Livin’ the Dream

My past weekend was... a lot. I... -closed a show on Sunday night (Dracula, a bloody good time) -attended a funeral -officiated another funeral -and was formally installed as the Affiliated Community Minister of my congregation. On Monday, I went straight into tech week for the next show. In the middle of all this, I’m…

Skinned Knees and Open Hearts

The 1980s. Remember those days? The sun-drenched, unsupervised expanses of a Gen X childhood. We roamed free, fueled by garden hose water and a healthy disregard for tetanus. Skinned knees were treated with a dirt poultice and a shrug. Sunscreen was for wimps. And feelings? Well, feelings were best kept under wraps, thank you very…

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.…

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.…

I Really COULD Care Less

Yeah, I know. The phrase is I really COULDN'T care less. I get it. It's a grammatical pet peeve of mine too. The "typo" is intentional. Believe me, there really ARE times when you could care less than you do. I've been learning that lesson for the past year or so. About a year ago…

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…

Of Farewell and Forever

This past week held a profound weight in my spirit, a stark and beautiful illustration of life's wild, circular nature. As the ministerial consultant for my congregation, I often stand in the middle of two very different, yet similar roads: the quiet and solemn space of a memorial service, and the vibrant and hopeful celebration…

A Crash Helmet for Our Souls

There’s a video going around on tiktok right now asking “what are you going to do when it happens?” and the IT they’re referring to is when the current president is….. no longer alive.  And while the petty, dramatic part of me wants to answer with “I’m going to dance in the streets and blast “No One Mourns the Wicked” as loud as I can………..there’s another part of me that is deeply uncomfortable with the idea of wishing death on someone - anyone.