Control vs Capacity

My default mode - it happens without me even realizing it - is to try and engineer a life that doesn’t include the hard parts.

If I optimize enough…
If I earn enough…
If I heal enough…
If I design my life carefully enough…
Then maybe I can create a version of life that only includes the pleasant parts!

It’s not a bad thing. It’s human. Of course we don’t willingly want to feel all that hard shit!

But underneath that impulse are two very different approaches to life:

• Control says: “If I manage this well enough, I won’t have to feel this.”

• Capacity says: “I can feel this. I can be with this.”

Control tries to eliminate discomfort. Capacity learns how to hold it.
Control shrinks your world. Capacity expands it.

The irony: If you can’t be with something, you are actually controlled by it.

What the Trees Taught Us

In the 1980s, scientists built a massive enclosed ecosystem in Arizona called Biosphere 2. It was designed to test what would be required to sustain life in a perfectly controlled environment - like a future colony on Mars.

Inside the dome, everything was carefully regulated.
The trees grew quickly and beautifully.

And then…they collapsed.

They didn’t know why at first. Why are trees falling over in our perfect environment?
And then they figured it out: There was no wind!

Without wind, the trees never developed deep roots or strong fibers. They grew fast, but fragile. When they reached a certain height, they couldn’t support their own weight.

A life without friction creates fragility. When we try to eliminate discomfort entirely, we don’t become peaceful. We become brittle.

A marriage that can only tolerate harmony becomes fragile.
A parent who eliminates all disappointment produces fragile kids.
A business owner who avoids uncertainty builds a fragile company.

Resilience doesn’t come from control. It comes from exposure.

The Package Deal

When you try to experience only the pleasant half of life, you end up living a half-life.

If you cut off grief, you cut off love.
If you cut off failure, you cut off growth.
If you cut off dependence, you cut off intimacy.

Life is a package deal.

When you try to eliminate vulnerability to gain security, you don’t get security. You get fragility.
When you try to avoid pain to preserve aliveness, you don’t get aliveness. You get numbness.

Fullness is not the absence of pain. It’s the presence of enough inner space to hold pain and joy at the same time.

The Actual Goal

Spiritual maturity isn’t about gaining more control over life. It’s about increasing your capacity to be with life.

Capacity to sit with disappointment…to hold boundaries…to feel uncertainty… to stay present when things get messy.

The size of your life is determined by what you are willing to feel.

If you build your life around avoidance, your world gets smaller and smaller. If you practice capacity, your world expands. Not because life gets easier - but because you become larger than the discomfort inside it.

Life to the fullest doesn’t come from eliminating the hard parts.
It comes from becoming someone who can be with all of it.

What area of your life are you stuck? And what would become possible if you could be with the discomfort?

Here’s a video about about my own (lack of) capacity to let my kids have sugar meltdowns.

If you ask me if I have a tattoo, I’ll tell you I don’t.

But that’s not really true.

I’ve never been to a tattoo parlor. (I’m not even sure if they’re called parlors.) But I have had a needle and ink poked into my ankle 16 years ago. (Actually it was a guitar string, not a needle.)

Ash and I had been friends for several years and I wanted to ask her to be my girlfriend.

The tattoo was my plan.

We had talked about doing stick and poke tattoos. We were broke college kids who couldn’t afford real tattoos and I heard that you could do stick and poke tattoos for the cost of a bottle of India ink from Hobby Lobby. And I had a guitar string that I figured could do as well as a needle.

I took her to the capital lawn. We laid out a blanket. Put the guitar string over a lighter flame to feel like we’re doing this legit.

And then I tell her, “I don’t want to get a tattoo from just a friend.” She’s confused.

“I only want a tattoo if it’s from my girlfriend.”

She takes a few seconds to realize I’m clumsily, awkwardly asking her to be my girlfriend. Then she squeals and hugs me.

Then at some point we get back to the matter of the tattoos. We had already talked about where we wanted them: on our ankles. Somewhere discreet enough incase they were a (permanently) bad idea.

But we hadn’t talked about what.

So she asks me, “What do you want your tattoo to be?”

And this is the reason why when people ask me if I have a tattoo I say, No: because 16 years ago, when I could have gotten anything tattooed on my body, what I chose was the word: PURE

There’s an ancient creation poem about the Divine creating the world. Today we usually call it the first chapters of the book of Genesis.

It was quite a revolutionary creation story for the time. One of the other main creation stories at that time/place was from the Enuma Elish, where warring gods fight, one of them wins and then creates the world and humans out of the carcass of the other god.

Creation stories weren’t meant to be literal, they were meant to say something about the nature of reality and ourselves. So that story from the Enuma Elish said violence and destruction is the fundamental nature of life. (And some days I feel like that is true.)

So then this group comes along and tells this other creation story, with a new kind of imagination about what is true about reality.

This story said that before the world was created, it was formless.
The divine hovers over this formlessness. Then begins to create.
And how does creation happen? Through separation.
The divine separates light from darkness.
Separates the earth from the sky.
Separates land from sea.
Then animals and plants… all the way up to humans.

So in this story, all things come out of the same underlying oneness.
That formless oneness is separated into different shapes and forms.

And at the end of it all, the Divine calls it all, “Good.”

In this story, the fundamental nature of reality is not violence. It’s not even separation.
The fundamental nature of creation, of ourselves, is oneness and goodness.

So when you’re going through heartbreak…
When you’re feeling restless for something new…
When you’re tired and need rest…
When you’re confused and disoriented…
When you’re experiencing loss and grief…
And wondering, does THIS belong?
This story says, Yes. Even this belongs and is Good.

The Jews are the ones who gave us this story about a Good creation. Where everything belongs.

Later, the Greeks would come up with this idea of the Perfect. (And it was in Greek culture that the New Testament gets written and much of early Christian theology gets started.)

Perfect is static.
Perfect is fragile.
Perfect is easily ruined.
Perfect is this ideal we’re not currently experiencing. We’re falling short of.
Perfect means hardly anything belongs.

But the Jews did not tell a story of a Perfect creation. They told the story of a Good creation.
Good is dynamic.
Good is vibrant, pulses with life.
Good is fertile, it is pregnant with possibilities.
Good is evolving and becoming.
Good is unfolding.
Good is a world in process.

Good says yes to light, AND to darkness.
Yes to solid, predictable land AND the chaos of the sea.
Yes to joy AND to sadness, grief, loss, heartbreak.

Of course… how else would there be any creation without all of it? It all has to belong.

Perfect is a museum - don’t touch, preserve it at all costs.
Good is more like a garden - things grow, decay, get pruned, are alive.

If we are supposed to be living in a Perfect world, then the question we live with is: Should this be here?

If we are living in a Good world, then the question we live with is: How does this belong?
Because of course it belongs - everything belongs. It all comes from the same source.

We can move towards whatever is happening, whatever we’re experiencing… because it is part of creation. And creation is good. It all belongs.

In a Perfect creation, forgiveness is needed for things being imperfect.

In a Good creation, forgiveness functions totally differently. The fault is not failure to be perfect - it’s failure to include. Not seeing that everything belongs. Forgiveness is about releasing our resistance to include.

Which brings me to my tattoo.

My earliest memory of feeling something in me didn’t belong was flipping through a magazine in our “toilet time” reading basket. I was 8 or 9 years old. It was a football magazine, and up until that point in my life I had only been interested in the pictures of the macho football players. But one day a different page caught my eye. The full 2 page spread introducing the new Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders squad. Why had I never noticed this page before? All of a sudden, this was the most interesting picture in the magazine. In any magazine. I snuck the magazine into my room where I could flip open to that page of a couple dozen women wearing white shorts and small blue shirts with a front knot. I felt like this desire in me was something wrong. Something that didn’t belong.

Then I learned that the Titanic movie had a full on naked lady in it. And we owned the VHS! It was actually a 2 part VHS, because it was so long… So I figured out which tape had the scene. I would watch it, and then rewind the tape back to the beginning so no one would find out. I had this sense that this part of me was something I needed to hide.

Or maybe this part of me wasn’t imperfect - but maybe my inability to say no to it was.

When I was setting up my first laptop in high school, I had to set the password for it. I knew that having a laptop meant access to everything on the internet. And I knew the drives in me.

So I made my password the word ‘pure.’ But not in English. I looked up the Japanese word for ‘pure’ - partly because the English word was too short for a password. But also because I was worried of what someone might assume if they found out my password was the word ‘pure.’ Why is Brandon’s password ‘pure?’ Uh oh.

I felt like these parts of me were wrong. I wasn’t safe to be honest about what was real inside of me. I had to play whack a mole with my thoughts, my feelings, my actions.

I couldn’t rest in belonging. I needed to live in the pressure of evaluation. What was allowed and what was not. What was imperfect and how could I be pure.

Perfection, I’ve found, doesn’t create purity. It creates hiding.
When belonging is conditional, the self fragments.

So I lived in chronic self-monitoring. But I’d “fail,” which led to chronic shame.

So when my new girlfriend and I are sitting on the capital lawn, sterilizing our makeshift needle, and she asks me what I want my tattoo to be, I tell her the thing I most long for. The thing I most want to be true.

I want to be pure.

Then I can rest. Then I can be okay. Then I will belong.

There was this study done of two pottery classes.

