of course. but.

I recently heard a mom say to one of her children, "Of course, I will always love you. It's everyone else I'm worried about. I want them to like you too." 

And this much better explains any morality we believe to come from God. Of course, God loves us. But there might be some guidelines as to how we might live that better help us to like each other as well. 

the much harder work.

It's hard work to create a system that works. It takes effort and time, blood, sweat, and tears. 

The much much harder work is to then demolish that system for one that might be better in the next 5 years. Waste all that work? Waste all that effort and time, blood and sweat and tears for more work and effort and blood and sweat and tears? 

But, it's working. 

For now. 

Ask Blockbuster how long it will keep working though.

the conflict.

When empire and idols meet unity and love. 

They just don't exist together. 

Who do you let win? 

the two most healing things in the world.

Unity and Love. 

Seeing Us in the Other and Caring for the Other as We Would Ourselves. 

the two most dangerous things in the world.

Nations and Religions. 

(Empire and Idols.) 

christmas.

Merry Christmas! The day we celebrate the story of the gods showing up in a baby. 

But, you already knew that part. 

It's also the day we celebrate the gods showing up as far from empire, religion, power, persuasion, and wealth as possible. 

Merry Christmas. 

eve.

Eves are the best. (Not as in Adam and Eve but, arguably, even then.)

The night before. The anticipation. The hope for what's next. The excitement. Eve is almost always better than The Day.  

They say that Americans love Fridays more than Sundays, even though we work on Fridays and we don't on Sundays. Fridays are the Eve of the Weekend. Sunday is the Eve of the Workweek. 

Enjoy the anticipation. Enjoy the actual. Enjoy it all.

And what would happen if we lived every day as though tomorrow were going to be as amazing as today? 

testosterone / women.

Andrew Sullivan has been and remains one of my favorites. 

His recently article is a must read. Not for the Mueller stuff... but for the sexual assault, misogyny, and testosterone stuff from the perspective of a gay man. 

Men have ten times as much testosterone as women, and testosterone is deeply connected with aggression, power, ambition, drive, pride, stubbornness, strength, and violence. In every species, testosterone makes one gender the more risk-taking, the more physically powerful, and the more assertive, and this includes the small number of species in which testosterone is predominant among females.

“All this the world well knows.” Except today’s debate about men and women seems to have missed it.

I’m not praising or lamenting this. I’m just recognizing it. It excuses nothing with respect to abuse, assault, harassment, and so on. There’s a bright line here and I see little moral difference between Spacey’s foulness and Weinstein’s. But testosterone helps explain why male power primarily gravitates toward sex, why sexual abuse occurs much more often among men, and why separating sex and power from male sexuality is to miss something important. It is always about both. If we are to have a conversation about men and women, work and play, power and love, then ignoring nature — pretending that this is all about social power dynamics or even hatred — is a very misleading thing.

reputation guard.

The reputation guards. They are like bodyguards but instead of guarding a body, they guard a reputation. 

And people will often approach me as though I am one. Did you hear what XYZ said? How can you defend XYZ? 

Here's the thing. Celebrities, friends, famous thinkers and most humans, don't need me to guard their reputation. They actually guard their own reputation. As do you. As do I. 

Just keep an eye out. You'll see how often conversations are always about someone else - and defending or attacking their reputation - so we don't have to talk about our own. 

beautiful...

Just a reminder. Beautiful things never ask for attention. They already know they are beautiful.

And yes, the things screaming the most for our attention - usually telling us how beautiful they are - usually aren't.   

credit.

Who gets the credit? The recognition? The name? The praise?

If we want the credit, every task is harder, in part because we put so much effort into making sure we get credit that we don't have as much energy to put into the task. 

If we let the credit go, every task becomes easier. There's more time to do what needs to be done, although it is possible no one will ever know you did it. 

But do we want credit or do we want it done? 

abundance vs scarcity.

Why does there seem to be so much abundance in the corporate world and so much scarcity in the religious world? 

Shouldn't it be the opposite?

the roller coaster.

What if we knew that every somewhat boring, clickity-clack, slow, drawn out part of life had a hand raised, squealing-for-joy moment right around the corner?

I think we'd appreciate both much more. 

swedish billionaires.

