If you want to view paradise - simply look around, and you will. Anything you want to, DO IT. Want to change the world? There’s nothing to it. Ah, the immortal words of Willy Wonka. I loved that movie as a kid. Heck, I love it now. But only the old one – the REAL…
To Stand in Awe
Awesome. How many times a day do I use this word? Way too many. “Hey Chris, I got this project done.” Awesome! “It’s 6 PM! We get to leave!” AWESOME! “How was the catfish last night?” It was awesome! It’s become something of a flippant response to anything positive or remotely great. I didn’t realize…
Before We Disappear
I became a better person because of Alzheimer's disease. I had the rare privilege of working in the dementia unit of a nursing home for several years. The lives I encountered there were unique. Their stories both heartbreaking and life-affirming. Those five years were some of the hardest years of my life, personally. I had…
A Visit to Ground Zero
“I don't think that I'll ever be 'dulled' when it comes to the vividness of what I’ve seen at ground zero, especially on that first day If one could ever glimpse hell.....but also, community at it's truest form....if one could ever glimpse heaven......” I wrote those words on October 11, 2001, just after returning from…
Keep the Home Fires Burning…But Not Literally
Most people rent their first “grown up apartment” when they are in their early 20’s – after college, once they’re on their own. Me? It took me a little longer. I rented my first “grown up apartment” on January 5, 2012, when I was 32 years old. Until that point, I’d lived in a parsonage…
The Lord Helps Those Who Help Themselves…Except When He Doesn’t…And They Can’t…
I’m not great at asking for help. It's a place I hate to find myself. Needing help and needing to ask for it, and feeling so much shame and embarrassment about it that I just don't, and when i finally do, finding myself feeling like I'm a shitty excuse for a human being for not…
The Art of Waiting, Revisited
I once preached a sermon titled “The art of Waiting.” We were waiting, as a congregation, for the closing date on our new church building. It had been pushed back for the third time, and we were all getting tired of waiting to move. We wanted our own space. NEEDED our own space. We’d grown…
Of “Crash Helmets” and “Trigger Warnings”
*I feel like today's post needs a disclaimer. Yes, it's long. Yes, it's very, very personal. No, it doesn't come to any neatly packaged conclusions. It's been a very, very rough day today, and I'm still working through it. But my hope is that someone else might stumble across this in the future and find…
Rite of Passage
Life is full of moments. Most pass by with little thought given to them, but others – other moments are burned into our minds as snapshots of time we can never forget. We hold them up as Defining Moments in our lives – moments we can point to and say, “there. Then. That’s when I…
VoyagersHeart 