The first class was told their only objective for the semester was to make the most perfect pot they could. That was it.

The second class was told they simply had to make as many pots as they could. No particular objective of the quality of the pots. Just make a lot.

At the end of the semester, it was the quantity class that ended up making the best pots. Focusing on allowing all of the messy process created better results than aiming for perfection.

Goodness actually happens when we release Perfection.
When we allow “failure” to be instructive.
When we can trust that growth emerges through the messiness of living.
When we let our imperfect pots belong to the process.
When we forgive ourselves for saying, “That doesn’t belong” and come back into the wholeness and oneness of reality.

Goodness says that all of it belongs.
And belonging is the soil of transformation.

A business owner I was talking with came to me because his work had piled up and felt insurmountable. He had gotten so far behind in his work that he felt buried in his business and didn’t know how to climb out of the workload. He was exhausted and there was no relief in sight.

As we talked, we noticed he had this lens of Perfection. He felt he had to do everything perfect, or his business would crumble.

As we looked at what the perfectionism was protecting him from, we found that he was trying to avoid conflict with his clients. He didn’t want to disappoint them. He didn’t want to feel the sting of criticism or the shift in someone’s tone that might signal disapproval. Somewhere along the way, his nervous system had decided that criticism meant danger. So perfection became his shield. If everything was flawless, no one could question him. If no one questioned him, he would be safe.

But of course, that safety came at a cost. When perfection is the requirement, nothing is ever ready. Every task carries the weight of your worth. Work stops being creative and starts being defensive.

This kind of stuff isn’t always conscious. Sometimes it lives deep in us and we need help becoming aware of it.

We began to explore how the things he wanted to avoid - feedback, criticism, conflict - might actually be things that are Good. Things that can be included.

He began to see (not just in his mind but in his body) that he can welcome other people’s opinions and perspectives. Even if that means some disagreement or healthy conflict is needed.

Now he wasn’t aiming for perfect anymore - his aim was for Goodness. Serving others in a way that is Good and can include all of the process.

He and his business transformed. Now he wasn’t trying to avoid anything, but could welcome it all - he had new ideas, created new systems, worked with less pressure and more lightness.

Nothing changed about his clients. What changed was what he allowed to belong.

The exclusion of what belongs is the root of violence, of evil.

Evil is the name we have for what grows out of exclusion. When something is not allowed to belong, then nasty things start to grow in those shadows.

The mind thinks, “Surely we can’t include everything! What about violence? What about evil? We have to exclude those things!”

Violence is rarely the first thing that goes wrong. It’s usually the last. Like a pressure cooker with no release valve, what explodes is not the heat itself - but the refusal to let heat move.

Pain that can be named, held, and responded to rarely turns violent.
Violence is often what pain becomes when it has nowhere to go.

When we welcome back what we excluded, it is allowed to return to it’s natural state. Which is Goodness. Not evil or brokenness.

We aren’t attracted to things that are perfect.

Have you ever wanted to watch a movie where things start out perfect… And then in the middle, they stay perfect…. Then at the end, it all ends still perfect?

Of course not! We wouldn’t even call that a story! There’s no plot. There’s no life. It’s uninteresting. It’s not moving. It’s not a story.

We don’t long for Perfection.
We long for belonging - of all of our experience.

To allow all the beauty, and grief and heartbreak and joy and terror.
To allow it all to be here in this dynamic, unfolding creation.

For years, my ankle tattoo of the word ‘pure’ was a badge of what I wanted (and was falling short of).

Until that whole worldview couldn’t hold my life anymore. It was bound to break. Like a pressure cooker with no release valve. I had to find a way to include what was real.

But then the tattoo became a symbol of shame. A relic of this old life that I was trying to distance myself from. Which was another version of exclusion - trying to exclude my old worldview of exclusion.

But slowly, through years of learning to include all myself… even my past selves… naming it all as Good…
I began to wear socks that didn’t hide my tattoo.

I practiced letting it belong.
And forgiving the ways I tried to exclude it.
That only created inner violence and harm.

Recently, I was at a coffee shop meeting up with a new friend. A friend who has a lot of tattoos. I started asking him about what they meant, when he got them, if they hurt.

Then he asks me, “Do you have any tattoos?”

There was my usual answer. My answer that didn’t want to include that part of my story. My answer that didn’t see that part as Good.

But I’ve been practicing including all of my life.

So, I tell him. “Yes, I do. It’s actually a great story.”

I pride myself on being a dad who’s nearly always home in the evenings. Dinner with the fam, some time to wrestle or play with the doll house before we all do bed time routine together.

But this particular Tuesday night, I have a photography job that’s late in the evening. I won’t be home for dinner or bedtime.

Apparently, Ash has told my son this. Because as I’m packing up for work I see he’s trying to keep his bottom lip from quivering. Eyes are red.

A rush of emotions go through me.
My heart breaks to see him sad I’ll be gone.
Am I wrong for breaking my own rules about working late?
Should I try to cheer him up? Tell him about something special we can do tomorrow?
I want to get past this part so I can get to the photoshoot and enjoy myself…

Lots of feelings. All at once.

I’m really value peace.
Especially my own inner-peace.

I don’t naturally like big feelings, stimulating environments, intense situations.
I want peace. Inner-peace.

Life, though, is messy.

So I’m often trying to iron out life, so it’s neat and clear and flat. Because I think that if I can make it all neat and orderly, I will find peace.

If I’m having big feelings, I want to figure out which one is the real thing I’m feeling.
If me and Ash are having an argument, I want to figure out what the core of the argument is.
If I have conflicting goals - wanting to grow my business and spend more time with my kids - I want to figure out which is the top priority.

I want to clean up the mess and make it neat. Because if I can turn the mess and into simplicity, then (as my thinking goes) things will be clean, manageable… and I can relax and be at peace.

Of course, this doesn’t actually create peace in me. It creates the opposite!
I’m trying to control and manage life. Which is a great recipe for no peace. Anxiety, exhaustion, confusion.

The mind seeks peace through control and singularity.
The heart finds peace through opening up to what is real.
Which is always complexity. Multiplicity. Paradox.

I want this. And I want that.
I’m feeling this. And I’m feeling that.
I want to be closer to you. And I want my autonomy and space.
I want to rest. And I want to go full out.

The mind can’t hold these paradoxes. It thinks, “If I can just feel one thing, be one thing, pick one thing… then I’ll be okay.”

So I might try positive thinking: Be positive! Be grateful! Move one!
Or productivity culture says: Focus, decide, eliminate the rest.
Or spiritual culture: choose the right beliefs, transcend the messiness.

Whatever it is, I try take the mess and simplify it. Which always means eliminating part of it. Eliminating something that is real.

I live with this underlying fear: If I let myself feel it all, I’ll fall apart.

The surprising truth of living in a paradox reality is that our suffering actually comes from insisting life be singular. Clean. Tidy.
Peace doesn’t come from resolving paradox, but learning how to hold it.

That is what it means to come into alignment with life - welcoming in the paradoxes.

When we try to smooth over the complexity, we end up numbing parts of ourselves.
Or we pressure our kids to “be okay.”
Or we mistake our big feelings for weakness.
Or we confuse maturity with emotional neatness.

When we allow the paradoxes that swirl inside us, then we become safer people to be around. Our children learn they don’t have to edit themselves. Our emotions no longer need to compete - they can coexist inside of us.

This is how we find a kind of peace that transceds understanding.
The mind can’t understand this, but our hearts can totally hold grief alongside joy.
Ambition alongside our gratitude.
Desire for intimacy and autonomy.

Our hearts say, Yeah.. of course. Reality is paradoxical. So of course we feel all of this.

My son was born in the middle of winter.
On his due date, it was raining and sleeting. We thought we might have to deliver at a different hospital if we couldn’t make the longer drive on the icy roads to our planned hospital. We made it. (In time for 36 hours of labor.)

When he was two days old, I sat holding him in the hospital watching the Super Bowl, waiting for the nurse to come dispatch us to take him home.

Little did I know, he would grow up to love football. And icy weather.

Last week we were watching a football game and the commentators said that the weather was blustery. There was fog, rain and ice, creating a wintery mix.

I repeated it to my son to make sure he heard: “There’s fog and rain and ice, buddy! All mixed up!”

He lit up. Fog. And Rain. And Ice. All mixed up. “Wow.”

He didn’t know weather - or football - could be this awesome.

Now, it’s Tuesday and I’m trying to leave for my long night of work. And he’s holding in his lip and tears.

“Did Mommy tell you I’m going to be working late tonight?” He nods his head.

“How do you feel?” He doesn’t answer. Just looks at the ground.

“Are you feeling sad?”

“Yes…” He squeaks. A couple tears start to come out.

I hold him, unsure of what to do. I want him to feel better. Or really, I want to feel better. I don’t like these competing feelings in me. This ache watching my son feel sad, this longing to get to work.

I take a couple breaths. I’m holding him, but also trying to hold myself, my feelings.

“You know, bud…” I start, not quite sure where I’m going. “When I’m at work, I feel happy. Because I get to take pictures of people. And that makes me feel happy.”

He just quietly listens without looking at me.

“And, at the same time, sometimes I feel sad. Sad because I’m not with you, and Sister and Mommy.”

He keeps looking at the ground.

“So… Inside of me, I have happiness. And I have sadness. Together.”

