Author: Higher Up IDEALS
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Self Betrayal Does Not Lead to Love
Generally speaking, I am not nice. But, I am kind. Nice is performative and at its core is a subtle form of manipulation. You present yourself in a certain way in order to manage another person’s perception of you, whether its to convince them that you’re a better person than you actually are for your…
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No! You Do Not Totally Get It
Do you know what always annoys me? When people always talk in absolutes and never understand that there are things they may never understand. Did you see what I did there? I used absolutes to explain that I am always annoyed with people who speak in absolutes. Annoying, right? Absolutely Ludicrous So in the off…
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What Will You Build With Your Life?
This is Notre Dame. It took almost 200 years to complete. The architecture is nothing short of magnificent. Reflecting on what it took for this edifice to materialize, I was awestruck. Generations of people toiled. Whole families were born and died without ever seeing it finished. I imagine on that first day when the first…
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Karma, Unbelonging, and the Consequences of Freedom
Did you know that I have a podcast with two of my fellow poets, Katerina Jeng and Mercedez Davis and that is one of the freest spiritual conversation spaces I’ve ever been a part of? We all went into job transitions at the same time two plus years ago. We started talking with each other…
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Artists Turn Chaos Into Culture
When I was six years old my mom asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I told her I wanted paint, a canvas, and an easel because I wanted to be an artist. Her response was that artists don’t make money. Instead she bought me a typewriter and told me I was going to…
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A Confession of Sin
As I confessed in the past blog post tagged here, The Sin of Overprotection, my biggest sin is overprotection. I know that this might sound benign. But, in my experience, it does me as much harm as other people’s professed sins, It has cost me relationships, it has caused me needless suffering, and in many…
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Do the INR (Individual Narrative Responsibility) Work
How often do you reflect on how much the stories you tell yourself impact your life? Personally, I think about it everyday. Because since I was a child, I have always been keenly aware of narrative dynamics. Consciously or unconsciously we all perceive ourselves as characters in a narrative. And how we locate ourselves in…
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Trusting What Can’t Be Trusted
Humans are designed to radically Trust. From our first cry, we call out to be held and comforted and above all, we call out to be loved. It is as if love is our breath. It is our Life. Can we truly live without it? It is almost maddening and definitely saddening in the moments…
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Race Doesn’t Divide, Racism Does
After I shared my piece on whether or not Jesus’s skin color matters, I had someone suggest that what I write about race is divisive. I, of course disagree. I look at it as more of an intervention because I love everyone and I would like for us to get to a place where we…
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Does Jesus’ Skin Color Matter?
So, I watched this YouTube video where this Conservative Christian Black dude was trying to call out the hosts of the View for bringing up to the star of The Chosen—a series about the ministries of Jesus and the Disciples—that they were appreciative that in the show Jesus Christ was not blonde haired and blue…
The Roofless Church 