Spirituality

Now.

Acts 5 tells a pretty terrifying story. There is a married couple, Ananias and Sapphira, who sold a piece of property.

Well, first, we probably need some context. In Acts 4:32-37: “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.”

We could talk about “one in heart and mind” forever, (doesn’t it sound amazing???), but not today. So, they shared everything and no one needed anything. Joseph the Levite from Cyprus sold a field and brought the money to the apostles to be distributed, this example (probably one of many) stands in stark contrast to what comes next from Ananias and Sapphira.

In Acts 5:2-5a “With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.

Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”

When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died.”

Of course this punishment sounds a bit excessive, but there are some other things here that can be overlooked because of what we might call an overreaction.

He didn’t have to share it at all. It sounds like there was no mandate, no collectors, no stranger-armed enforcers scouring the property transaction section of the newspaper for transgressions. Usually when we lie or hide our behavior, it’s because we feel some sort of way about it. We bring the guilt and shame, it’s an internal consequence of our own conscience. Generosity was something these early believers got to do, a privilege, an honor, an answer to an invitation into a new way of being. It wasn’t a have-to, which is probably why so many did. Giving was the natural outpouring of a grateful heart, instead of an obligation to be fulfilled.

Ananias’ heart wasn’t as much grateful as it was transactional. He “had” to give, the others would see, so he would, but only after he skimmed a little (or a lot) off the top for himself, just in case. That’s all we’ll say about that today. It’s a big ocean to swim in, but a new thing stood out to me this morning.

“When Ananias heard this,” immediately “he fell down and died.” Again, of course it seems pretty shocking that he, and later Sapphira after repeating the same lie, would have their lives taken for what could be seen as a relatively minor offense. But it’s the “immediate” part that is devastating to me, here and now.

You see, sometimes we don’t get tomorrow. Sometimes we don’t get this evening. And in the case of Ananias, sometimes we don’t get one more moment. How much do we put off until another time? How many nights have we gone to bed angry? How many times have we slammed the door to effectively end a screaming match?

I was in a hospital 2 days ago praying with a woman who was/is fighting for her life. She is currently sedated and totally unresponsive. Maybe she won’t wake up. I don’t know her entire story, my friend, her daughter, appears to have a beautiful relationship without too many unresolved issues. That’s a gift that maybe every one in her life shares. And maybe her marriage was terrific, but I do know that the last interaction she and her husband had was less than awesome, marked with sharp comments and harsh tones. They went to bed and maybe she’ll wake up in the hospital. And the truth is that maybe she won’t – it’s the truth for all of us.

I spend a lot of time talking about this moment, today, here, now, fully present, not missing a second of this wonderful gift of our lives that we have been given. And lately I’ve been spending a lot of time talking about the many, many ways we are awful to each other, creating thick divisions where none exist and turning each other into monsters in our own minds. How many relationships have been fractured during the last year? How many violent words have been spoken or typed into a keyboard that have wounded loved ones? How much forgiveness and reconciliation has been delayed because of our bitterness and resentment, because of our pride?

Ananias didn’t get a second chance to apologize, repent, or make this right. Maybe we won’t, either.

But we do have right now and maybe right now is a really great time to make a different choice.

“Stupid” and “Uninformed”

I have friends on Facebook who are extraordinarily nasty to me. Now, to be fair, they don’t know it’s me to whom they’re being extraordinarily nasty. Of course the car is always driven by politics. From one side, I’ve been called “selfish” and that I “don’t care about other people.” From the other, I am “faithless,” “living in fear,” and that I “don’t care about the Bible.” I take the Bible too seriously and simultaneously water down the Gospel. But in this world of solid lines of division, what we can all agree on is that I am “stupid” and “uninformed.” About what I am so stupid and uninformed, however, is different and strictly adheres to those solid lines.

You know, I considered putting the word friends in the first line in quotes, as if these people are actually not my friends, just an imaginary designation to perpetuate the illusion of connection. But they ARE my friends. They are very lovely people, some of the very best human beings I’ve ever known, IRL and they would never, never say these things about me to my face (or to anyone else, for that matter.) I’m quite certain they don’t know they’re talking about me when the violence is posted.

