7 things about Sutherland Springs

More than two dozen people died during Sunday worship at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas. A man killed them. Hundreds weep. Millions wonder why.

As a follower of Jesus and a pastor, I am feeling a deep mix of emotions and thoughts related to this shooting. What a senseless loss of life. What a tragic theft of liberty. What a disorienting blow to the people of the church, the pastor, and everyone who has found themselves swept up in the aftermath of this horror.

Allow me to process with these seven responses to the Sutherland Springs shooting:

1. This shooting is nothing more or less than murder. Murder is wrong. It is an offense to our laws. It is an offense to laws of the Creator God who makes every human being unique and infinitely valuable.
2. My heart goes out to the grieving family, congregation, and friends of the victims in Sutherland Springs. I can’t stop seeing their pain-twisted faces illuminated by candlelight. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.
3. Don’t send thoughts or prayers to the victims. They are ok. They are in the eternal embrace of their Savior. Their deaths are tragic, but they are at rest and in peace. Pray, instead, for those left behind. Pray for the families, friends, and the community. Pray for those who live among us in such darkness and pain that their minds are susceptible to the notion that ending the lives of others can give meaning to theirs.
4. The day of the shooting was also the International Day for the Persecuted Church. Millions Christians around the world suffer violence for no other reason than that they worship and serve Jesus. The kind of violence we see on our screens, newspapers, and news feeds today happens every hour of every day but is unreported and invisible to us. Usually, persecution is distant. Today, it is all too near.
5. God allows believers to go through hardships and persecution so that others can see Christ displayed through them. Every follower of Jesus has been entrusted with the life-giving message that the only hope for our broken world is for individuals to be made new at the heart-level by the power of Jesus. We believers carry this message through life in our fragile bodies. Why? As Paul explains, “This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.”
   
   How could this be the way to share the message? As if sensing our doubt, Paul continues: “Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies. So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you” (2 Corinthians 4:7,11–12 NLT). Our persistent hope in the face of hopeless situations, violence and injustices underscores the brevity of this life, the brokenness of this world, and the beauty of the eternal life that awaits all who trust in Jesus.
6. Fear and bitterness are not a long-term option for followers of Jesus. My emotions, right now, are a churning mix of anger, worry, and confusion. It’s only human to react this way. But, the work of God in my heart captures those thoughts and calms them.

   In the face of fear, I know that God is in control. In the face of anger, I remember the true nature of this conflict is spiritual. We have an enemy who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy. If he can twist and torment the souls of human beings to pull the trigger, he will. However, no matter how murderous, people are not our enemy. “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12 NLT).

   Our implements of war don’t fire bullets. We do battle for the sake of our families and neighbors with truth, justice, the good news of peace, faith, a mind that knows Jesus is our only rescue, and a heart saturated in the promises of God in his Word.

7. I am praying non-stop for every believer connected to this tragic event at every level of community leadership that their words and actions will represent the God the shooting victims loved and worshiped.

Filed under: church, culture, reflections Tagged: persecution, response, shooting, sutherland springs, texas, violence

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Charlottesville: life, liberty, and happiness up for grabs

According to a 2013 Harvard study using real-time brain imaging, race and gender are the first two things we notice about another person. Taking note of a person’s skin color is hard-wired into humans. The question is not: How to we stop noticing race? The question is: How to we prevent ourselves from allowing racism to run rampant and rip us apart? The answer has everything to do with who we allow to assign value, worth, and dignity to people.

In Charlottesville, we have a shameful snapshot of what happens when people begin to believe that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are up for grabs.

who decides our value and validity?

What we are seeing is what happens when we tamper with the foundations of our law and liberty. As a nation, we have never been completely Christian. That’s revisionist history. Some of our founding fathers were followers of Jesus. Some were deists. Others were rip-roaring moralists. However, our legal system was assembled with a set of basic assumptions that come from the Judeo-Christian tradition. For example, we all believe that it is good and desirable to seek “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” We have to look no further than our Declaration of Independence to see that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is something that our government should protect.

