​Great actors seem to quietly understand something about being human. Robert Duvall always felt like one of those actors to me. Not because of grand performances or cinematic spectacle, but because he never seemed to be acting so much as inhabiting a life.

That is why Tender Mercies has never felt like just a film to me. It feels more like a visitor. A slow reflection on brokenness, dignity, and the possibility of beginning again.

Mac Sledge is not written as a hero. He is a man who has fallen apart. A man who has burned through talent, relationships, and self-respect. Yet what makes the character so deeply affecting is that the story does not chase dramatic redemption. There is no sweeping transformation, no triumphant reclaiming of glory. Instead, there is quietness. Routine. Small decencies. A life rebuilt in fragments.

That has always resonated with me.

Life rarely repairs itself in a big bang moment. Healing rarely happens to the beat of a soundtrack. More often it arrives in ordinary days, in simple choices, in the refusal to quit showing up.

Tender Mercies understood this. Duvall clearly understood this. His performance carries the weight of a man who is not trying to become extraordinary, only trying to keep standing.

There is something beautifully honest in that portrayal.

Mac does not speak much, yet his silence feels full rather than empty. It is the silence of a man who has lived long enough to know that words are often insufficient. Duvall conveys regret, humility, and a fragile kind of hope with the smallest movements, the slightest shifts in expression. Nothing is exaggerated. Nothing pleads for attention. The humanity simply exists.

I think that is why the film always speaks to me.

It reminds me that redemption is not always loud. That grace can look like stability. That strength can be found in gentleness. Most importantly, it suggests that a life does not have to return to what it once was in order to have meaning. There is dignity in rebuilding something quieter, something truer.

I want to say that again, if only for me - life does not have to return to what it once was in order to have meaning........

Duvall’s Mac Sledge feels like a man who has stopped arguing with reality. A man who has accepted the slow work of living. There is a kind of peace in that acceptance that I find deeply moving and relatable.

Perhaps that is the real mercy the film offers. Not the fantasy of erasing the past, but the possibility of living honestly in its aftermath.

And Duvall, with his remarkable restraint, makes that possibility feel real.

I thank him for that.

I thank him for all the times he showed up to movies seemingly understanding my struggles more than I understood them myself. I thank him for all the times he showed up not as a great actor, which he surely was, but as a man simply inhabiting life.

God bless you and keep you, Mr. Duvall. You leave behind countless memories and treasures.

In doing some reading about Valentine's Day, I stumbled upon a 1990s psychological study that later got billed as 'The 36 Questions That Lead to Love.' It was billed as such because a few of the participants in the original study fell in love and in short order got married.

The original intent of the study, however, was to better understand what strengthens interpersonal connections - all connections, not just romantic.

As I read through the questions - questions designed to manufacture progressive vulnerability - I didn't find myself wondering if these questions can truly build love as much as I found myself wondering how many people 'in love' could sit and answer these questions with one another. It's a curiosity that stems from recognizing the absence of such vulnerability in my own previous relationships.

I wrote yesterday that there's a difference between FEELING love and FINDING love. I think FINDING love has a lot to do with creating a space where two people have the ability to safely exchange inner worlds. Where someone hears your fears without turning away. Where someone can reveal their own uncertainties. Where two people can risk honesty instead of managing a closely guarded image.

That’s a world that is often very different from the often longed for... CHEMISTRY.

Chemistry can make two people feel powerfully drawn to one another. Vulnerability and emotional safety are what make two people feel attached to another when chemistry seems scarce.

Here are the 36 questions from the study. You might find them interesting.

You might wonder, first and foremost, could I sit down with the people close to me and ask of one another these questions? And if I have been close to someone a long time, how many of the deeper answers that these questions explore do I know about them - and them of me?

I think they are great questions. Whether building a new love or looking to strengthen the love you have.

________

SET ONE

The goal of these first 12 questions is to help build closeness between conversation partners. The questions start out less personal, more like something you might ask someone on a first date, before gradually becoming more personal.

Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?

Would you like to be famous? In what way?

Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?

What would constitute a "perfect" day for you?

When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?

Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?

Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.

For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.

If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?

SET TWO

The second set of questions are all about fostering a greater sense of intimacy. They explore things like personal experiences, values, and emotions

If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future, or anything else, what would you want to know?

