For the last few weeks, Michelle and I have been seemingly inundated with subtle and not-so-subtle hints that something about our lives needs to change. The veil of smoke that I talk so often about seems to have lifted permanently, and we now look at our lives quite a bit differently.

We’re under 30 and we’re part of the top .0001% richest people in the world. We don’t buy a lot of things, but we get to do whatever we want pretty much whenever we want. We get to go on three week vacations to South America, eat out at fancy restaurants in the city. We can buy Christmas presents for our family and not worry about whether we can cover the bill. We have no credit card debt and save about a third of what we make. By all indications we’re doing well.

We spend time with our family and friends. We work hard at our jobs – she’s become an expert in her field already, and I have the job I was told would take 15 years to attain in college. We go to church and participate in a Bible study. We exercise fairly regularly. We read all the time. We’re basically living the life we talked about when we first started dating.

Up until a month ago I would have considered us to be living the perfect life. But then God messed everything up.

Not everyone believes in God or Christianity, and that’s fine. For them, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the above. But I’ve started to realize that there is something wrong with the above if you are a Christian. Trouble is, almost no one tells you that.

We’re told that we’re supposed to say a prayer and then we get to go to heaven. We’re told that we’re supposed to find nice husbands and wives and have nice, pleasant children together. We’re told that we should give 10% of what we make to the church or some charitable organization, but that the other 90% is all ours to do as we wish, even if that means buying an enormous house and five cars. We’re told that while there are terrible things going on in other parts of the world, there’s nothing we can realistically do other than write checks or pray about it. We’re told that America is God’s country, and when we go and blow people up in God’s name it’s a righteous thing to do.

Again, if you aren’t from my background some or all of that may sound foreign or silly or scary to you. If you did grow up like me, a lot of that sounds familiar.

The problem is that I think it might all be wrong.

I think that there’s a chance that we’ve become “selective hearers”, taking the parts of the Gospel we like, ignoring the parts that we don’t.

I think that there’s a chance Jesus wasn’t speaking in hyperbole when he said that for the rich man to be saved he had to give up everything he had and give it to the poor. I think he might have actually meant it when he said it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven.

I think he might have been serious when he said that the last will be first and the first will be last, which puts me in a pretty bad spot.

I think he might have actually meant it when he said that when you clothed the naked and fed the hungry you were clothing and feeding him….and that by not doing those things you were leaving him hungry and naked.

I think he probably serious when he asked why people call him “Lord, Lord” but then didn’t do what he said.

I think that he would be shocked to see my closet full of clothes when he told us that if we have two coats we should give one to the person who needs it.

I think he meant what he said when he suggested that the Kingdom of Heaven isn’t something that happens when you die, but also begins right here on Earth. I also think that, given how he talked and spent his time, that such a kingdom probably isn’t in large church buildings in the suburbs, but rather in homeless shelters, in elderly homes, in the urban areas of America and the destitute places around the world. In Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur.

I think that Christ would probably have looked at 21st century America and thought it eerily similar to the Roman Empire, with it’s idea that peace is brought by conquest and that loyalty to the state is the most important thing in the world.

I think he would be shocked to see how Christians wave their flags and shout about killing in the name of God. I think he would wonder how we could have taken what he said about peace and love and reconciliation and turned it into war and revenge and retaliation.

I think he would wonder how we could sit in church and watch some video about African children dying because they lack drinking water, produced by an organization desperately hoping to wake us up, only to find us forget immediately as we leave the service and hop back into our SUVs on our way to brunch.

I think he would look at his church and weep. I think he looks at me and weeps. No wonder so many people think Christianity isn’t attractive – who wants to join a bunch of people who ignore what we claim we believe?

For the first time, my wife and I are looking at a world that is truly broken, and wondering if the way we’re living our lives makes sense in that context. We’re wondering what God plan is for us, given our unique skills, occupying this unique place in time. We’re wondering if there aren’t better ways for us to use our money and free time. We’re wondering what all of this means in the context of our work, entertainment, family, friends.

A lot of larger decisions are way too scary to consider right now. But we have made some small decisions that we’re just starting to explore.

We’re trying to take our commitment to preserving God’s creation seriously. We’re turning our computers off when we’re not using them and running them on the lowest brightness setting when we are. We’re turning off lights we aren’t using and buying energy efficient bulbs. We’re not running the heater (or the AC whenever summer actually arrives). We’re trying to figure out whether it makes sense to have Netflix send us a DVD from 1000 miles away when we have the Internet right in front of us. Or a book. We’re looking into carbon offsets.

I’ve started working from home more often rather than traveling to Evanston just so I can be around people. When it gets warmer, I’m thinking about taking the bike out as an alternative.

We’re going through our closets to see what clothing we can get rid of. We’re looking at our bookshelves to see if there are books that we don’t need that others could use.