Before we go too far, I should say I really like Facebook – I love your pictures and I love your point of view, even if we don’t agree. I care what we all think. I want to know what the people in my life think about masks and vaccines and Game of Thrones and the Dodgers and LeBron James and dinner and voting rights and Britney Spears and even your vegan lifestyle. I believe that we are capable of having these conversations respectfully and without the vitriol that marks social media posts. In fact, I think it’s even possible to have an honest, open discourse with love and kindness and the sort of space that allows us to search and perhaps change our minds (gasp!!!!!). Love and kindness and that sort of space do not exist in the same space as “stupid” and the rest of the condescending name-calling.

This post is, again, about “us” v “them” and “the other.” It’s easy to write about a general faceless nameless villain who is the enemy, who is stupid and uninformed and whatever else our politics demand. But when we put flesh and blood on these few specific slices we’ve decided are the most important and fully round out the whole picture, including all of the many facets that make us, us, it’s much harder to discern who the bad guys are, if there are bad guys at all.

Maybe that’s why Jesus created the Church, to remind us that more unites us than separates. (Maybe not more in quantity – there’s an endless well of opinions and differences – but absolutely more in value.) That maybe He is worth infinitely more than these distinctions, and loving each other is far more important than winning. The Church connects us and dismantles the us/them dichotomy. It is nearly impossible to hate the one that sits next to you on Sunday morning when you know their birthday, have prayed for their children, celebrated that great new job, and mourned the passing of their parent, even if they did vote for the wrong candidate. That’s why the isolation of quarantine has made us so sad and angry, we’ve simply forgotten that we are all made in the image of God.

Which brings me to these nasty posts unwittingly about me. The command to not judge was vague and hard to understand for me for so long (we are asked to discern but not judge, what is the difference????), but recently has come into focus. Judgment says you are “stupid” and “uninformed.” Judgment says I am right and you are wrong and you are wrong because you’re not as smart, sophisticated, and awesome in every way as I am. Judgment reinforces the walls between us. Discernment decides what is beautiful and healthy and what is not. Judgment uses fists while discernment uses hands.

This hurts my heart because I have so often made mistakes. I have fought with sharp, cutting words dripping with venom. I have sarcastically made others feel small and insignificant. I have devalued people I dearly love by devaluing their perspective. I have not been careful with journeys and paths that were different from my own. I have tried to control using any and all means necessary. And I’m deeply sorry for all of this.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get back to the good stuff – tell me about last night’s vegan dinner and your thoughts on Olympic badminton.

“Who Was With Her”

“She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”

Genesis 3 is when everything gets broken, when a creation marked by shalom becomes one of chaos, conflict, pain, fear, and on and on and on. This is where all of it starts.

I don’t find too much of a surprise in the woman’s actions. It doesn’t matter how many doors are open, I always focus on the one that’s locked. We don’t mind wearing a mask until they’re mandated. One of the most common things I hear is that we are so busy, we’d really love to have some down time to sleep in, rest, and decompress. Last March, when we were told that’s what we HAD to do, it was largely met with outrage. We are a rebellious bunch.

She took the fruit and ate it and so did he. Sadly, we probably would’ve done the same.

[If you know anything about me, you know we could talk about those actions forever, but I’m downplaying them because it’s that 2nd very tiny, very ‘insignificant’ phrase in the sentence that wears me out.]

Interestingly, the serpent tempted the woman, who was never actually personally told the rules of the garden. The man was. As she is manipulated, vulnerable and overwhelmed, he is “with her,” silently allowing it to happen.

A friend once told me, “you read too much into this,” and he is half right. I do read into this, but it is certainly not too much. What can possibly be “too much” about the first sin to occur in the Scriptures? We usually consider that the eating is the first, but it’s the man’s passivity that preceded that bite. It’s the first, and it continues to run roughshod over all of our lives. In fact, I might suggest that it is the most widespread characteristic of American men. (Maybe it’s everywhere in each sex, but I happen to be an American man and they always tell you to “write what you know.”)

We wait and see, we avoid risk, we sit idle, we play video games. It looks like patience, but it’s not. It’s complacency. We stay the same because the possibility of failure and the fear of change are greater than the faux-comfortability of our parent’s basement.