We also see that these “unalienable rights” — that means these are rights that cannot be taken from or separated from any human being — these rights are not granted by our government. They are protected by our government. Where do these rights come from? Every person is granted these rights by their Creator. That’s the foundational claim of the grand experiment of United States government — Creator God has given every person the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” simply by the act of creating him or her.

no creator…no holds barred

We have had a fun fifty-year foray into experimenting with this foundation. We’ve attempted to chip away at it and try other arrangements. Partly because this foundation has been misused and abused in blasphemous attempts to justify racism and sexism in the name of God. How utterly harmful those attempts have been. We’ve also wanted to free ourselves from the responsibilities and expectations that rest on our shoulders as individuals created by God. Because, if we are created by God, then we have some kind of relationship with God. That relationship grants us the privilege of life and liberty. That relationship also comes with the notion that we have been created for a purpose and we are obligated to find and fulfill that purpose.

Many of us don’t want to face that obligation. We don’t want the responsibility of a relationship with God. So we have fought and questioned the validity of it. We’ve looked for other answers to our origins. And we have attempted philosophical and biological contortions to deny the facts about us that we cannot choose — things like our gender, race, and family of origin. We’ve picked up an ideological bottle of Windex to erase God’s fingerprints from our identity. We don’t want a Creator. He asks too much of us.

We can attempt to free ourselves from our Creator. And, for a while, freedom from the obligation of a Creator feels like the liberty we crave. We can choose our backstory. We can choose our identity. We can choose our own purpose. Fulfill our own destiny.

We want freedom. And now, we’re getting it. All of it. See, while we free ourselves from the “archaic” obligations to our Creator in order to choose our own identity, we also erase the only real claim we’ve had for freedom in the first place. So, we’ve opened the door for the mob to decide who gets to pursue happiness, who gets to enjoy liberty, and — frankly — who gets to live.

This is not new. As a people, we’ve already been choosing who gets to live based on their value to us. Slavery was allowed to endure at the founding of this nation. And in 1973, we decided that unborn children are expendable in some cases. While we’ve all been flag-waving defenders of democracy in our front yards, in our backyards we’ve been running a small orwellian Animal Farm where: All men are equal, but some are more equal than others.

And now, those animals are coming home to roost and laying rotten eggs of hatred, violence, and racism in the house. We’ve tolerated ranking people based on their desirability and value for so long now that we are no longer able to see the division in anything other than political terms. We’ve sanitized the discussion into “democrats vs. republicans” rather than tackle the matter in terms of honesty, hypocrisy, love, and truth.

why can’t we all just get along?

But, we don’t need God in order to behave civilly toward each other, right? On paper, that’s true. Just like on paper Marxism is a workable system. But theory met facts on the streets of Charlottesville. And theory couldn’t stand to protect us. The fact is, we shouldn’t need the Creator to stand between us and mob rule. The fact is, people should just be nice and accommodate every other point of view. You’re right. They should. But they don’t and they won’t. Because people are self-serving and self-preserving to the core. Every honest student of history knows this. Greed, fear, and pride win the day….the year…the millennia.

Without the authority of the Creator God as our foundation for our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, our only law is the law of the jungle: survival of the fittest. The weak, the voiceless, the minority, the underfunded and unconnected will be consumed to insure the life, liberty, and happiness of the strong. This is our Creator-less reality. The cliched question, “Can’t we all just get along?” has an answer that’s 10,000 years and one word long: No. We can’t all just get along. Why? Because we all want what gives us our own happiness, liberty, and sustains our own life. Without the authority of our Creator, we’re all in a deadly struggle for our own turf. We are either image-bearers of God or destroyers of mankind.

And don’t make the mistake of assuming that what stands in the way of life and liberty is to remove a few bad apples from among us. There are always more bad apples. If the appalling transgressions of World War 2 — and the violent reaction of the world to them — didn’t put a permanent end to this madness, then no human effort can.

Without the Creator to give us our “unalienable rights” our government has no mandate to protect those rights. Our republic has no standard for the maintaining of those rights….and the mob with the loudest voice, the best funding, and the strongest weapons is allowed to define those rights. And that’s all fun and games until the most influential mob no longer has your back.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are up for grabs when we take them out of the Creator’s hands.

the path forward to life, liberty, and happiness

If you’re interested in being part of the solution to the racism, anger, and violence, here’s where to start:

