I stole the title from you, too.

  Kindness by ryanadams

Hey Bro,

You have been gone about twenty four hours and to this point, the mojo from seeing you still outweighs the pain of your leaving. Thank you so much for the visit, the talks, your blessings spoken over my boys, and the reminder that we are never really that far apart. I have to admit, our friendship and time together is  actually better than the hype I create inside my head about it. I am amazed at the power it has to change my perspective, my disposition, and my reality.

I have felt, since you originally moved to Cambridge, a bit of frustration at our inability to connect on a consistent and timely fashion. I have struggled at times with my desire to connect in the face of time zones and commitments that make it difficult to do so. Connection to you is so powerful that the absence of connection sometimes itself becomes constricting. So when we were driving to the airport and you started talking about your time with Ted as it related to preaching, you gave me an idea.

You described some frustration or constriction you felt around preaching, and I couldn't stop thinking about the same things as it related to my limited experiences with blogging. I have these things inside, sometimes well formed thoughts, sometimes only questions or impressions or experiences that seem too elusive to be put into words. When you were around, they would come out in conversations over lunch or on a jog or Sunday morning... piece by piece, bit by bit, many times back and forth half you and half me.

When I try to form them on my own, it is at times difficult. When I do form them on my own and put them down...there is frequently a constriction. "This doesn't sound just right. People will get the wrong idea about me, or they will get the right idea and I don't want that. This says too much. That says too little and I can't say the rest of it by myself." So I frequently find that many of my deepest feelings or strong emotional responses to songs, videos, parenting, articles and blog posts sit inside and get fled for later use... and later may never come.

So as we drove to the airport with Ryan Adams singing and you said that you had wondered aloud to Ted what preaching would look like if you approached it like a conversation with me, I thought,  "That's it!" I need an ongoing conversation with you where these things get shared in closer to real time across the Atlantic Ocean, without the constriction that accompanies my usual blog post routine. So I decided to start another blog, a conversation with you. It was going to be titled "Hey Bro", like I start most of my e-mails, but that one was taken, as was "Hey Brother", "Hey Matt", etc.

So then I started thinking about clever ways to indicate this was a conversation between me and you and was just about settled on "Connection vs. Constriction" but then suddenly remembered your line from the boys baptism and it seemed too good to pass up. I thought that since you gave me the idea to start with, that it was appropriate to steal the title from you, as well. Apologies.

So anyway, my hope is that over the next few months I will find the freedom to post the things I think and find and see and hear ... on this page so we connect more and constrict less...  I plan to put thoughts, questions, blog posts, photos, Top Ten Lists, Mary J. Blige and Jimmy Fallon clips, as well as album recommendations and songs that stop me in my tracks. If you feel the need to return you can set up a blog (maybe "From the Bishop to Bono") or you can simply reply to a post or we could set this up to both post content here.

I am writing to you and sharing with you. If someone else wanders in, no biggie. I think in the past folks bumped into our friendship and were frequently connected more and constricted less. May it be so.

I saw a few things today that I wanted to share...



This story by Rick Reilly

And a longer one to play in the background while you read or write...