I often reference David staying home during the time of year when the kings go off to war. It’s during this comfortable abdication of his role that he causes the trouble with Bathsheba (infidelity, murder, among so many others). And all of this gigantic mess has it’s root in passivity.

The passive aggressive behavior that is so common pales in comparison to our aggressive passivity.

The athletes want to win games but will not show up for offseason workouts or invest the time in growth. Boys want the beautiful partners in their dreams but will not become the sorts of men who would be beautiful partners. Growth is hard. Standing is hard. Speaking when the serpent is spinning lies is hard. Taking the shot is hard. Giving every effort is hard.

“Try hard” is now a form of derision in schools, directed at those whose only transgression is to try hard.

Who knows what would have happened if the man had protected her as fiercely as he protected himself and his own comfort? Maybe it would’ve gone down the same way eventually. I imagine it would have, we were going to fall. Our rebellion and bend toward idolatry are hungry monsters that would’ve found a way to eat. But it might not have happened then, there and in that way.

And who knows what would happen if we would protect our families, friends, neighbor as fiercely as we protect our own apathy? If we’d just be try hards for the Kingdom. Nehemiah said, “Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.” I would add, “and fight for ourselves.” We weren’t made to be just standing next to her while the serpent leads all of us into darkness. We were made for the light, and most times, light requires our presence and active engagement. Light requires us to show up.

The Ocean

Last month, my family and I spent a few days at the beach. This mini-vacation turned out to be exactly what my tired, bruised spirit desperately needed. The previous days and weeks had felt as if each moment, each day was a tiny sharp chisel chipping away lightly, almost imperceptibly, until the very integrity of my self was compromised. 

The first thing to go is gratitude. I imagine it’s that way for most of us. It’s much harder to see a silver lining when we’re tired, distracted, resentful, in pain. Everything is just cloud. Of course, it’s also the prescription to ease the circumstance, but the darkness is blinding inside.

[Do you know how long, how many stops and starts, it’s taken me to get this far? It’s not that I’m wrestling with what to share – I’ll share everything with you. It’s simply that I can’t find the words.]

When we got in the packed van to leave, I was an angry, broken man. Those are 2 of the words that are just perfect, no trouble finding them. I was angry and broken. The chisel found a nerve and continued to tap tap tap an irritating beat. I felt different, like I was a completely new person…but not ‘new’ new, more like an older, outdated version of me that had reclaimed my soul.

Sometimes you can lose things and not know they’ve gone. A hoarder doesn’t have a house like the ones you see on tv in 1 night. It takes years and years of small invisible steps. The ground is taken an inch at a time. I guess I had been asleep for too many of the inches?

David made the poor decision with Bathsheba that started a snowball not in an instant, but in a series of small, unfortunate, seemingly insignificant, seemingly harmless choices. It’s a slide; a long slow slide, like the one from the top row of Chutes and Ladders. 

On Sundays, I teach about presence and gratitude nearly every week. How could I forget to be thankful and present? How could I be sleepwalking through sermons about the importance of living wide awake? How could I blindly read verses about “eyes that see?”

Of course, it’s easy, right? Things get uncomfortable, noisy, the volume and speed gets turned up, we’re tired, maybe bored, distracted, our focus shifts to the temporal. It’s easy.

Last Sunday we talked about how blessed the pure at heart are, and towards the end, I said, “being focused and connected doesn’t just happen,” and that’s really true. I study all week to teach the Bible, but like that trite horse & water, I can be at the well dying of thirst without intention. Life can become simply a mindless series of responsibilities and obligations without the thread that makes them strands of beautiful fabrics tied together into a rich tapestry of worship and thanksgiving.

So I got in the ocean and the waves folded around me in a (freezing cold) embrace that quickly, pasionately shook me into here, now. Not who I was. Not even really who I am. But who He sees. 

The scales (along with the anger and brokenness) fell – life sometimes seems like a great big long series of scales falling away – loudly to the ocean floor. I know it’s not the last time I’ll be there, on the slide, BUT I also know that He’ll wrap me up time and time again with that overwhelming love of His that just never quits.

