On Creating a New and Better Reality

I have spent the better part of the last ten years deconstructing my faith and piecing it back together; theorizing, calculating, strategizing, experimenting, evaluating. Some of my findings and studies have truly inspired me to think and to live and lead differently. Some of you are aware of these aforementioned course corrections and intellectual detours because of my decision to self-publish them here as well as my recent articulations of the importance of doubting faithfully in conversational form here.

But I’ve also been busy seeking newer ways to be and become beyond the pastoral church identity—and even beyond my life as a religious skeptic. I have been wrestling with deep, existential spiritual questions, too-–with the beginning of that journey written about here. If my second book’s meager sales are any indication, the topic of a pastor wrestling with doubts and questions is significantly more interesting to the general public than a pastor wrestling with a mystical breakthrough.

And that’s perfectly fine by me. The point I am trying to make is that our personal growth demands curiosity. My curiosity got the better of me and is why I decided to show the world my questioning heart in Doubting Faithfully. And curiosity is why I didn’t stop with questioning the Bible but also demonstrated how I went about questioning the nature of God in Growing Spirit Wise, too. Shameless book plugging aside, the truth is that my writing refuses to let me sit on my laurels. 

When I feel tempted to give in to the dread and despair that threaten to sink any hopes of a better world, I make myself remember my own words. Words I painstakingly wrote and published and elaborated about with readers and critics alike. It’s times like these I make myself remember why I wrote and published those books in the first place: because I keep envisioning that what isn’t working doesn’t have to be broken forever. 

There is a new and better reality waiting to be experienced. There is a new and better reality in our heads and hearts or we wouldn’t be out there telling Uncle Sam what we think of the latest BS messing with our livelihoods. I believe that the new and better reality is underway and we are the ones creating it. Here in Minnesota of all places, the great leveling up has begun. 

And so, when you and I look back in ten or twenty years (hopefully sooner), it will be to this group of people, the ones with the hilarious accents and obscene tolerance of cold weather as the ones who got the party started. Mark my words, the shift show has begun and there’s no going back to some fictional period of national “greatness” a certain administration that shall remain nameless has promised. On the contrary, our country has yet to peak. This development feels like a considerable setback to be sure, but it’s not the end of the story. Instead, it is an invitation to do something we’re wired to do: create. 

It’s time to create a new reality in your minds, through your voice, with your hands and feet–however you are motivated. It’s time to forget about those who are choosing to refute ICE’s dangerous and cruel presence. It’s time to let go of those who prefer going about their regular scheduled programming without giving this a thought let alone their concern. It’s time to push past the “Christians” who see this as “necessary evil” or choose to not see it at all. They’re distracted, confused, and afraid. Not us. Fearlessness is rule number one, remember?

Last Friday, while feeling emotionally crushed under the weight of one abduction and beating after another at the hands of our unwelcome masked and heavily armed guests, I emerged from my failed attempts at writing a sermon and saw something truly chilling laying on my back porch: a dead cardinal. “Uh oh, I thought. That’s not a good sign.” In Growing Spirit Wise I wrote extensively about positive, heart-warming signs about alive cardinals and eagles and hummingbirds that reminded me of my loved ones in spirit and of good tidings ahead. A dead one? Now? With what’s happening? Of the handful of people I shared the photo with, everyone essentially replied in the same way: Oh shit.

I’m not going to get into omens and ominous signs in extensive detail, but even the most skeptical of the paranormal and resistant of woo-woo spirituality have to agree that that was weird and creepy as hell. There it was, laying in the middle of the porch, underneath the roof. It looked so intentional. I would have spotted it out of at least two windows I regularly peer through. I didn’t perform an autopsy by any means, but there were no visible signs of an attack or injuries. In fact, his poor mate was fluttering around, checking him out. I went back to my work, unable to forget about it.

The next day, still unsuccessfully finding the right words for my sermon, there was a loud burst of commotion from the living room and a summons from my wife and daughter to come check something out. When I arrived, there she was: a red-tailed hawk perched on the clothesline pole in my backyard–unmistakably a good sign. We stared and gawked and I snapped some photos. I sent out the picture of the hawk to the group whose days I ruined with the dead cardinal. Positive replies poured in, my favorite from my psychic medium friend who said, “the moment I saw it, I heard, the truth wins.” 

Look, think what you will about those stories about the cardinal and the hawk, but I am choosing to believe that this is our moment to be courageous, curious, and compassionate with the whole world watching. So I am going to march in downtown Minneapolis on Friday January 23rd alongside my fellow Minnesotans in memory of the Minnesotans who’ve died for being who they are like Jamar Clark (2015), Philando Castile (2016), George Floyd (2020), and Renee Good (2026); I am going to brave the insane cold (the high temperature forecast is –9 degrees) as only Minnesotans like me truly know how to do: with long underwear, a handful of layers (looking like Joey that one time he put on all of Chandler’s clothes), and a “f**k it” attitude because no matter how intimidating ice can be in winter, sometimes you just gotta get to wherever you’re going. Which in this case, is somewhere beyond. Somewhere better. 

I hope you’ll join me. If not, I hope that you’ll do something else to show your love and solidarity–maybe the Love Your Neighbor event at Gustavus Lutheran Church on Sunday January 25th from 1-3pm (the forecast is much better, the high is gonna be 2 degrees) or maybe you’ll just have to create something yourself.

You don’t have to be Minnesotan to know how all this feels. Take it from someone born and raised here who has navigated the Norwegians, Swedes, and German heritages his whole life long–people like Minnesotans rarely tell you how they feel–they prefer to show it.