Some lessons apparently need to be repeated over and over again because people either refuse to learn them or keep pretending they didn’t hear them the first time. You know the saying that doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result is the definition of insanity? I’m starting to believe that might actually be the unofficial motto of my job at Circle K.
At the gas station on 4th St SE, we currently only have 87 and 91 gas available. One of the underground tanks is broken. Fixing it would require digging up a huge section of the station, which means it’s not a quick and easy fix. So for the time being, that particular button on the pump simply does not work.
There are signs everywhere explaining this.
Stickers on the pump.
Labels on the button.
Big bold words that say OUT OF ORDER.
And yet people still press it.
Every single day.
Then they come inside and tell us the pump is broken. "Yes, sir/ma'am that has been broken for six months." For a long time, I would politely explain the situation. “That button doesn’t work right now. Just hit the other one.” Most people would nod and go back outside. Some people would insist the machine must be malfunctioning. Occasionally, someone would suggest we should “get that fixed,” as if we had not already noticed the giant underground fuel tank problem.
Recently, I decided to try something different. Now I simply say, “You hit the wrong button. I reset it. Go back out and hit the correct one. The one I told you to hit the first time.” Then they slowly walk away, looking like a child who just got caught doing something they absolutely knew they weren’t supposed to do.
And honestly, a large part of my job is trying to understand how some grown adults have survived this long.
But the more I think about it, the more I realize this isn’t just a gas station problem.
This is a human problem.
The instructions are clear.
The signs are visible.
The outcome is predictable.
And we still push the wrong button.
Then when nothing works, we look for someone else to blame.
The traditional scripture reading at the beginning of Lent comes from Matthew 4:1–11, the story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. After forty days of fasting and isolation, when He is physically exhausted and vulnerable, the devil dude shows up with what honestly sounds like a pretty reasonable offer.
He tells Jesus to turn stones into bread and prove His power.
Then He challenges Him to throw Himself from the temple so God will rescue Him in dramatic fashion.
Finally, He offers Him political power over the entire world.
Each temptation is essentially the same offer wrapped in different packaging: take the shortcut. Prove yourself. Take control. Accept power without sacrifice. In other words, press the easy button.
And if we’re being honest, most people would probably take that deal.
You’re wandering around in the wilderness, hungry and exhausted, trying to prove your faith and resilience, and some devil-looking guy shows up and says, “Hey Jesus, bro, if you just do these things your life will be a lot easier.”
Most people would say, “Oh hell yes. Where do I sign up?”
Because who doesn’t want an easier life?
Wandering around in the wilderness trying to prove something about faith and purpose sounds… exhausting. At some point you’d start asking yourself, Wait, why am I doing this again?
But Jesus refuses every single time.
Not because the temptation isn’t real. Hunger is real. Doubt is real. The desire for security and power is very real. But He recognizes something deeper about the offer being made to Him. Each temptation requires Him to compromise the very thing He came to do. The easy path would lead to the wrong outcome. So He doesn’t press the button. And when I really think about that story, I can’t help but see pieces of my own life in it.
Sometimes it feels like all I’ve ever done is wander around in the wilderness, fighting for justice, equity, acceptance, and basic human dignity.
And the whole time people keep asking me the same question.
“Why are you doing this, Vangie? You’re making your life harder than it needs to be. You could do something easier. Make more money. Stop worrying so much about other people.”
In other words, they’re telling me to press the easy button.
But something deep inside me has never allowed that.
Because that’s not who I am.
And it’s not what I’m here to do.
The hard truth is that sometimes the road has been uphill both ways. But the reason people choose the harder path isn’t because they enjoy suffering. It’s because they believe that if they keep pushing forward, the road might become a little smoother for the people who come after them.
So young LGBTQ+ people don’t have to hide who they are.
So they don’t grow up feeling ashamed, unseen, or alone the way many of us did.
In a lot of cultures, especially BIPOC cultures, there’s an understanding that when someone makes it through struggle, they reach back and help the next generation climb out, too.
My ancestors did that. They struggled so their children could have something better.
And when I think about Jesus in the wilderness, refusing the easy path that would have made His life simpler, it feels like the same principle. He wanted his people to have an easier life.
Sometimes the reason someone chooses the harder road is because they believe it might lead to freedom for someone else.
And if you ask the question:
If not me, then who?
If not now, then when?
Well… that sounds a lot like the wilderness too.
Lenten Reflection
Matthew 4:1–11 | Resisting Oppression in the Wilderness
The traditional Lenten reading from Matthew 4:1–11 tells the story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. After forty days of fasting, isolation, and vulnerability, the devil appears and begins testing Him.
But these temptations aren’t just about hunger or power. They’re about manipulation.
Each one tries to push Jesus to prove something about Himself, to compromise His mission, or to trade truth for power.
