we know aren’t for us…turn around. Repent just means turn around. Maybe we can stop making excuses for the behavior that ask us to hide, or that bring us shame, and turn around, instead. Those instincts (hiding and shame) are not of God, they’re from a place that doesn’t like us at all, hates us, & doesn’t want good things for us. Let’s leave them behind, ok? If we’re not loving others, love others. We know how to do that (Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians, also chapter 13, gives us a list, in great detail), so we can start today. If we haven’t been kind, be kind to the next person we see. And the next. And the next. We all know everybody is going through all sorts of pain, struggle, challenge, maybe we could tell them we see them, and to keep on moving forward, we’ll take one step at a time and hold their hands if they want.

It’s probably true that I make this sound so simple, but I think it sounds that way because it is. We usually make it hard.

Several months ago, I asked my ChatGPT, who has given himself the name “Theo” (I can explain it later, if you want), why my joints hurt and I am so fatigued. I wanted a detailed list of medical jargon and long, intricate, difficult steps to change my life, and he said, “Stop getting so much sugar & caffeine, take a day or 2 off from the gym, and get a good night’s sleep.” I knew all of that, I just wasn’t doing that – who knows why? It’s not easy, but it is simple. He said he can give me a plan, so I said yes, still hoping for brain-numbing complexity, and he essentially said, “Pick one day and on that day, when you would go to the gym, don’t…And all that sugar you eat? Don’t eat so much of it. Haha.

Love God, love one another. Not easy. Simple.

Rejoice. Repent. Encourage. Love. Repeat.

Next Steps

I have been making some small, significant changes in my life (maybe not all so small), and it has me thinking about transformation. We discuss the art of becoming quite a bit: when it happens, how it happens, why it happens… What provides the impetus for real change in our lives?

Of course, nobody likes change. There’s that true cliche that says “Change only happens when the pain of staying the same outweighs the pain of change.” Maybe we’re there. Maybe our lives have become unmanageable and we’re suffering, or maybe we just have that nagging sense that there’s more, a new, next step we are being called into, like a splinter in our minds or an anvil on our shoulders. Pain can look very different for each of us.

It’s interesting, this transformation is not something someone else can do for us. Our people may see the reality, or the invitation, just as we might have in their lives, but the next steps (if they are to be authentic and lasting) are ones into which we can’t be coerced. Anakin Skywalker, before Darth Vader, speaking to his love, Padme, says, “Together, you and I can rule the galaxy. We can make things the way we want them to be!” This is the lie of control. Anakin believes he knows the right answers for everyone (we probably have made this assumption before, as well, right?) and should force them to make the “right” decisions. He believes he can and must decide their path, but our path is ours to take with the Spirit inside us, with Its prompting, courage, and strength.

So, what is our path? What are our next steps? Your next steps aren’t mine to take, or to direct, any more than mine are yours. Our only responsibilities are to have our eyes open, honestly, to recognize this call – both from and into – and then consider the step. (Today the step might only be to consider taking it, starting to think about starting to think about moving, or it might be to actually jump. Who knows?)

Sunday is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week, and we’ll begin a conversation about the choice the people of Jerusalem had: Pilate and the Roman Empire, OR Jesus Christ & His New Kingdom? It’s the same choice we all have, in every moment. Do we want to continue walking the way it has been, the way it is, or are we willing to join the revolution of God and enter a new creation?

What better time could there be to imagine a new world? Easter, the celebration of new life. What could our new life in Him look like? Where is He calling us, who is He calling us to become?

And I bet, like me, you’re caught in an avalanche of distraction and disturbance. The alarm bells are ringing, the wheels are shaking, every side is clamoring for your attention. It’s like how the text message notifications ring the very moment you sit down to read, or how you remember the laundry when you sit down to pray. The enemy of our transformation is often preoccupation, for whatever Very Important Reason.

How about if, this Easter season, we try to notice where we are today (yes, I know it’s hard and it might sting), and imagine where the next steps might take us? They just might take us on the ancient road to an empty tomb, where we can finally find ourselves, and the life only He can give.

[And, as always, we do this together – as says the song lyric that often closes services, “Let’s take this one step at a a time, I’ll hold your hand if you hold mine.”]

