YHWH,

You are the Author of my life,

the Breath of my lungs,

the One who called creation good

the One who called me creation.

You wrote my story,

You breathed my breath,

You called me good

long before i learned to question Your heart.

Yet i have transformed You

into someone i do not believe

You intended me to know.

i do not doubt Your existence,

but i do not believe Your nearness.

i believe that You create beauty,

i trust that You take Your time,

it is not a mystery that You mean what You say.

Yet i imagine that once Your work is finished,

You step back into silence,

watching from the heavens

while the earth stumbles beneath its own weight.

Through my eyes,

Jesus walks the dusty roads.

He sits with the broken.

He enters suffering without hesitation.

He is gentle enough for children

and strong enough for the cross.

But You… O God

Too often i have seen You

as the quiet

watching eye

in the distance.

Holy,

Powerful,

Good,

yet

somehow removed.

Your Son comes running toward me

while You remain seated,

observing what unfolds.

Forgive me, Yahweh,

if i have unknowingly separated

what heaven has never divided.

i confess that my heart

has found it easier to love the face of Jesus

than to rest beneath the gaze of the Father.

Even though i say with my mouth,

that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

are One,

my soul still keeps them apart.

my mind agrees with the mystery,

but my heart has not yet entered it.

The same as a rocky mountain climb,

the landscape of my heart

has become hard,

daunting,

rugged.

Yahweh,

in Your kind and gentle ways,

i’m asking that You reveal to me

the pieces of my heart

that i have pretended to be healed

but actually need to be peeled.

Peel away the stories

that pain has written about You.

Peel away the disappointment

that has become my lens.

Peel away every wound

that taught me the Father

is farther away than the Son.

If i have mistaken Your patience for distance,

correct my vision.

If i have mistaken Your silence for indifference,

teach me to hear Your voice.

If i have mistaken Your love for apathy,

wrap my heart in a gentle touch.

If i have believed that Jesus is kinder than You,

show me the Father’s kindness

shining through the face of Christ.

If i have imagined that You simply ✨watch✨

while Jesus carries the burden,

remind me that the God who sent His Son into the world

is not untouched by love.

Teach me that Your holiness

is not coldness.

That Your sovereignty

is not detachment.

That Your transcendence

does not compete

with Your tenderness.

Let me see that the hands of Jesus

are the hands of the Father

reaching for me.

Let me believe that the Spirit who dwells

is not a lesser comfort,

but Your own presence

breathing life into rugged places.

Search me,

not to expose me,

but to free me.

Peel away every false image

until only Your face remains.

i don’t only want better thoughts about You.

i want to know You.

Not the God i have constructed from fear,

from disappointment,

from fake-healed wounds,

but the God who I hear you have been.

the Father

whose mercy gave His Son,

the Son

who perfectly reveals His Father,

the Father

who writes poems,

and calls them souls.

the Son

whose soul was written

as the punch line of eternity.

and the Holy Spirit

who makes that love known

within the deepest canyons of my heart.

When the peeling is finished,

let my worship no longer rise

from obligation or speculation,

but from wonder and from awe.

May i look upon You and recognize

that You have always been

far kinder,

far gentler,

and far nearer

than i

have ever dared believe.

Amen.

I’m going to say something that not many people will say. *GASP* not me saying something that other people are scared to say. This time it seems different, though. I’m not convinced that many people even think about it which makes it seems even brasher.

Here is it, ready?

I don’t have to like you to love you!

I could leave it here and let it sit in your thoughts giving you enough space to make your justification for it, but I care too much about my own opinions to let you dominate this.

The way I see it, liking people is a social construct that we’ve created to make friends and enhance social circles. Loving people is a straight-up Jesus command that is ferociously against your personal feelings.

We want to be friends with people that we like, and that like us. That’s obvious and very natural human behavior. What has been increasingly misconstrued over time is that these two expressions are not synonymous.

Humans, being the bozos that we are, have created this sort of ladder to love and inserted liking as the most pivotal rung in our quest to be loved. Liking someone, or being liked, has become the step that others must be standing on to get behind our walls. To gain my trust you have to complete this set of tasks, accumulate ___ number of checkmarks on my checklist, or acceptably fit into the space in my life that I need you to fit into. After you do that, I will like you, and you’re one step closer to me loving you. Only the first half of that should be true.

Need more? Think about romantic relationships.

