Walking out your front door, you rarely consider how different life will be when you return home. When you walk back through that door. Like a portal, you leave one home behind … and return to another altogether. On September 21, I left Asheville for a road trip to visit family and friends across Pennsylvania. On October 2, I returned home to a hellscape like nothing I’d ever seen.
Read More After Helene: And the Leaf Still HoldsA storyteller I follow refers to his growth in the numerical unit of past iterations of himself. “That was eight Robs ago,” he’d say of himself, back when he used to believe one thing or behave a totally different way. I’ve started viewing my own growth in this vein, thinking about all the Toms that have existed in this singular Tom, particularly with regard to this active-passive dynamic. My passivity has run especially true in matters of relational conflict. Given the option to fight a conflict or flight a conflict (please excuse my incorrect usage of a noun as a verb in the name of symmetry), I will flight nine times out of ten. Ah, but then there’s always that one instance…
Read More That Time I Stood Up to a Homophobic, Transphobic Bully – Also, a PastorI’ve become more justice-minded in this year of isolation – to do something with this faith of mine. To borrow a vivid example from Ronald Rolheiser’s “The Holy Longing”: to not just retrieve dead bodies from the river, but to go upstream and find the source of all this death.
Read More Beyond the Rot of This RiverHiding begets hiding; darkness begets darkness. The problem of Ravi Zacharias is the problem of pastors and ministry leaders the world over. They struggle, too. We all do. And this idolatry of certain Christians needs to stop.God, I pray it stops.
Read More The Problem of Ravi ZachariasI’m only twenty miles away from Camp Ridgecrest, but it might as well be twenty dimensions. A bunch of foggy memories along with a million unformed, never-to-be ones. It’s a fog I can’t shake, follows my footsteps within and beyond the Blue Ridge. Am I crazy? Obsessed? Why does a camp have such a grip on me after all these years? It was one summer. One effing brutal beautiful summer. Why do I feel so much? Why do I hurt with a longing for what was and what wasn’t? And why do a bunch of entitled white southern Gen X Christian moms rake me to the core?
Read More I (Still) Love You, Camp RidgecrestThe words “leave” and “stay” keep colliding with one another, over and over throughout my adulthood. I’m learning the equal and opposite power of each.
Read More You Need to LEAVESometimes the blogs come easily; sometimes they do not. Sometimes I feel as if I’ve nothing to say; other times, I have too much material to choose from. Sometimes it’s all safe stuff; sometimes it’s riskier. Take politics, for one. Oh the riskiness. Is that shudder from the wind or within? I’m finding it increasingly difficult these days to remain silent about politics while the insanity rages.
Read More Break the Silent MadnessOh, the freedom to no longer hope in anything far off. To forget the future and, perhaps, attain a greater ability to live in this present. It hurts to hope, I’ve been learning (groaning) through adulthood. It hurts to hope for things, only to see them fall flat – or, worse, fall further.
Read More Prisoner of HopeForty days ago, I sought to burn my psalms for Lent. Writing one in the back of my journal before bed each night, then ripping out the page, entering my closet and closing the door behind me, and setting fire to my words in an old toolbox. It was a different sort of Lenten season this year, for many reasons, and I have three main thoughts.
Read More 40 Days of AshesMay we rest in this comfort: that we are cosmically not alone in our loneliness. The One who forged heaven and earth walked a harrowing road with nowhere to lay His head. He is with us. He is for us. All these centuries later. In times of peace. In times of famine. Even still.
Read More He is Still For YouI’m writing this blog from home. And I never blog from home. Like ever. I have no other choice. Nothing is open. No late-night coffee shops and no early-night coffee shops either, for that matter. Coronavirus has violently disrupted every facet of normalcy. Society’s. My own. Normal Monday evenings aren’t normal Monday evenings anymore. And for God only knows how much longer.
Read More Thank You for Being BraveLooking back on the last 16 years, I see that “takes too much effort” excuse as an easy out. Digging deeper, I see something else blocking my pursuit of church membership: my self-worth. Surprise, surprise; it’s my single biggest struggle. Am I worthy of church membership? What do I even have to offer the church?
Read More Broken BelongingIt can be easy for Christians to believe, almost robotically, that God can do anything. That’s what makes God God, right? So, what does it mean to “ponder anew” what God can do? How does one ponder anew the already established notion that an all-powerful God can do — does — all-powerful things?
Read More Ponder AnewWhen “Reckless Love” first came out in 2017, I, like many others in Christian worshipdom, fell out of my seat. For the last year and a half, though, as many songs just do, it faded. Back at church, the electric guitar strings belted a familiar intro. One I’d not heard in a church setting for many, many months. “Reckless Love” returned to my life. And I couldn’t skip it this time.
