​This morning, I read that our military blew up a boat in the eastern Pacific ocean that was accused of engaging in narco-trafficking operations. Three men were killed. Their deaths bring the death toll from these operations to at least 202; there have been more than 60 such boat strikes this year.

What I found a bit surprising is this story was buried deep in today's news. These strikes are no longer big headline news. They are just the way it is. They are reported like the final scores of the previous days major league baseball games.

In the early days of these strikes, there was some measure of outrage. Mainly because these strikes are shrouded in secrecy - congress and the American people have never been provided evidence these boats are even carrying drugs.

Most legal experts say these strikes are illegal.

But today, the outrage is gone, or at least greatly quieted. We've simply come to trust these strikes are necessary, or, I guess, we've come to accept the powers that be are going to blow up the boats they think need blown up no matter what anyone else thinks, including legal experts.

It's a scary path these sorts of things take:

Something shocking becomes familiar.

Something familiar becomes normal.

Something normal becomes invisible.

The reality is human beings normalize almost everything. The first day living beside railroad tracks disturbs sleep. Two years later the noise goes unnoticed. The longer we are exposed to something the more likely it is we'll stop noticing it.

Which in the case of railroad track noise, that's a good thing.

But when it comes to violence, division, loneliness, political dysfunction, human suffering.... some things aren't so great to normalize and adapt to.

Some things don't serve us well by going from headlines to paragraphs buried 18 pages deep in the day's news. And buried not because it doesn't matter anymore, but because it's simply no longer news.

And this isn't just about boat strikes. I find myself wondering this morning how many things I've mistaken in my own life for normal simply because they've been present for so long.

Family dynamics.

Childhood experiences.

Silence in relationships.

Loneliness.

Many people don't realize they're hurting because they've lived with the hurt for so long that it feels normal.

Maybe that's the big question. The question to ask of ourselves and of the world. Does something that once felt extraordinary suddenly feel ordinary because I've come to make sense of it - gained wisdom - or is it because I've simply lost my ability to notice it?

I was shocked the first time I heard that our United States military blew up a small boat in the ocean because it was accused of trafficking drugs ( and thereby skipping the need for any sort of warrants and arrests and trials legally mandated for suspected drug dealers here at home who are NOT out in the middle of the ocean).

But today, that these strikes continues no longer shocks me. I guess I find it more shocking that this is no longer shocking. It's gone on so long now that it just feels like a normal way the United States deals with suspected drug traffickers.

Sometimes normalcy is good.

But quite often, it is not.

​I hear this often:

"If I had only known then what I know now."

I understand where that comes from. In my younger years I'm sure I said that a lot.

But I don't say it anymore.

Because I have come to know this: almost every meaningful thing I know today - the things I know that are most important to me and deeply engrained in who I am - are things I know because of what I did NOT know back then.

It's a tricky question to wonder about, isn't it? Would my life be more beautiful having not made the many mistakes that I've made, but are the very mistakes that have given me wisdom. Would I trade away my wisdom for the chance to have not made those mistakes?

For me that question isn't tricky at all. Because while my mistakes cost me something, my wisdom has given me everything.

"Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding."
(Proverbs 4:7)

"Blessed are those who find wisdom... She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her."
(Proverbs 3:13-15)

I am not here to celebrate my mistakes. Or to wish more of them upon me. But that's not where most of us struggle. We don't over-celebrate our mistakes; we over-lament them.

Our mistakes become a never ending invitation to live in regret.

The only mistakes I lament these days are the ones that taught me nothing. The ones I spent more time crying over than studying. The ones I spent more time beating myself up over than growing myself up over.

I have written several thousand essays over the last decade. Almost all of them have been written because I did not know then what I know now. And God willing, ten years from now I'll still be writing.

Quite likely - about things I do not know now....

​When the boys were younger, they went to see a lot of movies with their mom. I wasn't against movies, it was just the nature of our family back then.

But in the post-divorce years, movies have been one of the things the boys and I frequently do together. I'm sure we've seen well over 100 movies in the theater the last 6 years. One of the few blessings of divorce has been re-entering the world of movies.

Last week, Elliott and I went to see the movie Obsession.

A teenage boy, I presume working his summer job, checked our virtual tickets as we entered the theater. Once he saw what movie we were going to see, he looked up with excitement and said, "you've picked one of the best movies ever!"