His eyes shoot up at me. They don’t look sad anymore. They’re wide and excited.

“Like fog and rain and ice!?” He says with anticipation. Now, I’m the one who’s quiet.

“It’s all mixed up?!” He asks.

Now I get it. “Yes - just like fog and rain and ice! It’s all mixed up in me too.”

With that, he jumps out of my arms. He heads to the backyard to kick the football around by himself.

I yell, “Love you!” at him. He yells it back to me.

I leave for work with so much swirling inside of me. Love. Heart ache. Joy. Melancholy. All mixed up.

Whether or not you believe in a literal heaven, we all have some idea of heaven. Or idea of how things ought to be.

Our idea of heaven is what shapes how we treat life. It functions as our north star.

If we think that peace will finally come when we escape all of this messiness, all of this heartache and grief… then we will spend our lives practicing escape instead of learning how to be present.

If we think that peace will finally come when the sadness goes away, when the questions are answered, when the tension resolves… then we will treat large parts of our own lives as obstacles to peace rather than the place where peace is meant to be found.

A neat-and-tidy heaven trains us to abandon parts of ourselves, parts of life.

But there is another vision of heaven, a much more radical idea: that heaven is here, in our midst, inside of you, among us. It’s this idea that heaven, or true peace and fullness of life, shows up wherever Life is welcomed rather than resisted.

It’s this idea that heaven is always already here, but it requires a turning toward what is real rather than a reaching for what is ideal.

Not the elimination of parts of life, but the fully inclusion of all of life.

Heaven is not a place or time when there’s no longer any weather. Or where it’s always sunny with a high of 75…
It’s not some weatherless perfection. It’s when we learn to love all the weather of life. All the diversity and experiences and paradoxes.

Many people deconstruct from religion because it tried to force life into one tidy answer. That can be really appealing to our minds, but our hearts know that life doesn’t work that way.

If religion or spirituality is going to be helpful at all, it has to start from being honest about what is real. Which is always mess, complexity, paradox.

And that’s not an unfortunate thing - it’s good news! We don’t live in a static, dead universe - we live in a dynamic, alive world! And nothing has to be excluded for life to be sacred.
Peace isn’t waiting on the other side of this mess - it’s found when we step fully into it.

Kids are so much better about holding multiple, contradictory things at once.
You can watch how a young kid can be sad and silly.
Or I’ll watch my daughter feel angry at her brother and still want to play with him.

Experiences move through them fluidly, like weather. No grasping for the sun or resisting the clouds.
They don’t narrative identity to block that up yet… or moral interpretation… or self-judgement.
They just feel.

But at some point, usually early in childhood, we learn that some experiences break connection. Certain feelings cause a parent to withdraw. Or we notice we are praised for being “good” (which really meant “easy”). Or we are in spiritual environments that reward certainty and simplicity.

And our system learns to avoid the complexity. Avoid what will rock the boat. Avoid what might break connection If I simplify myself, I’ll stay connected.

So we might learn to choose cheerfulness over sadness…
or easy-going over honesty…
certainty over curiosity…

This is how our systems adapt so we can be connected, safe and accepted.

It protects us early in life, but later on it can begin to show up in ways that aren’t helpful.

Life is contradictory. It is multiplicity. It is all of it!

So if our systems are still be playing that old game of “which part of myself do I need to hide to stay safe?” then we end up trying to avoid parts of Life. What once helped us stay connected is now creating anxiety, numbness, repression. It takes us out of peace.

When something contradictory arises, the body might react with tightness, or urgency or anxiety. It might try to avoid part of what’s coming up in us. It remembers what we used to need to do.

And this happens more in the body than our conscious minds. Which is why just knowing this doesn’t change it. Our nervous system doesn’t change by understanding something with our head - it needs a new experience of safety to begin to soften and open up.

Healing can begin to happen when our inner contradictions are met with attunement… when our complexity is held without withdrawing… when we can be present and it doesn’t cost us connection.

In developmental psychology, this is called integration. In spirituality, we might call it union. Returning to union with all of life, all the things we feel. Not exiling any of it.

The mind is not great at doing this. The mind is a great tool for categorizing and separating things. It’s not great with contradictions and paradoxes and two things being true at once.

But the heart has no problem with paradox. It can hold sadness and joy together. It can hold contentment and ambition right alongside each other, no problem.

This is why spiritual traditions have said the heart is much more the seat of who we really are, not the mind.

It can be pretty incredibly what can start to shift in our systems (and lives) when we allow ourselves to welcome in and feel what we used to avoid.
For just 5 minutes. Maybe 10.

There was a business owner I was coaching with who came to me because she was feeling stuck in her business.
She wanted to grow her business AND she wanted more time away from it with her growing family.
She was feeling resentful towards the business for causing marriage issues AND she was feeling excited about what the business could grow into next.

She was feeling lots of things, and not feeling lots of things.

Her mind was spinning on what to do… what would create the peace she was longing for?

We started by slowing down the mind and dropping into what was being felt.
Anxiety.
Excitement.
Gratitude.
Frustration.
Trapped.
Possibility.

We started with just feeling these things. For 5 minutes. Maybe 10.
All of these things she was trying to use her mind to solve.
At first, it felt a bit scary and overwhelming and wrong.
But as the feelings felt more welcome... and moved through her… there began to be some peace. And inspiration. And lightness.
She came into alignment with what was real, and things began to flow again.

We practice this kind of presence a little bit at a time. Our capacity grows through safe practice.
We don’t need to throw ourselves into feeling it all, all the time. That can shut our systems down.
So we create times where we can safely open up and begin to welcome what we’ve avoided. For 5 minutes. Maybe 10 minutes.

Let your body lead. Whatever it feels it can practice without overwhelm or dissociation. Respect the body, don’t invade it. We are learning to step into the rain and fog and ice and sun and clouds inside us… but we don’t have to live there. We step into the rain, and then come back inside and dry off when needed.

This is the spiritual journey - the work of becoming safe enough to feel freely again, without losing ourselves. To welcome it all back in, all the contradictions and paradoxes. Allowing the weather to move through us again - without running for shelter. Learning to dance in the sun or rain or sleet… even when it’s all mixed up.

Now it’s Sunday. We’re having our annual winter ice storm here in Austin. Harris is pumped for the wintery mix. I’m wearing my coziest socks.

I’m telling him about our plans for this ice day. We’re going to make a fire. We’re going to make a new logo for his football helmet (the Cardinals). We’re going to play guitar with sister. We’re going to watch a movie.

“And we can play football in the rain and ice - just like the football players?!” He asks, with excitement.

“I don’t want to be outside today, bud.” I say, knowing it’s going to let him down. And sure enough, his face immediately falls.

“Please, dad? Just for a bit?”

Ughhhh here we go again. So many feelings rush up that I want to avoid. Guilt. Sadness. Fear of discomfort. Exhaustion.

And right behind them rush in all my logical justifications for them. It’s totally justified to not go outside today. It may be unhealthy to play in this sleet. He won’t even really like it once he gets wet and cold. I’m protecting him. I’m protecting me. He has to listen to me. I know better. Let me distract him.

I do my best to just breathe into the feelings. To let them be here. To not rush into an answer.

“We could watch some of a football game later today… would you like that, bud?” I hope this distracts and appeases him.

“Okay…” He sighs. “Maybe we could also play SOME football outside in the rain and ice?”

I really don’t want to. I’m in my coziest socks.

Everything in me is wanting to close off to the things I don’t want to feel. And I have all the reasons why I can and should.

But I wonder… Can I welcome these feelings? For 5 minutes?

“Okay.” I tell him. He lights up. “How about we play outside for just 5 minutes. Maybe 10.”

There may be nothing my dad and I have done more than throw a ball back and forth.

In the spring, we'd throw the baseball back and forth in the street, backing up further and further from each other, testing our athletic limits. I could always tell, even before it landed in my glove, when my dad had thrown it just a little harder than usual - a silent challenge wrapped in a curve. Like he was saying, alright son, can you handle this?

Whenever I would drop the ball, he’d make an *explosion sound.* And I would yell, "Dad! Stop!" He’d laugh at my discomfort with failure - my perfectionism and intensity made me a better than average athlete, but also made me sensitive to any criticism - even a playful explosion sound.

In the fall, we would throw the football in the living room during the commercials of the Sunday Night or Monday Night Football game. Often, some candle or vase would get broken. We'd try to quickly put it back together and he would whisper, "Don't tell mom."

That was our sacred ritual: standing some distance apart, tossing a ball back and forth, each throw a subtle conversation of trust and connection. It never occurred to me then that there would come a time where that connection would feel shaky, and the distance between us would feel too vast for a game of catch.

At the risk of over-analyzing the simplest game to ever exist - let's talk about how catch works.

First: you need another person.

You technically can play catch by yourself - and I often do, pacing around by myself in the backyard - but then it's not really called catch, it's just called sad.

Second: you need space between you and the other person.

This may sound obvious, but... it's crucial. They are over there... and I have to be here. Too close together and the whole thing falls apart.

Third: you need a ball of some kind.

If you're me and my dad, a football is preferable. This is what you use to bridge the space between the two of you. The better you get, the more creatively you can try to bridge the gap.

This is the structure of catch. It's simple, yet profound.

This is why it has lasted through the ages.