• You have a crush.

  • You start talking to that crush.

    • You start dating that crush.

      • You start liking that crush.

        • That crush starts liking you.

**THEN you love that crush, and that crush loves you.**

Now, the point of this conversation is not romantic love. You hear me this, there is a distinct difference between romantic love and the love that I’m talking about. The image is the same if you move to a new city and need friends, if you graduate college and don’t have a built-in community, or if you leave the neighborhood that you’ve lived in forever. The process is the same: interest leads to action, action leads to intentionality, intentionality leads to consistency, consistency leads to comfortability, comfortability means that you’ve made it.

We’ve put criteria on being loved. I used one example of this criteria 3 paragraphs above. Getting behind someone’s walls is the space where you will be loved. Being behind walls is being loved. Wrong. You can love somebody without making them a part of your story, similar to how you can love someone and not like them.

Jesus gives two commands in the New Testament; both are grounded in love. Paraphrasing, we are to love God and love others. Both are very hard things to do as a bozo and neither require the prerequisite of liking God or others.

It is counter-cultural. That is the point.

Jesus says if I do someone wrong then it is up to me to make it better. Jesus also says that when someone does me wrong then it is up to me to make it better. I don’t know about you, but I can’t execute either of those scenarios if I don’t like someone. Here is the truth: Jesus doesn’t care about me liking someone or not, but his heart breaks when I can’t love one of His.

This is the distinction between romantic love and the love that I’m talking about. The love that I’m talking about puts the human first and removes criteria. If I want to like you then I want you to agree with me on this, disagree with me on that, completely disregard those things over there, and live the way that I live. Because I love you, you can agree with me or not, disagree with me or not, bring up whatever the hell you want to bring up, and live how you’re living. At least, that’s my hope.

It’s a hard thing to do, folks. Love takes effort and it’s tough to exert effort on things that we don’t like. Remember this, humans aren’t things.

Cheers!

If you’re looking for the non-paraphrased commandments then flip to any of the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John) and you can read about the 2 commandments in full.

If you’re too lazy to look, or don’t have a bible, here are some links:

https://www.bible.com/bible/59/luk.10.27

https://www.bible.com/bible/59/mrk.12.30

https://www.bible.com/bible/59/mat.22.37

https://www.bible.com/bible/59/mat.22.39

https://www.bible.com/bible/59/mrk.12.31

I have had the sweet privilege to work in a few, vastly different spheres in my infant professional life. Everything from non-profit ministry roles to mid-level management for multimillion-dollar corporate companies. Now, let it be known that the “sweet privilege” is only me trying to be optimistic about my professional life. The reality is that I’ve had many jobs because I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up, jah feel?

I digress.

There are more similarities in all the jobs I have had than one would think. Yes, they have been different in nature, and this is most obviously displayed in the day-to-day operations of each gig. Unfortunately, the similarities rear their head in lack of support from superiors, the unintentional establishment of expectations, the insertion of ego into leadership styles, and the overwhelming presence of the falsity that people are capable of simultaneously learning, teaching, and carrying out responsibility from the jump.

I’m writing this through the lens of someone who has been unfulfilled and disappointed at work for a long time. Through a lot of investigating and introspection, I have realized that this is my biggest qualm with the work culture in America. Okay, maybe not every job in the whole country of America, but certainly the work culture that I’ve been surrounded by.

Raise your glass if you’ve ever heard a person in leadership say something like, “well, nobody taught me when I started.” What about, “there’s really only one way to learn.” Maybe you’ve heard my personal favorite, “you’ll just have to figure it out.” My knee-jerk reaction when a boss says something like this is to punch them in the throat and tell them to figure out how to breathe. It’s taken quite a bit of self-control over the years to stay out of the HR office, so kudos to me. The less dramatic part of my thoughts typically steers me to thinking – okay, I’m sure you did [teach yourself] [learn in the “only” way there is to learn] [you have obviously figured some things out]. Now look at you, you’re the boss. Whoopty-FRICKING-doo! That doesn’t mean that you have to inflict the same torture onto the people around you.