A Shadow

So that they brought the sick out into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might fall on some of them. (Acts 5:15)

That’s a strange passage, if you stop for a second to think about it for a second. I think that sometimes we think of the Bible as mere words on the pages of some old book. I know people that make fun of religion figure it as a work of fiction, like a science fiction novel, but when we read passages like this, do we really handle it any differently?

What I mean is, we read it every Sunday morning and (hopefully) a little during the week, we call it the Word of God, we defend it to our friends and teach it to our children, but does it impact our daily lives. It sits on our bookshelves or on our home screen, but have we allowed it to cross over into our cars and beds and schedules and lives?

We’re studying the Beatitudes, and we don’t seem to value the poor in spirit as if the Kingdom of God is really theirs/ours. Or that the meek will actually inherit the earth. If we did, maybe we wouldn’t put such a premium on image, on looking like we have everything together, on winning. If mercy was worth as much to us as it seems to be to God, maybe we could relegate resentment and the grudges we feed & water to the trash heap of our pasts.

I ask these questions of myself often. I teach the Scriptures in a faith community, yet there are weeks when that is simply an intellectual exercise. My study might as well be of flowers or physics. The Bible becomes a textbook, which might be better than collecting dust on the nightstand. But maybe it’s not. Who knows? I know that both perspectives strip it of its life-changing power.

But then there usually comes a disruption. There always comes a disruption. And that disruption is either a distraction or an invitation.

For instance, yesterday I received this passage in Acts in my email and didn’t read it until an hour ago, maybe yesterday I wasn’t open or attentive. Maybe I was so miserably hot I couldn’t think straight. Today, when I did, my mind was flooded with observations, having nothing to do with a sermon and everything to do with phone calls, baseball practice, COVID vaccines, kisses, pop songs…in other words, it had everything to do with everything.

I don’t know if I’ve ever had the faith to take my sick friend out into the street in hopes that a shadow of a man I’d never met would pass by and fall upon him/her. Again, it’s the street and it’s A SHADOW! And I think of the many ways in which I display a faith that, essentially, believes that that friend is mine to heal or that a shadow couldn’t possibly be enough. Of course, there are lots of other very specific ways each of our spiritual lives show a depressing lack of faith.

So today this is the disruption that has stopped me in my tracks. Either I can treat it as a brief annoyance that takes my mind from my work or the responsibilities on my day planner, quickly chasing it out of my mind like a spider on the ceiling. OR. I could ask the questions, sit in the uncomfortable space between Q and A, and consider where the sick friends in my life are that I need to take to Jesus, for the impossible to be possible and the ridiculous expectations that sit on my shoulders to transfer to His infinitely stronger ones that are actually made for those same expectations. He is the One that saves, rescues, heals and gives peace & joy. Not me. Isn’t that great?

This gift of disruption is leaving me raw, soft, gushy, inadequate, loved and very grateful.

WW84 & Luca21

Last weekend, as a little bit of an act of aggression towards my son who had gone with a friend (who was NOT ME!!!!) to the beach for 4 days (4 DAYS!!!!), I watched Wonder Woman 1984. We had not yet seen it and this is usually the type of movie we watch for the first time together. But he was away and it was available on a free trial of HBO, so… In case you haven’t seen it, if you Google it, the first result is the question “Is Wonder Woman 1984 the worst movie ever?” Ha! It wasn’t great, but it started me on a path that leads me here, with you. 

But first, let me tell you we also watched Luca, a Pixar film on Disney+. This one was tremendous and my favorite part in a movie of favorite parts was Luca’s wide eyes. 

Before we tie WW84 and Luca’s eyes into a tidy bow, there’s a song called ‘Roses’ by the Band Camino and here are some of the lyrics:

“Why you wanna be a sad boy, waste your time?/Lookin’ for something that was right here all along/I think we’re gettin’ it wrongIt’s too bad/When did it get cool to be so sad?/We’re spinnin’ backwards, did we all go mad?/Yeah, we’re only human but wе’ve got hands and hearts and noses/So stop and smеll the — roses.”

There’s a young man I coach who is so similar to me, he drives me crazy. He hated the Wonder Woman sequel, but he happens to be that certain wonderful age and disposition where every single thing is just horrible. I know the age well, hyper-critical, painted with elitism, sarcasm and a deep grouchiness. 