We’re going to try and break the bottled water habit. We’re starting to buy only fair trade coffee, or organic tea. We’ve started trying to cut down on the amount of meat we eat, and have started cooking vegetarian recipes. We’re thinking about growing herbs in our back porch.

We’re starting to donate to Living Water international to help dig deep water wells. We’re going to start making meals for the local homeless shelter. We’re considering getting involved in the homeless ministry at our church.

Long term, we’re talking about how we can organize our lives around what God truly finds important. We’re talking about how to get involved in our community instead of moving away from it. We’re talking about what our buying habits should be given the heartbreaking need all around us. We’re talking about how we should approach investing and what constitutes responsible saving versus hoarding, keeping in mind Christ’s desire to live on what you need and use the rest to help others.

These are all small changes, and even they feel a little bit ridiculous given the monstrous difference between how we live and how others live, both across the ocean and across the street. But we have to start somewhere. I’ve detected a pattern in my life where I talk about something long before I do anything about it, and I’m desperately hoping to remedy that. I feel like these small steps are definitely in the right direction.

None of this is being shared to pat myself on the back – in fact, it makes me sad how many things we talked about doing we’ve backed down from. I think we’re barely scratching the surface of this thing, and right now we’re too afraid to do anything huge.

We still have a lot more questions than answers, and honestly we’re really nervous about the direction our lives will take in the next few years. There will undoubtedly be plenty of people who will think we’re strange for not living at or above our means. And while we have no plans to grow out dreadlocks or start smelling strange, there’s a chance some of our friends might think we’re too weird and stop hanging out with us.

I hope you’re not one of them.

But recently, I started thinking about a similar word – disciple. I’m not sure which one came first, but I found it odd that while I always considered myself a person of discipline, I never considered myself a disciple. Truthfully, I never wanted to be.

I bet that people in the first century would have found that odd. I bet that back then, if you were a follower of Christ it was assumed that you would be a disciple. After all, to be a disciple means to, slowly and over time, become the kind of person who thinks and acts like the person they are following. And if you believed that Christ was who he said he was and took seriously his command to put down your nets, pick up your cross and follow him, it would seem that becoming a disciple was not the exception but the rule.

But somewhere along the way that changed. Perhaps it happened hundreds of years ago after Christians stopped being nailed to crosses or stoned to death or fed to lions in front of angry crowds. Perhaps it happened in the 20th century as humanism (and man’s happiness and comfort) became the objective of mankind. Who knows. But at some point it became not just accepted but normal to be a believer but not be a disciple.

To think one way but do (or not do) another.

To talk the talk but not walk the walk.

To call Christ your master but ignore his desire for your life.

I know this has been the case for me, and it has been the case for just about everyone I’ve ever met. The arguments against discipleship almost immediately bubble up – that not everyone is called to do that, that I don’t feel God leading me in that direction, etc etc etc.

But the more I’ve thought about it, the more wrong I think that is. The more wrong I think I’ve been my entire life.

You see, Christ rarely talks about heaven, about a life after death. He spends the majority of his time talking about how to bring heaven here to earth – about how by loving each other and caring for the poor and seeking peace and avoiding anger and sharing our gifts and talents with each other we can bring God’s kingdom to our world now.

But very few Christians (myself included) don’t live this way. For us, Christianity is about saying “the prayer” so we don’t go to hell, and then living our lives pretty much the same way we would have otherwise. Only with less cursing. Out loud at least.

Some go further and talk about “growing in their walk with God”, but that doesn’t really mean much other than going to church and praying more often and reading the Bible some more. And when we’re not doing that we’re still ignoring the homeless guy en route to our fancy cars with the bags of fancy clothes in the back that we’ll try on when we get back to our fancy house, careful not to brake too fast lest we spill our fancy coffee drink in our laps and ruin our fancy pants.

No wonder so many people think God is dead. Our lives are no different than they would be if we believed in the tooth fairy. We’re not disciples, we’re just believers. And we sit here, watching Season One of 30 Rock for the third time after another long week at work, waiting to die.

I think there’s another way.

A way that starts with a decision to actually take God up on his offer. A decision to actively learn to walk and talk and act and think the way that Christ did. A decision to become a disciple.

It’s a very recent realization, and I haven’t the slightest idea what a life like that would be like in modern America. But I imagine it involves constructing my days quite differently than I currently do.

I imagine it means not sleeping in until 11 on Saturday, or spending three hours getting my butt kicked by a 9 year-old in Madden football on a Sunday afternoon.

I imagine it means centering my life around the same disciplines of study, prayer, solitude, fasting, simplicity, and the like that hundreds of Christians before us have used to draw closer to God.

I imagine it means working my tail off at work, not for a promotion or money or equity or bragging rights but because God gave me breath and and a brain and the ability to make things look pretty and words sound compelling.