It seems like the majority of the times that statements like this are made is when I need help with something, and jefe doesn’t want to be bothered by it. In turn, their comments make me feel less-than and annoying. Then I feel like a failure because I’m a coddled little millennial boy who needs approval from every superior figure that I am forced to be subordinate to. When it’s all said and done, I find myself in a weird, depressive state sad about everything because I asked my boss – who has an “open-door policy” - a question that they didn’t want to answer at 2:15 on a Tuesday. Weeks later I muster up enough courage to ask another question, being sure to ask at a different time on a different day - because 2:15 on a Tuesday can suck-it - and am received by a sigh, an eye roll, and a “have you thought hard enough about your question” type answer.

Now we start to see a pattern that lacks the support of the human and establishes an expectation that everyone will do things on their own while coexisting in unison to beautifully execute the master plan of this business that we are a part of. Reality is perpetuating a cycle of feeling lost and alone. Feeling lost and alone can encourage hyper-independence. Hyper-independence is a slippery slope with disdain at the bottom. Specifically, disdain towards leadership.

I’ve had a couple of bosses who carried a posture of wanting things done in a very specific way that mirrors the way they would do it. They didn’t have the time to teach me how, so my only option was to do it. I would then get told that it’s wrong. Then, there is no time in the day to explain how it was wrong, so I go do it again and have to figure out A) what was wrong the first time and B) how to do it correctly. Hence teaching, learning, and carrying out responsibility simultaneously. It seems like forcing someone to figure it out has become the default, but I think it’s a cop-out.

I understand that there is no harm in allowing people the space to figure some things out on their own. In a lot of spaces, it is extremely healthy. It encourages people to think critically and creatively while operating within the boundaries set before them. An example that we’re all familiar with is a toddler hanging out by a hot oven – you know how that one ends. Encouraging critical thought while providing support is the place where leadership thrives. Yes, it is hard to find common ground between the two. There are a lot of factors that play into recognizing the appropriate amount of leeway to support - factors such as personality type, strengths, skills, etc. - and I know that leadership is incredibly hard to do well. However, there is a basic understanding of human beings that plays a larger role than sifting through elements of leadership. Knowing that human beings want two, seemingly simple, very specific things can elevate a leader. Regardless of personality, strengths, skills, age, culture, enneagram type, Meyers-Briggs results, (insert BS raison d’ėtre here), people want to be seen and people want to be heard. Synonymously, people want to be known and people want to be loved.

This is no different in the context of the professional world - people deeply want to be seen by their leader and heard by everyone around them. By “people” I mean me. For God’s sake be nicer to me, I’m just a little boy.

Cheers to those who encourage some independence while offering the support needed. I’ll drink to those who do it well, to those who try to do it well, and to those who care about doing it well. If that’s not you, be better.

Raison d’ėtre means reason or justification

Enneagram is a popular personality test that identifies 9 different “types” and elaborates on tendencies, strengths, weaknesses, and modus operandi.

Meyers-Briggs is also a personality type that separates introvert from extrovert, sensing from intuition, feeling from thinking, and judging from perceiving.

Jah is synonymous with “you”.

“MOMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA oooooo-OOOOOOOOO-ooooooo“

A Mother’s Day tribute to all of the moms. Specifically, my mom. Your mom is cool too, I’m sure, and I bet she’s great at being your mom, but nothing compared to my mom. If you know me then you have to agree with that. Happy Mother’s Day to the plant and dog moms who are entitled and think today is for them. Now that we got that out of the way we can get on with the real ones.

Momma: a word with many synonyms, and not one true definition. She is a many-hat-wearing, always-role-changing, evolving yet steady foundation of a young man. She is the example of strength and poise, littered with beauty and brains that proves to her daughter that this is a woman’s world. The woman who has gone through hell to watch a miracle and will choose to do it again. A human who has felt the greatest pain that humans can endure, and never stopped showing up. I’m not only talking about the physical pain of childbirth, but also when she hears her little boy talk back for the first time. When he thinks he’s old enough to rule and smart enough to speak, and, in that moment, she doesn’t hear words. In that moment, she hears a piece of her heart break off, but chooses grace in discipline. The woman who gazes into the dependent eyes of her baby girl and cries, because she sees herself and thinks about the woman she will become. A mom cannot be defined by a word. Moms cannot be creatively painted into a picture for everyone to see, because moms creatively paint their heart into the eyes of their families.

We appreciate mom. Mom is always in the background playing cheerleader, safety net, therapist, and best friend. For some, mom is also dad, nurse, provider, trying like hell to be present while life is trying like hell to force her to be absent. Mom is a puppeteer, an orchestrator, a brain that never stops because. . . how could it? Mom is a warrior, a winner, a warm, welcoming whisper who will always stand up for her own. Mom is all of these things plus the things we don’t see.

