If you’ve listened to my podcast This Undivided Life, you know I enjoy great quotes.
One of my favorites is by the theologian Karl Barth… “When we speak of our virtues we are competitors, when we confess our sins we become brothers.”
And yes I realize that the word sin may cause some of you to pause. Maybe another word for sin could be weakness, vulnerability, or missing the mark. After all the Greek origin of the word “sin” is an archery term to miss the mark.
I know for the most part, about pages contain some sort of list of virtues, accomplishments etc. folks who seemingly have it all together. But I, and maybe you can connect more with the ones who talk about the warts and failures, and less the highlights and successes.
As the late Brennan Manning once said … “When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.”
I don't have a penchant for beer, but I’m also a bundle of paradoxes. I easily fall into selfishness, ambition and sin. I lean into fear more often than love. One moment I can be saintly, the next I’m screaming at the “fool” who cut me off in traffic. And maybe, just maybe, you can relate.
At best I’ll say, I’m trying to figure it out.
Trying to be a good husband, dad, papa, and friend. Trying to ask good questions of myself and of others. Trying to listen, before I speak, and being okay not to have the last word. Also being “very human,” which Anne Lamont says is “beautiful and kind of a mess—needy, insecure and judgmental.” Kind of sums me up.
Foremost I’m trying to remember I’m deeply loved, and it has nothing to do with my accomplishments, or failures.
And yeah, I podcast, write a bit, enjoy photography, and love to travel with my wife.