I imagine it means being much slower to anger, not allowing myself the demented joy that comes from holding a grudge.

I imagine it means sitting down with my wife and honestly assessing how we spend our money, and determining how much we’d need to give away in order to truly be stewards instead of misers.

Most importantly, I imagine it means asking God what he really wants me to do with my life – what my part to play is in this grand plan to bring heaven to earth.

I imagine it means to stop sitting on the sidelines.

Belief is easy. Following is much more difficult.

But maybe everyone’s right and I’m wrong.

I’ve written ad nauseum about my problems, my shortcomings, my character flaws, my imperfections. I’ve publicly berated myself for them, partially as a method of cleansing, and (admittedly) partially in an effort to convince myself (and others) that I’m self-aware, introspective. Like the kid sitting under the tree in college writing in his journal or composing songs on his guitar.

In these self-rebukes, I’ve often consoled myself that though I’m wrong and stupid and vile, all I need to do is ask forgiveness and ask for help and all will be right. My evil will be overcome.

But in all these years, I may have missed the point.

Christianity is a fascinating idea. I’ve written before about the two ‘laws of humanity’ that we take for granted, even though they are impossible to reconcile, namely:

1) There are no moral absolutes. We are a product of a naturalistic world with simple cause and effect reactions. No such thing as good or evil, right or wrong – just social constructs.

2) People do terrible, evil things all the time. Indeed, there are some pretty wicked people in this world, some of whom have done some really nasty things to me or someone I love. Thankfully, I’m not one of those people. The things that I do that could potentially be construed as evil or wicked – that’s just because people don’t know the circumstances, don’t understand the context.

Those ideas sit in tension in our subconscious, and we try to avoid addressing them (most likely because we know that thinking about them means trying to make them make sense, or else abandon one of them and rethink our position on the world.)

Christianity is fascinating because it doesn’t try to sweep these ideas under the rug. It says that there is a natural order to the world, there are laws that exist that have cause and effect, but there’s something else behind it – something that determines what is good or evil. It says that yes, I have screwed up just like everyone else, but that I’m not an evil person. Even better, it says there’s a way to have a clean slate, a way to be associated with the character of someone who is not evil, and in so doing slowly, often imperceptably replace our muddled characters with His.

That’s the story that I’ve come to believe in. Or so I thought.

All these years of writing have been from a paradigm that says that because I do evil things, because I screw up, I am an evil person. It’s the classic ‘worm theology’ that various churches in various centuries instilled in its people, and it is one of the most deceptive lies we’re fed (though we often don’t know it.)

All these years, I’ve subconciously held onto the belief that I’m not a good person, and that I’m really lucky I’ve got my belief system or else I’d be totally screwed.

But I missed the point entirely. My heart is good. Your heart is good. I am loved just as I am, and so are you. The dirt and the evil things that we do are not who we are – they are what stand between us and a loving, faithful God that desperately wants to be closer to us.

Yes, it’s true that this God is just and good, and that my evil actions are what has driven a wedge into that relationship. But those are my actions, not my heart. My soul is good – held captive, a faint image of what it can and should be, but good nonetheless.

It’s funny, for all my talk about living life a certain way, I’ve always had the priorities in the wrong order. I can’t take on my faults with a frontal attack – I can’t create a to-do list that I can check off.

“Hey look, I’m not greedy anymore… Check! Seeya pride – I’m on a roll!”

I can try as hard as I want to berate myself into being a better person, or I can let go of the idea that I’m a bad person in the first place. I can decide to finally acknowledge that God created me in His image, as something good and loving and worthwhile. I can decide to acknowledge that I’ll continue to screw up, but my chances of ‘living intentionally’ go up dramatically if I let Him do the work in my heart instead of stubbornly continuing to try to do it myself.

I can realize that after all these years of trying to remove the logjam of evil thoughts and actions that have kept me out of the kind of relationship I want, I somehow missed the self-imposed dam, the subconscious idea that behind all those actions is a person who is unlovable, unworthy of such a relationship.

I’ve tried for years to be less judgmental towards people – perhaps it’s time to be less judgmental with myself.

I’m tired of living in a culture that tells me it’s okay, I can do what I want. I’m tired of being told that everything is subjective, tired of being told that I can rationalize away my worst thoughts and deeds. I’m tired of being able to chalk my lowest moments up as ‘learning experiences.’

I’m tired of seeing people make commitments to each other with no intention of honoring them. I’m tired of hearing about couples getting married only to divorce within a few months. I’m tired of flippant, off-hand comments about someone cheating on someone else, as if such behavior is natural, expected, normal.

I’m tired of being let off the hook.

I want to meet people who don’t insist I put on a mask to hide my faults. I want to meet people who are willing to call me on my bullshit.

