Over those two decades, I’ve gone through even more versions of myself. I’ve rearranged my bucket list, my theology, and my habits. I’ve morphed through different personas in moments of insecurity. I don’t attend church for the same reasons as in years past, and I have different expectations for the experience. But one thing has been a constant across 900± weekends: my worship starts on the asphalt.
His whole life, my wife’s dad escaped into westerns—televised stories of a daring, sharp-jawed wrangler who dropped no-nonsense one-liners before leaving towns better than he found them. Fittingly, Curt slipped peacefully into the afterlife while his TV flickered with such a story. The fiction that had inspired his daring feats had reached peak reality in the nonfiction of his life. During a summer sunset, he disappeared into the horizon having convinced us not just that he’d left the world a better place but also that he’d left the world from a better place.
I get in my feels every year, watching these wishes carried by the first breezes of summer. This weekend, I spent my wish on someone else. I still don’t feel permission to ask Fate for more. Five decades into my time on this planet, I haven’t yet found the balance between contentment and longing. What I have found is a peace while absorbing the collective dreams of my friends, neighbors, and strangers.
All of that was worth it for what I learned in the process. I’ve rarely felt as profoundly accepted as I have during this ordeal. I discovered that the roots of my relationships go far deeper than I knew. The messages and prayers of my friends & family surprised me. Their specific declarations led me to blurt through tears to my therapist, “What if [what my friends are saying about me] is true!?” I’m still struggling to absorb this affirmation—to believe that reality.
How ‘bout you? What’s been one of the best things you’ve experienced in your past decade of life?
How often do you go back to relive those moments? And what grand adventure do you hope is someday a true thing you can describe in your journal?
The more our shared culture pushes me to the artificial, the curated, and the convenient, the more I need the opposites of those realities. I find the slow, humble, and tangible gifts of nature to be priceless. In a world with ever-present bar codes, QR codes, or discount codes, I need the lesson of generosity—of no price tag, no “add to cart,” no sales tax. I also need the example of nature’s magnanimity to confront a mind always thinking in terms of billable dollars per hour.
I used to think church happened only during service times. Then, I realized spiritual community could be any intentional gathering. Now, a faith space can be anywhere I go with an intentional friend.
For the past two and a half decades, I’ve lived with a shepherd of souls. And in this highland cattle pasture, I was wowed yet again by the fruit of my wife’s pastoral labor.
My life is so much more exciting than I ever dreamed it. As a result, my imagination has rarely been bigger than my potential. It hasn’t needed to be. Fate, Chance, or Sovereignty has allowed my muscles of hope to atrophy.
I had snowmobiled with my wife. I had snowmobiled with my buddies. Until the weekend before the Super Bowl, I had never snowmobiled (or vacationed) with my wife and my friends at the same time. My third trip to Jackson Hole’s winter trails brought the best trail conditions I’ve had yet—a great introduction to those in our group who’d never ridden a snowmobile or vacationed in the Rockies.
Over the past month, I’ve kept coming back to this quote from the West Kerry region of Ireland (originally written as “Mo sheasamh ort lá na choise tinne”).
If I make it to 90, I hope the people who celebrate my birthday can point out that I was a builder and a restorer of sorts. I won’t have buildings or machines that showcase my handiwork. Instead, I hope I will have helped people find (1) courage to do scary/hard things, (2) redemption of their pain, or (3) a safe ear for their confessions of doubt, sorrow, insecurity, or disillusionment.
That dark cloud is lined with the Savior’s empathy, emphasis, and example that breaks through from hearts like my daughter’s. Today, she reminded me what Jesus told the religious leaders of his day were his only two commandments: love God with a full heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.
I found voices that made my heart feel seen and those that challenged me to believe differently about the world, my religion, and my place in each. I brought hardbacks and highlighters with me on solo adventure trips to Europe. In short, I escaped into books.
Four years ago, I had never ridden a motorcycle. Four weeks ago, I rode a motorcycle 2,000km through six countries from one end of the Alps to the other—from Innsbruck, Austria to Monaco. I had high expectations and kept stoking their fires, watching the hype videos on social media dozens of times. And somehow—don’t ask me how—this experience surpassed even my daydreams.
I used to work really hard to find the most romantic or original anniversary present for Crystal. Now, I know the best gift I can give her is a better version of myself than the husband she had last year.
That’s what prayer has felt like for me lately—few words in either direction, just a sense that I’m held or at least known.
For two decades of my life, I was forced to sit through sermons every Sunday night. Loud men in ties tried to convince me that my attention was worship. If only they knew the unforced rhythms of grace and the silhouettes of sunsets! If only I did, too…
Before my perennial crazy-busy autumn season, I stole away to mountains six time zones from home to BASE jump, paraglide, and hang glide.
One of my favorite parts of being “Uncle Mac” is giving my nephews and nieces new categories for their imaginations, more options for their “when I’m a grown up” dreams, and new experiences to give them new stories to tell. Until a few Saturdays ago, my sisters’ boys had never floated a creek in a kayak. Before I pulled a full shift in the office, I spent the morning making sure they had a new accomplishment.
Our 25th wedding anniversary arrives in September, but (1) both of us are in perennial busy seasons then and (2) I was told one of the best times to visit Slovenia was when May transitions to June. Last November, while my wife sweated out a missions trip in Sierra Leon, I designed a trip and crafted a proposal for a 6-day circuit of the Julian Alps and the Gulf of Trieste.
Trusted voices have pointed out that I bring that same unnecessary computation to both my relationships and my perspective on the world. I spend too much time practicing conversations, conjuring social media posts, and anticipating therapy sessions as though swimmers occupy the other seven lanes. Or maybe all eight.
As I journaled about this episode the next morning, I cried. I hope lots of people can say that figuratively about me, and I’m thankful for the episodes over the past few decades when trusted souls have walked slowly with me.
I don’t rank my adventures because of (1) recency bias and (2) the unique diversity of what interests me. I prefer cold over hot, fast over slow, and rare over cliche. And this adventure checked all of those boxes. Putting an all-wheel-drive Subaru in track mode and seeing what you can do with it on a frozen lake uniquely combined elements of past adventures. It was a Sunday, and I was in heaven.
This might be the one part of my faith experience American Christian Nationalism hasn’t spoiled yet.