It's why parents and children, probably especially fathers and sons, have been drawn to this game since the dawn of

Because in that action of tossing a ball back and forth, we are physically metaphor-izing the ways we toss so much back and forth between us - our fears, our desires, our passions and interests, our beliefs and ideologies, our hopes and dreams.

Or maybe it's just because men are simple creatures and like the hit of dopamine from successfully catching a ball.

But, on this Advent Sunday of Love, I believe it is the perfect representation of what it means to Love someone.

PART 1: Another Person

A few months into my faith deconstruction, after beginning to tear through books on the history of religion and Christianity, books on psychology and anthropology that were helping me understand my previous beliefs and form new ones...

... I longed to share these new ideas with my dad.

My dad is a pastor. He has been my whole life.

He's the one who handed his Christian faith down to me.

So, I really wanted to talk about what I was learning, and to see what he thought.

I wanted to throw the ball back and forth.

But this time, the ball wasn't a football. Now, I wanted to throw back and forth Paul Tillich's idea of God as "Ground of Being." Or Alfred North Whitehead's "Process Theology." Or Joseph Campbell's ideas on the power of "Myth." Or Thomas Merton's "True Self."

I was tossing these ideas around in my head and I wanted to throw them back and forth with my dad.

The problem was, when we would talk, the intensity I was throwing these ideas at him was not like we were playing catch - I was throwing them like I was playing dodgeball.

This usually happened at The Tavern - this 100 year old pub in the heart of Austin. It's old, historical architecture makes it stand out in the middle of all the modern buildings in a city that's constantly evolving - like a stubborn refusal to acknowledge change. It's cavernous interior with dark, old creaky wood makes it the perfect place to watch a football game in the fall. That, and the dozen TVs you can see from any seat in the house.

It's also exactly mid way between our two houses. And at this mid-way meet up spot, we would attempt to find some middle ground to connect on about our faith and my changing beliefs while pretending to watch a game.

The football game on TV an apt metaphor for our conversations - aggression and bruises.

I peg him with a challenging topic, like, alright dad, can you handle this?

But he dosn't engage in my argument. He drops the ball.

*explosion sound*

It's always me forcing the conversation towards faith and beliefs. He rarely engaged as much as I want him to.

That bothers me. I think: Why does my dad have to be so rigid, so fragile, so triggered by new ideas? Doesn't he see how incredibly life giving these ideas are for me?

I so want my dad - my pastor dad - to talk about my evolving faith with me. I want him to ask me about what I'm learning. I want him to bring up the topic of faith for once. I want to feel like he is interested, curious, that he wants to understand me.

All this frustration and bitterness is really covering up something deeper in me - I'm scared.

I'm scared that I won't feel close to my dad - the way I always had, for the first 27 years of my life.

Scared that the closeness we enjoyed when we believed the same things would slowly fade.

Scared that he won't understand me or accept me.

Scared that we would drift apart as our beliefs evolved in different directions.

Scared that we would become one of those father-and-sons who could only talk about "the game."

"Did you see the game last night?"

"Yeah - nail-biter."

"Yup."

"Yup..."

Scary.

My way of dealing with that mix of fear and anger is to insist we address it. I tell myself this is the mature thing to do, even the loving thing to do. I won't let our relationship drift! I'm going fight for it!

And fight I do.

And I'm breaking more than candles and vases.

"Don't tell mom."

PART 2: The Space Between

Sue Johnson, a psychologist whose work built on attachment theory, found that adult couples can develop Avoidant Attachment or Anxious Attachment styles with their significant other.

While avoidant attachment is characterized by withdrawal and lack of vulnerability, anxious attachment interprets distance in the relationship like a threat, and can lead to an emotional intensity that overwhelms their partner and pushes them away.

Hi - I'm Brandon, and I have an Anxious Attachment style. With MY DAD!

I'm so afraid that I will never be close to my dad the way we used to be... that I've become the classic stereotype of the crazy ex-girlfriend. Clingy, obsessive. Constantly texting him saying, "Hey, we need to talk. It's important." Just so I can bring up theology and religion. Dramatic mood swings from loving to angry. Inability to let go of the past.

He doesn't know it yet, but we're meant to deconstruct together.

I think it's often fear that leads us to attack or distance from others - fear that our differences are too big to cross. Fear that we won't be able to connect, to understand each other, to see or be seen.

But love actually requires we recognize and allow each other our differences. Attachment theory has found that being too far apart, too walled off OR too close together is not conducive to a healthy relationship. We have to have space between us. Otherwise, the whole thing falls apart.

Dr. Johnson's work found that what was needed for couples - or, in this case, a father and son - is vulnerability and safety. When partners turn towards each other, risk opening up and are met with empathy, their bond can deepen.

To allow for you to be over there... while I am here. And the space between must be safe, and filled with empathy.

Theological dodgeballs probably aren't the best tactic for safety and empathy.

But it's hard for me to stop. I'm afraid if I stop forcing conversations about our beliefs, we will lose connection. The ideological chasm between us is too big.

We'll never be the dad and son laughing with ease while playing catch in the backyard again.

PART 3: The Ball

The central Christian narrative is about God bridging the ultimate distance - the distance between the divine and human.

As far as I can tell, this was new in human history - for anyone to imagine this divine chasm could be crossed. It was a distance thought too big to connect across. The best that could be done was to try and bridge the distance by following the law.

The lectionary text today was Hebrews 10: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me."

I think the sacrifices and offerings commanded by the law served mainly to highlight the distance and differences between us humans and God. They pointed to the space between us. And that's part of being in relationship - acknowledging our differences.

But it doesn't do much to help us actually connect and commune.

To actually be in relationship, to Love, we have to find a way to connect across our differences, with vulnerability. And in all the vulnerability of a human infant, God throws the ultimate backyard pass. And a young teenage girl catches it. (The men, of course, were slower to catch on - too caught up in competition to notice the divine lob.)

Just like catch requires space between us, Love requires we allow each other our differences.

But how different is... too different?
Can we become so different it's not possible to relate?
Can we become too polarized to connect?

Love may require we allow our differences, but how far is too far to still play catch? To still connect?

God answers by throwing the ultimate throw - across the chasm between humans and the divine.
If it's possible to Love across this distance, what new world have we just entered into?

I see much of the New Testament as guys (who seem to be stuck in their head and much slower than Mary) trying to work out what this might mean... maybe there's no more Jew and Greek in God? Maybe we're all children of God? Maybe in Christ all are made righteous?

Cool. Maybe.

And...

Maybe all that's required is the vulnerability to turn and catch the ball, like Mary.

For the past several years, my dad and I have continued to meet up at the Tavern in between us - that consistent pub stubbornly holding onto the past in a changing city. We break bread, drink beer, and catch up while pretending to watch boys play catch on the TVs. It's our sacred ritual.

After countless dodgeball games at the pub resulting in little more than relational bruises, I put down my dodgeballs. It was time to try something new.

So I asked my dad, "Dad, how are you doing?"

He said, "Fine. Did you see the game last week?"

"I did. Nail-biter."

Then, we just hold the quiet.

After some light conversation about our work and a few pauses to watch the game on TV, he turns and asks me, "What have you been reading lately? Any new favorite theology books?"

He threw me a pass.

And I try my best to field it, and throw it back - softly, with a bit of empathy.

And we begin learning to play catch again.

These days, I'm not as afraid that our differences will pull us apart. I can see that allowing them - even respecting and admiring them - is necessary for being in a relationship.

Now I actually get to just enjoy my dad. I kind of enjoy our differences... even the parts of us that deviate quite a bit.

Because those differences are what make it possible for us to play a really interesting and meaningful game of catch.

I'm 8 years old. The youngest of the group. There's half a dozen of us standing waist deep in Lake Travis in Austin, Texas. The rest of the crowd is on the warm shore, watching us freeze. Mostly watching my dad, listening to him as he yells across the water, reminding us why we're here. They all look to him as their pastor. But my eyes just see dad.

"Baptism is an external symbol of an internal commitment. These six people are here to publicly demonstrate their decision to put their faith in Jesus Christ…"

He goes on but I'm just trying to breathe deeply, to calm my shivering. And my nerves. All I have to do is say, "Yes" when my dad asks me if I have put my faith in Jesus and then dunk my head under water. But I still feel the adrenaline.

It comes time for me to wade over to my dad, for me to be baptized. He puts his hand on my back and quietly asks me if I've put my faith in Jesus. I nod and say, "Yes." He then speaks loudly, for all to hear - the crowd, God.

"In the name of the Father. In the name of the Son. In the name of the Holy Spirit…"

I take a sharp inhale, plug my nose and go fully under the cold waters.

From under the water, I hear him say, "Buried in the likeness of his death…"

He pulls me back out.
"And raised to new life."

A crowd claps from the shore.
My dad picks me up and hugs me. His little son. My giant of a dad.

This. This is what I'm really wanting. To feel safe and held.

I would get baptized every day if it would make me feel secure.

Attachment theory is the study of how we form emotional bonds with other people. It shapes our sense of safety, trust and belonging.

When a caregiver is consistent, attuned, and responsive, we form what’s called secure attachment. We feel safe enough to explore, to play, to risk. When that safety is missing, we adapt - either by clinging tighter (that’s called anxious attachment) or pulling away (avoidant attachment).