Read More God’s Love is Still RecklessI just attended the second Revoice conference in St. Louis. Several of my fellow authors from Your Other Brothers also attended, and we’ll have a full recap/conversation coming to our site next week. But for now, I wanted to shed some more personal thoughts on the conference and my life-on-the-road at large. The main one being: I’m tired.
Read More I’m Tired.It’s been a wonderful thing, and it’s been a debilitating thing, all these Internet friends. On the one hand, the Internet has filtered out “real life,” so to speak, connecting me with the people I deeply want to connect with. People with common interests, common sexualities, common faiths, common cross-sections of all these things. And on the other hand, the Internet has totally spoiled “real life.” Real life relationships — or the hapless pursuit of them.
Read More Oops, My Readers Are My Friends NowAs 2018 winds down, I find myself in my most emotionally raw, volatile state of the year, probably ever. The North Carolina skies opened with a blizzard this week, and how I wanted this snowy downpour to cleanse it all away.
Read More End of Year Emo BlizzardYes, Jesus loves me. For the Bible tells me so. But does he like me? Does he find me enjoyable? Why? Does he only “have” to love and like me because he’s Jesus? Furthermore, does his Church love me? Do they like me? Because so often I feel that they do not. That they just don’t have time for me. For my struggles and emotions.
Read More Jesus Loves Me. This I Know?Today I learned that my church died. Not my current church. Not my previous church. Not even a church I’ve attended in four years. But the first church that felt something like home.
Read More Death and Death and the Coming Tide of DeathI’m the kind of guy who compares anything to everything: my favorite TV show (Survivor) to my least favorite (The Bachelor), the best month (April) to the worst month (November), the greatest year of my life (2012) to the very worst (2006). I can’t help it. I compare. It’s what I do. It’s why I […]
Read More The Best Worst Year in the Blue RidgeI’ve been a Christian for as long as I can remember. My Christianness predates my Phillies fandom, my Survivor-mania, even my innate wandering spirit. Seems I’ve always known about God and Jesus and the cross and how I’d be nothing without Him, nothing without those two coarse beams of wood. And yet something about the […]
Read More When I Hate the CrossI wore a sweater to work the other day. I climbed half-naked out of bed with a shiver and noted the morning temperature a brisk 49 degrees. So, I grabbed a light sweater from my closet — the first time I’ve worn one since March or April. Since I first moved to Asheville. Winter. Spring. Summer. […]
Read More Four Seasons LaterBefore moving to Asheville six months ago, I ventured into an independent bookstore here with a friend. Malaprop’s, the place is called — a play on “malapropism,” a term for a comedic way of misspeaking. Think Michael Scott of The Office. Said the well-meaning Dunder-Mifflin manager: “I am not one to be truffled with.” Anyway, I’d visited Malaprop’s […]
Read More Tradition Doesn’t Have to SuckA couple housekeeping notes to start. First off, you might have noticed I’m starting to write more regularly with my awesome blogging brotherhood, Your Other Brothers. It’s becoming tedious to continue linking my new posts on that blog back to this one, so if you’d like to continue reading my posts over there, go ahead and subscribe to YOB! […]
Read More 29.I’m approaching my one-month anniversary of moving to Asheville and manning my very own dwelling place, and I’m slowly figuring it all out, from living room arrangements to cooking my own meals. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how to hang things on walls without puncturing said walls, per my lease, but […]
Read More When a Handshake Becomes a HugLast week I “celebrated” the one-year anniversary of my cross-continental road trip’s conclusion. And by “celebrated,” I mean to say I cried multiple times by day’s end. No dramatic gasping wheezing weeping sessions, but I dabbed my eyes throughout the afternoon and evening as I looked back at some images from the road, including that final one of […]
Read More I’ve Never Been More Hopeful and TerrifiedOn March 9, 2015, I concluded a 9-month road trip around the continent with a relocation from southern California to Charlotte, North Carolina. “Why Charlotte?” many people asked, including several Charlotte residents. “It wasn’t my favorite city,” I told plenty. If I wanted to start over in a “favorite city,” I’d be donning a year-round beanie in […]
Read More Goodbye, CharlotteThis past weekend, I joined my new church on a retreat to the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I’d been looking forward to the lodge getaway for a few weeks. A chance to connect with some new people in a more intentional setting. A chance to bask in one of my favorite parts of the […]
