Category: Commentary

Better late than missed

Or that’s what I tell myself

When I phone it in

We are told to ask, seek, and knock when it comes to God. The same is often (not always) true of people.

When you want to know something about people, ask them.

The amount of assumption behind our thoughts and decisions regarding others is unnecessary; in business about customers or colleagues, in politics about enemies or voters or immigrants or whoever, in relationships about everyone.

“Maybe they’ll like this feature”, “They only care about this”, “They have bad intentions”. These conjectures are often all that big decisions and big emotions are based on.

It is much easier if you just ask people directly. Why did you do this? What do you care about? What do you think of this? What motivates you?

It’s amazing how often people will tell you the truth.

Any good economist knows this isn’t foolproof, as there’s a big difference between stated preferences and revealed preferences. Everyone says they love mom and pop stores even if more expensive (stated preference) but when Wal-Mart opens they shop there instead (revealed preference).

It’s good to observe actions – the fruit – and not just words, but asking people is incredibly handy when it comes to understanding motives. Instead of assuming the shopper above is just a liar or frugal, you can ask why their actions didn’t mirror their previous words. Maybe you’d discover that, while they like mom and pop shops in general, the particular one in town has a grumpy owner and they realized after one trip that they prefer the anonymity of a bigger store. That’s very different than just being a liar or frugal.

Curiosity about motives is hard to come by. When something happens, your enemies will immediately assume a motive that helps their case and hurts yours. As a reaction, you’ll assume an opposite motive. Meanwhile, nobody is taking a second to simply ask the actor about their motives.

Try it out. And with genuine curiosity and openness, not angling for a predetermined answer.

It’s a bit disturbing when you remember something clearly but can find no trace of it online.

It’s a good reminder that the world is full of mystery, facts, theories, genius, stupidity, events, and ideas we’ll never know about. It’s easy to forget this and assume history books and the expansive reach of the internet have everything interesting catalogued. But the vast majority of things ever spoken, done, or even written, are not accessible to us.

The other day I suddenly remembered a researcher of some kind who came to town and gave a presentation at a church when I was a kid. He had a theory that the earth used to be surrounded by a dome of ice. This was a pretty detailed theory, and he even brought all kinds of props like casts with footprints of humans and animals.

The dome, he said, caused the atmosphere of earth to be much richer in oxygen than it is now, and possibly pressurized like a hyperbaric chamber. He claimed dinosaurs like the T-Rex and Pterodactyl could not run or fly in our current atmosphere, given how small their lungs were relative to their bodies. He also claimed humans were much larger and lived much longer in these conditions.

Oh, the sky was also tinted pink under the dome. I don’t remember why, but it had a magenta hue. He produced several bits of evidence for this – references in stories and writings, etc. He also said that this particular magenta hue had some neurologically calming effect on humans and animals, and hence they were less violent and lived in harmony.

The biblical flood event entailed the melting and/or crashing down of this ice dome. He referenced Woolly Mammoths found flattened in ice with undigested buttercups in their mouth as proof that they were squished by a chunk of the collapsing ice dome.

One of the reasons I remember all this is because, per an offhand comment this guy made about being able to get the same calming effect as this dome with magenta tinted glasses, my mom got some for my dad, who has a head injury and no short term memory and sometimes gets agitated and repeatedly yells for lunch. My siblings and I found it delightful when he would be sitting there with these “calming” glasses on, yelling loudly in agitation. Of course we never let my mom live it down.

Anyway, I went to look this guy up. His name was Rick Tingle as far as I can remember. Granted, I only searched about 20 minutes, but I tried so many phrases and nothing at all – nothing remotely close – came up. Except one post in Reddit where someone was describing the theory and said they heard it as a kid but couldn’t find anything about it or remember who the guy was. No one there had any answers.

It was one of those startling moments where I had to wonder what else have I experienced in my life that I completely forgot? Or what else do I remember that no one else will ever encounter because all proof is now gone?

The world is bigger than the internet and history books. And much weirder.

“I’m a coward.”

The person who openly tells you this is less in danger of the snares of cowardice than one who tries to keep you from seeing their cowardice.

This goes for any vice, any struggle, any weakness.

People who lay themselves bare before God and man and surrender their need to control their reputation are in less danger of just about every trap than those who are trying to maintain an image.

When you’re worried about how you appear, you’re fighting on two fronts. You have to fight the same struggles everyone else does, and you have to fight the appearance of fighting these and carefully craft and protect stories that make you look better. No one can keep that up.

Those who are raw before God and open before others can be startling, unsettling, and a little crazy at times. They are no less prone to fall into error, but they are far less prone to stay stuck there. When you know – when you can say – “I struggle”, that struggle suddenly loses some of its grip.