I remarked to Elliott, "that's a good sign, I'm not sure we've ever received an endorsement like that one from our ticket checker."

After watching the movie, I could understand the young man's excitement. I personally didn't think it was the 'best movie ever' - but I could understand why he thought it was.

When we exited the movie, the excited young ticket checker was standing in the hallway. As people walked out, he asked them - quite out loud - "wasn't that great?!"

I don't think he was looking for affirmation - no one was changing that kid's thought's on the movie!! I think he really just wanted to celebrate the movie together with people who enjoyed it as much as he did.

Steven Spielberg recently said, "In a movie theater, everybody is tuned in to the story being told to them from the screen. And for one moment, we are in communion and we are in agreement and we are a community. We're a community of strangers watching something that makes us laugh and cry and sing out and want to share those feelings. And often, you go into a lobby and you're still buzzing about the movie and you talk to strangers. You're not talking about the stuff that divides you."

We live in a world that feels designed these days to keep us angry at one another. Systems and algorithms divide us into teams and then sit back and watch the wars.

And profit from them.

I think I'd rather see the movie theaters profit. Theaters that put us all on the same team for a couple of hours at a time. A team that watches a movie, inviting us to share in each other's emotions and not lob them back and forth at one another.

I suppose movies could be called a great escape from the real world. I don't know. More and more I think they are an invitation to bond with the real world in a way that makes the real world something we feel less motivated to escape.

"You've picked one of the best movies ever," he said.

I feel you kid.

And that's pretty cool.

Movies build community, and we need community now more than ever. ~Steven Spielberg 

​Seth Godin says, "It might be teenagers, competitors or that stranger down the street, but generous creative leadership always creates skeptics."

Out of curiosity, I asked ChatGPT for its definition of "generous creative leadership".

The response was:

The willingness to offer your ideas, voice, perspective, art, or humanity to the world in a way that seeks to add value, create connection, or move people toward something meaningful — even while knowing you may be misunderstood, criticized, or rejected.

After reading that, I concluded that I've come a long way in being generous with my creative leadership. There was a day, especially with my writing, that I was unwilling to share the truest parts of me for fear of the response to me.

I used to fear people wouldn't understand me, or that my words would create too much tension, or that if my words made people angry then I'm suddenly the villain on the other end of that anger.

But I've come to understand this about my writing: vulnerable writing is not construction, it's invitation. My writing is about opening doors, not controlling how every person will walk through them.

I hope EVERYONE can come to understand that about their creativity. Because creative people often spend years editing themselves to avoid the skeptic. Until many stop saying anything true enough to matter.

I think that's important because I've noticed - especially in my own life - when you get good at editing how you show up in your creative life, it's not long before you start showing up to relationships with your edited version. You begin building connections with people built on avoiding skepticism at all costs.

I live with great freedom today. I show up as me. In my writing and in my relationships. And trust me, I have learned with some pretty strong emphasis that I am NOT for everybody.

I say that with a smile, because I have surely lived through the hell of trying to be FOR everybody.

In many ways, skeptics, pushback, even some occasional ugliness - it is reassurance to me that I am on the right track. It is testimony, I think, that today I am far more committed to sharing my heart than hiding it.

So today, my friends, bravely share your humanity with the world in a way that seeks to add value, even while knowing you may be misunderstood, criticized, or rejected.

Because today, more than ever, the world needs humanity that is not artificial.

​Yesterday was one of the biggest days of the year in the motor sports world. We had the Indianapolis 500, the Coca-Cola 600, and the Canadian Grand Prix. I wasn't glued to the racing, but I watched enough to be left reflecting today on a single thought.

Mourning.

And maybe more, the beauty that is found in mourning together. For I don't much fear mourning itself; but I do at times fear mourning alone.

In the earliest race of the day, 24 year old David Malukas was passed in the final second of the race by Felix Rosenqvist. The finish was the closest in Indianapolis 500 history; it was the second year in a row young Malukas finished second in this - one of the world's most famous auto races.

Shortly after, Malukas was caught melted into his girlfriend's arms - sobbing. He would say, "Lot of anger, lot of pain. I feel like I’m mourning and just a lot of shock. I just - I still can't believe it. Just to be that close to winning the damn thing. I just can't believe it."