• It’s time for us to accept that there are some things about us that we cannot choose or change. It’s time for us to accept that aspects of our identity like gender, race, and family of origin are the fingerprint of the Creator. Because, when we put ourselves as our own Creator, we have only ourselves to defend our rights. The only way to for us to maintain love and protection for those who are not like us is to place ourselves under the love and protection of the one who created us all in love and with purpose.
• As a culture, we need to decide where we draw the line at human value. We need to make a clear statement of which human lives are worth defending. To avoid hypocrisy, we need to embrace and defend the value of all human lives regardless of age, race, or gender.
• There is no defensible, biblical position for any form of racism or ranking of value of human lives. According to the Bible, every person is carefully formed by God from the moment of conception with a path and purpose for living. According to the Bible, every person bears the image of God. Every human life is sacred. For the alt-right racists among us, that means skin color is not a basis for ranking worth or deciding value. For the pro-life among us, that means you aren’t truly pro-life unless you go to bat for every human life, not just the unborn. If you claim to love unborn children, but have a problem with races other than your own, check yourself.
• The first amendment guarantees the right to free speech. It does not guarantee the right to free speech without opposition. It’s time to pull out our collective cultural keyboard and hit…. control ALT-right delete.

Filed under: commentary, culture, reflections Tagged: Charlottesville, culture, faith, history, politics, racism

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my bold prediction about tonight’s election

Do you know what time it is? Do you know what to do about it?

It’s a few minutes before 6 am on Tuesday morning as I write this. I’m prepared to make a bold prediction on the results of today’s election. I’m setting the timer on this post so that it will launch at 6 pm CST. Let’s see if I get it right. No edits. No retakes. No back-peddling.

(Spoiler alert: No election result can change a single thing I’m about to say. That’s the beautiful thing about rock-solid truth. It stands unmoved in the low-visibility dust storm of human events and opinions.)

So, back to my original questions: Do you know what time it is? And, do you know what to do about it?

do you know what time it is?

When I ask if you know the time, I’m not talking about the hour and the minute. I’m talking about the season. The era of US and world events in which we find ourselves.

I have witnessed a lot of worrisome behavior on the part of Christians during this contentious election process. The caustic rhetoric has done it’s intended job — to strip away our varnish of faith and civility and expose our frightened and angry core.

The candidates’ campaign teams have wanted to motivate us. Because frightened, angry people are motivated people.They have done their work with devastating skill: A candidate you hardly knew a few months ago has grown to become one of your primary ways of sizing up the intelligence and motives of your friends and family. This candidate may have even become a part of your identity in a way that makes God himself jealous. (I believe there is a commandment about this, but I digress.)

Believe it or not, I see an upside to the fear and anger this election has revealed. Really? Really. I think for perhaps the first time in my lifetime, we Christians know what time it is. We understand the season. We agree with the Bible’s assessment of our times: times are dark and nearer the end than ever.

We want to do something about it. When I encounter deep darkness around me, I often turn to a rousing passage in Romans to get me fired up. It’s my go-to pre-game speech:

“This is all the more urgent, for you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is almost gone; the day of salvation will soon be here. So remove your dark deeds like dirty clothes, and put on the shining armor of right living. Because we belong to the day, we must live decent lives for all to see. Don’t participate in the darkness of wild parties and drunkenness, or in sexual promiscuity and immoral living, or in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires.” (Romans 13:11–14 NLT) [emphasis added]

It’s like the Apostle Paul is in the locker room pushing me around, chest-bumping, and helmet-slapping me. “It’s now or never! How bad do you want it? Strap the armor on! Let’s go to war! Let’s win this one for Jesus!” I’m ready to run onto the field, into the darkness, against overwhelming odds, and deliver a blow for God or die trying.

That’s how many of us have felt in the ramp-up to today’s election. Times are dark. This culture is running sideways and upside down. They are coming for us. The numbers and momentum are in the enemy’s favor. We must go to war for Jesus. It’s now or never. We must go to war.

To that assessment, I say, “Finally.” Welcome to reality. Welcome to a view of the world that’s a little less whimsical and a little more biblical. Some of us have seen the storm clouds gathering for decades. Glad you finally know what time it is.

Which leads me to my second question: Do you know what to do about it?

do you know what to do about it?

So, here’s my bold prediction on the results of today’s election: You will feel sick about it.

Late tonight, you will turn off the TV, finish purging your Facebook friends, and put down your phone. And you will feel like a little bit of innocence has been taken from you. You will feel like you need a shower.

Even if your person wins, you will come away realizing once again that this world is dark and we nearer than ever to the end. Your fear and anger will either drive you to burrow deep into the distractions of everyday life, or to lash out against “them” — whoever “they” are.

In the aftermath of this election — this national catharsis of fear and anger — the question is: What’s our course of action in light of the fact this world is dark and closer to the end than ever? What’s our battle plan? What’s our strategy for defeating this sickening darkness?

