I’m a stained glass artist. When people ask what I do, I sometimes joke that I "play with broken glass." It’s a flip-sounding line for a deeply intentional art form. The truth is, when I break a sheet of glass, I do so with immense care. My cutter, slick with special oil, scores a precise…
On Usefulness and Belonging
There is an expensive lesson that life offers, and I wish I’d had the currency to afford it sooner. It’s this: it is a profound waste of your finite time, energy, and spirit to court the approval of people who only value your utility. For most of my life, I have existed on the periphery.…
Don’t Be a Santa…err, I Mean, SPIRIT, Spoiler
A few years back, the former minister of my congregation did a sermon series that has really stuck with me. It was called "Words that Unite, Words that Divide," and for nearly half a church year, we wrestled with all the terms that tend to make UUs twitchy. We dug into words like evangelism, holy,…
Bombs, Bibles, and My Closet [Not that Closet]
So, the Middle East is getting spicy again, huh? World War 3 anyone? I mean seriously, can we please knock it off with the unprecedented times? I'd be willing to bet we're all some level of anxious about the Israel/Iran/US/Whoever-decides-to-start-lobbing-bombs war that's happening right now. For some of us who grew up in evangelical Christianity…
The Sparkle Farmer
A Very Ban-able Children's Story Once upon a time, on a farm named Solid Ground, lived a little boy named Liam. The farm was a world of brown. The dirt in the fields was brown. The big, sturdy barn was painted brown. The cozy farmhouse was brown. Even Liam’s favorite overalls were a plain, sensible…
Drag Queens, Unicorn Snot, and Holy Moments
One of the oldest members of our congregation, a wise and wonderful woman in her 90s, pulled me aside after our worship service this past Sunday. Her eyes were bright. “I've always believed the saying that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it ultimately bends towards justice,” she said, her voice steady.…
The Slow Way Home
Confession time: my weekend trip to see my sister in NYC involved a distinct lack of geographical prowess on my part. I took the highway, as one does, a rainy four-hour slog punctuated by a lovely phone call with a friend. But somewhere in the nebulous land of NJ just outside the city, my focus…
And the Preacher Said, “Amen.”
Every year, come late May, I get this… twitch. It’s an undeniable, deep-seated urge to purge. Suddenly, my closets look like they’re staging an intervention, the basement is giving me side-eye, and I’m eyeing that dusty box of “sentimental” (read: questionable) belongings with the cold calculation of a seasoned decluttering ninja. For years, I just…
A Great, Wild Mercy
It was one of those Sundays. You know the kind I mean – the ones that feel like a cosmic apology for every Monday morning you’ve ever endured. As a minister who’s also a parent, a true Sunday morning off is a rarer bird than a dodo sighting, so I was soaking it in. There…
Sushi Shenanigans and Finishing Well
Last weekend, I embarked on a culinary adventure with my two youngest kids: their inaugural voyage to an all-you-can-eat small plates sushi restaurant. To say they embraced the spirit of 'try all the things' would be an understatement. Imagine the scene: a whirlwind of tiny, colorful dishes descending upon our table, each holding the promise…
VoyagersHeart 