the law.

We continue to hear things from certain individuals along the lines of "restrictions on guns won't stop shootings." 

Why do we not hear the same thing in regards to restrictions on illegal immigration, abortion, gay rights, and a whole host of things that many of those same people seem very excited about restricting? 

Or why be upset with restrictions on clean energy, environment, etc... they don't do anything, anyway, right? 

two months.

Two months from today I'll be at The Bing. Speaking, creating, carrying out a really cool - I think - experience. 

When I'm not sweating and fighting my desire to run away, I'm really excited about it. 

I'd love for you to take a look at lightslikeus.com. As blog readers, not only do I hope you're there on May 3 but I hope you'll bring some friends because the more, definitely, the merrier. 

Also, I gave a shoutout to Aaron McHugh a while back and I'll give him another... I got to sit in his bus and have an interview last weekend and the podcast is up! Give it a listen (iTunes link) if you like. Aaron is a cool dude, living a good life, doing pretty amazing things, and it was awesome to hang with him. I think you'll like the interview and the podcast. 

everyone and no one.

Besides the fact that they don't exist... think how cool if they did. You could be the first one to ever do that? Whoa. 

You don't need everyone. You'll never have no one. 

You just need enough. 

will we?

Will we ever run out of new music? 
Or new recipes?

Ever?

Math says it's possible. 

But, it's our answer that matters more. 

open it.

My wife and I were out to eat. Since we had been shopping, I really had to go to the bathroom. I, of course, excused myself and walked down the short hallway in the back of the restaurant to the bathroom. And, horror of horrors, the door was closed.

I really had to go.

I waited, in pain, practically, jumping up and down as though that would help. Waiting, waiting, waiting... what were they doing in there?!? 

Finally, I couldn't take it any longer and knocked on the door. No answer. I reached for the handle and twisted... and the door opened. No one was there. 

Have you ever noticed how one dirty dish in the sink tends to attract others? Well, of course we think, the dishwasher is full. So, we'll just put them in the sink. Finally, someone bothers to open it and finds that it's empty, waiting for dirty dishes. 

There are some sayings around "closed doors" and "waiting for open doors" but I don't think there are enough sayings telling us to "Open the damn door - it's not locked and it's not full. It's waiting for us to try it!"

it’s happening.

Don't worry about tomorrow can be read a few ways and most of them are not very helpful to us. We have a mortgage due tomorrow.

The sentiment, we say, is that we only have today. Tomorrow may not exist. It's true, but focusing on the fact that we could be in a wreck tomorrow seems really pessimistic and anxiety producing - which is not the point of not worrying about tomorrow or focusing on today.

So, it's not that we don't know what tomorrow brings or that we shouldn't think about it.

It's that we do know what is happening right now and we should pay more attention to that. Do that, and the rest takes care of itself. 

good looking...

I was recently with someone and we were talking about another tragic suicide... and this person said, as people often do when talking about a suicide, "...So confusing, he was such a good looking kid... so sad..." 

Which got me thinking about how often, when we hear of a suicide or similar tragedy, one of our go-to responses is something along the lines of all the successful things they had going for them in life... and, more interesting, what those successful things are. 

Good looking.
Football player.
Cheerleader. 
4.0 Student. 
CEO

Two points: 

1. I hope to God to never hear anyone explicitly say "Yeah, kinda makes sense. Ugly kid with bad grades..." but... it is what we're often saying without saying it. That seems dangerous on all kinds of levels. 

2. Good looking, football player/cheerleaders/CEO's/ 4.0 students can still feel as though they don't belong, can still have mental illnesses, and can still be weighed down by the endless pursuit of trying to keep up. 

It's never a bad time to remember what we're living for and what we're modeling for our peers and the generations below us. 

bold statement no. 7*

There is nothing to be afraid of. 

*To agree, disagree, talk about, or ignore. 

bold statement no. 6*

If there is a Hell where humans are tortured forever, there is not a God. If there is a God, there is not a Hell where humans are tortured forever. The two can not co-exist. 

*To agree, disagree, talk about, or ignore. 

bold statement no. 5*

America is the least Christian on Earth. (In part because it claims to be the most.) 

*To agree, disagree, talk about, or ignore. 

bold statement no. 4*

The experience of God is related to perception and nothing else. 

*To agree, disagree, talk about, or ignore. 

bold statement no. 3*

Religion and Church are concepts created, not to experience God, but to control humanity. 

*To agree, disagree, talk about, or ignore. 

bold statement no. 2*

Christianity and God have nothing to do with each other.

As in they each don't affect the other anymore than any other thing in the world. 

*To agree, disagree, talk about, or ignore. 

bold statement no. 1*

Church and Christianity have nothing to do with each other.

As in they each don't affect the other any more than any other thing in the world. 

*To agree, disagree, talk about, or ignore. 

now that I have...

Now that I was a pastor for 10+ years and am no longer one, I feel like I've earned the right to say this:

"Following Jesus" is not "becoming a pastor". I just heard it again from a pastor who said he was "climbing the corporate ladder" and then decided to follow Jesus and go "all in"... and ended up quitting his job and becoming a pastor. 