Believe it or not, this is one of those rare times when there is a clear-cut, universal, rock-solid, dirt-simple solution. And, it’s even in the Bible, so you know it’s good.

The strategy has been staring me in the face for years, but I missed in until just a few weeks ago. The answer is hidden right in that passage from Romans that has been my go-to pep talk to go to war against the darkness of our times. Look at it again. Look closely. It’s right here:

an urgent strategy

“This is all the more urgent, for you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.” (Romans 13:11 NLT) [emphasis added]

The answer is in the “this.” I feel the urgency. I hope you feel that urgency, too. We GOT TO DO SOMETHING. TIME IS RUNNING OUT. WAKE UP. But, what? What, in heaven’s name, is the thing that is “all the more urgent”? What is “this”?!?

The secret lies just a couple of verses above. This is going to be a bit shocking, so hang on. Are you ready to strap on your armor? Ready to go to war for Jesus with urgency and desperation against the deadly forces arrayed against our faith and our nation? Ok, then here’s the urgent plan that we must execute:

“Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law. For the commandments say, “You must not commit adultery. You must not murder. You must not steal. You must not covet.” These—and other such commandments—are summed up in this one commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s law.

This is all the more urgent, for you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.” (Romans 13:8–11 NLT)

Are you sick and tired or watching our nation crumble around us? Are you keyed up for a fight? Are you ready to storm the gates of hell, sword drawn to fight for all that is good, right, holy, and just? Good.

Love. Your. Neighbor. Bottom line. Love your neighbor.

the small answer to big problems

The answer to the big problems we face is surprisingly small. From God’s perspective, the way you choose to carry yourself among the people you encounter everyday could not be more important. This is everything. And, “this is all the more urgent” considering the time. We are deep into the night. It’s late. It’s time to wake up, to strap on the armor of light, and carry the presence of Jesus into our immediate circle.

This flips the script. Instead of framing the people around us — the other party, the other group, the other side — as the enemy we must see that in God’s battle plan we’re actually fighting for those people against an insidious spiritual enemy.

This is also a deep source of hope. Just when we begin to think that “little ol’ me” can’t possibly matter in the struggle, we learn that God’s plan for addressing the darkness of our world has involved the little people all along. That’s the strategy. That’s the urgent plan: We see and address the joys, sorrows, pains, and pleasures of the people in the place where we stand right now.

This is our protest. This our sugar in the gas tank of a corrupt system. This is our stick in the spokes of a wheel rolling downhill to destruction. This is our resistance. This is our bold act of defiance.

This is our deeply drawn furrow in the sand. This is where we stubbornly resist until the sunrise.

Love. Your. Neighbor.

the one remaining question

We know what time it is. We know what to do about it. There’s only one remaining question: Do we have the faith and courage to execute the plan?

Let’s direct the fear and anger exposed in this election to it’s proper, spiritual targets. Let’s abandon the nagging sins that have us running a low-grade spiritual fever. Let’s get focused and go to war.

Love. Your. Neighbor.

Filed under: commentary, culture, hope, news, reflections Tagged: clinton, democrat, election, faith, featured, hope, politics, predictions, religion, republican, trump, values

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3 lessons from my first Uber ride & how I escaped the surge

I had one more bad experience with the cab cartel this week. It was the final straw that sent me searching for a better way to get around without getting the run around. All the cool kids are using Uber these days. I gave it a whirl in Chicago this week. Despite one big uber gotcha that almost cost me 100 bucks (yeah, $100), it worked like a charm.

Here’s how I wiggled into and back out of that hundred-dollar Uber mistake — and a few other lessons I learned as an Uber n00b.

The Cab Cartel

I was on a turn-around trip to Chicago Wednesday for an afternoon meeting. Flew out of DFW at 6:30a. Flew back just after midnight. My game plan was to land at O’Hare and score a cab to the meeting location. Then, if I had some extra time, maybe I’d grab another cab and wonder down to the lake shore for a few hours then catch my flight back to big D.

I rolled up to the taxi stand O’Hare. It was a muggy morning — in more ways than one. The August morning weather was humid. Also, I was about to experience a near robbery. I had done my research and knew that the cab fare to the Chicago suburb I needed to reach should cost about $45-50. When I informed the taxi maitre d of my destination, he laughed. “These are city taxis. If they leave the city limits, they’ll charge you double time. It will be at least $120.” One way? One way. It was my turn to laugh.