Is there something that you've dreamed of doing for a long time?

Why haven't you done it?

What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?

What do you value most in a friendship?

What is your most treasured memory?

What is your most terrible memory?

If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?

What does friendship mean to you?

What roles do love and affection play in your life?

Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.

How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people's?

How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

SET THREE

Where the two previous sets of questions were about creating closeness and establishing intimacy, the third and final set is all about forging deeper emotional intimacy.

Make three true "we" statements each. For instance, "We are both in this room feeling..."

Complete this sentence: "I wish I had someone with whom I could share..."

If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.

Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you've just met.

Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.

When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?

Tell your partner something that you like about them already.

What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven't you told them yet?

Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?

Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?

Share a personal problem and ask your partner's advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

​Yesterday, I stood in a room full of people presenting about relationships. Not romance, not Valentine’s Day, not candlelit dinners or roses, but relationships in the broader human sense. Connection. Attachment. The ways we find one another and the many ways we struggle to.

But to honor the holiday, to open the event, Michelle - my friend and the host - asked the audience a question that felt simple on the surface: What is your favorite Valentine’s Day memory or association?

People smiled. Some laughed. A few shifted in their seats the way people do when a question feels personal.

The audience started answering. Stories. Traditions. Moments. And then it came to me. My answer popped into my head the moment Michelle asked the question. And that answer:

You’ve Got Mail.

Tom Hanks. Meg Ryan. A quiet park bench.

“I wanted it to be you.”

There is something deeply satisfying about that ending, and it has very little to do with pageantry. No dramatic music swelling toward a kiss in the rain. No grand orchestration of destiny. Just recognition. Relief, even. The sense that something real has been found rather than merely felt.

Valentine's Day feels like a good day to point out the very important distinction between found and felt.

Many people, perhaps most people, will feel love at some point in their lives. Biology nearly guarantees it. Human brains are designed for attraction, infatuation, fascination. Dopamine and other neurochemicals flood the system with urgency and energy, narrowing our attention toward another person with a mysterious interpersonal gravitational force.

The experience can feel downright magical, as if it's the unfolding of some unforeseen miracle. But here's the thing about that miracle; the chemistry that creates magical feelings is far less reliable at creating forever.

Feelings arrive quickly. They are intense, consuming, often intoxicating. They convince us that love has happened. Feelings don't lie!

But if I have discovered something about love in my life, it's this: feeling love can be a lie if you come to believe it's the same thing as finding love. Feeling love can become a great betrayer.

Finding love tends to occur more quietly, often after the initial fireworks have softened. It emerges not from the rush of novelty, but from the steady accumulation of safety, familiarity, and choice. It is less about the nervous system’s excitement and more about its calm.

It is less about being swept away and more about staying.

This is part of why the bench scene in You’ve Got Mail resonates so deeply with me. Always has, even if I haven't always understood why. The relationship between Joe and Kathleen was not built on cinematic fantasy or idealized passion. It unfolded through conversation, humor, irritation, misunderstanding, curiosity. Their connection formed in a space largely absent of visual chemistry, shaped instead by words, tone, thought, and presence.

The love, as it appeared, seemed anchored to something sturdier than a fleeting emotional high.

Even if we do not know what happened after the credits rolled - whether they argued over groceries or grew tired of one another’s quirks - the scene feels believable. It carries the emotional weight of something discovered rather than merely experienced.

“I wanted it to be you” is not the language of infatuation. It is the language of recognition.

Valentine’s Day, in many ways, amplifies this tension between feeling and finding. The holiday is saturated with imagery of emotion - hearts, desire, romance, intensity - yet beneath the surface lives a quieter and more universal longing. Not simply to feel love, but to find it. To encounter something enduring. Something not easily frightened away when the chemical currents inevitably shift.

The tragedy for many people is not that love disappears when the feelings fade. It is that we have been taught to believe it should.

When the intensity softens, doubt often rushes in. Something must be wrong. The spark is gone. The magic has faded. Yet biologically, nothing abnormal has occurred. The brain has simply moved from initiating love to holding on to it. The body has done what bodies do.

Ironically, this is often the precise moment where love has the opportunity to truly begin!

Not as sensation, but as decision.