This Mother’s Day I applaud because this Mother’s Day I understand just a little bit more.

This Mother’s Day I raise my glass to the moms who are just trying to keep the damn thing alive.

To the moms who just need 5 more minutes.

To the moms who have the blessing of a man to cook dinner while they feed the baby.

To the moms who are cooking dinner and feeding the baby.

To the moms who weren’t supposed to be moms.

To the moms who feel like a mom but are fighting through tears and trying again.

To the moms holding the baby who just. won’t. fall. asleep, so they hand her to their mom so she can sleep on grandma’s chest.

To the moms who had to find the strength that their mom gave them to be a mom, because they can’t pass the baby off to sleep on grandma’s chest.

To the moms whose heart breaks when they drop their kid off at preschool.

To the moms who can’t find a preschool and become a teacher.

To the moms spending every weekend at the baseball field convincing themselves that the best gift is watching their baby play a game he loves.

To the moms with minivans full of giggles and cackles after volunteering to drive the girls to their tournament.

To the moms who have been forced to choose a career or family and didn’t hesitate to do both extremely well.

To the moms cutting orange slices on their lunch break because they are on snack duty today.

To the moms in the drive thru line because there isn’t enough time to cook tonight.

I raise my glass to the moms who are spending today with their kids, and I pour one out for the moms who would give their own life to have their kid’s life back.

To the moms holding their son after his first heart break and crying with their daughter because we just don’t know why that boy doesn’t love her back.

To the moms crying tears of joy watching their son conquer a recital that kept him up for weeks.

To the moms who enjoy being a grandma just a little bit more than they enjoy being a mom.

To the moms who are so frustrated with their kids they are either going to explode and light the house on fire or jump out of a moving car - - - but, dammit, they still have to eat and you’re going to feed them.

To the moms who don’t feel seen. Who do more than they are given credit for doing. Who just want some appreciation.

To the moms who never stop mom-ing.

Cheers to you, and Happy Mother’s Day Momma Skorks.

Happy Mother’s Day to you, too Carol, Sue, Susan, Jessica, Tillie, Rachel, Arlene, Brittni, Dom, Katie, Letty, Carole, Sherisse, Ashley, Alyssa, Dana, Lindsay, Traycee, Ginge, Kara, Kylie, Lettie, Amber, Ruth, Vicky, Sarah, Jordan, Jacqui, Linda, Kathleen, Anna, Michelle, Molly, Jodi, Sam, Taylor, Courtney, Shelby, Chloe, Megan, Tessa, Jordan, Geri, Ginnie, Alicia, Juliette, Nova, Kristine, Becky, Jackie, Jodie, Brittany, Stephanie, Jamie, Steph, Marlee, Janie, Amy, Beth, Kelly, Yvette, Briana, Shelly, Kilby, Lacy, Erika, Kim, Dayna, Sarah, Jo, Kelli, Nancy, and every other momma. I promise we love you on days that aren’t dedicated to you as well.

Cover photo x @frankiegomezphotography

We’ve all heard a bazillion clichés. We know that life is short, so live it. All of the adults in your life have told you to do something you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life. It’s seemingly impossible to reiterate enough times that you could get hit by a bus tomorrow, to actually take that seriously and do something crazy today. My point is, the concept of life being fragile is not a foreign concept to anybody. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a culture or geographic location that doesn’t understand this concept.

When was the last time that you took the time to actually sit in this idea, and feel its weight? If you’re like me, you haven’t, maybe ever. Maybe you regurgitate sayings that you’ve heard or give yourself pep talks every once in a while, but have never felt the fragility of life.

For me, even using the word “fragile” adds some weight. Fragile things break, and that is a concept that I understand very deeply. When I see a cardboard box labeled FRAGILE my first reaction is never to kick it as hard as I can. Sure, it’s an overused joke to pretend to kick it, but it’s never something that I do. Seven letters organized to form a word that carries enough weight to stop me in my tracks. Enough to change my entire perspective about what is inside the cardboard box and, as of recently, are more than enough to change my perspective about life. Because, for us, our everything is inside that box.