Weather???

What is my favorite kind of weather, the site wants to know. They’re not all great, right? You would be hard pressed to find a less interesting way to spend your writing/reading time. But then, this morning, one of the email lists I subscribe to sent these thoughts & questions (with the title “Do you wish life was different?”):

“Your life simply reflects what you’ve prioritized…What does your life tell you about your priorities? Do you wish it were different?”

We talk about values & the Biblical concept of weight (as in, what weighs more, observing the Sabbath or pulling your donkey out of a hole?) often. We discuss the foundations on which we build our lives. What do you believe about God, the world & yourself? And would your actions testify to those answers, or would they be a jarring contradiction?

This email doesn’t come from an espoused Christian, but it certainly asks a question that is inherently “Christian.” You have this wonderful gift of life, how will you spend it? What is important to you?

After I fell in love with Jesus, there were months where I didn’t open my Bible, where my fingers didn’t touch the spine, where it just sat on my bedside table collecting dust. But I would’ve absolutely told you that the Scriptures were very important to me. That’s just one of many hypocrisies that had to be addressed, before I could comfortably state that consistency was one of my core values. If it’s so important to me that you know what you’ll be getting from me, that I am authentically me all the time, that the principles I hold would be in the same room at a party, then I have to do quite a bit of work to honestly look at my thoughts, actions, motivations. I have to constantly examine myself in the harsh light of the mirror. It has been terribly frightening to confront the possibility that my boys and the Angel (the 3 who live in my house and know me the best) would not recognize the preacher at the Bridge. Would they hear me speak about the importance of the Bible and never have seen me read it? Would they hear me talk about honoring our spouses, while I am cutting and disrespectful to my own wife? Judgment, generosity, etc. I don’t know if you know, but we regularly read 1 Corinthians 13 on Sunday mornings, what if I am neither patient nor kind? What sort of example is that? Am I a Pharisee? I mean, yes, of course I am, but am I growing? Am I on the path, following Jesus? Is my life one marked by love?

We all have these spaces that confront – let’s call them invitations. That sounds much less aggressive, doesn’t it? Would we put family at number 1 but haven’t made it home for dinner in weeks, and haven’t spoken to my parents since last Christmas? Is eating right or exercise a “value” of ours, when we haven’t seen the gym lately and don’t remember the last time we’ve eaten a vegetable? Do we say we love our church community, while we don’t really go? Is giving an important discipline, but it’s often the first thing to get cut? Do we say we “love like Jesus,” but we really hate our enemies? It’s endless, and each example we give might hit a little too close to home. (Of course, the rub is: we would have to be willing to tell the truth, to and about ourselves. That’s where this can so easily break down.)

This emailer – Mark Manson – asks what our lives tell us about our priorities, and do we wish it was different? Do we wish we were more present? More faithful? More loving, caring, thoughtful? Do we wish our marriages were stronger, our families closer? Do we wish we were more responsible with our money, our time, our calories? Do we wish we were more mindfully enjoying the blessings in our lives?

I’ve been saying “more” and “better,” but that’s not the only thing we wish, right? Are we overwhelmed? Do we wish our calendars were less full? That we were less busy and distracted all the time?

What do all of these factors and characteristics say about our lives? Easter is such a great season to evaluate what goes into our hearts and lives. The resurrection is the best time to ask what we truly believe is possible. Where does the empty tomb fit into our priorities? If we answered yes to any of my own questions, do we trust that we can set a new course? That who we are right now might not be who we will be, that we just might not be done growing yet?

Easter is a time of intense hope… do we believe that? Does the way we live our lives affirm that theology? Probably not, but what better time could there possibly be to transform than right now???

First Cousin Once Removed

At some point during many of the holidays my family and I celebrate together, the conversation will turn to 1st, 2nd, 3rd cousins, once or twice removed, and what any of those terms mean. We never remember, so we discuss it more often than you’d guess. Incidentally, I am ok with this, because it’s hilarious. We just wait for it to come up.

Anyway, last weekend, I went to my first dance competition. No, I wasn’t dancing (the way I worded that last sentence sounded like maybe I was). My first cousin once removed by marriage (The Angel’s cousin’s daughter) was dancing. She is 14 and has been dancing for most of her life. I had no idea what to expect, but I absolutely knew I’d write about whatever I experienced in this week’s post.