Not as chemistry, but as commitment.

Not as feeling, but as presence.

I have felt love in my life. Deeply. Sincerely. Undeniably. And yet, if I am honest, I still carry the sense of being on a search for it - not for the feeling itself, but for the steadiness of something that remains when feelings fluctuate, when novelty wanes, when the ordinary rhythms of life take hold.

Perhaps this is a human condition beyond my own condition.

Perhaps this is why a simple fictional moment on a park bench can linger for decades in our imaginations. It captures something many of us hope is possible - that love might be less about the intensity of how we feel and more about the quiet certainty of who we choose, who stays, who feels like home when the noise subsides.

Home. Safe and sound and seen, even if not always filled with excitement. Home, a love not dependent on the surge of chemicals, but capable of surviving their ebb.

A love not merely felt.

But found.

Social media can begin to feel like a catch-all for rage. It's an easy place to unload rage without any obligation to articulate where the rage is really coming from, and - more importantly - what direction one plans to go with it, what changes will one fight for to change that which enrages them.

As Mrs. Obama suggests: rage without reason or plan is just more rage.

I know our world is running short on some things, but rage sure the heck isn't one of them.

I actually value people who share their rages - even rages born in circles I don't and likely never will belong to - if they are thoughtful and articulate well where it's coming from and where they are going with it. From that rage, I get to learn and grow. And even become more empathetic and understanding.

But rage for the sake of rage, where it feels like I've stumbled into an audience where rage is the main act, I personally find that enraging. Which isn't healthy. And makes me oh so grateful for the unfollow feature on social media.

Rage can be good. Useful. A great motivator.

Unless of course the motivation is simply rage.

I've seen the rage for the sake of rage approach.

I fail to see the value.

It seems to destroy more than it fixes.

​The brain treats familiarity as safety. And the brain loves nothing more than safety.

When you stop doing something good for you, let's say exercise, that initially shows up as restlessness or guilt or unease. But if you keep NOT doing that thing, the discomfort fades. The brain recalibrates. And now, inaction feels normal, and restarting that thing feels like a threat.

Getting back to your broken routine can actually feel harder than when you first started it.

We often think of momentum as a good thing, but that works both ways. Action breeds action. But avoidance breeds more avoidance.

This is true of exercise. Relationships. Writing. Going to church.

Stopping behaviors actually starts to shift our identity. We go from "I'm a runner" to "I'm someone who used to run." The brain is deeply motivated to keep a consistent identity - the brain loathes change - so once "non-doer" becomes the self-image, becoming once again a doer feels like a psychological threat.

And here's the thing about stopping. When we run or write or engage in meaningful connections with other people, these activities usually provide delayed rewards. But when we stop, and replace them with substitute activities (snacking, drinking, scrolling, watching television), we start to get low-effort QUICK rewards. So now the brain isn't just used to stopping - it's being rewarded for it!!

Re-starting can be hard! But here's the thing. Once we know why it's hard, once we know the brain has really tricked us into believing we are no longer who we used to be, we can go about the fight of reclaiming who we used to be.

We can use the brain's trick against itself.

Because once you go back to doing the healthy thing you used to do, the brain will quickly adapt and once again feel best in the identity of a doer. The brain won't go there willingly, but the brain WILL go there.

Apologize to your brain today. Apologize for allowing it to believe you've become a non-doer.

Then go do!!!

​I am preparing for a presentation later this week. I used this slide in a presentation to a local college psychology class a few weeks ago. Although the data only runs through 2011, the trend is striking. While I am cautious about extending conclusions beyond the study, I think there are reasonable cultural and social conditions that suggest the pattern may not have reversed.

So what does the slide say?

Over a 25-year period, the percentage of college students identified as having secure attachment styles declined by seven percent.

Why does that matter?

Attachment patterns influence how we experience all relationships, not just romantic ones. When two people both operate from relative security, the relationship has a greater likelihood of feeling stable, trusting, and emotionally safe.

But when insecurity dominates - whether expressed through fear of abandonment, discomfort with closeness, chronic guardedness, or chaotic relational patterns - connection becomes more difficult to establish and sustain. These dynamics do not automatically doom relationships, but they surely introduce predictable challenges.

