Last Saturday, I gathered with a few of my neighbors in the backyard. As often now happens at Garden Club, we gather in one garden initially, but then we migrate from one garden to another, to see one another’s places and sometimes get something only their yard can provide. We’d trapsed over to one neighbor’s backyard because she promised the rest of us lemons. Seeing as I have a lemon tree that hasn’t yet produced the fruit I so desperately... Read more
Things are not always as they seem. A month or so ago, a friend texted me: I have a really random question for you, she said. Go for it, I replied, wondering what really random, out-of-the-blue question she had for me. She proceeded to ask if I was growing any pumpkins in my garden. Her godson, whom she was going to visit in late July, LOVED pumpkins more than anything else in the world. But grocery stores didn’t tend to... Read more
Yesterday, my day went like this: Make some coffee. Walk the dog. Read a book. Take a shower. Make some food, eat some food. Volunteer at Guns to Gardens, a gun buyback event that takes surrendered guns and forges them into garden tools. Play around in the garden. Send some emails. Answer some texts. Bake some banana bread. Make homemade pizza. Write a sermon. Watch a movie with my family. Repeat, repeat, repeat. It was nothing short of a most... Read more
Over spring break, my family hopped in the car to drive a couple hours’ south to Carmel Valley. We would sleep in a tent! We would cook fires over the camp stove! We would bond as a family as only those who voluntarily sleep under thin sheath of nylon in the middle of the forest do! At one point, my younger son and I sat near the campfire, killing time. Although we could have passed the hours by swimming in... Read more
Questions can be a rather powerful thing, as you may well know. When I was in full-time ministry, I used to play a game affectionately called “Twenty Questions.” The game was exactly that, and then some: sitting down with a high school or middle school student over Jamba Juice smoothies or caramel Frappuccinos, the conversation usually went something like this. “Wanna play a game?” “Like what?” “Twenty Questions.” “I don’t get it. What’s ‘Twenty Questions’?” “Oh, it’s easy. I ask... Read more
“It is finished.” – John 19:30 Jesus spoke these three words before he breathed his last breath, before death became final. And I don’t know about you, but there comes with these words a release, a catch, a hiccup in the back of your throat – it’s over, done, complete. The weight of death is made real in a moment when we’re caught in between feeling the memory of what was and the reality of what is. The finished... Read more
Here’s a sermon for you, preached on September 3, 2023, at St. Paul’s Episcopal in San Rafael. Enjoy! On Wednesday, my boys and I drove 18 minutes south to San Leandro for our one-year-old neighbor’s birthday party. Our expectations were not all that high: the one-year-old is darling, mind you, but it’s not like we hang out with this budding toddler on a regular basis. The boys wanted to stay at home, so they could be with their stuff and... Read more
It’s not everyday that you get to celebrate a fifth birthday, but lo and behold, on February 5th, we did just that. Of course, The Color of Life is not an actual person. Lest you be confused by a title articulating that someone is five-years-old, let me be clear: my book baby is five years old. The book that made me an author just turned five years old! Is this something to be celebrated? Should this even be marked? When should... Read more
As I whittle down the final words to my next book, Church Camp, I find myself grateful for companions on the journey. Now, companions, in the case of book-writing, aren’t necessarily moving, living, heart-beating human beings. Although I have a fair amount of cheerleaders a text or email away, writing is often a solitary pursuit. I can sit on a couch or even on the other side of a Google Meets screen and write at the same time as another person, but... Read more
If you haven’t yet heard, this summer I signed a contract with Broadleaf Books for my next book. Tentatively titled Church Camp, the nonfiction project is part spiritual memoir, part theological musing; part humor and wondering if there might be another way. Although many have wondered if I’m just trying to burn it all down or throw white evangelical church camps under the bus, the truth is that I’m not. I am critical, to be sure, but this world, these... Read more
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