Secure attachment is linked to things like greater emotional regulation, higher resilience in the face of adversity, healthier relationships, lower levels of anxiety and depression, a stronger sense of self worth and acceptance… you know, all the good stuff. Anxious or avoidant attachment is linked to… well, the less good stuff.

Thankfully, I had consistent and attuned parents. Growing up, my dad would often kneel down to get on eye level with me and say, "You are my beloved son, in whom I'm well pleased." I knew these words well. They were the words that Jesus heard when he came up from his baptism - the words his Father/God spoke to him.

To hear that as a son. From your father who you so want to make proud. Sometimes it was hard to look back at him as he'd say that. It's all I wanted, but still could be hard to receive. I would laugh nervously. Or sheepishly hug him. Or simply say, I love you too.

Sometimes it's hard to accept what we most want.

I grew up with that kind of dad. And because of it, I was able to develop a (mostly) secure attachment style to people. And I'm forever grateful for that.

My attachment style with Reality - a different story.

I've come to see spirituality as the journey of developing a secure attachment to Life itself. Living with a deep, embodied trust that Life is safe enough to hold us. It looks like belonging, presence, and resilience - the capacity to be present even amid uncertainty, paradox, and pain. It's a whole-being exhale of "I fully belong. Every damn part of me belongs."

None of us start out with a secure attachment to Life. We first have to learn how to survive, to protect our physical and emotional selves. That is how we get started. We have to learn to be a separate, fragile self in an uncertain world.

Healthy religion can then guide us through the journey of learning to trust and belong to Reality. Learning how to deeply feel safe in this world. But that usually has to start by meeting us where we are at - in our insecurities, our avoidance or anxieties about Life.

At 8 years old, I had plenty of insecurities about life. I was not ready to trust Life. Some people develop an anxious attachment to Reality - cling to certainty, control, or the “right” beliefs to feel safe. Others an avoidant attachment - preferring to keep their distance, numb out, or reduce God to an idea so they don’t have to risk vulnerability.

But I was an overachiever. I developed what is called an anxious/avoidant attachment style. (Sometimes called a disorganized attachment style). I both tried to control Reality and avoid it. I sought control through my prayers and rigid beliefs. And at the same time, I avoided Reality by numbing, by keeping distance from my own doubts and emotions, by pretending I was more certain than I really was. It was like squeezing tight with one hand and pushing away with the other.

I couldn't freely swim in Reality - I needed a life jacket to hold me afloat. That life jacket was my religion - my beliefs, scriptures and church community. I could not yet trust that I could be fully present, that I’m always held by something much larger.

I'm so grateful for that life jacket. I'm so grateful for a version of the gospel that met me in my insecurities and gave me something to cling to for a while. I'm so grateful for a church community that kept me afloat for the awkward and overwhelming years of growing up.

But eventually, I needed to take that life jacket off and see if I could swim.

In my mid twenties, the faith that I had been baptized into at 8 years old began to fall apart. I tried desperately to hold on to it. But something in me was expanding. And that version of God could no longer hold my experience.

It didn’t feel like expansion at first. It felt like drowning.

This was scary for many reasons. Not least of which was wondering how my dad would feel about me. Would our connection fall apart the way my faith was falling apart? Would I still be his beloved son, in whom he's well pleased?

I was afraid of his reaction, but I felt I had to tell him. He was my dad. Pastor dad. The one who baptized me. Would he still love me? Would I still be his beloved son, in whom he’s well pleased?

I asked him if we could do a video call - I needed to see his face when I told him this. To scan his expression and see if I was still accepted.

He answers the call, and after a few seconds of pleasantries, I cut to the point.
"Dad, I don't know if I can believe in God anymore…"
I start crying.

I try to explain. I fumble through communicating what I don't even understand yet.

He just listens.

When I finally stop sobbing and trying to explain, he just smiles. Then says, "I love you." And I believe him. That was all I needed for the time.

We agree to talk more about it later. And we do. Many times. Most of which are me trying to argue and debate with him. I have a lot of anger to work through. Anger that is masking my fear - I feel scared and vulnerable without my belief system to buoy me. I’m drowning.

Life feels confusing and uncertain. I want answers that will make me feel safe again. I’m still anxious, still avoidant. Only now I don’t have my usual religious coping mechanisms - a dangerous recipe.

I want to grab onto my dad, for him to hold me like he did in the lake when I was 8 years old. Yet I can only bring myself to argue with him.

I had lost my life jacket and now I’m flailing in deep waters, grabbing at my dad and trying to pull him down with me.

What I didn’t know yet was that there was something more safe and dependable than a life jacket - the ocean itself could hold me.

The contemplatives and mystics have taught that salvation is less about what we believe and more about how we relate to Reality. The goal for them was learning to have a secure attachment to Reality, to God. To rest in our belonging to the moment.

But belonging to Reality isn't something you can simply believe or earn. It's something we must discover, practice and embody. Often very slowly.

It takes a lifetime. Because safety is not a one-time switch - it's a lifelong rewiring. Every grief, every joy, every rupture and repair teaches us: "Can I trust Reality, even here?"

Religion is often turned into another system for anxious or avoidant attachment. Another attempt at certainty or control to help us feel safe in Life.
If I can just trust the right God, put my faith in the right person, believe the right things, accept the right gospel… then I will be safe, secure, okay.

This may be how many people need to get started on the journey, but it's not the whole journey. It can be a helpful life-jacket, but the goal is to learn to swim.

Salvation is developing a secure attachment with Reality. And that is a whole-body journey. And a whole-life journey. It's something we all want, but requires allowing our mind, body, and soul to be slowly rewired by love.

We must learn to regulate our systems - because we have these seperate selves that scan for threats and seek safety.
When anxiety floods, we practice grounding, breath, movement. Not to escape, but to stay with Reality as it is.
We face our trauma, the places where Reality once felt unsafe. Learning to repair that attachment and belonging to Life.
We find genuine connection with others who can witness our full selves, helping us learn safety by being seen and still loved.
We practice presence, training the body to stay in the moment instead of fleeing into control or distraction.

Until we can deeply embody what St. Julian of Norwich came to trust: "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."

You can't think your way into safety. You have to breathe your way into it, cry your way into it, sing and sweat and risk your way into it. Because salvation is not a concept to agree with. It's a nervous system learning to rest in love.

It's a baptism of your whole being. One that I began to experience in the freezing waters of the Pacific Ocean at 31 years old.

It's a few months before the birth of my first kid. My dad invited me to go on a father-son trip before I became a father. A time for us to connect before I enter into a new season of life.

We decide on Santa Barbara, a place we could walk along the beach and dip in and out of cafes as we reminisce about our childhoods and talk about the journey of fatherhood that was ahead of me.

For three days, we walk, talk, connect. More deeply than we ever had. Often the conversation would turn to faith - a touchy subject after years of my angry tirades. This time, though, I’m able to let my dad be my dad. And I let me be me. No defenses or debates needed.

Maybe it was the sounds of the waves and the salty air. Maybe it was years of working through the trauma of losing my belief system. Maybe it was years of being loved by my dad even when I was determined to argue.

Here on the beach, I could finally meet my dad in presence.

On this particular day of the trip, we are walking along the beach. Shoes off. Feeling the sand and the chill of the wind. When my dad dares me to run into the ocean.
It's November. It's the Pacific ocean. And we both hate cold water.
But we love a little competition.

I sprint into the water as fast as I can, trying to make it up to my shoulders before my mind can talk me out of it. My dad is close behind. We are squealing and gasping. Just trying to breathe deeply, calm our shivering.

Then he dares me to put my head under. Always eager to impress my dad, I go under frigid water.
In the name of my father…

I pop back up, gasping. Now how about you, old man?
He gets up the nerve, goes under.
In the name of his son…

He quickly jumps out of the water, screaming a few octaves higher.
We're so cold yet feel so alive.
In the name of the Spirit…

We run back to the shore. No towels to comfort us. Wet and shivering, we hug each other.
Raised to new life…

This feels like an external symbol of an internal truth. A new kind of connection. We don’t need to believe the same things. We don’t need to share the same worldview. We just need the ability to meet each other in presence. To trust that we are both held in something larger, something good and trustworthy.

The first time my dad baptized me, I grabbed onto him and his beliefs to buoy me in the chaotic waters of Life.
The second time, I began to learn to swim.

As we shake dry on the beach, my dad tells me to get out my phone - take a video, so we can remember this moment. I start recording. We narrate what we just did to the camera.

"I love you, dad." I say.
"I love you too, son."

I’m still his beloved son.
And he's my beloved dad, in whom I'm well pleased.

I walk up to Mrs. Dane's desk. She has long brown hair that's almost always up in a bun - unless it's a parent-teacher conference day.

"Mrs. Dane," I say nervously. "Could I have… more homework?"

I don't remember her reaction. I can only imagine I must have had to explain myself. Was I the first student she had who asked for more homework? I bet so.

My parents didn't know I was asking for more homework. They may have tried to talk me out of it. Later that year (and the years to come) they would worry about how much homework I had, wishing I could just go outside and be a kid, play baseball in the backyard.

But I liked the feeling of learning, of understanding how things are, why things are. And I wanted more. I felt like more homework might help me understand the world better, faster.