Think about your favorite TV show, and your favorite character. The show loses characters, and if it doesn’t lose characters then the show ends. Unless it’s Grey’s Anatomy, Days of Our Lives, or General Hospital then it just loses characters but won’t ever end. Have you ever been heartbroken when a character dies because it didn’t feel necessary. Leaving behind no explanation or reasoning, seemingly not caring about how much you loved them, and blatantly disrespecting your loyalty to the character. I get so pissed when that happens!

Recently I started applying that scenario to my actual life and that’s when it started to click for me.

As I sit in this thought and realize that life is fragile, it’s hard for me to ignore the type of creatures that human beings are. Humans are a resilient creature. Human beings are strong, and brave, and intelligent, and resilient shells of a box that hold the contents of an incredibly fragile pursuit. I say that we are shells because if you separate the two, if you take life from a human, then what are you left with? If you take away the contents of the box, then the box is just a box. I’m not only talking about death when I say that. I’m mostly talking doing things that bring you life. Finding something that makes you feel alive and doing that, instead of something that takes life away from you. When you take the glass out of the box, then you can kick it as hard as you want.

In the fragility of life, when you marry the strong, brave, intelligent, resilient shell to the fragile life inside, you find a beautiful image of what our pursuit is. You see that life is hard and that life is fun. It is both a majesty of an art piece, and the scariest of any responsibility. Life is complicated, life is simple, life is too often right in front of us and we’re scared to wrap our hands around it because it might break.

Most of the time, life is all of those things in the same moment and we are too finite to process it all. We are creatures who have the capability to do things with an unrelenting ferociousness, but in the same breath it is easy for us to cower in a corner and get kicked around. I don’t have a solution or any words of advice to offer you but I do hope you see this beautiful dichotomy that you’re facing every day. What are your thoughts on this?

Cheers to being able to drink a beer and unpack the box without taking the glass out.

This one started weeks ago, at the beginning of Advent. Admittedly, I am very ignorant of the concept of Advent and its true meaning(s). I can’t blame it on my faith’s infancy anymore, which sucks, because now I have to own that I am ignorant because I have never taken the time to learn about it. I have always associated Advent with Christmas, which is not incorrect, but I didn’t know that there was more to it. Through that association I assumed that it was some type theological thing that had to do with the birth of Jesus, and that was good enough for me. It was always the reason for the season, to use a cliché. This year Jos and I went to a worship night, hosted by a local church, on the evening that Advent started. With the intention of celebrating the start of Advent we sat, and stood, and sang, and listened to a few people talk about it. I learned a lot that night about what it actually means. That led to weeks of me thinking deeper and deeper about it, which changed the original concept of this bloggy blog from Christmas, to waiting, then to seasons, and later to studying where my heart has been.

I learned that the word advent comes from the Latin word adventus which means “coming”. I knew a little bit about that because of my association of Advent and Christmas - so it probably meant that Christ was coming, meaning He was to be born. I didn’t know that it not only means that Christ was coming {to be born} but also means that Christ is coming {again}. This means that we, as believers, wait. That has to mean that we, as believers, every December, celebrate the fact that we are waiting. We certainly celebrate that Christ was born as a human, in an extremely lowly place, and that I understand deeply. I had a hard time wanting to celebrate waiting because, frankly, I’m tired of waiting. I’m so tired of waiting.

Patience is a stupid concept to me. Blame it on my heart’s deep yearning to be productive, or the way American culture has shaped me, or my crippling competitive spirit. Whatever. I just think it’s dumb that if something could happen now, it doesn’t matter, I still have to wait for it to happen “when it’s supposed to” or something like that.

During the worship night the band played O Come, O Come Emmanuel. I’m sure you could have guessed that. I’m sure you could also guess the other 3 songs they played, but that’s neither here nor there. Something that I didn’t expect to happen happened after they played the song, which was a nice surprise. A sweet old lady named Ruth stood on the stage and taught us what we were singing. What we were actually singing. Not just the verses we know and sing today. Ruth taught us - in one of the most passionate and elegant ways I have ever seen - what the original song, the first translation of the song, the most recent translation of the song, and every verse that has been added since its conception should mean to us as Christians in 2020. Here’s the kicker: I forgot most of what she said. What I remember is her passion. Not the passion that she displayed in her speech, but her passion for waiting on Jesus to come back.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel became a freaking bop for me this Christmas season. Initially, while Ruth’s words were fresh on the cranium, I was digging the song because I actually knew what was being said. I had context which provided more appreciation. Couple that with some of the most talented musicians ever covering the song, and it can really get you in your feels. As the days passed after Ruth exited stage left I continued listening to the song and it started to shift. Earlier I mentioned how this thought changed from Christmas, to waiting, then to seasons, and later to studying where my heart has been - and this is where that started to become frighteningly introspective.

