blip : Beyond Lost Intellectual Ponderings :

I wrote an article last summer about my experience of joining a group of people who eat lunch together every Wednesday on the side of the road. The Mennonite recently published it. Here’s a passage:
The lure of Christ’s gracious presence invites us onto a wandering path of discipleship that leads into forgotten places—the margins of [...]

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On September 28th we finally completed our 9 months of waiting and had our first kid, Gryffin (yes, the name is inspired by Gryffindor in Harry Potter, but Gryffin’s are also mythological creatures that you’ll find on old churches because they symbolized the dual nature of Jesus.  A theologian’s dream back story…).  Anyhow, at 2am [...]

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At times, preparing a sermon comes easy. But most of the time the sermon comes only through much wrestling with the word. Leading up to a Sunday when I’m assigned to preach, it’s not unusual for my prayers to consist of complete frustration with the lectionary Scriptures. And that’s exactly what this week is like. [...]

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Ask me not where I live
or what I like to eat….
Ask me what I am living for
and what do I think is keeping me
from living fully for that
—Thomas Merton
I came across that quote toward the beginning of last year and I think I may make it a tradition to reflect upon it at the beginning [...]

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It’s Christmas and the bells are ringing. Sure, the jingle bells on Santa’s sleigh. But also those bells at the grocery store doors, where the Salvation Army’s faithful stand with collection plates at hand, ready for the generous overflow of our rampant holiday spending.

I don’t count myself as atypical. I’ve put in my time spreading [...]

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Hands. So many hands. Fingers curling around my arms. Flattened palms pressing against my upper back. And a rough gardener’s palm resting on my hair, with fingers extending onto my forehead.

At church about 6 months ago I stood in the center of thirty or forty people. From every possible direction they reached towards my body. [...]

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Having made our way up to Seattle, then further up through Canada we are now firmly settled in Seattle and in a place that’s starting to feel like home. So that’ a partial excuse for not posting in so long. But it’s not the real answer for why I haven’t posted in the [...]

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Being recently jobless and having just moved to Seattle we decided what better way to wind down from a month of moving intensity by heading up to British Columbia for a two and a half week camping road trip. Below is an essay from one of the days. Some pictures of our trip [...]

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Yesterday was my last day of work at Brooks Institute as a web developer.  In three days we’ll be out of our house in Santa Barbara and headed for Seattle.  We have no house (yet) and no job (yet) (which is wierd—I haven’t been jobless, if you count school, since 9th grade!).  The whole move [...]

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I slip in bed when you’re asleep
To hold you close and feel your breath on me
Tomorrow there’ll be so much to do
So tonight I’ll drift in a dream with you

Dixie Chicks, Lullaby

Isaac wrote a while back about looking for “a soundtrack for our lives.” Today I heard the Dixie Chick’s song above and [...]

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