This is part of what ‘dying to self’ means. Let go of the illusion of your goodness. Let go the need to defend yourself from accusations. If someone accuses you of a fault your default should be, “I don’t deny it, I only hope to get better!”

Once that posture is adopted, anxiety melts away. The devil is disarmed.

I cannot claim this is my dominant posture. I have had the experience only seldomly, but enough to know it is the key to freedom. And I have seen many times people who appeared to be on a dangerous path, but were never dishonest with themselves or others about it, come back to life beautifully. While those who keep trying to maintain the good opinion of themselves and others slowly decay inside even while appearing okay on the outside.

Bare your soul to God. When you do, you won’t fear man. The Psalmist says, “What can man do to me?”

Ever hear someone sarcastically say of a rich person, “Oh I feel soo bad for you with all that money”?

That naive idea – that anyone with a lot of money can’t possibly suffer or be pitiable – is parallel to one Christians seem to have about non-Christians. It is a belief that non-Christians, since they keep sinning, must be happy and enjoying it.

The implication is then that, if we wish to reach unbelievers, we mustn’t mention things like forgiveness, freedom from sin, repentance, or righteousness. They don’t want these things, so it goes, because they are happy in sin.

This misconception, much like the one about rich people always being happy, is usually rooted in either self-righteousness or jealousy.

Self-righteousness is easy to understand. It’s easier to feel good about oneself if others are truly wicked – enjoying it wicked, not just regretfully making bad choices.

Jealousy is also easy to understand. Working very hard to avoid the traps of sin is not easy, and living a lascivious lifestyle can look more fun – especially to those who don’t have much experience with it. They can romanticize sin, just as those who are not rich romanticize wealth.

In reality, sin is not fun.

Remember when you were a kid, and you told a lie? How awful was your life as you tried to keep it hidden from your parents? How much better did you feel when you were finally found out, or confessed? The little devil on the shoulder promises an easy route, but delivers only suffering.

Sure, the initial bad decisions that lead to the plague of sin can be fun. Indulging in some envy or malice towards someone can feel good for a minute. Giving in to some fleshly temptation of food, drink, or lust can be fun for a short while. Those choices aren’t the real plague. They are the things that open the door to the infectious bondage of sin. That bondage is no picnic. It does not make one happy.

Being chained to demons is not an enjoyable situation. Emptiness, loneliness, depression, guilt, shame, fear, anxiety, doubt, weakness – these are the fruits of sin sickness. No one likes these.

That is why the gospel need not be altered for marketing purposes to remove references to forgiveness and freedom from sin. In fact, that’s probably the most appealing part for most, even though they may not say so.

Everyone puts up a front to appear happy with their decisions. But get people alone when they’re at a low point, or slightly inebriated, or grieving, or faced with illness. They will begin to share the truth – they that feel shackled by sin and want freedom. Usually, they don’t believe it’s possible. That’s why the gospel is so full of hope.

The gospel is not less attractive when it’s about freedom from sin. That does not mean that it should be presented simply, as Dallas Willard put it, a “gospel of sin management.” It’s not about just not doing bad things. That is rather flimsy and unattractive.

If the gospel is merely “don’t drink too much” and “don’t sleep around” then it’s little better than any other self-help program. The power and hope it contains are not in admonitions against bad choices, but in Christs victory over the dark spiritual forces that enslave people. Even over death itself.

The gospel message is not just about not doing bad things, but neither should it shy away from it’s core: freedom from sin.

They may tell you to your face they are happy as they are, but those in bondage are yearning for freedom and a way back into the light. Don’t fear to share it, and always strive to demonstrate it.

The common notion of sin in modern culture, and sadly much modern Christianity, is little more than “doing bad things.”

If sin is merely doing bad things, than salvation doesn’t seem that attractive or even necessary to most people.

But sin is not just doing bad things. Sin is more akin to a disease. A flesh-rotting, degenerative, wasting sort of sickness that spreads like a fungal infection. It’s a chain, a shackle to dark spirits and impulses.

Sin is slavery. It is infection. It’s like the creepy little crayfish looking thing injected into Neo in the matrix; a vile thing crawling around inside you, messing things up, spreading, making you vulnerable, controllable by the evil that put it there.

No one wants that. No one wants to be a slave to filthy degenerate overlords. No one wants a flesh-rotting disease. No one wants creatures they can’t control crawling around in their veins wreaking havoc on themselves and spreading to those around them.

That is why redemption means freedom. That is why forgiveness of sin accompanied healing from physical sickness and deliverance from demons in the ministry of Jesus.