I often teach, and sometimes even preach, that relationships are among our most powerful sources of health and healing. When you examine the lives of people who report high levels of well-being, supportive and meaningful relationships almost always appear prominently in the picture.

Which brings me back to the data.

If fewer individuals experience relational security, it raises important questions about how easily people can form and maintain deeply supportive bonds.

What is a central requirement for secure attachment within relationships?

Safety.

Not perfection. Not constant agreement. But a consistent sense of physical and emotional safety - the experience of being able to exist in another person’s presence without excessive fear, guardedness, or self-protection.

I look around and wonder how intentionally we are creating that sense of safety for others, both in person and online.

If our capacity for secure human connection truly is one of the strongest predictors of well-being, then even modest shifts in these patterns should grab our attention.

The world is full of struggling people. Disconnection is rarely the only cause, but it is very often a giant part of the story. 

Sometimes we question our faith because we have doubts. But here is what I've figured out about my faith; if faith always felt like confidence, it would diminish my opportunities to feel the power of my faith.

If it always felt easy peasy - piece of cake - no problemo - how likely would I be to acknowledge a power grander than me in the doing?

Faith isn't the opposite of doubt. In fact, it's in the doubt where faith can most often be found.

There's no way I can do this.

Faith is what says, "but yes you can."

This feels too much like doubt for this to be what God wants me to do.

Faith says doubt is one of the most overlooked signs from God that this is EXACTLY what I'm supposed to do.

Faith is what waits at the finish line of the race that had a starting line painted with doubt. Faith is the voice of God saying, "I knew you could do it."

I'm not suggesting that God can't be the source of great confidence. He can be. But I am saying don't let your doubts convince you that God has done some sort of disappearing act.

Because chances are it's in your doubts that God is standing beside you quite literally larger than life. Holding your hand. Proclaiming we've got this.

Proclaiming, it's time to go..... 

​Sam Darnold is the quarterback of the Seattle Seahawks. The NFL team that just won the Super Bowl.

One element of the quarterback's story that makes it an unlikely story is Darnold led the NFL in turnovers during the regular season. And yet, somehow, Darnold did not turn the ball over once during the Seahawks' 3-game playoff march to the Super Bowl title.

I heard this described by talk show hosts yesterday as "quarterback amnesia" - the capacity to not let what you have just done hinder what you will do next.

How does one protect the ball so poorly during the regular season, and yet, protect it like a bank vault in the playoffs?

I guess some form of amnesia might help.

How many of us struggle to find some useful form of this amnesia in our lives?

How many of us suffer failure again in our next relationship because we can't let go of the failures we experienced in the previous one(s)?

How many of us snap at our child, and instead of finding some point of repair, we disengage with our shame and guilt?

How many of us commit to a healthier lifestyle - more movement and less sugar - do great at it for a week, then trip up and bail on the commitment.

How many of us explore our creativity, share a piece of our writing or art with the world, and refuse to do it ever again because it is ignored or criticized?

Quarterback amnesia doesn’t mean pretending mistakes or poor attempts don’t matter. It means refusing to let them become your identity.

It’s the ability to say:

That happened, and I’m still in the game.

That didn’t work, but I am still more than capable.

That hurt, but hurt doesn't mean I'm not allowed to try again.

Most of life punishes us not for making mistakes, but for letting those mistakes convince us to stop showing up fully.

Maybe the real skill isn’t avoiding interceptions. Maybe it’s lining up for the next snap without letting the last one live rent-free in your head.

Such a common human struggle, isn't it - letting our past live rent-free in our heads? Letting our mistakes have a bigger say in our future than the say we give to hope.

Because that's the nature of "quarterback amnesia." It doesn't erase wisdom, it protects hope.

You may have led the league in turnovers yesterday. Does that mean you're going to turn the ball over today?

It doesn't have to. Some parts of yesterday are not going to serve your today well at all. Leave those parts behind.

Is that easy to do? Not really. At least not for me. But I know a quarterback who would say it's well worth the effort.

Take it or leave it?

Leave it is often the way to go.....

​All eyes were on Lindsey Vonn yesterday as she stood at the top of a mountain ready to race down its slope in the 2026 Winter Olympics.

It was Vonn's fifth and reportedly last Olympics.