And? I would ask? And... then.... you... what? 

I once quit my corporate job and made much less money to become a pastor too because I thought the job would be more fulfilling and interesting than what I was doing, even though it happened to pay less. Pastors or non-profit employees are not more "Jesus" than CEO's, nurses, Uber drivers, game designers and pilots. I think we know this.

Side note: It does help leaders of churches and non-profits pay their employees less, because, after all, it is a more Jesus job - that's got to be worth something. 

Just another reminder: God is not here or there, just both. 

the gods of guns.

The gun gods offer us much: control and power. A leg up on fear. 
But they require much: blood. On a regular basis. Of the young. 
It is worth the sacrifice, we say, without words.  

And then, we laugh at the lunacy of those primitives who used to bring their children to a carved rock, believing their crops would receive rain. 

How sad, we say. How fortunate, we're so much more advanced. 

let’s do this one more time.

It’s called gun legislation. It prevents people from shooting other human beings with guns and stealing their lives. It works. It prevents tragedies like we just had again.

Again. Again. Again.

We know it works like we know the Earth is round. There are some who continue to claim the Earth isn’t round and there are some who continue to claim gun control doesn’t work. Those people are one in the same at this point. 

So there will be more shootings.

Again. Again. Again.

Until this country stops living in ignorance and insisting on things that are not true. Until then, the rest of the world will continue to shake their heads and mourn with us, wondering why we worship the gods of guns with such devotion.

love and pain.

It's Valentines Day and Ash Wednesday (the start of Lent). Rough combination at first glance. 

But, wow, are love and pain much more intertwined than we sometimes want to admit... 

Can love exist without the risk of pain? 
Without pain? 

I don't know. 

Can pain exist without the risk of love?
Without love? 

I don't know. 

I do know that from dust we've come and to dust we will return is a pretty true statement no matter your belief system. And it's that very truth that makes love all the more valuable and astounding and worth appreciating. 

I hope you can appreciate love today. And ashes. 

where is it?

I don't know. 

Maybe it's there? Have you looked? 

Or there? Have you looked there? 

Or way over there? Have you explored? 

It's amazing how often we think we know the answer to the question, without ever actually confirming it. 

welcoming, inclusive, enlightened.

Damn you Twitter. I mean seriously, another thread of Christians arguing about what it means to be a Christian and a Jesus follower and a progressive and a conservative and all the big names are weighing in and wow.... 

I had 5 responses written before remembering that I made a promise to myself to never engage in debate via Twitter. 

So, I'll vent here. 

It all started with Jonathan Merritt saying this: Progressive Christians like to pretend they are welcoming, inclusive, enlightened and all those nasty conservatives are hateful, oppressive ogres. But many progressive Christians have become what they claim to dislike so much.

You could read the entirety of the Tweet thread here if you care. 

But, it does bring up a point that is brought up often. And one I've thought a lot about because I've been accused of it many times, myself. 

You can't claim to be welcoming and inclusive to everyone and then not welcome and include people who disagree with you. 

So, a few things I think we need to start getting out there into the world. 

1. Being hateful and oppressive anytime, to anyone, is not a good thing for the world. 

2. Claiming to be welcoming and inclusive to everyone, is really tough. Even Jesus wasn't.  Unless we think calling someone a "son of Hell" and a "brood of vipers" (along with some other gems) is welcoming and inclusive...

3. To claim all conservatives are hateful and oppressive ogres is ridiculous. The word "all" is usually a bad sign in any statement. (It's wild that the Christian tradition says all things will be reconciled.)

4. Someone can claim to be welcoming and inclusive to everyone except people who are hateful, oppressive ogres - especially those who do it in the name of a hateful, oppressive, ogre God. By the way, that is what I claim. (Yes, this is not perfect, because my judgment of who is hateful and oppressive and an ogre can be poisoned by ego and shame and pride. I admit that.) It's what I strive to do better though while striving not to be hateful and oppressive and an ogre, myself. (And what I think Jesus generally modeled for us.) 

5. Welcoming and inclusion is not the same as love. Jesus loved the world, including Pharisees. But, he did not invite the hateful, oppressive Pharisees to be his disciples and to hang out with him at the parties of prostitutes, tax collectors and others... and when he did, they usually left pretty quick. 

6. Do hateful, oppressive, dehumanizing ogres want to be at parties of welcoming and inclusion? I feel like they wouldn't like that party in the same way I don't want to be at a White Supremacist party. I'm fine they don't welcome and include me. I'm honored. So, I don't argue that White Supremacists should include me? (This is why Heaven would honestly be Hell to lots of hateful, oppressive people who think that some people don't belong there.) 

7. I'm not welcoming and inclusive to everyone, but I really want to be to the people who feel like no one is welcoming and inclusive to them and especially to the ones that feel like there is a god who isn't welcoming and inclusive of them (usually not Pharisees.)

Bonus: Complex thoughts don't fit into 280 characters. No Twitter debates Ryan. Ever.