The taxi stand man stepped around the corner of his booth. “I know a guy.” He pulled up a number on his phone. “It’s ringing.” He hands me the phone. I’m pretty sure we’re skirting some rules at this point. But, anything to save a few bucks.

Long story short, a Middle Eastern man in a black suv picks me up about 100 yards from the taxi stand. The taxi maitre d pretends not to see as I slip into the back seat. At this point, I’m guessing there’s about a 20% chance I’m in chapter one of an international spy thriller novel — the chapter where the sympathetic but stupid murder victim makes a fateful decision that puts him in the middle of a plot that’s far larger and more sinister than he could imagine. The bad news is that my body will wash up on the shores of Lake Michigan tomorrow morning. The good news is that Jack Ryan will be the one to discover my corpse and he will disrupt the global terrorist network’s plot before it’s too late. You’re welcome, America.

Well, turns out that I did not get murdered. But, I did get robbed. The fee for this 40 minute ride from the airport? $89. Ridiculous. But, in the process I did discover:

Uber Lesson One: Most people are not murderers. They are normal, hardworking people trying to make a living. In this world of fear and hyper-cynicism, I forget that.

But still, there’s no way in the world I’m going through that taxi / limo robbery scenario again.

Chicago skyline from Grant Park

Uber. Cheaper.

So, when my meeting ends and I’m ready to go downtown to check out the sights, I do what all the cool kids are doing and download the uber app. And, I’m shocked. My John Grisham inspired ride from the airport to this hotel in the western ‘burbs cost me $89. Uber says it can take me all the way back past O’Hare to the Field Museum on Lakeshore for… $43. And the car can be there in 2 minutes.

My first instinct is that this low price is somehow a trap. But, I’m trying to be a little less cynical (see lesson one). With a few taps, the car is on it’s way. I see the driver’s name and picture and the car’s license plate number. A late model Honda pulls up and checks out. In about 2 minutes, I’m in my first Uber.

We glide down the free as I calmly search the back seat for signs of criminal intent. It’s clean. Then, I slip into my trademark interview mode with driver Jose and pepper him with questions about my first Uber ride.

O: How long have you been driving?
J: “About 6 months. I’m leasing this car and trying to pay for it with rides.”

O: Why Uber?
J: “We men have our pride,” he says. “I got tired of asking my wife for cigarette money.”

O: What do you consider a successful week of Uber driving?
J: “We’re from the Philippines,” Jose says. “I drove big trucks with cargo for 5 years to pay my wife’s way through nursing school. Now, she works and I’m at home. I get bored and I want to buy stuff.” “Like cigarettes?” I chuckle. “Cigarettes…beer…maybe a new TV. But I don’t like stress. I only drive a couple of days a week. When I feel calm. I want to stay calm and get out of the house.”

O: Any lessons learned as a driver you’d pass along to other drivers?
J: “I learned this hauling for the fashion industry in LA — always carry snacks. You never know how bad traffic will be.” He pops the glovebox open to reveal his stash. “You want a cracker? They’re from the Philippines. They are amazing.”

(TLDR: My driver is nice, gives me some Uber tips, and offers me a pack of Pilipino crackers.)

I take the pack of SkyFlakes crackers he hands me. Minutes later, we arrive at the Field Museum and he drops me at the door. No money changes hands. The Uber app charges my card automatically when the ride is over. Clean and classy.

Uber Lesson Two: Unlike the Cab Cartel, Uber is straight forward, you know the cost ahead of time, and the pick-up and drop-off system in infinitely more human and convenient than going by cab.

Uber’s Secret Dark Side: The Surge

I do my thing in Chicago for a few hours. Then, a storm starts to roll in across the lake. The light’s perfect. I snap a few photos. Fat drops of rain slam into me. I pull on my rain jacket and scramble down Michigan Ave. where I take refuge in a coffee shop as the rain drops turn into slanted sheets of water rippling down the windows.

It’s all good. I’m feeling confident. Uber confident. I’ll pop open the app, dial up a ride, and get back to the airport with time to spare.

I pinpoint my location in the Uber app. I type in the O’Hare airport address and wait with soggy smugness as Uber calculates the fare…….. $158. Say what? I check again. Yup. Just hours ago, I took an Uber for twice the distance than I want to go now. That ride cost me $43. Now, I want to go half that distance. And Uber is quoting me a price 4 times higher. And my blood pressure goes 4 times higher. I quickly imagine several ways I can explain to Sarah why I spent $200 on cab fare for one day in Chicago. Every way results in an ER visit. Uber, what’s the deal?!