The younger me thought it was super cool to be bored, jaded, sad and dismissive of most art, most everything actually, because I was so far above it all. It was awesome to make fun and pick apart anything. I was sooooo funny and disaffected. And I was totally miserable.

Luca left the water for land and was overwhelmed with wonder. There wasn’t anxiety or routine or a mountain of inadequacy. There wasn’t a hierarchy of people or things he ‘should’ like or not, no such thing as a “guilty pleasure” – just pleasure. Just beauty. Just roses.

Of course he would have to deal with the thorns, like we all do, but unlike many of us, he chose to not be overcome with those sharp points. There was the local bully and antagonist Ercole Visconti (there always is) but there was also the lovely Guilia. Luca had the same choice we do. Which one do we allow to color our experiences? To which do we give the keys to our heart? Which one gets to chose our perspective?

Wonder Woman probably wasn’t a great film, but so what? Not every film has to be Fight Club or Pulp Fiction. 

Has there ever been a circumstance where tearing something down led to the teeniest bit of our own growth? 

Another ‘Roses’ line goes, “Maybe you’re the person that you always wanted to be,” and after a lot of thought, the truth is, the person I want to be is one who likes stuff, who can see beauty wherever I look. I want to live a life of wonder and joy, so I do (mostly), and I think if we did more of that…

Well, you know how it is when you get a new car and it seems like those are the only cars on the road? Maybe it’s like that with love and wonder and Luca and positive energy. Maybe it’s like an electricity that each of us feel and absorb.

So, yes, I think if we did more of that, there would be more of that. We’ve got hands and hearts and noses, so let’s just try to stop and smell the — roses.

What If You Do?

At a baseball game last night, we lost. That’s ok. I don’t ever mind wins and losses. (Well, I do a little…sometimes more than a little.) What I do mind is the how. How did we play? How did we compete? How did we show up? How did we carry ourselves? How was our mindset? How how how.

So last night our how was rough. I saw it in their eyes, their countenance, their posture, and just as a positive how elicits a favorable result (not always a win, but always something good), our loss was a direct translation of our how. It’s mostly that way in our careers, marriages, homes, our lives, right? We often sleep-walk through the ruts & routines of our days. We’re tired, uninspired, listless, frustrated, passive and the tapes in our head keep us firmly stuck in that loop. Maybe it’s settling for less, or maybe it’s just a lack of vision. Maybe it’s just that our eyes are closed to the opportunities, the beauty, the glory of God crackling all around us desperately trying to jar us from our despair.

In an weekly email I subscribe to, Caitlin Winkley writes, “Are your thoughts contributing to the type of woman you want to be, the type of life you’d like to live and how you want to feel?

Or, are your thoughts fueling your old story, leading you to feel worry, doubt, unsurety, powerless and fearful?”

(I don’t know why she assumes everyone on her email list is a woman, but I really don’t care. She’s awesome and this is wisdom for everybody, regardless of any demographic category. This might be a very good time to discuss the things that offend us, but we’re discussing other things today…I DID read once that we get offended by small things when we don’t have big things to think/care about and give our energies to, so that’s all we’ll say about that here, now.)

Do we need a renewal of the mind? Did each of my players last night live into a picture of the “type of woman” he wants to be? Did they give what they had to give and feel how they want to feel? Did I?

Are we doing that today at work or school or wherever?

OR are we feeling doubt, worry, unsurety, powerlessness? Are we overrun by fear?

Unsure is the perfect word, isn’t it? Because those adjectives she uses are paralyzing, making our feet heavy and still, holding us tightly to the ground when we have always been meant to fly. And then the tapes: Really??? Are you really meant to fly? You??? What if you fall? What if you are wrong? What if you don’t have what it takes?

What I have learned, even as I too often listen to those familiar tapes in my head, is that those questions aren’t that far removed from, “Did God really tell you…” from Genesis 3. They were lies then and they are lies now.

What if you swing and miss? What if you don’t catch it? What if you make a bad throw? What if you give all you have and still lose? What if you fall? What if you’re wrong?

What if if you don’t have what it takes?

And the obvious answer is, to paraphrase a famous parable, “Oh but my darling, what if you do?”

Sports might not always be the perfect metaphor for everything (I guess), but they are very close.

