Sometimes, I can be a really nostalgic person. I think the side of me that loves telling stories is that person. But I love remembering the past not to get stuck there but to help understand the present. Suffice to say, I spent a week last week helping out at a camp I had worked […]
Learning to Let People Sing their own Songs How they Need to be Sung
Have you ever listened to a song and in that moment that song was exactly what you needed to hear? Like, when my grandfather died, I had Blind Pilot on repeat, or there were times in Morocco where certain songs just powerfully spoke to me. It’s been a few years since my grandfather died or […]
Whirlybirds
the whirlybirds don’t sing, but they must hear music the way they dance during their dash to the ground, so eager to die, and it’s a curious thing god did giving wings to the maple seeds to fly where the wind would take them, and like samsara, the samara’s birth pangs gave a reason to forgo […]
Concerning the Apparent Pending Schism of the United Methodist Church
I don’t really understand why progressive United Methodists (also known as “United Methodists,” as the term “progressive” is redundant) feel the need to cater to remaining “united” with those Methodists whose professed beliefs are more in line with, say, the Southern Baptist or other Evangelical churches. Pastors and congregations who are pushing Biblical literalism of […]
Disjointed
too many years I tried to feel with my head, to think with my heart, to love with only skin, as though all the parts of me were parts only and not the whole machine, churning gears, turning toward something grand I couldn’t see here, this finger like a leaf is, too, the root, the […]
From Forgiven Murderers to an Unforgiving World
After holding onto a lot of grief and hurt, I recently made an effort to forgive someone I’ve despised for months who holds an authoritative position in the church. Ever since then, I’ve been thinking about the absurdity of a 21st century corporation operating on the ideals that grace and forgiveness should be the cornerstone […]
Shiloh
that Sunken Road still sinks, as a thousand bloody feet were trudging, sloshing to the Pond for something there to drink, a thirst for death to thee abscond and all along the cedar fence, the field before them, smoky fog, a thousand more gave recompense howling loud for ‘Mom’ or ‘God,’ and yet the only […]
A Trip through Shiloh National Military Park
I’ve taken lately to trying to carve time away from the computer as a means of retreat – a time where I can just recollect myself before I get back to everyday grunt work. A few weeks ago, that came in the form of a trip to camp. Sometimes, it’s a trip to my grandfather’s […]
Why a Generation Runs Away from Organized Religion
Being friends with so many pastors, it’s not uncommon to be in dialogue with them about the “state of the church.” Something from Pew or some other study about how millennials are abandoning religion. Some articles will then try to explain that the church’s stance on homosexuality is usually the chief reason millennials have forgone religion. I don’t buy it. […]
To Cherish What’s Old
I like old things. Sometimes I like to think maybe it’s because I inherited all my grandfather’s old war stuff, but the truth is, I’ve always loved what’s old: an antique store with everything under the sun in it or the smell of old paper bound to a book of poetry or walking around in […]
