I’ll be brutally honest, the first time my brother-in-law Larry said we should go to a local pro wrestling match for one of our DADS NIGHT OUT sessions I reacted the same internally as if he offered me a chip after picking a wedgie from his butt crack.

There’s a handful of dinners I get giddy for, Santa Fe Stew is one of them. It’s like if sweatpants and your favorite hoodie became a meal.

My boss gave us his family’s trampoline this summer... it took a couple weeks, but his hands finally let go of the years of memories

I have a really hard time believing in my worth or value. How the hell did I get here?

Losing this job reveals more than it takes away, and I think that has been the recurring theme for me across my career.

This became my tell tale heart. Every time I walked by the window or the back door I was reminded of the unholiness below, and I shuddered. It loomed over me like a dementor waiting to suck out my soul. I knew, my wife knew, we needed to build a paver patio so Bray had somewhere to play, and we would have a comfortable home base to hurl instruction from while sipping on an iced beverage of some sort.

Anyways, the skies are hard to trust these days, and as I was gearing up for one of the only weekends I’d have open for the next couple, they were spelling some heavy doom. Plan was to get off early on Friday, hit it hard, then take Sat and Sun to finish (I didn’t. Spoiler.).

My trust engine is off track. My trust is set somewhere else rather than where it should be. That trust is pulling all of my hope, emotions, reflections, decisions, and reactions along with it towards wherever this train is heading. I’m a hopeless dude. That makes me not a good man.

This weekend I called my dad to talk to him about some things that have been bothering me in our relationship. I expected defense. I expected to be told I was wrong, that I was seeing things incorrectly. I expected to feel silly for even bringing it up.

Instead, I was met with grace and a proactive plan on how we’d move forward.

War is terrible. It’s not a good thing. Killing the enemy is not something to wish on anyone, and to be in those moments is to illicit some deep form of carnal masculinity not fit for 99.9% of the public sphere… but it’s 100% necessary. Why? Because:

Pure evil exists.

And if pure evil exists, it’s worth killing.

There’s a few reflections here that I’ve been marinating on since finishing Lone Survivor:

The main question is this:

The problem is this - perfection is wielded as a threat rather than an invitation. People think falling short of perfection is the problem, but it isn’t. The problem is acting like it doesn’t exist so you can rest on your mediocre efforts. Everything on this side of eternity falls short; the fighter who is 39-0 still had a couple imperfect punches thrown, if the Leafs ever hoist the cup again (uhhhh, we’ll see lol) then they definitely had a few shifts in the run that were questionable, and even Rembrandt could get better (don’t ask me how, but someone way smarter and more artistic than me could tell him). What’s important is the effort.

The point I try to land as close to, as often as possible, is this: life of faith is complex and simple at the same time, that’s how it was designed, on purpose. You cannot, no matter how hard you try, fit everything in a box except for one idea of fearing (loving, devoting one’s self to, enjoying, worshipping, pursuing) God and keep his commandments (put effort forth to instill what you can try to know about him in action). Often times you have Christians who will die on hills of truth - and in many cases I think those hills are well built - however there’s a very quick cliff you’ll find lurking on the edge of truth called idolizing said truth. When the truth becomes more about you being right and correct than it is being in love with the one who declared it, that’s when it’s sticky.

The man who doesn’t want to taste isn’t worried about the richest experience of beauty, he’s only interested in his bottom line. Now, I’m not saying this man is inherently evil, but I am saying that following this dude is going to leave you always thirsting for more. Unlike the salt of the earth, that man is like salt water - he’s going to leave you unsatisfied and completely dehydrated. Why? Because he hasn’t done the work to liven his appreciation for the depths at which we experience the creation, and ability to create, around us.

In the same second I want deliverance, there are at least a hundred things I can look around me and point out as an undeserved gift. That doesn’t dissipate the hope to finally crest the summit of where I’d like to be artistically, however it does put me back into perspective of the value and purpose of living - it’s not about me, yet I’m overwhelmingly loved and blessed by God.

I want to experience him more - both in the wanting and the blessing. I get focused on what it means to make it, and I forget that it’s just pure vanity. I won’t be able to add anything eternally to me by achieving a single thing here on earth, so why fret so much about it? Easy to say and sound smart on the internet, but watch me try and implement it on the daily and you’d laugh hysterically. I’m a hurricane of confusion.

I’ve thought a lot about the masters of old, the things they dealt with and the things they never knew. They were busy trying to mix their supplies with the correct amount of pigment and not dying from a simple infection from the cut they got on their arm - I’m trying to curb my dependence on a smart phone and figuring out how to supplement dumbbell exercises when I don’t have the right weight available this minute. There’s a difference.

But then, there’s not. That’s the crazy thing.

All of this coalescing into this one video that got me originally curious, he cut this overgrown lawn and turns out it was a murder scene (speculation). He smelled somethin’ nasty from the open windows in the backyard and ended up calling the police for a wellness check, and sure enough they kicked him out because they deemed it a crime.

I’m a fool, I’ve been a fool for a long time, and if the pattern wears correctly, I’ll probably still be somewhat of a fool forever. I thank God for the grace to cover up my foolishness, it’s plentiful and overwhelming.

I didn’t recall how long ago I thumbed those words into the app, but 2 years seems shorter and longer at the same time than I remember. Nothing has changed, I still feel exactly this way, and why I’m a fool is because my slothfulness has kept everything the same. I haven’t toiled for this heart, I’ve only showed up to work jobs that I think will somehow give me security until I can have enough financial space to pursue these dreams.

Creativity. The word stirs many things up for the hearer, many more for the understander. Often used as a label, a “creative,” and I often suspect, especially in these modern days, less often felt or absorbed as the intended delivery.

Creativity isn’t something we do, it’s something we are: creative. And “are” is directly connected to what God is: “I Am.”

God stands before everything (full stop) as creator, developer, architect, artist, draftsman, master. He is “I Am” creative. It flows from him. A river winding and ever moving, bending, rushing, and living. It’s active. He’s active. He doesn’t “do” only, he “is” and does from that “is.”

Pride is an action in a lot of cases. It’s what you do when confronted with something you feel something about. It’s what you respond with. That can be tamed. Values are those somethings you feel something about, pillars resolute in a field fo dreams. Values are the bones to the meat, the structure built to withstand hurricanes and earthquakes.