“Was Any Of It Real?”

I have 2 teen-aged boys, so one of my favorite experiences is to introduce them to the art that moved me during my life. One cannot live on Marvel movies alone, you know? Almost, but not quite. We’ve watched The Money Pit, Predator, Naked Gun, and Lord of the Rings, listened to Nevermind and The Joshua Tree, and the younger one has started to dip his toes into Kurt Vonnegut. They don’t always get it, but I certainly do. I remember why I loved these things and most of the time, love them even more with the benefit of the extra 10 (or 20 or 30) years on this spinning ball.

Saturday we watched The Truman Show. It’s about a guy who’s been the unwitting subject of a reality show since he was born, 24 hours a day, everything and everyone a production. Except for him. When Truman asks, “Was any of it real?” Christof (the creator) answers, “You were.” It’s beautiful and even more perfect today than it was in 1998, when it was released.

I thought then that it was a pretty sharp commentary on reality tv, like Running Man, a prophesy warning of the dangers of the path ahead of us. And maybe more importantly, a vehicle for Jim Carrey to explore something other than broad stretch-faced comedy. Both of those are still there, true, and very successful, but the film is bigger than that.

(It’s funny how something can be obvious to some and hidden to others until precisely the time when it would make the most profound, thunderous impact. This ‘new’ insight into this film surely isn’t new to everyone, but Saturday and still today, it’s crackling with the electricity of discovery in my mind and heart.)

In Rogue One, a character named Chirrut says, “There is more than one sort of prison, Captain, I sense that you carry yours wherever you go.”

That describes so many of us. We decide what we are and are not capable of, live lives as if “it is what it is” and “they are what they are” and worse, “we are who we are.” We build the walls that define our limits, and never test them. It’s like Truman. When asked why he never questions this artifice, Christof answers, “We accept the reality of the world that we are presented,” and there might not be a more accurate statement in the entire film. We accept a wide variety of settling simply because it’s been presented to us as reality. The dome that encircles Truman’s world isn’t unbreakable, it’s really fear – of water, or death, of the unknown – that keeps him inside.

I often think about my fear and the steel bars that make up my own cage. What are they and what would it mean if I were to tear them down? These 2 questions are absolutely vital to explore, and like this pretend town, very nearly impossible to notice until we do, then it’s all we see.

Maybe it’s time to stop accepting so much. Stop carrying our prisons around wherever we go. Stop settling. Stop relying on old habits that didn’t work then and don’t work now. And stop calling it reality.

Just because it happens to be true today doesn’t mean it’s true tomorrow. I’ve heard it said that we move, transform, start, leave, risk, jump only when the fear of staying the same outweighs the fear of change. Truman found that space, sailed that boat into the vicious mouth of his fear and walked through the door into a new reality. Yes, it was a reality that would be missing predictability and safety, but the old one was missing honesty, authenticity, love. It was missing the things that make life so wonderful. It was missing life. And as he chose life, I could no longer hold back my tears because it’s not just Truman, it’s you and me, too.

Because all discussions about new creations are really just discussions about the resurrection, aren’t they? We often live Saturday lives that are caged in by the belief that what we see is all there is…but Sunday came then, and it can come now. Here. For us.

So now what?

A Loving, Attentive Way

It has been 3 weeks since I’ve written for this space. I know this because at the beginning of the week I carefully craft a to-do list, then cross the items out as I complete them. It gives me a nice handle on the week ahead and helps with focus and intention. My last 3 lists have “Bridge post” still clear, without the familiar pen stroke through the middle. Last week, several tasks went undone. This could illustrate that my focus and intention were severely lacking, OR it could mean that my focus and intention were exactly where they needed to be and not tied so tightly to a list that I would miss other beautiful invitations. Let’s just go with the latter, ok?

Today I read this on an email, written by Justin McRoberts:

“Just about nothing “is what it is.” Not in a world inhabited by people created in the image of God, in whose hands is both creation and resurrection. The capacity to make and remake is a thumbprint of the Divine on Humanity. I’ll go so far as to say that we dishonor our Creator when we give in to “it is what it is” thinking.