I liked homework. Kind of. Really, I liked the feeling of understanding things. Every completed worksheet was like a little sigh of relief - a feeling of being safe in this big world. Sure, I wanted to know division and how to spell "metamorphosis." But underneath that, I was learning how to protect myself from the uncertainty of life. And the way I did it was through gaining knowledge.

I was well on my way into the first half of my life.

Many psychology and spirituality teachers talk about the two halves of life.

“The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego; the second half is going inward and letting go of it.” - Carl Jung

The first half is about building our sense of self - our ego, our identify, our container. It's helpful to get some beliefs and achievements and roles in the world to get us going on our journey. We have to learn how to survive and belong and contribute. This is how we build an strong sense of self we can stand on.

This is good. It's necessary to start here. Without a container, there's nothing to hold the contents of our lives.

The danger, though, is we can spend our whole lives reinforcing the container and never realize we were meant to fill it. Many religious systems stop here - teaching us how to believe the right things, follow the right ways - without ever inviting us into the second half of the journey.

The second half of life is when the goal shifts. We integrate and transcend the ego. We stop living to protect the self, and we begin to trust Life, trust Reality. Our separate self is no longer the point - the point is presence with the moment.

The point of the first half is to build something strong enough to let go of in the second half.

I’ve built my identity around understanding and competence. For me, safety means knowing the right answers and doing things well. Other people build a self around other things - being wanted, or achieving and being successful, or being right and good, or creating peace and harmony, or being strong and on and on… We all have our own first-half-of-life strategies for surviving and belonging.

Of course, I didn’t know that as a kid. All I knew was that more homework made me feel safe and cozy. But as the years went by, I kept reinforcing that container, that ego structure. Always trying to feel safe and okay.
Until it nearly broke.

In 2nd grade, when I wasn’t doing extra homework, I was usually playing sports. Baseball was my game back then, and for an eight-year-old, I was pretty good. I had the “Golden Glove” award, played first base or short stop, and had mad stats (for coach pitch).

But my above-average playing didn’t come from raw talent or pure love of the game. It came from being the kind of kid who needed to do things well. To figure out the game and understand it. While other kids were picking dandelions in the outfield, I was studying my stance, practicing my throw, trying to understand the mechanics.

Before games, I’d sit on my backyard swing set. Not swinging. Just replaying scenarios in my head. This wasn’t about joy. It was about mastery, competence, and understanding - because that’s what felt good for me. Or at least made me feel safe. Even in a game where everyone got orange slices afterward, I only felt secure if I knew I was good at it.

That same drive carried into school. Honor roll in middle school. Finished high school in three years by taking evening classes. I upgraded from "more homework, please" to "more classes and college credit, please."

In my early twenties, two of my best friends gave me a book for my birthday: Systematic Theology. A massive, brick-sized volume that, for most people, would be the worst gift to receive. It barely fits on a normal sized shelf. For me, it was perfect. An encyclopedia of answers, ideas, and frameworks for constructing Reality and God in a way that felt certain, solid, safe. Happy birthday to me.

Eventually, I became a pastor - the one with the answers, the one who could make sense of things for other people. I thought that was the point. I taught others that was the point.

Then, in my late twenties, my faith fell apart. All my answers stopped working. The certainty that had always kept me feeling safe no longer matched what I was experiencing in life, in people, in myself. It felt shattering - partly because no one had told me this is what is supposed to happen. Your first half of life needs to come to an end. But I didn’t know that.

My old belief structures collapsed… but my ego structure didn’t. My operating system was the same: protect myself with knowledge.

I went into crisis mode and did what I’d always done: more homework. I read. A lot. Looking back at my Amazon history from those early weeks is almost embarrassing - I was reading nearly a book a day. The uncertainty of Life was painful and information was my salve. If I could just understand, then I’d be okay.

I started building new belief systems, new frameworks. And then I did what I always did - I defended them, debated them, treated them like treasures I had to protect. Until those, too, began to fray at the edges and open up bigger questions… which, of course, led to more reading.

Slowly, over years - through relentless life, deep suffering, and more questions than I could answer - I began to soften. I still wanted frameworks and language, but now I was drawn to ideas that pointed beyond themselves: to Mystery, to Presence, to Union. I found the contemplative tradition, which didn’t treat salvation as ideas about Reality, but as trusting Reality itself. Being present to it. Right here, right now.

I might say that this is when the second half of my life began.

I had spent the first half of life building a strong and healthy ego - and that was good, necessary journey. Now the work is to take off the training wheels I used to need, and enjoy the ride.

Someone recently told me, “You’re so well-read!” They meant it as a compliment, but I knew better. It’s not pure intellectual curiosity - it’s a respected coping mechanism. Reading soothes my separate self. It makes me feel safe, like I can relax a little. And I’m learning (slowly) to put the book down sooner.

The second half isn’t about throwing away the first half. It’s about transcending and including it. It’s about taking the gifts of what we’ve built - the understanding, the skills, the maturity - and releasing our need to guard them.

Richard Rohr has said, “In the second half of the spiritual life, you are not making choices as much as you are being guided, taught, and led.”

Healthy religion should help us here. It should give us enough structure to get started, then teach us to let go when it’s time. To help us move from protection into presence.

The problem is that many spiritual leaders have not been told about the second half of life. They are still in the first half - using religion as another tool for fortifying their own identity and protection. Since we can only lead others as far as we have gone, they unfortunately teach others that the point is to believe the right things, trust the right scriptures, follow the right person. They are preaching about the training wheels, when the whole point is to eventually take them off.

The training wheels are not salvation, they are the starting point.

The second half of life can feel wrong if taught that the training wheels - the beliefs, symbols, scriptures - are the point. It can feel like losing your faith, when in fact you're not losing anything - you're integrating. Not throwing away the container but filling it with lived reality.

When read through this lens, the Bible becomes an account of individuals and collectives wrestling through this transformation - from beliefs about an external God to the experience of the divine in all of Reality. It's the pattern of salvation.

It's good to study, to learn, to know. The invitation of faith is not to deny that, but to let it become the doorway into lived trust. We thank our traditions that gave us language and practices and stories to give Reality enough shape that we could approach it. Until we became ready to set down the concepts and meet Reality directly.

I needed belief structures in order to one day move beyond belief structures - into the direct, embodied experience of here and now.
I needed an external, personified God so that I could grow into the awareness of the divine as an intimate presence in everything.
I needed to start with certainty about the world so that I could eventually learn to embrace its mystery.
I needed to begin with dualistic thinking - dividing reality into good and evil - so that I could one day hold the paradox and wholeness of all things.
I needed to first see divinity in Jesus so that I could later see divinity in everyone - even in myself.

Whatever your tradition, scriptures, or names for God, we can only meet the divine and each other through presence. And we thank whatever first half of life helped us to get here.

It's a Sunday afternoon. The kind of day with nowhere to be. My kids are in the backyard playing in the afternoon sun. I can see them in my periphery through the glass door.
While I read.

My son comes and hits the sliding glass door and yells, "Come play baseball, dad!" I smile and silently motion the gesture for Yeah, maybe, in a little while.

I’ve been feeling stressed. Always stressed. About the future, finances, will everything be okay? So I’m using my favorite coping strategy: more homework. Reading, learning. Sometimes it's a business book, sometimes a psychology book, parenting book. Today, it's a book on contemplation. The author is talking about presence. The irony of the moment is thick.

Even with a concept like presence, I can so easily turn it into another thing to learn, understand, master. Then I'll be okay. Then I'll feel safe.

My son bangs on the door again. "Dad! Do you want to play baseball?"

I nod, kept reading.

A third time. He yells again for me to be with him. That's all he wants. To play a game with his dad.

That’s really all I want, too. Just to relax and play. To trust that I'm safe enough to be present to this moment.

I finally close my book. I walk outside to an excited 3 year old boy. He gives me the ball and tells me I'm the pitcher.

I pitch him the ball. Over and over. He loves the repetition. He loves trying to master his swing. He may have a similar first half of life as his dad.

Now I try to be the best pitcher and cheerleader he can have this afternoon. To relax into this moment. To enjoy my son and pitching him a baseball.
To begin living into the second half of my life.

Ash and the kids wait in the safety of our car on the side of the road while I attempt to play Frogger (dated reference?) with the cars. I'm the frog. The prize is my iPhone in the middle of the road.

I must have set my phone on top of the car when I was putting one of the kids in their car seat.
I don't remember, though. Because I was distracted.
Maybe I was lost in thought or… I'm not sure.

I was distracted.

It took a couple hours for me to realize I didn't have my phone. Thankfully, Ash has my location - I mean, my phone's location (they're usually the same thing) - on her phone.

She's irritated. We both know that more of me had been missing lately than just my phone.

She sees the blue dot in the middle of a road we drove on that morning.
Great. We know where my phone is.
But locating my attention might be harder.

We used to call this era The Information Age - an age that promised knowledge on demand, answers to every question. For a time, that promise felt like progress.

Back then, the problem was ignorance. The valuable resource was information. The skill worth mastering was how to find it.

But now, we live in a flipped reality:

• The disease is no longer ignorance - it’s distraction.

• The scarce resource is no longer information - it’s attention.

• The essential skill is no longer acquisition - it’s ignoring.

We don’t suffer from a lack of information. We suffer from too much of it. Not a famine, but a flood.