A couple of hours later, I turned on the pre-race show for the Coca-Cola 600. I was moved by a scene in which the NASCAR community showed support for the Busch family, who was mourning the sudden loss of driver Kyle Busch earlier in the week.

As the narrator spoke, Busch's wife and son stood arm and arm, holding each other tight, fighting together through all of the emotions of the ceremony.

A young driver mourning the loss of a dream by inches. A family mourning the loss of a loved one. One loss symbolic; the other irreversible. Yet both produced tears, comfort, silence, touch, and community gathering around pain.

I think sometimes we make the mistake of turning grief into a hierarchy instead of a call to show up. Because when it comes to grief, the body and heart don't pay much attention to the nature of the loss.

Whether it's the loss of attachment, meaning, hope, identity, future, safety, belonging, dreams, possibility..... grief isn't much eased by knowing a loss could have been much worse. Grief is not comforted by hearing or knowing I just lost by inches the biggest dream of my life, but hey, cheer up, I could have lost a loved one.

It is not perspective that comforts, it's arms. It's hearts. It's shared tears. It's humans witnessing pain and moving closer to it and not away.

In the midst of all the powerful scenes yesterday: the engines, the speed, the adrenaline, the crowds, victory lane, the roaring noises....

In the midst of it all, the most powerful scenes for me were a mother holding a grieving child - and that same child holding his mama as if somehow knowing she might need it more, a girlfriend cradling her devastated partner in life, hands on shoulders, heads lowered, people surrounding pain instead of fixing it.

It is hard to feel beauty in pain. But for me, it is hard NOT to feel beauty in people showing up lovingly entering another's pain.

Because the older I get, the more I come to believe that is the secret of life. Not pain-free, but pain-together.

Suffering pain is not the greatest suffering in life, suffering alone is.

We live in a world full of pain; I long for the day when we stop judging the worthiness of one another's pain, and simply start holding it.

Mourning.

Together.

​When I was in my 20s, I helped build houses. I mainly did grunt work, but even so, there was something magical about watching a hole in the dirt become something beautiful that a family couldn't wait to move in to.

In contrast, I also got to participate in tearing down old buildings from time to time. It was often necessary to create space for something new. Necessary or not, though, tearing down the old never felt as magical as building the new.

I should probably think more about that when it comes to my life. Too many days I wake up and head to the construction site where I'm building something brand new - something magical - something I'm excited about - only to find myself drawn back to tearing down the old.

The old demons.

The old relationships.

The old missed opportunities - does anything suck us into demolition projects more than those old regrets?

There's something I discovered about tearing down old buildings when I worked in construction. That work could get so dirty and nasty that no matter how beautiful the future house was you were making space for, you could quickly lose sight of that beauty and any eagerness to pursue it inside all that dust and debris.

In construction there often wasn't a choice. Sometimes the old just had to be cleared before building something new. An unavoidable pre-requisite. The good thing was, though, once it was cleared, it was gone. It could never take away from my energy for the new project again.

Life isn't that easy for me some days. I keep going back to the old even though the space is already cleared for the new.

I keep going back...

That's a choice. Because every day in life is a clean slate of sorts. A decision. Show up to the lot where I am going to build something new, or return to the place I've spent years trying unsuccessfully to tear down the old.

Which will it be?

There will always be some need to work on the old. But if we're not careful, we can get to a place in life where we realize we've spent our whole life tearing down the old, and never once showing up to build the life someone can't wait to move into.

In construction, it was nice to have a boss who said, "okay gang, it's time to build something new. Let's do it."

In life, we are our own boss. And we aren't always as generous in giving ourselves chances to build something new.

This morning I want to remind you. YOU are handing out your work orders to you today. And it's time to consider a little more deeply: Show up to the lot where you can build something new, or return to that lot one more time to try and tear down the old?

There could be something more beautiful than you can imagine out there for you. But it's possible you haven't experienced it yet because you've been showing up to the wrong lot.

​At 1:52 in the morning, the president of the United States posted this on his social media account:

"Colbert is finally finished at CBS. Amazing that he lasted so long! No talent, no ratings, no life. He was like a dead person. You could take any person off of the street and they would be better than this total jerk. Thank goodness he’s finally gone!"

At 1:52 in the morning, the president of the United States could not go to sleep until he got the final word in on the demise of a late night talk show comedian.