I write one day about the perils of greed, and the very next I pass right next to a guy asking me for help. Call me on it.

I say something in jest that makes someone feel a little less respected, a little less honorable, a little less beautiful, a little less amazing than they are. Call me on it.

I cut corners on a project because, hey, it’s not like anyone else is giving 150% anyway. Call me on it.

I write something clever. People tell me it’s clever. I puff myself up like I was the source of my ideas, my intellect. Call me on it.

Don’t tell me that I’m being too hard on myself when I point out my faults. Help me work on them, help me become a better person, help me keep the curtain pulled back. Don’t make it easy for me to slip back into normal habits. Expect better from me.

And then take the next step. Expect better from yourself as well. Don’t put on the mask. Someone asks you how you’re doing – tell them. Show your warts. Talk about your demons. Ask to be held accountable.

It’s so much easier for us to slip into a mode that says everything is okay, as long as we’re happy. It’s easy because no one expects anything more from us. Because if they expect more from us, they have to take the next step and expect more from themselves. And that’s a difficult thing to do.

I don’t know how to change the world for the better. I don’t know how to convince our leaders to make intelligent, moral decisions.

But I do know that if I want to hold them accountable, I have to start with myself first. I can’t rail againt my leaders or my friends or my family for lying or cheating or stealing or boasting or hurting others unless I’m willing to first confront myself.

And when I do confront myself, openly, honestly….I find a lot of dirt.

There are so many things I do – daily – that I’m not proud of. Things I’d like to do differently. I screw up all the time. I’m not strong enough to live the way I know I should. Not on my own.

I need someone to hold me accountable. But the person holding me accountable can’t do so unless they first examine themselves. And once they do so, they find a lot of dirt. They discover that they too need someone to hold them accountable.

Our lives, the organism of humanity, appears to me to be more and more related to accountability. We are not islands. The decisions we make impact us, often in the long term, almost certainly in the short term. Our decisions impact those around us, those we love, those we don’t even know exist.

Unfortunately, our nature seems to lend itself to screwing up. Nobody’s perfect, and that’s probably on purpose. But the answer to screwing up is not to be let off the hook. The answer isn’t to rationalize it away. The answer isn’t to call it life and forget about it. The answer is to strive to be better – to resolve to lie to each other less, steal from each other less, hurt each other less.

And the best way I’ve found to support our push to be better is to have someone to hold us accountable. Someone who loves us enough to not let us off the hook, to cheer us on when we succeed, to rebuke us and build us up when we fail.

Are you willing to be held accountable? Are you willing to examine yourself? Are you willing to hold someone you love accountable n similar fashion?

If we did so, I bet the world would very quickly become a much different place.

We learn when we’re extremely little that there are people who are ‘in’ and people who are not. We learn that if you’re not in my group you’re probably stupid. In high school we get in fights at the mall or at a party with a group of kids because they go to a different high school than we do – because they committed the travesty of living in different neighborhood we learn to hate them for no apparent reason.

We grow older and hate people because they root for a different basketball team, or because they vote differently than we do, or because their God is different than our God or because their skin tone is lighter or darker or because they speak a different language.

We do it because it feels good to turn people into cartoons. It feels good to feel like you’re better or smarter or prettier or faster than others, and the easiest way to do so is to take these complicated, emotional, talented, fragile people and package them up into a singular idea. Once we turn them into cartoons it’s easy to hate them.

It’s easy to call George Bush an idiot or Bill Clinton evil. It’s easy to call the kid downstairs a punk. It’s easy to call the guy sitting across from us on the subway a drunk. It’s easy to call the beautiful girl on the other side of the bar stupid and easy. It’s easy to wave an American flag and dismiss people’s complaints as ignorant or unpatriotic. It’s easy to shout from a pulpit that the gay guy in the car next to at a traffic light is demon possessed. It’s easy to call your Christian coworker an intolerant sheep with no understanding of the real world.

They’re not part of our club, so there’s something wrong with them.

What’s hard is to rip up the membership card.

What’s hard is to not get into a stupid argument about whether the Raiders or the Broncos are the better team.

What’s hard is to realize that the girl who walked by you on the street with the ‘go to hell’ stare is probably immensely self-conscious because of magazines telling her how she’s supposed to look and talk and interact, that she may have been hurt emotionally or otherwise by a slew of guys who didn’t value her as a person.

What’s hard is to contemplate the unthinkable tragedies that might have happened in the life of a guy that’s reduced him to sitting on a corner without having showered in a week, humiliating himself by having to hold out a three day old paper coffee cup begging you to drop in your spare change.

What’s hard is to have a conversation or read an article about protests in France or wherever and ask yourself whether their protests have some serious merit.