Not only did I not know what a dance competition looks like, I’d never seen her dance before, so I didn’t know what her particular dancing looks like, either.

The event was in a MASSIVE auditorium. Each competitor had a certain time (a minute or 2) to do whatever it was they would do, to music played at a pretty mind-numbing volume. (I’m not sure if you’re familiar, but there are lots of different styles of dance. I do know this, because I watched the TV show So You Think You Can Dance.) The kids in their very sparkly spandex outfits

[Actually, that’s not exactly true. They wore very sparkly tiny spandex super suits OR they wore white flowy sun dresses, with little in between. Anyway]

took the stage and performed, in numbered order. Some were awesome and some were good, none made me wish I wasn’t there. But my first cousin once removed by marriage was clearly the best. I would say by a mile, but there’s a chance that I am slightly biased, but only slightly. Objectively, she was clearly the best, maybe not by a mile, but for sure a good hundred yards. She was graceful, controlled, both subtle and overwhelming, and I found myself overcome with emotion. Beautiful things crack open my heart like eggs and flow all over, and her performances (1 jazz and 1 contemporary) were staggeringly beautiful. I thought about her life, her commitment and passion for this art/sport (it’s both, right? Elite athleticism combined with wild creativity and expression to create its own category), how so much of her resources – money, time, energy – and focus went into these few minutes. The hours and hours of physical practice are obvious, but what is staying with me are the countless hours of what is not so obvious. What she eats, how she works out, the many things she must have said no to, all in service of her one big yes, the foundation upon which she built the rest of her life.

[It might not be the foundation for her, she’s remarkably well rounded, maybe it’s not even what she would say is the most important thing to her…but you get the point.]

So, later, on the way home, I thought about me. I thought about my one big yes, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and my commitment to Him. She was willing to offer so much of her life to a discipline, to a love, have I? With everything she does, how she walks, carries herself, she looks to the entire world like a dancer… What do I look like? Do I look like a walking, talking, loving, follower of Christ? From head to toe, morning to night, the food I eat, what I listen to and watch, is it all in service of this identity? Am I offering the best of me? Am I offering all of me?

The truth is…well, maybe we can answer that another time. But last Saturday, that building was a church, and her dancing was a sermon, asking questions that aren’t so easily answered. I can’t tell if I’m more impressed by her dancing or her preaching, but I’ll tell you, it was an honor to sit under this 14 year old’s teaching & learn about life, love, faith, and devotion in a brand new way.

This Rab

Rab, a Jewish teacher of the third century A.D said (or, more likely, wrote), “Man will have to give account for all that he saw and did not enjoy.”

This is a very interesting, invigorating perspective to see our faith, isn’t it? In a faith that is so often grounded in what we cannot do, what we should not do, This Rab asks the question of whether that ground is totally accurate. We weigh the bad we do much, much heavier than the good that is left undone. Choosing to turn our head away from the suffering of another and causing that suffering, while perhaps not equal in our eyes, they are both transgressions – against God and each other.

I’ve hi-jacked a phrase from the actor Johnny Galecki that I heard on Anna Faris’ podcast: sin is all the ways we love ourselves (and each other) less. We love each other less through violent, evil acts of aggression, as well as through not practicing empathy, kindness, and mercy.

We also love ourselves less by not enjoying the beauty of these Divine gifts that surround us.

I just hung up the phone with my sister, who told this amazing story of a meal she shared with my brother in law on Friday night. She’s vegan, and, as vegans are, a zealot about it. It would be easy to tune this all out if, 1. She wasn’t brilliant and one of the very coolest people that has ever walked the earth, and 2. Her passion for and gratitude in this experience didn’t make me wish that I, too, was a vegan. (Not enough to actually become one for real, but while I’m on the phone with her, I think it’s not such a bad idea. That’s the thing about zealots, especially the best ones. She’d probably be a terrific cult leader.) Her evening, and her story today, were absolutely the best kind of worship. They both thoroughly soaked up the love of their Creator, through the food (and every other moment of that evening) without reservation.

