A Confession and Apology to You

Over the last decade I have written over a quarter million words. I have written on hundreds of topics, some encouraging, some hopeful, some prophetic, some that were very, very difficult or emotional. Hopefully through the years you have known that everything I have written was written only in love; written only in the hope of us becoming the kind of people, together, that God always intended us to be.

That has always been my heart, for better or worse. I know, I have stepped on a few toes along the way, but maybe we are all better for it.

Over the last couple of years I have become incredibly discouraged with writing. Not necessarily discouraged with the content, that has always been fine, but with this terrible question that hung over me like a black, heavy cloud- Why do I waste my time writing when no one is reading or paying attention?

Please don’t try to talk me down from the tree quite yet. I know it is a terrible question and I feel horrible that I have, not only entertained it, but have also begun answering it in ways that suggest I actually believe my words are a waste of time.

That’s why this is a confession.

It’s crazy the paths we travel and how we end up believing so many lies about ourselves. As an aspiring author, the narrative I have continually been fed by the publishing industry is that in order to be published I have to have a growing platform, which means I need tens or hundreds of thousands of people following me and reading what I write. While I always struggled with that perspective, it’s a business, and they want people who will buy books. I get it.

But the message of “your work only matters if thousands of people are reading it” began to unconsciously work it’s way into my head. And that’s a message that completely kills. And it was progressively killing me over the last couple of years.

It’s a message that began to change the motivation for my artistic expression from joy and love… to “how many people are reading me” or “how many people are sharing my stuff” or “how many people are following me.”

It’s a message that’s predicated, not on the idea of whose lives are being influenced, changed, or transformed by my words, but rather the idea of “what am I getting out of my investment?”

It is a wholly capitalistic notion and mindset of expecting to get a return on the investment. And if I am pouring my time, my energy, my heart into writing… then ought I not be getting a huge return?

But this mentality is death. It kills love. It kills joy. It kills creativity. It kills art.

When we begin to believe that the worth or value of what we do is correlated with the number of people who see it, buy it, or end up following us… then we have lost our hearts and the profound joy of expressing it and selflessly sharing it with one person or a million people.

What finally crushed this lie I had believed was a parable.

If you do not identify as “religious,” or as a Christian, keep reading. You will be better for it. I promise. If you are a Christian, keep reading because I am going to flip this parable on it’s head.

There was a parable Jesus shared with a huge crowd. He was discussing a farmer who sowed seeds which fell on various types of ground. Some seeds fell along the path and birds came along and ate them. Some seeds fell in rocky places where they sprang up quickly, but could not take root, so they died. Some seeds fell on shallow soil and the sun easily scorched them. But there were other seeds that fell on good soil, took root, and produced even more than what was sown.

The way we have always understood that parable is that we need to be the type of people whose lives are good soil, ready to receive the seeds of love sown by God, so that they may take root and produce fruit in our lives.

But there are always more perspectives and more messages in parables that are not always readily apparent. And it was this other perspective that obliterated the lie I had believed about my writing.

Rather than trying to figure out what kind of soil I need to be, I realized that I am the farmer who has the good pleasure of freely and liberally sowing the seeds I have been given everywhere I go. It is not my responsibility to worry about where the seeds fall or if they shrivel and die or if they actually take root and begin to grow. My only preoccupation is to wake up each day, grab the bag of seeds, and joyfully sow everywhere I go.

That is where my joy in writing was recently rediscovered and my purpose reignited. Whether it is for the one or for the millions. I just want to write for the joy of it, for the love of it. Let the seeds fall where they may.

Peace and love…

Brandon

greasy burgers and paint cans (reimagining sexual intimacy)…

there is a joy that comes from bringing all the ingredients together and making something from scratch.  there are the different textures and touches of the ingredients…the mixing…the kneading…the intimacy.  closing your eyes you witness the smells of the creation blowing from the warm oven enveloping the room.  there are the tastes of buttery goodness married with spices that could only come from the hand of God.  and then there is the satisfaction of sharing your gift with the ones you love.

but what if we never had the experience or the joy of bringing this goodness together?  what if we never had the joy of uniting the ingredients together and mixing and kneading to perfection?  what if we never knew the olfactory delight of sugary sweetness blowing in the air?  and what if we never knew the fresh homemade taste that melts in our mouths?

what if our every meal consisted of little square greasy burgers with onions and a pickle? what if the people you hang out with ONLY talked about those little square burgers and how great they are?  what if all of the commercials you saw and every product placement in every television show talked about the necessity for these greasy burgers to be eaten at every meal and for every snack?  and what if the only thing we knew about a GREAT MEAL was a little square greasy burger?

churches are full of little burger eaters.  we consume the same unhealthy food for every meal and every snack.  we all grow up eating it…so we don’t know anything different.  our culture keeps feeding us an endless supply and we keep indulging…while knowing and experiencing the beauty and joy of making delicious food is lost on us.

i speak metaphorically about sex.

sexual intimacy is a gift from God.  but like all other gifts God has given to us…we lose sight of the beauty and life-giving nature contained within them.  many times the gifts are reduced to rules or laws…and at other times the gifts have been held on to for so long that we have forgotten the reason we received them in the first place.

for example…i have spoken previously how fasting is a gift from God.  but according to many Christians fasting is nothing more than not eating…and only done by the Super Christian.  as we have explored before…fasting is a gift.  it is not a rule or regulation.  it is not just a discipline that Christians should do.  it is a means through which we can be transformed and can find thankfulness and appreciation in the tastes, smells, and textures of God’s provision when we are reunited with food.  but when we reduce fasting within the church to something that is rarely done and then only done by the most esteemed…we lose the beauty and joy of this life-giving gift.

the same case can be made for other gifts like a sabbath’s day rest, marriage, confession, and the Lord’s Supper.  through our rules, laws, regulations, and redefinitions within the church…we lose the beauty and life-giving nature of these gifts..but i digress.

back to the gift at hand…sex.

the absence of the church in preparing a beautiful, colorful picture of sex and sexual intimacy has forced generations to paint their own pictures from the dried and cracked paint cans tossed out beside the cultural dumpsters.  our white canvasses turn into cheap mosaics comprised of  gutter conversations on the playground…sexually suggestive expletives and graphic language in the back of buses…pornographic images in magazines…and hard-core pornography on the computer and television.  all the while generations have grown up believing that casual sex…oral sex…and masturbation are the finest and most expensive paints.

the mentality in the church is that we have to protect the congregation, especially children, by not talking about such taboo topics.  but the irony is that our silence is NOT PROTECTING but HARMING those within the church.  it leaves us eating little square burgers and painting cheap mosaics…while starving for a homemade meal and longing to find the hand-painted masterpiece.

if any group of people ought to be teaching people how to prepare and appreciate the meal…and how to paint a work of art and beauty with the most wondrous and vivid colors…it is those who have come close to the heart of God and see sexual intimacy as God intended.  a group of people that are not fearful to discuss taboo topics that the generations are dealing with in the real world while reimagining relationships that are whole and healed…not self-seeking…and that look to the physical, emotional, and spiritual interests of other people.

the church of the future is one that throws out the square burgers together and finally learns how to prepare the meal with creativity and imagination.  it is a church that asks for a canvass of forgiveness that is white and new…to paint a picture of who we long to be and what we are becoming.  it is a church that reimagines sex and sexual imtimacy as the physical, emotional, and spiritual gift that has been given to us by God.

brandon