We don’t need more access to knowledge. We need the capacity to filter it.

Protecting our attention, in this cultural moment, is no longer just a personal productivity hack - it's a form of integrity. (Sometimes, it even feels like survival.)

To live well now, you must know how to ignore wisely. To turn away from the firehose and drink from a deeper well.

In a world of too much, wisdom looks like knowing what to ignore.

Over 100 years ago, the philosopher and psychologist William James wrote:

“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”

He said that in 1904. Now, in 2024, researchers are calling this “critical ignoring” - and they’re saying it’s now up there with critical thinking as one of the most important skills of our time.

According to psychologists like Anastasia Kozyreva and Ralph Hertwig, critical ignoring is the ability to deliberately and strategically filter out irrelevant, manipulative, or overwhelming information.

Their recent research argues that the flood of misinformation, noise, and digital temptation is not something we can simply “be more mindful” about. We need tools, disciplines, and habits that help us resist the pull of the attention economy.

“Digital environments do not just require critical thinking,” they write, “they also require critical ignoring—the ability to notice, evaluate, and strategically disregard certain types of information.”

We used to admire those who knew the most. Now, we admire those who know how to stay grounded. Not those who can hold everything - but those who know what to release.

Ash probably wouldn't have been upset by my phone being in the middle of the street if this had been the first time.

But this wasn't the first time we had checked the location of my phone and found it to be in the middle of a road. It was the second time. In three months.

The previous time it was on US Highway 290. Three lane highway. 60 miles per hour. It didn't stand a chance.

Thankfully, I had Apple Care. $99 and I replaced the phone.

But apparently I didn't replace my distraction.

Because here we are again.

If my phone is broken again, the Apple employees may recognize me. I would be That Guy Who Runs Over His Phone.

I don't know if that's less embarassing than the truth: The Guy Who's Been Run Over By His Own Thoughts.

I need Apple Care for my soul.

Ash often calls me an astronaut. "Earth to Brandon," she says when my mind is drifting, orbiting through my thoughts.

And when I’m not lost in my head, I’m often off in a book or podcast. Binging information at 2x speed is an escape for me, my drug of choice. Audible and Spotify are my main dealers. If enlightenment could be reached at 2x speed, I’d be a guru by now.

Lately, I've also been drinking more alcohol. A couple of light beers in the evening can't be that bad.
But I've also started to take stimulants on days where I have a lot of work to get done. They're helping me be productive, to provide for my family.
Then why do I feel some shame around them? I know I'm using them. Using them to numb from being present, or escape being fully here.

I’m not just multitasking - I’m multi-escaping.

Contemplative spirituality is about practicing presence, because that's the only place that God ever is. So we could say that distraction is the "sin" of our modern world - the thing that separate us from presence.

This has always been the case. Even in Jesus' time. That's why he would regularly pull away from the crowds to find silence and solitude in the wilderness. Even at the peak of his fame, when the brand endorsement deals were probably rolling in.

The only difference is today the volume has been turned up. I wonder how Jesus would have coped with 47 unread Slack messages from the disciples and Twitter debates about whether his parables were 'problematic'.

The great spiritual traditions understood something we’re just beginning to rediscover: It’s not that God is far away - our minds are.
We must practice presence.
Without practice, our attention becomes reactive - constantly pinging outward.
With practice, it becomes responsive - able to return inward.

“Be still and know that I am God.”

“Do not worry about tomorrow.”

“The kingdom of God is within you.”

That’s why the saints and mystics were obsessed with silence, solitude, and prayer. They understood that attention is holy. And when you give it away to everything, you lose your connection to the one thing that matters: the living Presence, here and now.

Part of the danger is that the abundance of information doesn’t feel like distraction. It feels like staying informed. Like being responsible.

But underneath the constant noise is something concerning: We’re becoming disoriented. Unable to tell what matters and what doesn’t. Who we are and who we’re pretending to be. What’s essential and what’s just loud. (The line from Bo Burnham's Inside about social media comes to mind: "Here's a tip for straining pasta, here's a nine year old that died - a little bit of everything all of the time.")

This is why filtering, discerning, ignoring is a spiritual practice. It is not about tuning out the world. It’s about tuning in to what Spirit is doing in you, through you, right where you are.

And that requires practicing silence and stillness and a different kind of listening. Not everything out there is yours to know, carry, or respond to. But you’ll never know what is yours until you create space to listen.

“You have the answer to every question. It is the voice inside you. But you are too busy to hear it.” - Rumi

We don't find God by adding more to our lives. We find God by learning what to ignore - so we can finally hear what’s been speaking all along.

I grab my phone from the middle of the road and run back to the sidewalk.

It's cracked in a couple of places. Symbolic of my own being.

It still works though. This time I decide I won't get it fixed at the Apple Store. I'll start working on fixing something more important.

I get back in the car. That strange feeling of not having it by my side is relieved. But the new awareness of how uncentered I am is unnerving.

I tell Ash I'm not going to drink alcohol or take stimulants for at least the next month.

Then I delete the Audible app. Then Spotify. I need more silence.

But I download a meditation app.

Because apparently the only way I know how to be quiet… is with someone else narrating it.

We're sitting on the edge of our bed, not facing each other. It's hard to face each other right now. We're not fighting. It's quiet. Still. Almost clinical.

The question of divorce is earnest, but also…. awkward. Even absurd. She's not angry. I'm not unfaithful. We still love each other. But something has changed.

My beliefs have changed.

And now everything we built our life on - our shared faith, our vows, our story - is suddenly up for question.

I feel numb and disoriented. Because the map I've always used to make sense of life has cracked. And with it, everything else starts to blur.

Is this what happens next?

In the system we were raised in - the one that gave us our language for love and faith and marriage - when the beliefs break, the bond breaks too. We are now "unequally yoked."

Yoked? Who even says that? WHAT IN THE WORLD is happening right now?

A belief system is like a map. A depiction of Reality to help you navigate your life.

I used to walk through life with a very detailed belief map that my family and religious tradition gave me. It told me how to walk, where the safe places were, where to avoid, the right and wrong turns. It gave me a sense of direction and security, all of which I'm very grateful for. I can't imagine starting life without a map.

But eventually my map didn't mach the terrain beneath my feet. And I had to choose: do I keep following the map… or do I start trusting the ground?

A map is great because it simplifies the terrain. But every map has its limits. Eventually, you have to put the map down and deal directly with the path.

Beliefs are necessary. They are like a map, giving us guidelines to get started on the journey.

But beliefs are always about Reality. They are never Reality itself.
This is true of all language, stories and symbols - ideally, they point us towards what is Real, but eventually they must be put aside for us to be present to the Mystery.

Someone who thinks they know Canada because they've simply memorized the Google Maps of the region doesn't understand the infinite difference between information and direct experience.

When religion gets turned into a set of beliefs, it blocks us from directly knowing Reality, God.

This is why the contemplative Meister Eckhart prayed: "God, rid me of God!" A cry to let go of the idea of God… in order to encounter the direct presence and mystery of God.

The danger with our belief maps is that we can get caught memorizing the map, quoting the map, singing songs and chanting the directions… and totally missing what's actually right in front of us.

When I cling to my belief map, I start seeing the world not as it is… but as I think it should be. I start filtering people through categories - right/wrong, in/out, good/bad - instead of meeting them in presence. I try to explain life to fit my theological map instead of letting it speak for itself.

It's like I hold my map so close to my face that I can't even see the actual ground beneath my feet.

Eventually, I chose to put down my map - with its beliefs about non-Christians, other faith traditions, heaven/hell, the Bible, evolution, sin, atonement theories, roles of women and men, my queer friends - and look directly at the much more messy (and interesting) Reality right in front of me.

It took me years to understand that beliefs can't hold me forever. They were never meant to. They offer some needed training wheels to living in the Mystery. But they eventually have to fall away. Not because they are bad, but because they did their job.

Now it's time to live.

It's time to stop looking at life through my beliefs - and start dealing with life directly. To stop relating to God as a concept, and start relating to God as presence. To live in the Mystery without training wheels. To move from fidelity to my beliefs, to fidelity to what is real, here, now.

Thank you beliefs for getting me this far. I'm ready to meet Life directly now.

Shortly before our wedding day, Ash was packing up her stuff to move into our first apartment together and she came across her Will & Grace DVDs.

You know, the 90s show about the gays.

She loved Will & Grace. Enough to buy the DVDs. But she was about to get married to - and share DVDs with - someone who believed certain things about that kind of show.

So the DVDs went in the trash.

We got married in front of my dad's church on a windy March morning. He was the officiant of our wedding. I was a part-time pastor. Ash and I led worship together.

Our whole life was wrapped up in our faith. We didn't just marry each other. We married a worldview. One that told us what was right and wrong, holy and profane, sacred and sinful.

And Will & Grace happened to be on the wrong side of those beliefs.

I never thought to ask what might happen if I ended up on the wrong side of our beliefs.

I grew up thinking that faith is about what I believe. A set of convictions. A checklist of doctrinal statements. Faith was something I can write down on paper, something that can be agreed with and defended.

The contemplative tradition has always held a different perspective:
Faith is not a statement - it's a stance. Not a set of ideas but a way of relating to Reality.
Faith is more posture than proposition. Not the beliefs you hold, but the way you hold this moment. It's trust - not in theory or ideas or even a person, but a deep trust of Reality itself.

