The Cheer

There is a word in the Hebrew Bible that appears more than 150 times, and we have never found an adequate way to translate it into English. The word is chesedh.

We try. We use mercy, lovingkindness, steadfast love, and compassion. And every translation captures something true. But none of them capture everything. Because chesedh isn't just a feeling, an attitude, or even a virtue, it's the word the writers of Scripture used over and over again to describe the defining characteristic of God — the way God moves toward people, especially people who have no reason to expect it.

And there is a related word, rahamim, which means something even more visceral. It comes from the Hebrew word for womb. It's the kind of love a mother has for the child she carried — not distant, or theoretical, but rather physical and active. It is a love that cannot stay still when the one it loves is suffering. That's what Jesus was talking about when He said, "Blessed are the merciful."

It’s not pity, and it’s more than just feeling sorry for someone from a safe distance. And it surely isn't just some kind thought sent in the general direction of someone's pain.

Chesedh. Rahamim. It is a love that gets up and moves.

Now imagine you are sitting on that hillside, the day Jesus said those words. You are not there because life is going well. You are there because you are out of other options, and something about this carpenter from Nazareth made you think — maybe. Just maybe He is the One.

You are a fisherman with calloused hands who has been told your whole life that God is for the educated and the clean. You are a woman who has been publicly shamed and hasn't forgotten the faces of the people who did it. You are a tax collector who knows exactly what your neighbors think of you. You are a mother whose child is sick and who has been told, quietly and not so quietly, that this is what you deserve.

You have heard religious teachers your whole life. You know how this usually goes. They tell you what God requires. But more than that, they like to remind you that you fall short. And they remind you again and again and again.

So when Jesus says, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy," what runs through your heart? Probably not faith; at least not yet. Probably something closer to — so what? Nobody has ever shown me that. Why would I believe it now?

And yet you stay. Something keeps you on that hillside. Maybe it's hunger. The rahamim kind — deep, desperate, from somewhere in your core. The longing for someone to finally mean it.

In November 2008, a high school football team from Gainesville, Texas, took the field for what should have been just another road game.

Gainesville State had fourteen players, wore seven-year-old pads and hand-me-down helmets. And they were winless with a 0-8 record.

When Gainesville State arrived at games, they were escorted by security guards who removed their handcuffs before kickoff. You see, Gainesville State is a juvenile correctional facility. Their players are there by court order — drugs, assaults, robberies. Many of their families have disowned them. They play every game on the road, so there are no home crowds and no one is cheering their names.

Their opponent that night was Faith Christian School — seventy players, eleven coaches, the latest equipment, and hundreds of involved parents.

Before the game, Faith's head coach, Kris Hogan, sent an email to his fans. He asked them to do something unusual. Half of them, he said, would sit on the visiting side. They would learn the names of the Gainesville players. And they would cheer for them.

When the Gainesville Tornados took the field, they ran through a banner that read Go Tornados. Two hundred strangers cheered their names. Faith's own cheerleaders led cheers for the opposing team. One Gainesville player said, “We can tell people are a little afraid of us when we come to games. But these people, they were yellin' for us. By our names.”

Faith won 33 to 14. It didn't matter.

Because at the end of the game, when the teams gathered to pray, a Gainesville player named Isaiah asked to lead. And this is what he prayed: “Lord, I don't know how this happened, so I don't know how to say thank You, but I never would've known there were so many people in the world that cared about us.”

That is chesedh.

You see, it’s not just feeling sorry for kids in a hard situation. It’s not writing a check from a comfortable distance. But it is about a large group of people who chose to get into the skin of fourteen young men who had never been cheered for and cheered for them anyway.

And it changed Isaiah. You can hear it in his prayer. Something broke open in him that night that had never been open before. That is what mercy does when it is real. Isaiah didn't just feel better that night. For maybe the first time in his life, he felt what grace actually feels like, with skin on it. And you don't walk away from that as the same person.

They will receive mercy.

That crowd on the hillside didn't know what to do with that promise yet. But maybe — just maybe — some of them had felt something like what that young man Isaiah felt. The shock of being cheered for by people who had no reason to cheer. The disorientation of being treated like you matter by people who didn't have to.

And maybe that's what finally made them believe it was possible.

