Posts Tagged ‘patheos blog’

2014-05-26 DAY SIX  

2014-03-17 When my sister was born, she made herself known. Screamed so loud, they moved her to a room far from all the other babies. But two years later, when I came along, it was different. I did not make a sound. In fact, I was so quiet, from what I understood, my mother was…

2014-03-19 Fred Phelps, of Westboro Church “God Hates Fags” fame, is reportedly near death. Which may or may not actually be true, but has led to some number of people publicly discussing how one is to respond to the death of a man so odious. This is a man, after all, who has picketed the…

2014-04-07 This week, when friends and acquaintances greeted me with the standard “How Are you?” I answered honestly. My answer wasn’t the standard “Good, good. You?” Our family has had more than our fair share of bad news of late, and it has begun to take its toll. Add a new baby and my spouse…

2014-04-20 You’ve heard of a half-way house? Well, this was a quarter-way. For those who no longer needed a locked facility. But only just barely. The quarter-way residents had not been in jail. They’d been where you go when someone decides your brain might bring you harm. But all that was behind them. They’d completed…

2014-03-10 “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” This quote, often misattributed to Plato, perhaps originally spoken by Scottish minister, Rev. John Watson, and found in many forms out there on the internet, is one of my favorites in ministry – and in life. Whoever who said it, it is so…

2014-03-17 Last week, my partner and I spent five days and four nights in the hospital with our one-and-a-half-year-old kiddo. Little Bean has a congenital cyst that has now gotten infected twice since she was born. Once infected, she has to be on IV antibiotics and the cyst has to be surgically drained. Though thankfully…

2014-01-17 A few weeks ago, I decided that this is the year that I am going to smash a few windows. I wrote all about it in this post here. I wrote about my struggles with comparisons and image and perfectionism, about all the ways that I let fear and doubt and what others might think hold me back, about the ways that I am trying to carve…

2013-12-08 The first sermon at the first church I ever served (which is also the only church I have served) was called “Swimming Lessons.” Countless seminary papers and exams had brought me to this moment. Now, time had come to climb into the pulpit to impart the great wisdom available to a young man with…

2013-12-30 “The sun came up and five years gone. Life goes on…” – Brandi Carlile The older we get, a year becomes a smaller fraction of our life and therefore goes by faster. Or at least this seems to be the case. Brandi Carlile perfectly expresses what I’ve been feeling lately as I watch the…