Turns out I’m a victim of something Uber calls “surge pricing.” Apparently, when Obama authorized the Surge in Afghanistan in 2009, there was something in the fine print that allowed Uber to jack up their rates in areas and times of day that are in high demand.

What that means for me is: 1. I have 2 hours to get to the airport. 2. It’s pouring rain. 3. And I’m beginning to wonder if Uber a double agent of the Cab Cartel. They’re shaking me down for an extra $100. What to do?

I begin scouring the web to research this surge pricing model and how to work around it. Here’s what I learn:

1. Uber surge pricing is only for limited times when demand increases. They say their motive is to lure more drivers into these temporarily lucrative areas.
2. Uber divides the cities where they operate into smaller geographical areas. Surge pricing is only applied to these smaller areas, not to the city as a whole.
3. According to driver forums, many Uber drivers don’t like surge pricing either. It often slows business because no one in their right mind pays $158 for a ride to the airport. Drivers will actually leave the area under surge pricing and head for nearby areas with less expensive fares.
4. You can use your feet to beat surge pricing. Use your Uber app map to see where drivers are clustering up for a clue where lower fares can be had. Or, you can download one of a handful of free apps that will show you the shortest route out of the surge affected area where you’re standing. (I used this one.)

And that’s just what I do. Thanks to the app, I see that if I walk about a mile south, I’ll cross out of the Uber surge zone. Sure enough, I see about 4 Uber cars on the map in that general area. So, off I go in the rain.

It’s about a 10 minute walk in the rain, but the further I get away from my first location, the lower the Uber fare becomes. Soon, I’m standing on a street corner in a random neighborhood across the street from a small college and Uber says they can give me a lift to O’Hare for $52. I’ll take it.

Uber Lesson 3: If you’re a Uber noober, be prepared for Uber surge pricing. When Uber tries to take you for a surge fueled ride, let your feet do the talking.

Surge pricing isn’t the end of the world for short rides, but getting slapped for 4x the normal fare on a 30 mile ride is no bueno.

Thankfully, I was picked up by a fascinating guy. An immigrant from Guatemala who is so proud that his son is going to college. As it turns out, it’s the college where I was just picked up. He has helped his son with his homework every night since first grade. He learned so much with his son that my driver decided to take his GED at the same time his son was graduating high school. So, they both got their diplomas this spring together.

Which brings me back to:

Uber Lesson One: Most people are not murderers. They are normal, hardworking people trying to make a living. In this world of fear and hyper-cynicism, I forget that.

Filed under: culture, GoWild, reviews, travel Tagged: chicago, featured, field museum, how to, reviews, taxi, travel, uber

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to the doers

It’s my birthday. Every year near my birthday, I try to create something. Write a song, take a photo, build a thing. Not because I like attention. Because I’m a complex character. When I make something, it’s my way of letting my soul take over my brain and hands. It’s how I know what I’m thinking and how I’m doing.

So, here’s this year’s “thing.”

What does it all mean? Growing older means adopting better heroes.  Seems everyone wants to give two cents they can’t afford to the outrage du jour. I used to admire most those who could craft an artful turn of phrase. Now, I look up to those who speak and provide their own illustrations. Those who wear their convictions on their hands like work gloves and not on their sleeves like jewelry. 

Call me old. I’m weary of disembodied words.

to the doers

Here’s to the doers.

The movers and shakers

the troublemakers

the no mistakers

who sift

and find the place

where truth meets grace

where knowing

is forged out

by going

through mists of doubt.

A blind blow made

the blade

rings true.

When words untested

first suggested it

indifference arrested it

’til unseen hands protested,

pulled them to their feet.

Wrists unbound

blindfold removed

toes twitched

fingers itched.

A gift too profound

to stand still.

The Wind rises

the Fire falls

to move and singe the mist

as free

they race the sun

to the line

and cross it.

While others post

and analyze

they metabolize

for it costs too much

to pay with words

alone.

Come with me,

you who hear.

Hand in mine

let’s cross that line

from seat

to feet

from knowing

to undergoing.

We’ll prove what’s true

when we

do.

Filed under: reflections Tagged: culture, featured, poem, reflections

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