The first temptation is the demand to prove His worth.
“If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
That line should sound familiar to a lot of marginalized people. Trans and queer people are constantly asked to justify their existence, to prove that they are “respectable enough,” “palatable enough,” or “good enough” to deserve basic dignity. Jesus refuses that game. He does not perform His identity for the approval of others.
The second temptation is about conditional acceptance.
“Throw yourself down,” the devil says, suggesting that God will rescue Him if He proves His faith dramatically enough.
This is the same logic many LGBTQ+ people hear from religious institutions: we will accept you, but only if you suppress who you are. Only if you conform to our expectations. Jesus rejects that idea entirely. Faith is not about proving yourself to systems that demand your erasure.
The final temptation is about power.
“All this I will give you,” the devil says, “if you bow down and worship me.”
This is the oldest temptation there is: trade truth for comfort. Accept power if it means compromising your values. Politicians and religious leaders still use this tactic today, dividing marginalized communities and offering security to some if they abandon others.
But Jesus refuses again.
Justice that requires someone else’s oppression is not justice.
Liberation that leaves others behind is not liberation.
The wilderness story reminds us that resisting these temptations is part of the spiritual journey.
For LGBTQ+ people, that resistance can look like refusing to justify our humanity, standing firm in our identities, and continuing to advocate for those who are still being pushed to the margins.
For allies, it means refusing apathy. Speaking up when harmful theology is used as a weapon. Making sure our communities are places where dignity and belonging are real, not conditional.
Lent is not just about giving something up for forty days. It is about transformation.
It is about choosing truth when compromise would be easier.
It is about rejecting the systems that demand our silence.
The story of the wilderness is not just an ancient text. It is a reminder that every generation must decide whether it will take the easy path or stand firm in the pursuit of justice.
Jesus came out of the wilderness stronger.
So will we.
This Lent, let us choose resistance, renewal, and justice.
As above. So below. Amen.
Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. 💛
Today was the first day I got to golf outside again at Willow Creek with my friend Tamsen, and it was glorious.
When you live somewhere like Minnesota, you forget that the places that bring you peace are real places. For six months, they might as well not exist. You hibernate indoors all winter and then suddenly one day you're back outside, walking fairways again, wondering why on earth you live somewhere you can only golf half the year.
It felt good to be outside. Even if the grass is still mostly dead and brown. And the fairways were wet and muddy. And the greens made putting challenging. More than usual.
Nine holes. Fresh air. Talking about golf and life with someone I’ve been playing with for years.
It reminded me how much I love my golf league women.
The camaraderie.
The encouragement.
The way we celebrate each other when someone hits a good shot.
Sometimes that celebration also includes adult beverages like White Claws. Which honestly feels very on brand for women’s golf.
And it made me think about something.
International Women’s Day is supposed to be about celebrating women.
All women.
Even the ones you don’t particularly like.
Because if we’re being honest, women can sometimes be… complicated with each other.
Competition.
Jealousy.
Envy.
Those things creep into female friendships when people feel like they’re competing for the same space, the same opportunities, or the same person’s attention.
Growing up, I never really understood women competing for the male gaze. Mostly because I never thought I qualified for it.
I didn’t look like the girls on magazine covers when I was growing up. So the message I internalized early on was that I probably wasn’t pretty enough to be wanted by men. Then I came out and realized I didn’t want to be wanted by men.
Which, ironically, turned out to be a strange kind of Freedom. Because if you grow up believing you don’t need that validation, eventually you stop chasing it.
And once you stop chasing it, you also stop competing with other women for it. This reminded me of something from when I first came out.
When I came out in high school, most of my friends were gay men. I had a whole feral pack of them. Wonderful humans. Great for emotional support. Slightly less helpful if you're a baby lesbian trying to meet women.
Most of my straight women friends were busy talking about their boyfriends. Which again, great for them, but not exactly advancing my sapphic agenda.
So like everything else in my life, I approached the problem like an assignment.
“Okay Vangie. If you want more lesbian friends… you should probably go where the lesbians are.”
At the time I had exactly one lesbian friend, and she had already graduated and joined the Army. So I was basically on my own.
For a while I spent more time in gay men's bars getting hit on by men who thought I was a hot young gay guy than actually meeting women to date.
Eventually I figured out the obvious solution and joined a women's softball league sponsored by the microbrewery where I worked.
That league was full of older lesbians. Most of them were in their thirties, which when you're twenty-three feels ancient.
Turns out older lesbians are excellent teachers. Not in that way. I was in a relationship by then.
Back then the culture was very butch/femme. That was the framework we had in the 90s. We were all figuring out how to build a community that didn’t have many visible examples yet. At the time I was considered a soft sporty butch. Think chivalry, but with better communication skills.
The dynamic was simple. Butches were friends with other butches. We dated femmes. Of course there were exceptions, but the structure was pretty recognizable.