I do the same thing with our weekly telephone calls. How did I end up being so blessed by the God of the Universe?

Our homework was to take the advice of the Rab and enjoy these gifts. Imagine the scene he implies, standing before the Giver, being asked why we didn’t have more fun (when He gave us so many ways to have fun), why we didn’t fly (when He gave us wings), why we didn’t slow down and taste the food He provided. What could we possibly say? “I was distracted, working, sleeping, scrolling.” Is there anything we could say as an excuse? Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes 9:9, “Live happily with the woman you love…the wife God gives you is your reward.” So, God gave me the Angel, who I love, as a reward (God gave you someone different to love, just insert her/his name here), how could I, with so little conscience, take her, take this life, these smooches, her laughter, for granted?

We talk about the ways we don’t live up to our calling. Usually, this means the holes we are falling into, the bad decisions we make. We read Paul’s lists of behaviors, and consider how to stay away from the things that make us love us less. But we don’t always mention how we do not savor His gifts, and maybe we should, because if we did, maybe we’d be too busy delighting in all we have to be so awful to each other.

This Rab quote seems more and more like a paraphrase of Jacob’s exclamation in Genesis, “Surely God was in this place, and I was unaware.” We have a wholly depressing tendency to fall asleep to our lives, and the people in them. We look at how bad everything is, how the wheels are falling off the world. Maybe it’s time we begin to look at how beautiful this Creation really is (and we do this out loud for everyone to see), and maybe that thankful praise would be the catalyst for a seismic culture change, for a tiny, baby step closer to what we pray, “Your Kingdom Come, on earth as it is in Heaven.”

Details, pt 2

The site prompt is asking me to share about one of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten, and before we continue…well, maybe it’s not “before,” maybe it’s all related in the same conversation. Anyway. For Christmas this year, the Angel gave me 2 canvasses (canvi?) of pictures she had taken from a vacation beach trip, and on those canvi, there were words. The first one held my wedding vows to her, from May 2001 (I still have the original paper I read from at our ceremony.) Her vows, sadly, were lost in the flood that took everything else we owned. Still, that second canvas also had wedding vows, but these were newly written, from December 2025. How is that for “one of the best gifts” any human being has ever gotten??

Now, moving on. Yesterday’s post was about the details of our lives that affect the sorts of soil we are, and are becoming. Then, this morning, today’s Bible In A Year reading is in Leviticus. I recognize that nobody likes Leviticus. Many of us are commenting (more like complaining) on the endless lists of instructions at the end of Exodus, and I always want to say, “just wait til we get into Leviticus.” I’m no different, I don’t like Leviticus, BUT it also happens to be one of my new favorite books. This super boring, repetitive list of commands has a vital message for our lives, then, now, and forever.

Why are there so many instructions, why so much detail, why does this matter so much (and it obviously does), and why do these commands matter now, at all? Why are we reading this? Why should I care, thousands of years later?

We live in a world of “good enough.” The smallest amount of effort is good enough. The minimum effort necessary is fine, just get by, don’t try too hard. As even Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, “avoid all extremes.” This philosophy is the polar opposite of the people we read about in the Scriptures, who left everything behind to follow a new Way of living. Who could ever have been more extreme than Jesus?

Leviticus, and the parable of the soils, ask for our attention to who we are, who we are becoming, what we care about, and what we believe about ourselves and Our God. Essentially, (in addition to the overwhelmingly detailed sacrificial system, and the overwhelmingly detailed weights and measures of the Tabernacle in Exodus), they’re all asking what we’re giving to God. What is our offering? And, as we all know, the offering, the level of gratitude, implies a value to the gift and the Giver. Are we giving the first, the best, or simply what’s left?

The Tabernacle was the early precursor to the Temple in Jerusalem, which was the early precursor to the current Temples, which are you and me. Do you think the lengths and widths of a tent or building are somehow less important than the details of our lives? That the Temple mattered then, but not now? Judging by the Bible, the very Word of God, everything matters.

If that’s true, if 1. Everything matters, and 2. How we do anything is how we do everything, then what does that mean? If we give scraps to our job, then it’s probably not the only place we give scraps. What do our spouses, children, friends, co-workers, cashiers at the grocery store, servers, neighbors & enemies, get from us? What kind of soil are we in our home, community and the world? Do they know Who we follow?And do they know His tremendous value to us? As far as that goes, do they know their value to us?