Yes, “doing bad things” is the opening sin needs to creep its slimy tentacles in to you. But bad things are not the thing you need freedom from, sin – and the death and decay it causes – is.

I think a lot of people have it backwards. They think a thing is a sin because it is “bad”. But things are bad because they let the infectious shackles of sin in. It’s not just that some things are arbitrarily called “bad” by God or Christians, and if you do those you “sin”. It’s that some things are attached to or tainted with a real spiritual sickness – a black goo – and if you mess around with those things it quite literally gets in you. This is the structure of reality. It’s cause and effect. It’s not moralizing or arbitrary rules.

Lies are tainted with sin. If you pick one up to use it, you also pick up the spiritual pathogens dripping off it. It gets on you and in you. The more you engage, the sicker you get. Soon, lies are not a tool you use, you are a tool used by sin and darkness, because lies are a tool owned and infected by sin and darkness. They want to control you, so they tempt you by dangling a useful lie in front of you in a moment of weakness.

We need freedom from the taint of sin. And we need frequent sterilizations and purifications to get clean of new bits that attach to us.

Some people are so deeply, painfully in bondage to sin, they barely know what it’s like to breath free, pure air anymore. Those people don’t just need to be told, “don’t do bad things”, they need the freedom that only comes through asking and seeking repentance and forgiveness through Christ. The breaking of those chains is a glorious thing, worthy of celebration. Only after the freedom does the idea of “stop doing bad things” start to make sense as a preventative. An already infected person being told “wash your hands and don’t touch germs” is going to gain little from it. The infection must first be killed.

The Church’s job is not to say to those in bondage “don’t do bad things”, it is to offer freedom from bondage. To those who are already free in Christ, being reminded to avoid the temptations that allow the shackles to sneak back in is useful, but not so much to those afflicted and oppressed.

The gospel is an emancipation. It is an announcement that all the things that have enslaved and tormented you – depression, addiction, envy, lust, fear, and the demons behind them – have been defeated and you can throw off their shackles. It is a message of hope and joy.

Once free, a citizen of the Kingdom of God learns some responsibilities and practices to avoid being re-enslaved. But those come after you gain your freedom.

Until sin is revealed for what it is – the thing holding people back, the boot on their neck, the ickiness they can’t seem to escape – the offer of redemption will seem thin.

It’s really hard for me to leave things open. I like to complete stuff, wrap it with a bow, and move on.

Some things need time and benefit from a non-immediate cadence. I’ve had to learn this – still am learning – and now leave some messages without a response and questions unanswered when it seems they need time to breathe.

Immediacy is the better default setting. But it’s not always best.

And it’s not just that waiting allows time to gather more information or weigh things consciously. That is part of it. But even without any explicit attempt to think on or discuss a matter, just giving it time and allowing yourself to go through some different mental cycles and moods can make the response better, clearer.

There are cadences to everything, and an immediate back and forth is only the ideal cadence for a few things.

Hard to really care

To come so close and yet miss

Is it next year yet?

Tired: Coffee

Wired: Cold plunge

Inspired: 9 hours of sleep

The best course of action is always to do the right thing.

But it seems there are times where not doing what is right might be right. Lying to protect innocents from the Gestapo. Even killing in defense of self or family.

I don’t pretend to know where the lines are or what situations call for lying or killing. I’m not sure it much matters to get granular and figure it out.

It’s enough for us to know, ‘do not lie’, and ‘do not kill’. And enough to know that, should you find yourself in a situation where you feel violating these is best, you must be fully prepared to bear all consequences. On the material plane, you must be willing to be found guilty and condemned by your fellow man or earthly governments. On the spiritual plane, you must be willing to present your actions to God and accept whatever judgement may come.

If the thought of such accountability causes defensiveness to rise in you, it’s probably a sign that you ought not to do the thing. Justifying your actions is a sign you are probably not at peace with them in your own conscience. If you are completely willing to accept whatever happens without even the need to defend yourself, perhaps it’s a different matter.

I’ve often wondered whether, if faced with death at the hands of tyrants, I would fight or choose martyrdom. I don’t know. But I know that whatever I chose, I would have to be fully at peace with it, rendering myself up to God for judgement.

Once you’ve bumped up against truth, your options get fewer.

You can let its light disband your darkness – a painful and scary thing, but ultimately the best possible thing. Or you can run from it.

The problem with running is that the light of truth is bright and expansive. It’s like trying to run from the light of the sun. Eventually you realize you can’t keep going from shadow to shadow, because shadows are not permanent.

You have to hide. And still the light tries to penetrate. You have to burrow down into deeper and deeper, smaller and smaller caverns, where fewer and fewer guests can fit or want to go.