What’s hard is to acknowledge that every serious political candidate you’re seeing on television has lived a pretty extraordinary life, has done a great deal to impact the lives of those around them and holds the ideas they hold (is willing to put themselves on television at our mercy to spread those ideas) because they truly believe that they will help the country in the long run. What’s hard is to be willing to admit that the idea that one party is right about every idea while the other party is hopelessly insipid…is pretty insipid.

What’s hard is to be aware that there are indeed villians in the world, but they are in much shorter supply than we think. The majority of people we treat as villians are fragile, broken, self-conscious people just like us. And the hard thing is to respond to people, with their scars and blemishes and dissenting ideas and misguided actions….and love them.

We should all consider letting more people into our club.

Forget that – we should all consider getting rid of the club.

We as a society love to prize the man or woman who can do it all. We force thousands of college students out the doors of our universities each year with a diploma and an unwritten mandate to work 80 hours a week to ‘make a splash.’ We drill it into them that success is exceedingly important, ensuring they do whatever it takes to add a few extra cents to our price per share.

Of course, if they’re good we do reward them. But being good all too often means neglecting other aspects of their lives. They marry without understanding the commitment that covenant involves. They have kids thinking that they can realistically maintain their responsibilities both at work and at home. Over time, they’re left in a mode of being consistently stretched to their limit. When they’re working they’re beating themselves up for not being at Jason’s soccer game. When they’re making brownies they’re silently stressed about all the work they’re not getting done.

And that’s just the work-home dynamic. All the while, they’re not exercising enough, not reading enough, not volunteering enough, not talking to their friends or extended family enough.

We long for a simpler life, a life with less stress, more fulfillment. We wish we weren’t tired all the time. We wish we didn’t feel like we were constantly neglecting some important aspect of our lives. But we haven’t the faintest idea how to actually accomplish this.

We tell ourselves that we’re just casualties of our society. The world of today places these demands on us, just as it does to everyone else. There’s nothing we can do – except do our best to cope.

But what if there was a simpler life to be grasped – what if there was a way to find a more serene, peaceful, balanaced way of life?

What if you could say ‘no’ to people? What if you could decide beforehand how many commitments and of what variety you would undertake, resolving not to take on anything further? What if you could make a commitment to work on at most five projects or take on five clients, and be able to confidently turn down anything more, even if they were to be spectacularly profitable for your career or business?

What if you could stop desiring to be ‘well-known?’ What if you were to reject the notion that being more blogged about or technorati’d or whatever represented some measurement of success. What if you didn’t care about your online identity nearly as much as you do?

What if you resolved to use plain speech? What if you stopped trying to manipulate people with your words, stopped trying to get people to understand you or see your way? What if you stopped flattering people when you didn’t really mean it, racking up a series of small favors in hope of being repaid someday? What if you could only use 1000 words a day, and had to give up the ability to explain yourself? What would your words be? What if you could do this without worry? What if everything that came out of your mouth was full of honesty, sincerity, grace?

What if you could stop desiring more? What if you made a resolution to identify a standard of living you could be comfortable with, a standard you wouldn’t rise above even if your means expanded considerably? What if you made the decision that as long as your needs were met, the rest of that money could be given away to people or causes that could benefit dramatically from it?

What if, every month, you went around your house and looked for something that you deemed valuable…and gave it to someone you knew who’s life would be blessed by it? What if, instead of cursing aloud to anyone who would listen when that 10 year old stole my iPod in the subway last year, I just gave it to him before he could take it?

What if we approached our financial life as a system of pipes instead of a system of buckets? What if money was an instrument to be freely shared instead of a status symbol to be hoarded?

What if we got rid of our televisions and read more books, visited more museums, took more walks, made more friends? What if we played outside more – when was the last time we actually played?

What if we realized that our kids laugh 20 times more often than we do? What if we tried to be less serious, more joyful?

What if we got closer to the earth? What if we studied the trees and the flowers and the birds and realized that their existence was singular, their purpose clearly defined? What if we realized that maybe our lives are supposed to be similarly ordered?

What if our lives were meant to be focused on one thing, on one Person? What if that person were able to give us everything we needed to have happy, healthy, productive lives? What if that balance we could never seem to find were given to us – if we realized that everything, including ourselves, has a season, a proper time and place? What if we were to submit to those cycles of life, and to determine the proper place for everything by asking this Person who loves us and desires our happiness?

What if simplicity of life weren’t something to dream about but something to be grasped? What if less really was more?

It’s not a problem in that it often works – for whatever reason, many projects I’ve undertaken have been successful for just this reason. But it’s a problem because I’m often closing a door to the mundane as a result.

We as a people don’t really like the mundane, the practical. We shy away from jobs that need to be done, instead looking for the jobs that have great titles and prestige but no lasting impact. We avoid doing the two or three simple things that would ensure a life of physical well-being, opting instead to make bold New Years resolutions and try to lose 30 pounds in a month. We decide to plan elaborate parties for those we love, inviting everyone we know and spending a fortune in the process…but fail to do the simple, tiny things that make the object of our affection know that we love them every day.