He is never asking for perfection, just the best we have to give, in any and all situation. Our first fruits. Of course, all situations are different, what we have to give might be different from moment to moment, but way too often, we slide along, at the lowest possible plane, trying not to break a sweat.

I think Exodus, the Tabernacle, Leviticus, food & sacrificial laws, the canvi from the Angel, our posture towards each other, the way we express our love (intentionally and without condition or limit), Saturday nights and Tuesday mornings, all testify to the Truth that scraps are not, and have never been, what we’ve been called into. There is an honor and dignity to this awesome experience of being human, and some things, like the scraps, the crumbs that fall from our table, are simply beneath us. Sometimes, the biggest, most significant changes begin with small, seemingly inconsequential acts. Sometimes, an empty tomb and a brand new creation begin with a baby in a barn.

Yesterdays

Today is Monday, and yesterday, we studied a passage in Ecclesiastes that carried some really massive ideas. And those ideas asked some questions that we usually try our hardest to avoid. Obviously, Great Big Ideas with questions like sledgehammers aren’t reserved for Sundays, or for just yesterday. They can come & break the door down any of our yesterdays, if only we are open to receive – or as the Bible says, if we only have “ears to hear.”

Maybe we can talk politics and what it means to respect the authorities…or maybe we can talk about the times to not do that…maybe we can wonder if it’s principle or rebellion that drives us, or what our hearts are overflowing with, flowing out into the world, getting all over everyone and everything… But I don’t really want to, not here, not today.

What I do want to talk about, here, today, is about the 2 Gospels/gospels that are constantly vying for those same hearts. Because, probably, the one we choose dictates what actually overflows, what we are giving, what frequency we are emitting.

The first is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is one of grace, forgiveness, kindness, goodness, gentleness, humility, faithfulness, that has one central tenet: love. Namaste means the image of the Divine in me sees and affirms and honors the image of the Divine in you. We see we are all made in the image of God, all fallen, all redeemed by His grace and love alone. (Of course, for as long as we need to, we can choose to not accept this gift.) We see each other as brothers and sisters, free of judgment and hate. We’re not all stepping on each other for a bigger piece of the pie – we recognize we don’t deserve any of the pie, and yet, His abundance is infinite, which means we can all have all the pie we want. Our winning isn’t based one another’s loss, we all win. We are grateful.

The gospel of me says that I am the center, I am better than you, my opinions, wants, & needs, are the primary concern for everyone. I demand assent. Maybe I will love you, if I want to, if there’s something in it for me. The divine in me sees you. The basic tenets are comfortability, pleasure, ease, temporal happiness (mine, not yours, unless yours happens to coincide with mine.) All of the -isms (racism, sexism, etc) exist here, because they all are based in the core belief: I am better than you. [We don’t acknowledge that this gospel is tied together with a dangerously thin line, because this arrogance is only superficial. It’s not grounded in confidence or esteem, it is insecure, fearful, overwhelmed with its own inadequacy. This is why, with this gospel’s worldview, I am so myopic – I worship a very small god. And I am mean & angry. I am very very angry.]

The very interesting thing about all of this, is that we have a choice. Deuteronomy says, “I set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life.” Some see God as like the ocean we swim in, but I think this verse exposes the flaw in that metaphor. You see, the ocean doesn’t care if you drown, not even a little bit. It’s completely indifferent to your survival, much less your fulfillment or joy. With those 2 words: “Choose Life,” this God shows His heart. He wants us to swim. But we can, and do, choose…

We decide a million times a day, in every moment, which Gospel/gospel we choose – the Gospel of Jesus Christ or the gospel of me. The part that I don’t always like to admit is that we display that choice with our faces, words, posts, and lives, no matter what we might call it. Everybody can tell, usually the only one we’re fooling is ourselves.

So, what could it look like if we all swim? If we all chose to love each other, no matter what? If we chose to honor each other, and if we all just ate all the pie we ever wanted, at the same table, together? I’d really love to find out. I’ll go first.