Love doesn’t just win. Mercy doesn’t just triumph. Light doesn’t just cast out shadow. Peace doesn’t just get a chance. Forgiveness doesn’t just restore. And time has never healed a single wound without the loving, attentive way people have spent that time after hurting one another.”

This is so great because I often dismiss the despair of the “it is what it is” disposition.

Now, there is a wise woman who corrects me, reasoning that acceptance is a vital step in contentment. It’s all in the tone. We can talk about that tone another time, but for today, I want to soak in the phrase “the loving, attentive way people have spent that time.”

We always hear that time heals all wounds, and that is sometimes true, but not always and not all wounds. Restoration isn’t the default setting and neither is love or forgiveness.

(You know, maybe that’s not true, either. If the default is the factory setting, the original design, then maybe it is. The story starts in Genesis 1 in the image of God, after all. Maybe there’s a conversation to be had, we can talk about that another time, too. But I’m going to refer to default settings as the status quo, the natural human bend, and there, competition, comparison, resentment, conflict, worry, and control rule that day.)

So, given that we are quite selfish, reconciliation is rare. A talk show host used to say peace is only possible through victory and he’s right under the current rules. BUT if we spend our time in “a loving, attentive way,” then a different outcome can be seen. Love is possible, mercy is possible, forgiveness is possible, and peace is possible.

The only question that remains is one of intention, right? Is it what it is? Are we what we are? Or can we be transformed? Can a loving, attentive disposition lead us down a different path that might not be so obvious but is so clearly our calling? Of course, it is.

What will we choose, hopeless resignation to ‘how things are’ or passionate commitment to how things were (Genesis 1) and can be again? Will we choose animal instincts or loving attention? Will we exist in the tiny boxes handed to us or will we smash those constricting structures and get back on the narrow path towards beauty and life? Everything can change and it can change today.

The Angel Has A Scar

I just spent the last hour or 2 writing a post on Absalom’s hair. Here are the verses: “In all Israel there was not a man so highly praised for his handsome appearance as Absalom. From the top of his head to the sole of his foot there was no blemish in him. Whenever he cut the hair of his head—he used to cut his hair once a year because it became too heavy for him—he would weigh it, and its weight was two hundred shekels by the royal standard.” 2 Samuel 14:25-26. And then I related that to the careful crafting of image on Facebook and Instagram, talking about how we get confused. That fantasy becomes our idea of reality, and the familiar inadequacy of our own layered, imperfect lives gnaws away and mocks our “blemishes” and less than glorious hair.

And I worked and worked. It was pretty uncomfortable honestly. I have COVID so I’ll use that as my excuse. I referenced Narcissus and Dorian Gray. The story is one of pride, as so many stories are. I know that. But what to say about that?

You know, Zoom is not the best thing to happen to these parts of us. Every meeting I have, I end up focusing on the way the skin folds under my chin, wondering if there is a way I can suspend the camera from the ceiling. I sometimes even direct private message someone else in the group and ask if they think I have a condition. And I do these Facebook minis where I wonder when I got so old and tired. And last Sunday, I filmed the message from home and wondered if I was sitting up straight enough or if my shirt was drawing attention, disappearing into the rolls of my stomach. I have no hair and what little I do have is receding. It’s easier every week to shave, there’s less to deal with. I have marks on my face from teenage acne and years of abuse.

I understand why we live on social media. We probably shouldn’t share that last paragraph. But I’ve always loved those parts of us the most, the parts that aren’t quite right, the edges and quirks. The Angel has a scar on her lip where a dog bit her when she was 13 and it’s awesome, it drives me crazy. And some dumb Snapchat filter would erase it.

There was a time when I tried to collect every Morrissey recording and there was this one they called “I know very well how I got my note wrong.” The actual song is heartbreakingly lovely and about a minute and 20 seconds in, the guitar makes a mistake and everyone laughs. It’s one of the best things I own. I miss picking up the pictures and thumbing through them, laughing at the ones where people weren’t looking, making faces, ones I didn’t know I took. The ones that I’d delete now and keep taking until we got one where we all looked great, everyone’s smiling and nobody’s blinking.

Absalom was perfect.

I don’t want us to be perfect, I want us to be human. That’s enough. In fact, it’s way more than enough. It’s honest and broken and flawed and beautiful and most of all, it’s true.