File this one under stats that rock.

Whenever I bring up Sweden (or any neo-socialist country) one of the first critiques is "Who is the government to tell me how much is enough?" In other words, let us be rich if we want to. 

Great. Turns out Sweden (and Norway) have more billionaires per capita than the United States. Turns out they can get rich. Arguably more rich than the United States. 

This whole socialism thing is not about not letting people be rich. It's about managing the gap. It's about not letting your own people be in poverty. Imagine that. 

Another plus for Sweden. 

american teen.

Some say that one of the problems with the teenage brain is that it's not fully developed which means a lack of processing of long term consequences when related to short term thrills. (Others, just for the sake of argument, say this is what allows teens to explore and risk and learn as teens do and is vital for development.) 

Either way, most agree: short term thrills over long-term consequences. 

If you've ever questioned the metaphorical age of our country, you shouldn't any more. We are the new kids on the block - compared to most other nations that have been around for centuries. To confirm that, It would seem we have a current political leadership that is incapable of anything other than short term thrills: long term consequences be damned. 

Classic teenager. I only hope this exploration, risk, and learning eventually pays off as we age. 

one world religion.

Growing up, I often hear this phrase as though it was the advent of Hell itself. 

One world religion. We had to do anything possible to make sure that never happened, which usually meant being very afraid of different religions that said the same thing or calls to unify religions. 

Funny enough, I still find a one world religion terrifying. Not because of its bonding or unifying nature but because it's a religion. And religion is rarely about diversification, unification, the common bond of humanity or true experience of God.  So, of course, one world of that would be hell. Maybe it is hell, I don't know. A religion that refuses to acknowledge the diversity of culture, of language, of perspective and experience. Yikes. 

But, a one world spirituality... if there is a God that's the only thing that makes sense. 

tolerant passion.

Tolerance doesn't mean the lack of opinion. 

It doesn't mean we all have the same opinion. 

It doesn't remove passion. 

In fact, tolerant people should be the most passionate. They should also be able to recognize the opinions, the passion, the humanity in the other and offer them a seat at the table to discuss their differences. That's true tolerance. 

Passionate people disagreeing and coexisting in community. 

Yes there are some who can't handle that table. Not only are they intolerant, they are probably not very passionate either. And definitely terrified they might be wrong.

They can sit at the kids table. 

lights like us.

It's official! I'll be doing an event at The Bing Theater in Spokane, WA on May 3. 

Nervous as hell? Check. 
Excited as I can be? Check. 

Tickets are now available for Lights Like Us. 

Those who know about it have been asking me what it is. So, here's my best answer. 

1. It's a long time away - I'm not sure exactly sure. 

2. An experience. It will be recorded but my goal with this event is that watching the recording is like watching a Coldplay concert on your iPhone. Yeah, just doesn't really do it justice. Am I Coldplay? No. Do I hope to create an experience around who we are and what we're capable of as human beings? 

Yes. 

Spread the word! 

the news.

Try this for a day. 

Notice how much of the news is not actually news. 

It's forecasting, it's opinions, it's quoting someone who is forecasting or has an opinion, it's someone disagreeing with someone's forecast and/or opinion, it's predicting, it's suggesting, it's wondering, it's preparing for someone's forecast/opinion/prediction/suggestion/wondering and then providing another one. 

It's honestly amazing how few stories are actually about something that actually happened. 

Make your news stay present too. 

the middle ground...

After being a pastor for close to 10 years, I've noticed a funny thing. 

People don't like sermons that are too "watered down" and they don't like sermons that are "heretical" which means that they don't like a message that is too much what they already know but also not one that is too much what they don't know. 

I don't think this is a specific thing to pastors or religion or church... it's everywhere in most of life. I also don't find it upsetting or frustrating. We all feel the same way - I feel the same way. Of course, I'm responsible for some of that. I need to work on being someone who can be pushed without reacting but it's also about a chemistry between the listener and the speaker: the student and the teacher. 

When you find a mentor, teacher, speaker, guru, instructor, etc... that can ride that middle ground, hold on tight. When you find the person that can push you just enough without making you run off in terror - well you've found something special. Keep listening. Find more.

And if you can't find any human who does that to you, well... it might not be them.