We choose big and public over small and hidden. We want to do something remarkable and great – and let everyone see how remarkable and great we are in the process.

You’d think pulling it off would be enough, but it rarely is. Once we’ve tasted success, made our big score, proved to everyone that we’re smart enough or beautiful enough or talented enough to succeed…we have to do it again. We’re trapped intro thinking that the only problems that should be solved are the big ones, the only battles worth fighting are the public ones, the only lives worth leading are the admired ones.

We can’t for the life of us understand why an author or musician stops after one hit record to be a mother. We can’t comprehend why an athlete would retire after winning their first championship to join the ministry. The idea of a Fortune 500 CEO leaving their post to be a teacher? Impossible.

There are enormous problems in the world that need people’s help. But there are also tiny problems in the world that need a great many more folks pitching in. There’s the school down the road that can’t afford an after school program and could desperately use some volunteers. There’s the church looking to help feed some homeless people this weekend. There’s your father or mother or sister or brother or cousin who you got in a fight with six months ago and haven’t talked to since. There’s the boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife who wonders if you still love them.

Since college, I’ve been a great boyfriend and a great worker. I’ve been a lax son, an even worse friend and a miserable brother. I’ve gained 30 pounds, haven’t donated nearly enough of my time or energy or resources, and have turned down countless opportunities to do important, soul-filling work in obscurity. I’ve worked countless hours doing work with concrete, very visible deliverables, ignoring many other things in the process. My agenda has been focused on what’s big and public and remarkable, often at the expense of what’s small and unnoticed and truly worth doing.

Truth is, no one’s life is going to be improved that significantly by my interface design. No one’s life is going to be forever altered for the better because you closed that deal with the big foods conglomerate, or because you wrote that article in the paper about the top 10 places to buy a handbag.

But that $5 bill you gave that guy on the corner? That might have kept him from going hungry tonight. When you got home from work, threw your bags down, ran to your girlfriend and told her how much she meant to you? That was probably the most important thing you did all day. That prayer you said for your coworker as you were falling asleep? That could end up changing their life.

In a world where everyone is clawing to be more important, more visible, the guy who’s really blessed is the guy who’s too busy changing their world to care whether you or I are paying attention.

This afternoon, as I was sitting in a Starbucks, I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything all day. A few minutes after I realized I was pretty hungry, I was pleasantly surprised by a barista, who randomly decided to bring me a cup of coffee and a sandwich. I asked what I did to deserve this gracious and well-timed gift.

She said, ‘nothing.’

I used to think that pride was the most troublesome vice to overcome, but I think there might be a worse one. As I walk through the streets of New York and listen to conversations, as I pass the enormous billboards painted onto buildings, as I look at my bank statements and calculate where my money has gone, as I see how I react to the homeless guy outside the deli, as I purchase the overpriced burger from the overpriced restaurant that I went to because it’s trendy, I’m faced with an enormous truth.

The desire for more is terribly destructive.

We live in a world that prizes accumulation of goods above almost all else. Our status in life is determined much more by the size of our pocketbooks than the content of our characters. We want to associate with people who have money, we long to be in a position where others want to associate with us for the same reason. We look at US Weekly or watch Cribs and not-so-secretly long for the lifestyle that these people possess.

We can’t avoid it. Even those of us who would consider ourselves free from the lusts of pop culture are constantly worrying about how much we have, how much we have coming in, how much we’ll have when we stop working. We worry about where the market is going, how our IRAs are performing, how much equity we’ve built up in our homes. We read books and attend seminars to learn how to improve our net worth, to discover the seven secrets to wealth and happiness. We argue and fight over our finances with our loved ones, and those fights lead (more than any other factor) to the destruction of our closest relationships.

We spend more than we make. We look forward to the weekend so we can hit the sales. We clip coupons. We stockpile. We hoard. We obsess.

We are outraged when the cost of gas goes above $2.50 a gallon, but don’t bat an eye at the fact that half the world lives on less than $2.50 a day. We’re so busy talking about the exclusive club that we managed to get into that we walk right by the guy on the corner holding out their paper cup – the guy who may or may not actually be homeless but whose circumstances are such that they’re forced to degrade themselves by standing on the corner with matted hair and clothes that haven’t been washed in weeks, holding out their paper cup in hopes that we wake up from the absolutely pointless conversation we’re having to toss them a quarter or two.

We enter into bitter court battles to “win” what we “rightfully deserve.” We go to war to “preserve democracy.”

We work an insane number of hours so we can get the promotion that will cause us to work more hours so we can get the next promotion that will cause us to work more hours to buy the expensive suits we need to look as good as the other people on our rung of the corporate ladder and finance the houses we never live in and the cars we never drive and the exotic vacations we never seem to take because we have to work some more.