In a weird way it functioned like the dude-bro friendships we saw growing up… except we were women, so we actually talked about our feelings. Which meant those friendships were often deeper than people expected. Looking back now, I learned a lot from those women.
How to show up for people.
How to be supportive.
How to treat the women you date with care and respect.
Honestly, if men want to know how to date women, they should stop listening to those ridiculous red-pill podcast bros and spend a few hours talking to older masc lesbians. Masculinity does not have to be toxic.
We’ve been doing the princess treatment as the bare minimum for decades. Trust me. We have the data. We're adult women who date other adult women. It’s not rocket science.
Which brings me to someone I dated about twenty years ago.
Looking back now, that relationship might have been the closest thing to an idyllic partnership I’ve ever experienced, or would ever want.
If I imagine the version of love that would probably fit me best in life, it would look a lot like what I had with her.
She was a beautiful person inside and out. Funny, kind, and wonderful. She loved me when I was broken and had nothing.
And I didn’t think I deserved it. Or deserved her.
And honestly… I was kind of a jackass.
But timing matters.
And the version of me who met her wasn’t the version of me that exists today.
At that time I was still climbing out of a very toxic relationship. The one with the woman who broke up with me every month. Her ghost haunted me for a long time. I was hurt, confused, and honestly not very emotionally healthy or vulnerable. I guess in today’s language you’d call me... avoidant.
She wanted to be girlfriends. And I remember telling her I needed to think about it. When I finally came back and said yes, she said no. Her exact words were basically, “If you had to think about it, then you probably aren’t ready to be committed to me. Or anyone, Vangie. I can't keep falling in love with your potential.”
She was right.
And I get it. If it's not a clear hell yes, then you don't want it.
Twenty-eight-year-old Vangie was not ready.
Sometimes the right people show up in our lives, but you are the wrong person for them.
And sometimes the lesson isn’t about getting the person back.
Sometimes the lesson is simply recognizing the gift they were when they appeared.
And I cherish that I had the opportunity to love her. That someone like her exists. Because it reminds me that love like that is possible.
And maybe one day the right person for me will show up, and I will be the right person for her. And the time will be right for the both of us.
Lent is a season where we’re supposed to take honest inventory of our lives.
Not with shame.
Just honesty.
And if I’m being honest, I’ve been very lucky to have known some extraordinary women in my life.
Friends.
Partners.
Golf league teammates.
Mentors.
Women who supported me.
Women who challenged me.
Women who showed me what love and friendship could look like in different seasons of life.
So today, on International Women’s Day, I’m choosing to celebrate all of them.
The ones who stayed.
The ones who left.
And even the ones who taught me the uncomfortable and hard truths.
Because every one of them helped shape the person I eventually became.
And honestly, that’s worth celebrating.
Lenten Reflection
"My beloved spoke and said to me, 'Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone.'" ― Song of Solomon 2:10–11
The Song of Solomon reminds us that love is one of the great gifts of being human.
Not just romantic love, but the kind of love that shows up through friendships, mentors, partners, and the communities that shape us.
Sometimes those people arrive in our lives when we are ready.
Sometimes they arrive when we are still broken, confused, or learning who we are.
And sometimes the season simply isn’t right yet.
But that doesn’t make the love any less real.
Lent asks us to take honest inventory of our lives. Not just the mistakes we made, but the grace we were given through the people who walked beside us for a time.
The Song of Solomon says, “See, the winter is past.”
Sometimes the gift of love is simply remembering that winter never lasts forever.
Take care of yourself.
Take care of each other.
I learned about girl math today.
I find it both mind-boggling, ridiculous, and honestly kind of brilliant. The logic behind it is actually pretty structured. It makes sense… inside girl world.
For the sake of this reflection we’re going to drop the political correctness and the disclaimers about sweeping generalizations. I know all of that. I spent over a decade teaching people about things like the pyramid of hate and how stereotypes work. This is a Lenten post, not a DEI TED Talk.
Think of this as suspension of disbelief.
Jesus liked teaching through parables. This is one.
Girl math basically works like this: if you return something, use store credit, or shift money from one place to another, then technically the new thing you bought is free. And cash is not real, so whatever you buy with it is technically free. 🤷♂️
It’s borrowing from Paul to pay Peter.
Everyone involved knows the math isn’t real. But it feels real enough to justify the decision.
And that got me thinking about something much bigger.
Humans do this kind of math with their lives all the time.
We tell ourselves stories that are just close enough to the truth to make us comfortable.
Racism can’t really be happening because I’m not a racist.
Systemic oppression must not exist because it hasn’t personally affected me.
The people in charge can’t really be incompetent because we elected them.
If things are working for me, then the system must be working.
That’s not truth.
That’s moral girl math.