Chesedh doesn't always look like 200 fans on the bleachers. Sometimes it looks like a cup of cold water handed to a stranger who is thirsty. Doesn't seem like much and is often barely worth mentioning. But to the one drinking it — standing there parched, overlooked, and not expecting anything from anyone — that cup is the whole character of God made visible in one ordinary moment.

That's the Unlikely Altar for this one. It isn’t some grand gesture or a stadium full of people. It is the moment when someone who has never been shown mercy receives it — and something in them shifts permanently.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

Not because mercy is a transaction. Not because you give it and get it back like change. But because when you live chesedh — when you get into someone's skin and choose to move toward them instead of away — you find yourself swimming in the same love that has been moving toward you your whole life.

Even when you didn't know it. Even when you were the one on the visiting side, wondering if anyone would ever cheer your name.

May we know, may we remember, may we never forget — there is a love that will not stay at a distance. It has a Hebrew name we cannot fully translate. It comes from the womb. It moves toward the ones everyone else has written off. And somewhere today, in the most ordinary and unexpected moment, it is looking for a way to show up through you.

Blessed are the merciful.

Go cheer somebody's name.

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The Villain We Don't See

By It Doesn’t Need a Mask • August 21, 2026

I went to see the new Spider-Man movie, got myself tangled up in thoughts about webs, connection, and our rather inconvenient need for other people, and decided I had found the Unlikely Altar . I even wrote about it in my last blog, Trust the Web . I figured I was done with Spider-Man . But I guess Spider-Man wasn't done with me. One day as I was driving home from a funeral home, I heard something that made me think about the movie all over again. I was listening to a podcast, The Big Picture, and one of the hosts, Amanda , said something almost in passing. She said the real villain of the Spider-Man movie was loneliness . The other hosts didn't really acknowledge it and the conversation moved on. But I couldn't shake it. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if she had seen something hiding in plain sight; something that I might have missed. The trailer tells us that Spider-Man is up against " a powerful villain no one can even see. " Maybe that's not just a clue about the movie's mystery. Maybe it's the movie's deepest truth. Because loneliness was everywhere in the story. It was there every time Peter Parker walked past someone who used to know him and didn't get so much as a second glance. It was there when he sat alone in an apartment that used to be full of people. It was there in the quiet, unglamorous fact that the world had simply moved on without him. Nobody made a big deal about it. Because that's not how loneliness usually works. It doesn't announce itself, instead it just keeps piling on. It is that way in this movie and it is that way in real life. The strange thing about loneliness is that there isn't just one way it finds us. Sometimes it finds us when someone dies. Sometimes a marriage ends, or a friendship that once seemed permanent quietly disappears. And sometimes nothing dramatic happens at all. We're just lonely. I mentioned this idea for the blog to a good friend of mine, and his response stopped me. His mother recently lost her husband and now lives with him and his family. She isn't alone. There are people in the house who love her. There are meals and conversations and all the ordinary movement of family life around her. But her world has been getting smaller. Her husband is gone. She can no longer drive. Friends who once called or texted don't seem to anymore. "Mom is experiencing that now," he told me. "Even with us around." And then he said something I haven't been able to forget. "I see it every day." Maybe that's what we misunderstand about loneliness. We sometimes treat it like a math problem. Put enough people in the room and loneliness should disappear. But it doesn't work that way. Sometimes you can be deeply loved and still deeply lonely. What you miss isn't " people " - - you miss a particular person, a particular life. The one who knew how you took your coffee. The familiar voice from the other room. The freedom to get in the car and go somewhere, the job where people knew your name, the routines you never realized were holding your world together until they were gone. Maybe loneliness isn't always an empty room. Sometimes it's the empty spaces left inside a life that is still very much full of people. I've seen that kind of loneliness in my work. I've seen it at funerals where a widow or widower is surrounded by a room full of people who genuinely love them, while knowing that eventually everyone will go home. And so will they. Except they will go home without the one person they desperately wish were going with them. I know something about that kind of loneliness too. Chances are, you have too. Sometimes it lasts an evening and then there are times when it lasts much longer. Sometimes we know exactly why it's there, and sometimes we couldn't explain it if we tried. We can be lonely in an empty house. We can also be lonely at a crowded table. Maybe that's why loneliness makes such a good villain. It doesn't need a mask . It hides in the quiet apartment, the empty side of the bed, the phone call you don't make anymore. Nobody claps when it's defeated because most of the time nobody else even knew it was there. And I don't think Spider-Man ever really beats it. Not for good. But then I'm not sure any of us do. Maybe that's because loneliness isn't always something to be defeated. Sometimes there is no fixing the empty side of the bed. No replacing the person who knew how you took your coffee. No giving someone back the life they had before the world changed. Maybe, for now, the point is simply to notice. Not because noticing leads somewhere, not because it's the first step toward fixing anything. It doesn't solve the math. Counting heads in a room never made anyone less lonely, and neither will counting the people who noticed. Noticing isn't a means to an end here — it's the whole point. That's the Unlikely Altar this time. Not the web itself, but the moment somebody stops and sees the person standing in it, caught, and says so out loud. Amanda, catching it in a sentence almost nobody else heard. My friend, seeing it in his mother every day, in a house full of people who love her. Somebody, once, seeing it in me. Maybe that's how we keep weaving the web. Not by making loneliness disappear. By making sure the lonely don't disappear with it.