Here’s why:

“O come, O come Emmanuel

and ransom captive Israel

that mourns in lonely exile here

until the Son of God appears.

Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee O Israel.”

Turned into:

“O come, O come Emmanuel

and ransom . . . me

that mourns in lonely exile here

until the Son of God appears.

Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to . . . me.”

At some point I started to replace Israel with myself, and not in a good way. Not in the way that I am rejoicing in the hope that Jesus is coming for me. Sure, there are times that I rejoice knowing that Emmanuel will come. But, to be honest with you, friends, for the large majority of the last year I have felt like captive Israel needing ransom. I have mourned in lonely exile wondering where Jesus is. Wondering why I can’t feel Him, or see Him, or if I even know Him. I realized that I have been crying O come, O come Emmanuel for much longer than the Advent season. I have realized that Advent is not just a season of the calendar year, it is also a Christian life.

I want to be like Ruth. I want to have goosebumps and an irresistible urge to jump to my feet before I fall to my knees when I think about Emmanuel ransoming captive Israel. I want to be singing through tears while I wait, patiently, for what is adventus.

Instead, I get angry and scream through my pain when I think about another season of waiting.

There are times when rejoice and praises flow. There are times when that praise and rejoice ebb away from my shores. I can’t deny that there are times that I am like Ruth, but an overwhelming amount of time I am paralyzed with the frustration of hard seasons.

Seasons are inevitable. I have wrestled with that since giving my life to Christ in 2011. I cannot escape seasons, whether good or bad. What I get angry about is that the hard seasons - the seasons when I can’t feel God and don’t think He is there - seem to have so much more of a stronghold on me that I can’t remember the good seasons. I don’t know what has happened to my heart in seasons of abundance. I can’t remember what it felt like to flow with praise and rejoice inside of a good season because I am enveloped with stronger emotions when my praise and rejoice ebbs inside of hard ones. I can’t grasp the idea that seasons define life stages and create good, strong, grounded things, people, and communities because I am tired of the hard seasons of my life revolving around waiting. I have been waiting for something for as long as I can remember. When I look back and remember, I remember that I’m never waiting for the same thing. I’m waiting for a job, or I’m waiting for a friend, or I’m waiting for a girl, or I’m waiting for family or it just doesn’t matter what I’m waiting for because hard seasons are always seasons of waiting.

I want to be like Ruth. I want to stop being frustrated while waiting for a job, or annoyed while waiting for a friend, or insatiable while waiting for a girl, or arrogant while waiting for family. I want to be in a life stage where ebbs turn to flows while my entire life is focused on a season of waiting. Realizing that my entire life is a season of waiting. Taking some type of comfort knowing that I am waiting for one Thing. That one Thing is enough to be passionate about when the season gets hard, and the one Thing that I’m waiting for is never anything different, although it might manifest itself in something that I am desiring right now. This may be a realization that I have had but it doesn’t make me any more eager to wait. It doesn’t make patience any easier for me to possess. I’ve been wrestling with this for a long time and now it feels like nothing has changed except I have words to explain it. I’m still waiting on things outside of the one Thing that we are all waiting for and it’s just as frustrating as it was 5 years ago. I do feel less lonely in exile knowing the Church is captive Israel, but that doesn’t make it easier right now.

O come, O come Emmanuel because your work is bigger than my hard seasons, but please, for the love of everything good, can You make my hard seasons just a little less hard? Thanks, G.

Have another beer and think about Advent - waiting - for the rest of your life.

For those of you ready to attack: the worship night was very COVID-protocol-friendly. Jos and I both got tested afterwards and were as negative as your twitter feed has been all year.

Bop is what the kids are saying these days for “good song”. Synonymous to “jam”, “tune”, or “killer song”.

Emmanuel means “God with us” and is synonymous with Jesus. Jesus is God as a man on earth with His people. Emmanuel = Jesus and should be used interchangeably in this blog.

one Thing is Jesus coming back and ruling for eternity. I’m sorry if that was confusing while you were reading in real time.