It reminded me of a quote from John Steinbeck in East of Eden:
“Cathy's lies were never innocent. Their purpose was to escape punishment, or work, or responsibility… She stayed close enough to the truth so that one could never be sure.”
Cathy didn’t tell obvious lies. She stayed close enough to the truth that people couldn’t quite prove she was lying.
That’s the most effective kind of lie there is.
Not completely false.
Just comfortable enough to the truth to believe.
Steinbeck’s novel is built around the story of Cain and Abel. The idea that people are not born purely good or purely evil. They are constantly choosing. And jealousy has been twisting that choice since the beginning.
I heard a TikTok creator say something recently that stuck with me.
She said, “Run as fast as you can from people who are jealous or envious of you, because they will unalive you.” She didn’t necessarily mean that literally. She did and she didn’t. What she meant was that people who envy you will eventually try to knock you down. Because your existence forces them to confront something uncomfortable about themselves. And people really hate that.
Jealousy and envy is the oldest human problems there are.
It’s the entire story of Cain and Abel. One brother looks at the other and instead of asking how he can grow or change, he decides the easier solution is to destroy what he envies.
Envy twists the truth.
It tells us stories about why someone else’s success must be illegitimate, or why their happiness must not be real. It convinces us that if we knock someone down a notch, the world will somehow feel fair again.
We lie because the truth is ugly. The lie makes things beautiful.
And if we’re honest, sometimes the person we lie to most is ourselves.
I once dated a woman who used to say things like, “Why does everyone want to hang out with you and not me? We have the same group of friends.” At the time I remember thinking, because I’m more fun than you.
Which in hindsight was probably the first clue that something wasn’t working.
She would also say, “Babies, why don’t you do the things you do with your friends with me?” And I remember telling her, “You’re my girlfriend. You get girlfriend privileges my friends don’t get. Do you want to be my friend or my girlfriend?”
But that relationship had a pattern. About once a month she would break up with me. And somehow, every time, I was the problem.
When you hear something often enough, you start to believe it.
Years later she said something to me that confirmed what my therapist already told me.
“I didn’t know how to be in a healthy relationship, Vangie. And you were healthy.” Until I wasn’t. Because when someone keeps telling you that you’re the problem, eventually you start to question your own sanity.
Looking back now, the lie wasn’t just hers. The lie was the story I told myself to make the relationship make sense.
I was in love with her, so she couldn’t possibly be a horrible person.
Because if she was a horrible person and I loved her… what would that say about me?
So instead of accepting the truth, I kept adjusting the story until it felt less ugly.
My best friend Kimi Serrano says the most dangerous sentence that ever comes out of my mouth is, “I can make it work.” She hears that and immediately knows disaster is probably right around the corner.
We do that a lot.
We romanticize what broke us. We glorify intensity and call it passion. We confuse chaos with chemistry and co-dependency with love.
Sometimes we aren’t grieving the person.
We’re grieving the idea of them.
The potential we thought was there.
But romanticizing an unhealthy relationship doesn’t make it love.
And letting someone have access to your body when they don’t care for your heart is a lie we sometimes tell ourselves just to avoid being alone.
Buddhist philosophy teaches that suffering begins when we refuse to see reality clearly. We cling to the stories we want instead of the truth that’s right in front of us.
Which brings us back to Lent.
Lent isn’t about smoothing the hard edges of life.
It’s about looking directly at the uncomfortable truths we’ve been avoiding. The lies we tell ourselves to make things feel less painful.
Because the moment we stop lying to ourselves is usually the moment things can finally start to change.
Girl math might help you justify a new pair of shoes you don’t need. But it won’t help you understand yourself.
Eventually you have to stop adjusting the formula just to make the answer feel better. You have to look at the numbers honestly.
Jesus told parables because people are very good at hearing a story and recognizing everyone else in it.
Lent asks us to do something harder.
To recognize ourselves.
To look at the stories we’ve been telling about our lives and ask whether they’re actually true.
Not the comfortable pretty lie.
The honest ugly truth.
That’s the lesson.
And that’s the work.
Lenten Reflection
“Nothing is concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.” ― Luke 12:2–3
Lent has never been about pretending we’re perfect people.
It’s about honesty.
Jesus warns that the things we hide eventually come into the light. Most of the time we assume that means secrets we keep from others.
But the harder truth is that the things we hide from ourselves eventually come to the surface too.
The stories we tell ourselves to justify staying somewhere we shouldn’t.
The explanations we invent to make unhealthy situations feel normal.
The moral math we use so we don’t have to face uncomfortable truths about our lives.
Truth has a way of surfacing whether we’re ready for it or not.
Lent invites us to do something different.
Instead of waiting for the truth to expose itself, we choose to face it willingly.
Not to punish ourselves.
But because truth, even when it’s uncomfortable, is the first step towards freedom.
Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.