Trust the Web

By Not All Altars are Made of Stone • August 7, 2026

I have reached the age where I watch superhero movies differently than I used to. Don't get me wrong. I still enjoy the explosions, the impossible stunts, and the inevitable scene where New York is somehow once again hanging by a thread. But somewhere along the way I've become the guy who walks out of the theater thinking less about the villain and more about what the story says about being human. That happened again after watching the new Spider-Man movie, Brand New Day. As I thought about the movie, I found myself wondering what Spider-Man's greatest invention really is. At first, I thought it was the suit. It is definitely iconic, but I remembered his best suit wasn't even his own invention. That one? It was designed, built and provided by Tony Stark. So maybe it's his strength, except there are plenty of superheroes who are stronger. Or perhaps it's the ability to swing effortlessly between skyscrapers. As amazing as all of that is, I don't think it's his greatest gift. No, for me, the best, greatest, and yes, maybe even the holiest thing Spider-Man does has always been about the web. A single strand of a spider's web is almost nothing. You can brush it away with the back of your hand and never think twice about it. But strand after strand, woven together with patience and intention, becomes something remarkably strong. Maybe the web was never just a clever way for Spider-Man to get around the city. Maybe it was always pointing toward something truer about the way life actually works. Isn't it interesting? Spider-Man doesn't fly. Superman flies. Iron Man flies. Captain Marvel flies. Spider-Man can't. Every single movement forward depends on attaching himself to something outside himself. The more I thought about that, the more I wondered if the web isn't really a superpower at all. Maybe it's simply a picture of what it means to be human. For a long time, Spider-Man tries to carry everything by himself. He keeps people at a distance, convinced that if he just works a little harder, sacrifices a little more, holds on a little tighter, he can protect everyone he loves. It's a noble instinct. It's also an exhausting one. Eventually he learns what most of us spend a lifetime learning. There are some battles you simply cannot fight alone. Most of us have been taught that the strong life is the independent life. We admire the person who never asks for help, never leans on anyone else, never lets the world see them struggle. We confuse self-sufficiency with maturity. But that's not how Spider-Man survives. Even with all his strength, every swing depends on being connected to something beyond himself. Notice what the web is actually for. Yes, it blocks a punch. It disarms a villain. It restrains someone twice his size. But its quietest work is something else entirely. It keeps him connected to something solid when he has nothing else to stand on. And just as often, it's the thing that catches someone else before they hit the ground. Once I saw it, I couldn't stop seeing it. I've seen the web in hospital waiting rooms. I've seen it around kitchen tables after someone dies. I've seen it in churches, neighborhoods, baseball dugouts, recovery groups, and around backyard grills. And I've certainly seen it in the hundreds of funerals I've had the privilege to lead. I've never watched a family survive the hardest day of their lives because one person was exceptionally strong. They survived because someone brought dinner. Someone answered the phone. Someone took the kids for the afternoon. Someone sat in silence. Someone refused to let them grieve alone. That's what held them. We spend years weaving these webs without thinking very much about them. Then one day life asks them to hold our whole weight. That's when I realized something. Not all altars are made of stone. Some are woven. Maybe that's the Unlikely Altar. It's not the skyscrapers or the mask. It's not even the superhero. The Unlikely Altar is the web — the ordinary, almost invisible network of relationships that catches us when we fall, steadies us when we lose our footing, and quietly reminds us that none of us was ever meant to swing through life alone. Maybe that's the whole sermon, if you can call it that: Trust the web. And whenever you can, become part of someone else's.