Faith is what comes after beliefs. It’s learning to let go of your concepts and meeting the moment directly. Intimately. Nothing between you and Life. We are learning to be naked before Reality. This is what is meant by presence.

Real faith doesn't require beliefs - it actually requires not knowing.

“True faith involves not knowing and even not needing to know. But we made faith demanding to know and insisting that we do know.” - Richard Rohr

The demand to know/be certain/be right is often the voice of our false self, the ego - the part of us that wants control. The true self can live naked in the moment. It doesn't need to hide or guard itself with beliefs. It knows that Reality is good and whole and trustworthy.

The Bible often models this progression from beliefs to presence. The writings of scripture show a community updating their beliefs and concepts of the divine based on what they are experiencing. This is why the descriptions of God (Reality) change and evolve through the pages. It's why Jesus says, "You're scriptures say one thing, but I'm telling you something new."

The fidelity is not to fixed beliefs. The fidelity is to God - which is always bigger, more mysterious than any concepts can capture.

We are learning to be faithful to Reality (which is the only place God has ever actually lived). The gospel is the good news that the presence of God is right here, within you, among you. You can drop your beliefs and turn towards Reality, trusting that it is good and on your side.

While beliefs can be memorized, this kind of faith must be practiced.
Whether during a 10 minute silent meditation in the morning.
Or sitting on your bed with your wife, who's asking about divorce.

We're sitting on the edge of the bed. Not touching. Not looking at each other. Asking the question our map says is the next question to ask: Divorce?

It's almost impossible for me to see the simplicity of the situation: two people who want to spend the rest of their lives together. How far my beliefs have led me from Reality.

Then Ash turns to me and says, "I don't know what you believe now, or what you're going to believe. But I see how much more alive you are. You're more joyful. More spacious. I see that you're trying to move towards more life and love. That's all I want too. So… I'm in. If you are?"

She isn't just staying. She's seeing. She sees me. Not through doctrine. But through presence.

I reach for her hands and tell her, "I don't know where this is going to lead… but wherever it goes, I want to go with you."

It feels kind of scary, like we're veering off the sacred map. It even feels kind of naughty, like we're breaking all the rules.

Mostly, it feels like actual love. Maybe for the first time.

We don't know what will happen next, where things will go from here. But that's life. We're just deciding to finally face the inherent uncertainty and mystery now. And to try trusting it.

We hug. Then, after a moment of silence that acknowledges the myriad of new things we'll have to figure out together without our old map, I turn to Ash with my first epiphany for our new life:

"I think we can watch Will & Grace now."

Today is the day of our son's kidney surgery. At least, that's what we've been telling him all week.

But now his temperature is 101 - because of the very kidney issue we're trying to address - and the fever might cancel everything.

I've been dreading the surgery for two months, since we scheduled it.

Actually, more like four years. He's only three and half, but we've known about the kidney since his 20 week sonogram. We'd hoped the issue would resolve on its own, but it's gone the path that's lead us to surgery. Or at least, it's lead us to this phone call to find out if he can have surgery today.

Now the thing I've feared for months - years - I suddenly want. I want them to say yes, come to the hospital. That we can just do it already. That we can get it over with. That this tension can have an end, a resolution.

Because I'm not really dreading the surgery. It's really the waiting. The helpless feeling. The lack of control.

I'm not afraid of what's coming as much as I'm afraid of being here. And feeling it all.

​

There are two operations unfolding today: one on my son's body, and one on my soul. It seems I'm being asked to remove my illusion that I can avoid suffering.

The worst part - I have to stay conscious for that procedure.

It's uncomfortable to admit how often I try to avoid discomfort.

I’ve gotten pretty good at convincing myself that if I just fix the thing, I won’t have to feel the ache.

Like, I’ll finally breathe once the surgery is over. Once his kidney is fixed. Once we’re back home, safe in his rocking chair, reading a bedtime story.

But I know myself.

Even when we’re back home, there will be another thing to dread. Another moment to chase relief from - when he finally sleeps through the night again, or when he finally stops asking for that same damn bedtime book I can’t stand.

There will always be a new discomfort. And a new fantasy that the next thing will save me from it.

That’s the loop.
My belief that peace lives in the next moment, instead of this one.

The contemplative path has a radically different approach to suffering. Instead of avoidance or fixing it, we learn to be present to suffering.

The pain isn't a problem to the contemplative mind. The problem is my refusal to be with it.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has found that suffering increases when we resist or avoid pain.

Polyvagal Theory says that safety isn’t in the absence of pain, but the presence of attuned connection. When we stay present to our suffering, we heal.

That's all great. I'm glad modern science is confirming what the contemplatives have always said.
But you know what I say: suffering sucks.
It hurts and I don't like it.
Because suffering means something is wrong, right?
Because suffering feels like being out of control.
Because suffering puts my nervous system on the fritz.
Because if there's a way out of suffering, I'm gonna take it! (And all the advertisements are telling me there is a way out. For just 3 low payments.)

Yet that is the thing that slowly destroys me. Not the suffering, but the resisting. The denying. The avoiding. The anxiety.
Resistance creates this second layer of suffering. Fear about fear. Judgment about the pain. Tension about feeling tension.
It doesn't avoid the suffering, it has a way of amplifying it.
I spend so much energy avoiding the feelings I don't want to feel, that I never allow myself to metabolize them. Then the pain becomes chronic, stuck and festering in my body. (Maybe this is why I've been so short with my kids these weeks leading up to surgery.)

They say that presence gives pain a place to move. Suffering that is witnessed to can flow. It's the denial or avoidance that causes things to get stuck.
Our bodies are designed to process discomfort, not avoid it. Grief, fear, sadness - all have biological arcs. Presence activates the parasympathetic nervous system. Resistance keeps us in fight or flight.

Still, when I feel the slightest hint of suffering, I flinch. I turn away. I don't want it.
How do I turn towards it in presence, when all I want is relief?

Ash made this bedtime book for our son about the different things he will see and do on surgery day. It has pictures of him from the times he went to Dell Children's to do testing. He loves it. He's the main character in a book!

The person scheduled for surgery is enjoying reading and hearing about what the process will be like on surgery day.
Meanwhile, my dread often feels sharp as a scalpel.
So I often distract, ignore, numb.

The last three years have been a series of ultrasounds and catheters and urine samples and unpredictable sickness spells… And I've gotten pretty good at telling myself that my numbness is simply me being stoic: controlling what is in my control and surrendering the rest.
Really, it's just emotional evasiveness dressed up as maturity.
"Be strong for Ash."
Please.
She'd rather have a partner that is feeling this with her.

And now she's on the phone, describing his symptoms so the Urologist can decide whether they can cut him open.

I'm numb. No anesthesia needed.

Often, religion is used as a path of escape from Reality.

Dreams of an afterlife. Or spiritual bypassing with answers for suffering or claims that “Everything happens for a reason." We turn faith into a ladder out of the pain when the whole point of the Christian narrative was that God came into it.

In Christian language, God is not the one who removes pain, but the one who fills it with presence.
"God did not come to do away with suffering; he did not even come to explain it. He came to fill it with his presence." - Paul Claudel
The cross was not meant to be the end of suffering, but the pattern of it - death, descent, presence, resurrection.

The contemplatives teach us that suffering might not end, but our experience of it can change. This is the mystery of the contemplative path. Presence makes us bigger than the pain. And in that space, there can be peace.

I don’t think we’re meant to be present to suffering all the time. Sometimes we need to numb a little, to check out, to seek comfort. That’s not failure - it’s regulating our bodies. Avoidance was often how we survived before we had the capacity to stay. And even now, sometimes eating ice cream until you can't feel the dread anymore is still grace.

Contemplation isn’t about forcing presence. It’s about growing our ability to stay with what’s real - gently, over time. We don’t stay present because we’re spiritual heroes. We stay when we can, and we rest when we can’t. We eat something warm. We laugh at a show. We forget for a while. That, too, can be sacred.

The invitation isn’t to feel everything always. It’s to stop running away from from my feelings out of fear. To practice being human enough to hold them gently. To let presence find me when it can.

They can't do the surgery today. Fever is too high. We'll have to reschedule in a couple of months.
There's a flood of emotions. Relief. Grief. Dread, again.

My parents show up shortly after. They were going to watch out daughter while we spent the night at the hospital. Now, they are a welcome distraction from all the feelings.

Then, bedtime comes and with it a mix of emotions. Angry and sad we're not on the other side of surgery. Grateful to put my son down in his own bed.

We get into our rocking chair to read a book. This time, we're not reading the book about his surgery day. We're not preparing for the future. Instead we're reading that other book he choses every damn night. And I'm doing my best just to be present with it, with him, with myself.

I choke up when it comes time to sing our night time song. I'm letting myself feel a bit of the emotions I haven't been feeling. Letting my numbness thaw. He would usually ask why I'm crying. But tonight he doesn't. He doesn't need understanding. Or maybe he already understands more than I realize.

Today was my surgery day. I'll need many more.
I hope I can bring a bit of this presence to the hospital when his surgery day comes.

He goes to bed. I get out the ice cream and watch Severence with Ash. Because five minutes of presence was enough practice for tonight.
Now I need sugar and a show about completely disassociating from life.