You have to give up your world to retain your darkness.

Often, the darkness you’re trying so hard to protect is a small thing. A little fear. A little lie you’re telling yourself. A little path of least resistance habit or mindset.

Are you really willing to deny yourself the light of day, the surface of the earth, and the company of others just to keep that small darkness from being destroyed?

If not, better to get the whole procedure over with as quickly as possible. It only gets harder the longer you evade the light.

The young professional who haphazardly interrupts everyone with unscheduled calls or texts is a problem. They waste people’s time, annoy, and struggle to maintain their own work schedule efficiently. They don’t yet have systems and calendars. Everything is ad hoc. It’s their default and they don’t know any other way. Emails and calendar invites are confusing and seem like noise to them.

As you mature in your career, you need systems and order. You must wrangle your days and weeks into submission. Schedules must be deliberate, chunked into maker mode and manager mode. Meetings must have prep time and be properly slotted. Your tools and rules are your friend.

Then something weird happens. You reach total overwhelm as your network and nodes and modes of contact grow. Your systems aren’t sufficient. They handle the moderately important stuff, and you mostly sorta follow your calendar, but sometimes have to ignore it. The top tier stuff just doesn’t fit, and a calendar invite doesn’t stand above the noise.

You have to bypass it all and call or text people unscheduled. You’ve got a tranche of contacts for whom the rules don’t – simply can’t – apply.

Eventually, highly successful people tend to return to their pre-professional ways and eschew systems altogether.

It seems at very low stakes, inefficient, system-less communication is fine. Medium stakes require systems in order to scale. But high stakes break the scale ceiling for these systems and it’s back to inefficient, system-less communication.

It’s become fairly popular to discuss paranormal experiences, aliens, entities, cryptids, spirits, and other things from the fringes.

I enjoy a good weird encounter story as much as the next person, and have heard my share of them.

When the question comes of who these various beings are, I’m always reminded of the statement, “You will know them by their fruit.” What is the fruit? It’s hard to say. And the fact that it’s hard to say, I think, says something.

Consider another kind of experience, called supernatural by Christians and shared as a ‘testimony’. These stories appear similar on the surface, but really the only commonality is the presence of some kind of personage not typically visible on the material plane. Otherwise they are quite different.

A testimony is usually something like this: I was in a bad place – perhaps physical sickness, addiction, or a bad relationship. I saw or heard an angel or Christ or a saint – they healed me, helped me, showed me the way. I am now in a better place – I can walk, I am free from addiction, I am on the way to reconciling my relationship.

Saul encountering Christ on the road, being temporarily blinded, and receiving his calling follows this pattern. So do Joseph and Mary being visited in a dream and told to go to Egypt.

A testimony has a definite direction and purpose. Upon sharing it, everyone gets goosebumps, erupts into applause, and praises God. They usually also become better people themselves from hearing the testimony. And the one sharing it feels strengthened when they remember the events.

A paranormal encounter, on the other hand, seems to have no end, no completion, no direction, and no purpose. A person sees a creature in the woods, feels deep fear, and that’s it. A person is taken up by an alien-looking being, forgets parts of it, suffers from headaches and missing time, and can never figure out exactly why or how or what to do about it.

Those listening to encounter stories do not often become better for hearing it, but more curious or creeped out. And the one sharing it doesn’t tend to feel strengthened by remembering. In fact, many of these experiencers try not to remember.

The main fruit of these encounters seems to be an ever growing obsession with figuring out what happened. A pursuit that, while it may uncover many interesting things, never seems to reach a conclusion. Like a show of endless cliffhangers, the pursuit goes on, and sometimes consumes the person.

Either that, or they have to just put the experience off to the side in a compartment. It’s not part of their story, just some odd accessory. It doesn’t integrate.

The fruit in these peoples lives couldn’t be more different. One is clear, definite, and positive for both the person involved and those they share it with. One is unclear, indefinite, and negative or at least ambiguous for both the person involved and those they share it with. One inspires hope, love, and change. One inspires either fear or an all-consuming curiosity which never seems to get consummated.

If it is for freedom that we have been set free, what are we to do with that freedom?

Blossom into the wholeness of our created potential.

Each person is an imager of God, and a unique expression of some aspect of Him, meant to become the fullness of that aspect in the world.

But if we are enslaved to fear, guilt, shame, addiction, weakness, manipulation, tyranny, or ideology, the best we can do is be imagers of that which enslaves us. We can’t begin to become what we were meant to be until we are freed from these shackles.

Freedom is the gift of God, so that once freed we may then go about our journey of becoming more like ourselves, which is more like Him.

The hardest thing is

Knowing how to win and then

Learning how to lose