Rowing Toward Home

By What a Nearly Empty Theater Taught Me • July 23, 2026

The only ticket I could get to watch The Odyssey was for an 8:00 showing on a Sunday morning. I walked into a theater that seats at least a couple of hundred people, and for a time I had the place to myself. Eventually, I counted about 8 of us in that theater. I guess most of the city was either sleeping or getting dressed for church. As the credits rolled, I had a revelation that made me chuckle. I thought I was skipping church, but what I discovered was something different. I didn’t skip church at all; I was simply sitting in a different sanctuary. You see, the movie's message was similar to the one I had preached for some 30 years as a United Methodist pastor. Somewhere between the gods and monsters, the storms and shipwrecks, and one weary man rowing across a dark sea, something clicked. The Odyssey isn't really a story about a war. It isn't even a story about a voyage. It's a story about a man who wants to go home. Amazing! A story that has survived for nearly three thousand years is built around one of the simplest longings we know. Odysseus has already tasted glory, and it cost him almost everything. He doesn't want another victory. He wants his house, his wife, his son and his dog. He wants to lay his head on the pillow in his own bed. More than anything else, he wants to stop being away. He simply wants to go home. As I sat there, another thought surfaced. Christopher Nolan seems to tell this same story over and over again. In Interstellar , Cooper crosses galaxies trying to find his way back to his children. In Inception , Cobb cannot go home until he faces the guilt he's spent years outrunning. Bruce Wayne eventually discovers that saving Gotham isn't enough if he never learns how to live as Bruce Wayne. Even Oppenheimer becomes the story of a man who creates something so world-changing that he can never truly return to the person he once was. Different men and different genres of movies, but all with the same ache and yearning. Which made me wonder if this homesickness isn't really about geography at all. Maybe it's the oldest ache we carry. Maybe underneath our ambition, our fear, our success, our failures, and even our regrets lives one quiet prayer. I want to go home. However we define it. Whatever it costs to get there. This longing, this ache doesn't just show up in movie theaters. It shows up everywhere people tell stories, including some of the oldest ones we have. There's a scene early in the Exodus story where a fugitive named Moses, a man who has been running for decades, hides out as a shepherd in the middle of nowhere. One day, he comes across a bush that's burning without burning up. A voice tells him to take off his sandals. Most sermons I've heard focus on the holiness of the ground, and I think that's certainly part of the story. But I also wonder if something else is happening too. Think about what we do when we finally get home. We take off our shoes. We stop looking over our shoulder. We rest. We breathe. Maybe, after years of running, Moses wasn't just standing on holy ground. Maybe he was finally home. That raises a question that's been following me ever since I left the theater. What is home? For some of us, home is another person. Maybe it's a relationship that needs tending, or a conversation that has waited too long. Maybe it's reconciliation. Or maybe it's making peace with the fact that reconciliation will never happen this side of heaven. For others, home is something deeper than any single relationship. It's the quiet conviction that our lives were made for something, or perhaps Someone, greater than ourselves. As a celebrant, I've sat with hundreds of families after someone they loved has died. It's remarkable what they remember. They don't tell stories about promotions or investment accounts. They remember kitchen tables. Fishing trips. The old recliner nobody else was allowed to sit in. Saturday mornings making pancakes. The sound of someone's laugh coming from another room. In other words, they remember home. Not because of the house. Because of the belonging. Maybe that's the ache hiding underneath all our other aches. We chase it in careers, hoping the next promotion will finally quiet the restlessness. We chase it in relationships, believing the right person can answer every question we carry. We chase it in bigger houses, as though more square footage could somehow create belonging. And every once in a while, if we're honest, we chase it in stories. We sit in dark rooms and watch a man row across a sea for ten years, or a father claw his way through time toward a little girl's bedroom, or a fugitive stumble onto a bush that won't stop burning — and something in us leans forward, because some part of us recognizes the ache. We've felt it too. I didn't go looking for any of this. I just wanted to see a movie by my favorite director. But that's usually how it goes, isn't it? The sacred rarely makes an appointment. It doesn't wait for a sanctuary with stained glass and a bulletin. Sometimes it just shows up in a mostly empty theater at 8:00 on a Sunday morning, hiding inside a three-thousand-year-old poem about a man rowing toward home. An Unlikely Altar, if there ever was one.

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