This is the world I live in, the world you live in, the world our parents and friends and loved ones and co-workers and acquaintances and fellow subway passengers live in. We are the wealthiest people in history, living in the wealthiest country in history, living lives of absolute decadence.

And we’re rotting inside. We’re worried constantly. We’re tired and overworked. We’re envious and covetous. We’re gluttonous and unhealthy. We’re bitter and heartbroken. We’re dying, and we can’t take it with us. Worst of all, we’re so blind we call this worry and jealousy and green and anger and hardness “the American dream.”

I worry all the time about money. I worry whether or not I’ll have enough to pay my credit card bill. I worry whether or not I’ll be able to cover rent. I worry whether or not the market will crash. I worry about what my standard of living will be like when I’m old.

The funny thing is, there has never been a day in my life when I went hungry. There has never been a time when I didn’t have anything to wear, a day when I was forced to sleep outside.

Growing up we didn’t have much, and I always looked at the other kids with their cooler toys and cooler clothes and wished our roles were reversed. But looking back, my childhood was amazing. I had loving parents, a great companion in my younger brother, amazing friends, all the food I could ever hope to eat, a bunch of clothes in my closet I refused to wear after a year, a television in my room with a video game system. My life was pretty amazing.

When my first business failed and I was forced to take a job in Seattle waiting tables, I thought my life was over. I had such little money it was crazy. But looking back, that was a pretty amazing time as well. I lived in a beautiful part of the country, rooming with two friends who absolutely went out of their way for me, knowing I couldn’t carry my fair share, never once condemning me or calling me out on it, exhibiting a kind of generosity and patience I’ve never seen before or since. I met amazing people serving up plates of fish. I gained a newfound appreciation for my skills and my passions. I met a girl on a random evening in a different city under the most unlikely circumstances, and spent the next three months getting to know her over a ridiculous number of long-distance conversations.

Literally every single time I’ve been the slightest bit tight, circumstances (or something else) intervened. It has truly seemed like any time I needed something I was taken care of.

It happened in my childhood. It happened in college. It happened in Washington. It happened today in the coffee shop.

My posture about money and wealth and status must change. I must learn to not care what you think about me. I must learn to stop worrying about where I will live in a year. I must learn to stop fretting over the global economy. I must learn to give that $20 in my wallet to the guy who needs it, and do so joyfully. I must learn to let go.

I must learn to consider the birds of the air, and the lilies of the field.

The majority of clients we work with are fantastic – good natured, easy going, and excited to be collectively striving to acheive a shared goal. But once in a while you get a bad apple.

For some reason, we have a disproportionate share of bad apples in the form of faith-based schools. Again, most have been great to work with. But we’ve had a few recently that seem to absolutely contradict their beliefs via their behavior.

The irony in some of the emails I get is so heavy I feel like my desk is going to break under the weight. The following represents an exaggeration, but by the tiniest of degrees:

Dear Sean,

I woke up this morning hoping it’d be a good day, but I see you’ve decided to destroy such a wish. I’m sure I’ve worked with more idiotic companies in the past, I just can’t seem to think of one off-hand. If you’d consult the copy we submitted to your incapable hands on February 12th, you’ll clearly see that the second paragraph on page two is supposed to say “…our culture is the product of our students and their relationship with Christ. With God as their counsel and guide, they conduct themselves with dignity, patience and grace.” You misspelled the fifth word, idiot. Call me when you’ve fixed this, and when you’ve gotten a clue.

This client has called our salespeople shady, our designers incompetent, our editorial staff lazy and our client services team liars. For a company that is used to having productive client relationships, regular recommendations to other departments in the university, and clients who volunteer to stand up in front of their peers to testify to the effectiveness of our programs, these couple of clients have represented enormous drains on resources and employee morale.

In a way, though, dealing with these couple clients has been an enormous blessing. I used to wonder why so many people criticize Christians when they slip up, or when they exhibit patterns of behavior that seem contrary to their theology. But now I get it.

Engaging with these few bad apples has seriously upset me. I’ve never felt as ashamed to be associated with Christianity as I am when my colleagues read the emails that are blasted their way from these folks in Christian higher ed. It is absolutely appalling that they don’t recognize the sharpness in their words, don’t understand that every single word that comes out of their mouths or is typed into a correspondence has an impact on what people think of their faith. They, of all people, should know that their obligations as representatives of their university pale in comparison to their obligations as witnesses of the faith they claim to profess. I pray their institutions don’t produce graduates of simliar character.