Oh, also, just a week earlier Vonn had fully ruptured her ACL, while also sustaining meniscus damage and bone bruising. Some watched while questioning whether it was a wise idea for her to be standing at the top of that mountain at all.

But - noise aside -Vonn started down the hill, no questions in her mind.

Then we all saw what happened next, live or later on our various news feeds, Vonn clipped a gate and went down. Hard. For the second time in a little over a week she was airlifted off the mountain. It was later reported that she had surgery at a local hospital to stabilize a broken leg.

Those who weren't questioning her decision to race BEFORE she started down that hill, were certainly coming out of the woodwork to question it now.

I wrote here a week or so ago that I recently resigned from my job to pursue my own dreams. For many reasonable reasons, some have suggested that's a mistake. Not the least of those reasons are I don't have some giant nest egg to lean on in this risky move, and - there are a lot of good benefits working for the state.

Yet, I moved on, with nothing but a few good friends who've supported this move and total belief in myself.

Here's the point. This move may send me tumbling down a mountainside. It may end up being one giant crash. But it won't be a mistake. Why? Because I've already decided no matter what happens, the outcome won't change my mind.

Bravery and courage and strength require us to decide up front that just entering the game is a bold enough move to assure us no outcome will render it a bad idea. Too many people are standing at the tops of hills in their lives afraid to ski. Afraid because of what might happen next.

Lindsey Vonn is a 20 time World Cup champion. She's an Olympic gold medalist. She's won over 80 world-wide races in her career. This in large part because she's a talented athlete. But this also in large part because she doesn't let others call a mistake what she's already decided won't be.

What are you afraid to tackle this week for fear it might be a mistake? Have you ever considered the biggest mistake might be not tackling it at all?

Decide up front it won't be a mistake. Then don't look back. Even if you're lying on the side of a mountain.

​“Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant… just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.” (Matthew 20:26-28)

At the National Prayer Breakfast earlier this week, President Trump said, "You know, they rigged the second election. I had to win it. Had to win it - I needed it for my own ego."

President Trump went on to add when talking about winning the most recent election, "I would have had a bad ego for the rest of my life, now I really have a big ego. Beating these lunatics was incredible, right? What a great feeling. Winning every swing state."

Again, this said before an audience full of people who follow Jesus, the Jesus - at least according to the bible - insisted that true leaders will give up ego in favor of humility.

Then yesterday, a video was posted on the president's official Truth Social page. The majority of the video was an attack on the aforementioned election the president claims was rigged, but the end of the video included images of former president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama represented as apes.

Many in our country considered this racism. I'm not here to debate that. I do know the outcry was strong enough from a broad enough swath of people groups and political parties that the video was taken down. President Trump would go on to say the video was posted by a staffer, not him, and that he was not aware of the images at the end of the video.

Last night, President Trump was asked about the video. He again explained, "I just looked at the first part... I didn't see the whole thing." The president indicated he gave the video to someone else to post and that "somebody slipped and missed a very small part."

Then the president was asked, will you issue an apology.

And the president said, "no, I didn't make a mistake."

When I think about the two most influential leaders in my life, both amazing women, one thing that stands out to me about their leadership is their humility. Their unwillingness to let ego stand in the way of their desire to guide. One way they demonstrated that: they were never afraid to say "I'm sorry" - whether it was their mistake or whether it was their team's mistake, they owned it as OUR mistake - and they were never afraid to say, "I'm sorry."

We know this about our interpersonal relationships, the power owning up to mistakes has in strengthening ties. (I will admit - in my case, this was often my personal relationship downfall).

I know this as a parent, I have discovered the leadership credibility I have gained from both of my boys when looking at them at saying, "I'm sorry, I made a mistake."

I have discovered this in my various roles of leading other people. Maybe not everyone believes you when you apologize, but everyone SURELY notices when your ego stands in the way of ever offering one.

Had the president offered an apology, would that have changed what I thought about the nature of the posted video?

No.

But I would have an added measure of respect for the president. Because when someone openly acknowledged just how much they are driven by their own ego, it is no easy thing to hand it over to humility.

It is no easy thing to say, "I" made a mistake, and I'm sorry.

“For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke: 18:9-14)

(Photo generated by ChatGPT in response to prompt to represent big ego leadership and not any named individual).