Tag: faith deconstruction
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Why Christian?
I just got back from San Francisco. I went to (hides face) a Christian conference. I found myself hesitant to tell people that it was a Christian conference because of the connotations of that. My sense is that many Christian conferences are lame attempts at pep rallies for God, the adult version of church camp,…
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The Emperor’s New Clothes
In elementary school, I once bought a silver one-piece bathing suit. It fit my round little body like most bathings suits do and the first time I wore it, no joke, I thought I looked like hot shit. I still remember the moment at the indoor pool at the local university where my family was…
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The Whole Enchilada
We recently got back from Austin. I have a grandmother and an aunt that live that that the boys hadn’t seen in a while so I, with the help of my parents who are becoming professional babysitters in their retirement, schlepped the boys, including a giant oxygen concentrator, a gargantuan CPAP machine on a stand…
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Tidying Up: Faith Edition
If you haven’t watched Marie Kondo’s Tidying Up on Netflix, well, you need to. Actually, know thyself. It will either inspire you and make you soar on the wings of eagles or make you want to sit in your closet on a pile of garbage and cry your eyes out. I binge-watched it on New…
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Sermon: Communal Lament and Modern Sackcloth
My friend Sarah and I preached on Lamentations 4 on Sunday. You can listen to it here. Here’s a written excerpt from my conclusion: People of privilege, I interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to give you good news. God does miraculous things in the midst of suffering and we do not have to be left…
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Fix It, Jesus
“What was I thinking?” I thought as I stared forlornly into the mirror. I should have known better than to impulsively stop at the hair salon directly adjacent to the Tom Thumb, still clutching my bag of avocados. I was hoping for a cute haircut before I left on my 10th anniversary weekend trip. Instead,…
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Dry Bones
From the Prophet Ezekiel (written after Israel had been forced into exile from the Promised Land, it is written because they had rejected God) Chapter 37 1-2 God grabbed me. God’s Spirit took me up and set me down in the middle of an open plain strewn with bones. He led me around and among them—a lot of…
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The Cancer Scare
It’s no surprise that children’s hospitals can be really depressing places to be. After taking guardianship of The Baby, he was (still) in the NICU for about a month. It was my first time spending any length of time at a children’s hospital and, despite the hospital’s best efforts, it could get very grim. One…
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The Wilderness
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it…
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On Being LGBT+ Affirming
I was a mere 21 years old when I got married. My uncle officiated our wedding. Before the wedding, my then-fiancee, now-husband, Alex, and I drove down to Corpus to do some premarital counseling sessions and stay with my aunt and uncle. After one of these sessions, Alex and I got ready to leave and…
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On Discovering Judaism
Our church hosted a Seder once when I was younger. It was held in our Fellowship Hall, a room straight outta the 1960s with mustard colored stained glass that tinted the sunlight streaming in through the tall windows that inexplicably had metal bars that looked like ladders leading up to the heavens. (Note to future…
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God, My Mother
I broke my left arm shortly before I started 3rd grade. I was at daycare and someone challenged me and a friend to a piggy back race, so I loaded her up on to my back and we took off. I should have known better, right? I mean, I was not known for my athletic…