I get it now – Christians are held to a standard, whether we realize it or not. People are often dispositioned against the beliefs already, and any character flaws, vices, or careless words serve as fuel on an already smoldering fire. I don’t claim to be a great (or even average) carrier of the proverbial torch, but when I see an email from one of these clients taking something that my team has put a ton of energy into and just rip it to shreds, it breaks my heart. Not because we have more work to do, but because of the bad taste it leaves in the mouths of everyone they come in contact with.

You claim to walk with God – I fear you took an enormous fork in the road somewhere. Open up that Bible you claim to love to much and read try reading it again – you skipped a few testaments.

But if I had to say there was one rule that has served me particularly well, it’s this:

Always think twice before saying something that might hurt their feelings. Never think twice before saying something that will make them feel good.

If there’s someone at work or in your church or your circle of friends that you’re interested in, someone you think is really fantastic, but you have no idea what they think of you…tell them anyway.

If you’re in a new relationship with someone and you’re absolutely smitten, but you’re worried that you shouldn’t tell them how you feel because it might scare them, might make them think less of you somehow, might be something they’re not totally ready for….tell them anyway.

If you’re in a bar or a coffee shop and you see a guy or girl on the other side who you think looks particularly attractive, but you’re worried that they won’t like you or think you’re smart or attractive or funny or “cool” enough for them….tell them anyway.

If you’ve been in a relationship for a long time and that spark seems to be gone – if your days are largely filled with the residue of arguments and cold statements and careless remarks – think back to a time when it wasn’t like that, when you looked at that person and they were everything you could have possibly wanted in another…think about that and then go tell them how special they are to you.

If you’re in the middle of an amazing relationship where all you can do is think about the other person, where every new thought that enters your brain seems to revolve around them…tell them, every time.

Now, here’s the tough part. As you’re doing these things, don’t worry about it being recipricated. Teach yourself to not care.

We live in a world that has programmed us to believe that our self-worth rests in other people. We’re taught that finding the right man or woman is all we’ll need, and that once we find that person our lives are going to be perfect.

Of course, it rarely ends up that way. The spark that once existed dies. The cute nicknames are replaced by rolled eyes and sharp comments. Something happens – the person lets us down.

The person doesn’t seem to care enough about us. Doesn’t tell us how special they think we are nearly enough. It seems as though we’re always doing more in the relationship – the scorecard is tilted decidedly in our favor.

So we withdraw. Some of us stay in the relationship and choose to ignore it. Some of us actually get used to fighting – almost get a high from it. Others choose to find solace in someone else’s arms. Still others just call it off, and resolve to be much more careful about who they let in next time.

The thing is, it’s probably neither person’s fault. They’ve been programmed a certain way, by a society that tells them a lie, by a soul that tells itself a lie.

That lie is that someone else can complete you. They can’t.

Guess what? You can’t complete them either.

So where does that leave you? It depends on how you look at it. You can despair and feel sorry for yourself. You can decide that all of this is meaningless, that you’ll never be happy. You can decide to stop looking for love and instead look for opportunities to take advantage of others who are.

Or…you can realize that there is someone else that does complete you. You can spend your life learning how to be loved by someone whose devotion to you never wavers. Learn what love truly is, and discover that the love you’ve been looking for all these years is simply meant to be a reflection, a reminder, and outgrowth of that love you already possess.

Sounds mushy, but it’s also powerful. Powerful because it frees you from looking for that love in someone else. Powerful because it frees you to love others without keeping score. Allows you to love others the way they were meant to be loved by you.

You’ll find people that you find attractive and want to get to know better. You’ll approach them with confidence and be honest, making jokes and being sincerely interested in them. You’ll probably let them know that you’re interested in getting to know them better, and you won’t be afraid. If they aren’t interested, you’ll be okay with that – either way, you’ve let them know that someone out there thinks they’re special and worthwhile and interesting and beautiful.

Maybe you’ll go on a few dates together. You’ll probably tell them how smart you think they are, that you think they’re job is interesting, that you really like their shoes. It might make them uncomfortable. Maybe they’ll withdraw for a bit. Maybe they’ll ask for some space. Maybe they’ll call you a freak and never talk to you again. You won’t care – they’ll know that someone out there thinks they’re special and worthwhile and interesting and beautiful.

And then, one day, you’ll find someone that doesn’t find your honesty strange. You’ll find someone who thinks you’re witty and entertaining and attractive and fun to be around. And the best part is that they’ll be honest enough with themselves to realize that your behavior – the fact that you find them utterly fascinating – isn’t creepy at all, but rather is the thing they’ve wanted for their entire lives, the thing they cried themselves to sleep about after losing…or after never finding anything remotely close to it before. And they’ll love you back with the same reckless abandon that you loved them.

And it will be great and your life will be infinitely better as a result. And in that moment, you’ll experience the closest reproduction of what God wants with us that exists in this world.

Call someone, meet someone, spend time with someone you care about. And tell them. And mean it.

Happy Valentine’s Day.