We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Blog...

My “brand” is not Christian, or Activist, or even Ally.  Sure, I try to live these models to the best of my ability – but when it comes to my art and my “persona” I try to be as non-political as possible.  I’m an entertainer, writer, musician who identifies most closely with comedy, and based on my irreverent sense of humor, I’m pretty sure I have the soul of a perpetually 13-year-old boy.

But then there’s this…

This aching I’ve felt so acutely since the massacre at Pulse in Orlando.  This heavy, heavy weight in my soul compounded daily by the pain and suffering of people I know and people I don’t – people I’ll never have the chance to meet, because their lives were ended just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time when another person – another human being acted out in a violent way.

I cried – really cried – yesterday when I found out about all the families who lost their lives in Bagdad.  And today I’m crying because I know that specifically my black friends – all of them – are mourning the senseless death of Alton Sterling.

And I hate this because I feel so f-ing helpless!!!  So here it is. All I can do.  I can pray.

It’s okay if you don’t believe in a “guy in the sky.”  But even scientific studies validate the positive effects of prayer, meditation, goal setting and focused thought/intention.  So if you are so inclined – if you also ache for the countless victims of violent acts perpetuated by other human beings, if you can humble yourself for just a minute to look inside at the state of your own heart – this seems as good a place to start as any. 

Dear God (or insert Deity of choice,)

Please take Alton Sterling into your loving embrace.  Please bless his friends, family and members of his community with an outpouring of love, understanding and healing.

Please pour out your grace on all our communities and the law enforcement officers that serve them across this nation.  Help those in positions of greater power meet their responsibilities with greater temperance, greater equity and increased civility. 

Help us to look at our own hearts with honesty and cast out all fear, bigotry and hatred. Please shower us all with more love for our brothers and sisters in every walk of life.  Teach us to celebrate our diversity together, and so create a greater sense of unity across all man-made divides.

I know, Father, that as no respecter of persons, you do not esteem one person, one gender, one culture, one race above another.  For we all are your creation and you love us all as one.  Teach us that same love, across cultures, across, faiths, across ethnicities.

We know that we are broken.  Please take our broken hearts, and make them whole in your love, that we may love each other more perfectly – that we stand united as one people against fear, against hate, and against oppression.

Let us start today by mourning with those that mourn – the family of Alton Sterling, the countless people maimed and killed in Bagdad, the victims at the airport in Turkey, the innocents at Pulse night club – and the thousands of victims daily across the globe whose lives are cut short in acts of violence, hate and apathy.

Help us all to bear the mantle of responsibility to make this beautiful world you gave us a home of peace, tolerance and love.  Help us remember that, here, on this little tiny spec of the vast expanse of the universe, we truly are one.

Help us to be slow to anger, quick to forgive, patient in our actions and thoughtful in our words.  Help us to help each other fulfill our greatest potentials as individuals and communities. Help us to see in each human we encounter on our great journey, the pieces of us that they share.

Please, God, I do my best to do my part every day, and yet when my friends are aching because of injustice, because of violence, because of death and destruction, I know that somehow I have not done enough.

If words are all I have, then please help me to use mine to lift others up, show others hope and light, and to inspire change in those whose hearts are most in need.

I beg for your blessing.

Amen.

Letting Go...

I suffered extensive first world trauma at the age of 15.  I was on a three-week student exchange in Germany when I arrived a few minutes late for a charter bus trip that I was told “under no circumstances” to be late for.

That particular morning I actually was waiting on my German Host ‘sister,’ but I got a rather memorable comeuppance from my teachers who dressed me down in front of ALL the other students in the middle of bus.

I was sure my reputation was ruined forever, but I learned a valuable lesson that day – “Take ownership for your actions and their outcomes.”

(My excuse of, “It really wasn’t my fault this time,” didn’t quite cut it…)

So I’ve built my life around taking responsibility and ownership and seeing through what I start.  But now I have a new handicap.

I don’t always know when to let go.

Correction – I usually KNOW when – I just struggle with the execution...

I’ve always had a hard time uttering the word, “no,” when asked to do something I don’t want to do.  And I’ve rarely been able to say, “I’m done,” with anything more significant than a tasty dinner.

Peas are God's way of punishing mouthy children...

So two days ago, when a person I really didn’t want to deal with called me and literally demanded that I talk to him, I put him off and told him I’d call the next day.

All the next day, I wondered why I’d told him that.  I didn’t want to talk to him.  And I didn’t want to dive back into a project that I’d finally let go of after three years of investing massive amounts of time and money.

I was done. I am done.  I’m okay with that – so why couldn’t I say it to that dipsh*t when he called me?

Those of us who work in collaborative mediums like filmmaking learn to take a great deal of ownership in our work or it won’t get done.  That’s good.

But when you’re having a staring contest with your phone because you’d rather digest and sh*t out your own tongue than make one more promise to pursue a dead avenue, it’s time to get up from the table, scrape what’s left on your plate into the trash and start over new. 

Dignity AND sign language that is...

We deserve a fresh start from time to time.  Without one, we’d go absolutely insane. So this year, I hope to learn to say, “I quit,” with dignity – and screen my calls better...