Calling & Clarity

  • Conversion of Love

    This sermon can be listened to here: Conversion of Love Once while driving from Texas to the East Coast, I drove past a large billboard with a black background and big, bold white letters that read, “‘For God so loved… Continue reading

    Conversion of Love
  • The Blessing of Changed Plans

    My first Epiphany here at Christ Church, I took home the paper instructions and blue chalk and while I don’t remember if it was me or Father Steve who preached that night, I do remember how the chalk crumbled slightly… Continue reading

    The Blessing of Changed Plans
  • The Practice of Christmas

    The memory for me is still visceral. I remember the cool, smooth surface of the standard issue junior-high chair with its metal legs and deep blue seat. I remember exactly where I sat, one-third the way down the third row… Continue reading

    The Practice of Christmas
  • Changed by the Wilderness

           The day started early, with simple and delicious buttered bread and a bowl of coffee, which, I learned that morning, was how the folks in the Basque area of France drink coffee, literally in a bowl. Over breakfast, I… Continue reading

    Changed by the Wilderness
  • A Way Forward

           There is not much else I enjoy in this world as much as I love a good story. I love to be drawn in and the rise and fall of a narrative; I love when stories are predictable, and… Continue reading

    A Way Forward
  • An Increased Faith

           Ever since I was a young child, I have been fascinated with trees. The yard of my childhood home has white oak trees that soar more than 100 feet into the sky, with the base of the trunk being… Continue reading

    An Increased Faith
  • A Life That Really Is Life

    In his poem, “Ask Me,” William Stafford has a line I have tucked away in my pocket and it’s one of the lines that seem to find me when I most need it: “Ask me whether/what I have done is… Continue reading

    A Life That Really Is Life
  • The Joy of Belonging

           There is an admiration that I hold for my parents as an adult, one of the many ways in which I admired their parenting was their ability to navigate not one, but two, curious children’s questions. I may have… Continue reading

    The Joy of Belonging
  • A Trampled Sabbath

           In Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life, one can find some of the best life advice there is, but within the framework of a non-fiction exploration of writing. Dillard is a master at blending poetry and prose as she dances… Continue reading

    A Trampled Sabbath
  • Sustaining Hope

    There are some places in this world that invite one to ponder and to consider things that they had never given time to before, and over the last ten weeks of my Sabbatical, my life has been full of them.… Continue reading