I can sadly imagine it. This final show weighing on him all day long. Our president planning to wait up until this final show was over, just so he could share the words he'd been obsessing over sharing all day long.

A president dying to get in the LAST words on the matter....

If these were thoughts about any one of you reading this post, my thoughts would be, whatever.

You do you.

But this is the president of the United States. Many would argue the most important leader in all of the world. And, at a time when many of us out here are facing significant domestic challenges related to decisions of this president.

I don't get how THIS isn't a bigger issue for EVERYONE.

If any of us would wake up this morning and read a 1:52 a.m. post from our boss ranting about a late night tv host, we would show up to work today a little uneasy about the kind of leadership we'll be receiving.

If any of us would wake up this morning and read a post from a family member at 1:52 a.m. ranting about a late night tv host, we would be concerned about them - or, the opposite, write the post off as crazy grandpa being crazy grandpa again.

Any of us parents would have GIANT concerns if our kids were on social media all hours of the night, no matter what they were posting.

But to me, these posts from the president tell me a WHOLE lot more than what's on the president's mind at two in the morning; it tells me what's in his heart.

And that is vengeance. Hatred.

That's the problem. Because I would argue NO position in the world needs at its helm more a mind that is clear thinking, strategic, logical, and rational than the office of the president of The United States of America.

Research will tell you that sleep deprivation significantly impairs the part of the brain responsible for judgment, impulse control, planning, empathy, and rational decision-making.

Further, research suggests that revenge-oriented thinking activates emotional and reward-related brain systems rather than systems associated with long-term reasoning and problem-solving. A continuous desire for vengeance narrows perception, increases threat sensitivity, and reduces the ability to consider broader consequences. (I teach this often to people hard-wired toward hatred and vengeance because of traumatic experience in their lives.)

And so today, when we are all on the receiving end of consequences associated with countless decisions made at the highest level - not the least of which is a war in Iran - am I really supposed to see it as inconsequential that the president of the United States was up well past midnight lying in wait to spew hatred toward a late night talk show host?

Because again, this isn't a president who spewed hate, it's a president who WAITED UP into the wee hours of the morning to do so.

And this is a pattern; not a pattern of president's social media use, but a pattern of his heart.

This is a president, more than any president in my lifetime, who is fueled by vengeance.

Revenge.

Hate.

There have been a lot of presidents from my past who have made decisions that I didn't think were in the best interest of me and others. Decisions I strongly disagreed with. But never have I wondered if that was because those presidents were completely distracted and misguided by their hate for others.

I don't have any idea WHO the answer is to all of this.

But I do know WHAT it is.

And it starts with far less hate and a lot more sleep. 

​I spent a lot of my life on that train.

The "when I get there I'll be happy train."

When I get old enough to drive a car I'll be happy. Then I got old enough to drive a car. And I suddenly needed more to be happy.

When I finish college and get a job I'll be happy. Then I finished college and got a job, yet - immediately started looking for my next when.

When I get married and have a house and kids I'll be happy. Then I got married and had a house and kids and suddenly I was looking for my next when.

When I can leave this job I have and work for myself I'll be happy, then I started working for myself and.....

You get the drift. You get the general direction of this train. This train that goes in circles. Maybe even you've been on this train before - or still are.

Having happiness as a goal is like running a race with no finish line. You THINK there's one, you're running like you believe there's one, you keep running and running, all the while there's a crew out front relocating the finish line just as you are set to cross it.

I've learned later in life than I wish I had that happiness isn't found after any when, it's created in the here and now.

If you are depending on happiness to show up 'when' - you will never secure it. The key is to find happiness in things you can do at any moment. Things that don't require the circumstances of life to cooperate.

As I sit here now writing this, I feel a sense of happiness. Writing brings me that. And I can write about any thing at any time. Even when I write about some of the most challenging things in my life, the writing itself brings me happiness.

My son is sitting nearby. That brings me happiness. I don't need him to dress a certain way or believe a certain way or have a certain level of education or employment - his presence is happiness. Any time.

A walk in the woods makes me happy. Any woods. I don't need life to get just right for the woods to be happiness, I simply need to show up to them.

Happiness is to be claimed, not chased and found when...

If you are waiting for the day you will be happy, it makes me unhappy to inform you:

That day will never arrive.

​I went for a run yesterday.

It was a special run.

