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05/15/2026

Happy Birthday Bro!

04/15/2026

Studio puppy. 4.5 month old Thisbe is the sweetest girl the whole family adores.

I did some podcasting.!The intro and outro for a new episode in the New Reality in Belonging series with , and who are joining me to facilitate the new DMin cohort on contemplation and racial justice at

I got a good hang at my favorite new coffee shop, and saw lots of good peopl.

Spring in Holland is the best. I am experiencing God’s help, inspiration, strength, and joy in new ways.

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01/19/2026

I have had the sacred privilege of sitting with many who turn to the vocabulary deconstruction. They have either left organized religion altogether or at least have a foot out the door.

I’ve struggled myself. The soul of the church has atrophied. It’s very hard to be honest about this and to not despair.

Dr. King helps us imagine the prophetic identity of the church. In keeping with the other quotes I’ve been sharing, we must be strengthened in love.

meditation

01/18/2026

Some have said that if I am filled with love, I have no enemies. I confess that I am not capable of that level of love yet.

It’s not that i carry hate in my heart that I am afraid and distressed by cruelty.

How do we love even still? No, I don’t want to multiply darkness.

01/17/2026

We are in great need of sanity right now. I’m grateful the wisdom of our leaders past was to remember the prophetic witness of Dr King.

Yes, read his Letter from Birmingham Jail. Please consider his sermons too. The collection, Strength to Love is wonderful.

More quotes coming soon.

12/16/2025

I’m behind getting the next two parts of my conversation with Keith Reynolds and Robert Caldwell because I’ve prepping for the production of the conversations that will follow. Keith joins me as we engage with Cami Beecroft Mann and Michelle Loyd Paige. These three have been my friends and wise conversation partners for many years. They have helped me make sense of the world and what it means to follow Jesus. They embody the sacred integration of contemplation and justice. They showed up so beautifully and creatively. I can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Stay safe everyone!

09/13/2025

It’s been a long couple days. I understand the fervor and vitriol around CK’s murder has to do with our division over our current administration. The crisis of his death spiked our loyalties. This creates so much cortisol, the trauma responses.

Many of us have been swept up in the agony. Is it true we are really enemies? Do we really hope for each other’s demise?

My mistake this morning with my post was presuming that any reader might have also read what I posted yesterday. This is exactly the male presumption I am so concerned about. It’s the seedbed of toxic masculinity. I know I have this presumption in me still.

So I boast in my weakness as I go to bed. I’m sorry for not being more patient and thorough with my words. I do lament the loss of this young man whose life was taken too early. I grieve especially for his children and wife.

My failure…I presumed that you might know that I am a lover much more than a fighter. I presumed that you and I could be on the same page, that you might agree that love requires us to talk about hard things. And even if you do believe in the purpose of such hard conversations, it doesn’t mean you trust my capacity to have hard conversations.

I have attempted to create important dialogue on FB despite its limitations. But we are is so in lizard brain, ready to react. I should have been more patient regarding when and how to get into the weeds, if at all.

I am a believer in reconciliation and healing. My heart is set in a bigger story than America.

I offer a prayer f confession from St Augustine as I go to sleep.

Much love to all.

O Lord,
The house of my soul is narrow;
enlarge it that you may enter in.
It is ruinous, O repair it!
It displeases Your sight.
I confess it, I know.
But who shall cleanse it,
to whom shall I cry but to you?
Cleanse me from my secret faults, O Lord,
and spare Your servant from strange sins.

09/11/2025

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

Meaning: violence cannot end violence.

What can we turn to instead? Which consciousness can heal and return us to hope?

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus offered us an overview of his consciousness, of who he is and what it looks when we become like him. His imagination was so vast, he asked us to even love our enemies. When we become like him, when we become love, when love surrounds us, fills us, leads us, vengeance is not an option.

When we see violence somewhere out there, we first examine the remnant of violence within ourselves. We attend to our own healing so that we can then be more ready participate in the healing of the world.

Lord, have mercy on us all.

08/28/2025

08/23/2025

Cut from my longer post on FB: There is a crisis of masculinity in our country. The manosphere is only exacerbating the sickness. There are real reasons to be alarmed. We are in the middle of a five alarm fire. Yet when I recall Dobson, there is some gratitude. I don’t hate white men. That would mean I hate myself.
In the spring I completed my doctoral thesis on toxic masculinity in the mode of white body supremacy. The sickness isn’t due to gender or skin color. That would be too easy. It’s about generational trauma. It’s about how since our beginning the bodies of white men have been employed to subjugate women, people of color, and the poor. It’s about how the bodies of white men tell that story.
The way I am loving my body, and I heal my body; and end the cycles of oppression is by surrounding myself, taking in, learning with and from anyone who is not a white male. And if I turn to a white man, it’s because they are also seeking this healing or because they offer some approach to healing that cannot be found elsewhere.
Many of us are grieving in the wake of Dobson. It is very hard to not let grief turn to hate, but we can’t. They want hate because it can stoke further infighting. Hate can keep us drowning, keep us from being the creative nonconformists. Thurman is our hero here: “hate is destructive to both hater and hated alike.”
So I am grateful for the white men who formed me enough to discover the goodness of reading outside of myself, outside of my culture, tradition, and faith. The point of love is that it is drawing me outside of the narrowness of myself.
I don’t remember when I stopped listening to him. I’ve had to cut off from others. I have been so shamed, manipulated, and restricted by those teachers, leaders, pastors, and theologians that I had to protect myself. Yet, the greatest healing is not that I have to be against them. I will not be further trapped in their reality and hating them. Instead, it’s that I have the opportunity to learn and love a world beyond them. Creative love is resistance.