It's not like I've done ZERO running the last several years. And it's not like yesterday's run was ALL running - my running will always include a lot of walking - but it was relatively special in that for the first time in a long time - I pushed myself.

Given the weather and the path and my recent pacing history, I set a goal that would be very difficult to achieve. I wasn't sure if I could do it. But somewhere in the middle of that run yesterday, I reclaimed the belief that I could.

This is the time of the year when memories pop up from six years ago. Oh.. 2020. That summer when I had nothing else to do but complete the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee.

And Back....

1270 miles - in 4 months - 10 miles per day - over 300 miles per month.

The memories of it pop up and I sometimes ask - who is that? Are these AI generated photos and memories infiltrating my Facebook memory feed to humiliate me? To lovingly harass me like my well-intentioned friend Solomon 😊?

But no. Those photos are me.

I did that.

After that race was completed, I had no intention of keeping up with that running volume. But I also had no intention of retreating to this place I've found myself. Which frankly, is a physically unhealthy place.

I can say a lot of reasonably true things:

I've spent the last several years healing mentally and emotionally from a broken marriage.

I've devoted more time to my sons.

I've become more passionate and focused on writing and my work life.

All of those things are true. And necessary. But what is ALSO true is that I've let all of those things become excuses for letting some other important areas go. Or - let's just be real - I've given those things permission to give me permission to be lazy.

Yesterday, I was reminded of all the valuable lessons that running teaches. Not the least of which is that running is NOT separate from mental and emotional healing. Running teaches:

Discomfort without panic.

Patience without immediate reward.

Regulation under stress.

How NOT to quit when the apartment complex entrance finish line is way out of sight!!

I set out yesterday not to begin reclaiming that 2020 running self, but to reclaim the belief that I can be a whole lot kinder to myself physically than I have been.

I went out to reclaim movement. Direction. I went out to reclaim the elusive joy that can only be found at the intersection of suffering and possibility.

I went out to reclaim belief.

I have some goals out in front of me that I don't fully believe are possible in this moment. But yet, after yesterday, I suddenly believe that along the way of the journey there, I will reclaim the belief that they absolutely are.

Sometimes belief shows up, but most of the time we have to go get it.

Off I go......

​In the bible, we meet a man named John. John spent a lot of time with Jesus, witnessed his countless miracles, and even at one time said, "I'm the one who Jesus loves."

John knew Jesus.

John experienced Jesus.

Few humans in the history of the world have lived out the truth of Jesus more intimately than John.

And yet....

John lands on the island of Patmos. A rock quarry where people who were threats to the Roman government were sent. All day long these people hammered at rocks, taking a toll on their bodies and their souls. And, given the island sat ten miles off shore, they had no hope for escape.

John's main threat to the Roman government was that he refused to disown Jesus.

One day, the book of Revelation tells us, in the midst of the torture, John looked up and saw a door standing open in the heavens. And John saw God sitting on a throne. And suddenly, John had access to and felt strongly God's presence and God's power and God's peace.

Recently, I have been reminded of a challenging life. I've had conversations with friends that have walked me back to the years and places I don't always like to go, where I face circumstances and decisions I have a hard time facing.

Even to this day.

In these conversations, I have returned to my own Patmos.

I must say that in some ways that visit has been challenging. But in other ways, I have been strongly reminded: God has never for a moment closed the door that stands between me and heaven. Much more than that, actually, he has insisted that the door remain wide open.

I have not always looked for the door. I have not always taken the time to see the bright lights and the throne. But somehow, for some reason, God has never let me forget the door is there. Like a breeze sweeping in that you feel, even if you pay little attention to it.

HE is there.

In taking these walks to the past, and in returning to the present, it is as evident to me as it has ever been that God has been with me. And THAT, more than anything in my life, has made all the difference.

I don't know what your island of Patmos is today; I just know we all have one. Financial burdens. Relationship burdens. Grief burdens. Parenting burdens. Cultural burdens.

We all live on some slither of Patmos. Endlessly chipping away at boulders.

I just want to remind you the door is open. And even if you don't look up and see the path to heaven, the path of heaven is looking down on you.

It sees Patmos.

And maybe, if you are so inclined, you can look up today. Even if just for a glimpse. And maybe you can say out loud (or think - God hears thinkers out loud), I see you too.

Remind yourself and know that he is there.

For it does indeed make all the difference.