Read More Retreat. Rest. Recuperate. Repeat.[A]s we pushed off the dock and the other guys got into their boats and pressed off, we back-paddled into the dark of the inlet, waving at the Goffs as they waved back at us. And then to our amazement, we saw all of them, fully dressed with shoes and jackets, take three steps together […]
Read More I Might Have Joined a Cult for 24 HoursTonight, I sit alone. It is a night not quite unlike many prior Tuesday nights, secure within my favorite coffee shop on Earth. I am sitting by the window, the only such seat in this confined space, and the view downtown is lovely tonight. Just like every other Tuesday night. Coming to this coffee shop […]
Read More I’m Not Growing AnymoreI have few influences greater than Donald Miller, both inside my “real life” and out. His works have certainly impacted me as a writer; you could’ve played a drinking game with all my Donald Miller references in Struggle Central (drinking milk, of course). Beyond the mere sphere of writing, though, Donald Miller has impacted my very […]
Read More Donald Miller Hates Going to Church and I Do TooTwo weeks ago, my church commenced its annual autumn tradition. It’s called “Seek Week,” a week-long “festival” of fasting and, well, seeking God. Seeing ROCKHARBOR’s five Orange County campuses unite at one location for five consecutive nights was such fantastic foreshadowing for the future: people of all churches, all nations, all cultures, all ages and eras uniting […]
Read More SEEK WEEK in Review: God Isn’t EnoughIt’s been a fun few weeks here. After exhaustedly publishing a book in the spring and otherwise going crazy this summer (a couple of good crazies), it’s been awesome rekindling a blogging fire with my recent Strengths Finder series. I’ve also just redesigned my blog, and personally, I’m more enthusiastic about this blogging space than I’ve ever […]
Read More SEEK WEEK! A Personal Request for PrayerOnce again, it’s time for a sneak peak at my soon-to-be-published book, Struggle Central: Quarter-Life Confessions of a Messed Up Christian. If you’ve missed either of my other excerpts, check out my posts on shame in high school and feeling alone at church. Today’s excerpt takes me back to 2011 in southern California as I struggled […]
Read More “Struggle Central” Excerpt #3: Church Search CompleteOnce again, it’s time for a special Struggle Central edition of Struggle Sunday! I’ve already posted one excerpt from my first book, and posted below is another! It’s the second sneak peak for Struggle Central: Quarter-Life Confessions of a Messed Up Christian, with at least one or two more reveals in the Struggle Sundays to come. Today’s excerpt takes […]
Read More “Struggle Central” Excerpt #2: Alone at ChurchOn Monday I tried to get a haircut. Tried three times, actually. Even tweeted jokingly about the whole ordeal. Jokingly but kinda frustratingly too. Pretty sure the universe is against my getting a haircut after 3 failed attempts this afternoon. — Thomas Mark Zuniga (@thomasmarkz) February 18, 2013 First, I rolled by some Indian salon that specialized […]
Read More My Oasis Haircut and a Long Lost ReconnectI have no idea what I’m doing with my life. Ever since graduating from college in 2009, I’ve gone about some routine, hoping/thinking/praying I’m doing what I’m “supposed” to be doing. Whether it’s the “right” thing. Or if I’m in the “right” place. I think I belong in California right now. Pretty sure, actually. I’ve […]
Read More Korea vs. California: A Reason and a SeasonMy One Word 365 for 2012 is courageous. After five months of this slightly less sparkly new year, I wanted to check in with my spring progress. Not in a puff-myself-up kind of way, but more of a trying-to-stay-accountable sort of way. In short, it’s been a life-changing year. In long… I met with one […]
Read More One Word 365: My Spring Check-InI was baptized last week. It was more “unconventional” in the sense that the event did not occur within the traditional confines of a Sunday morning service of a standard church building. I kinda like that. But though occurring on a non-churchy Tuesday night at a non-churchy water park, my baptism most certainly occurred in […]
Read More A Birthday Baptism by Buccaneer BaySeveral years ago I watched my younger siblings do it. I’ve often wondered whether I would ever follow in their footsteps. Been questioned about it plenty of times. But I already have Jesus in my heart. I love Him dearly. He is everything; He’s the only thing. For nearly 25 years God’s will has superseded […]
Read More Why I’ve Never Been BaptizedThis week I got to blog a sermon recap for my church, ROCKHARBOR Fullerton. We’re currently doing a series through the entire Bible, “The Story of God,” and this week we landed in Acts. Here’s a snippet of my post! Click the RHF link at the end to read its entirety. During my first year […]
Read More Spirit FallDuring training week at the beginning of my YouthWorks summer, everyone in my area group was given a leather cord to act as a prayer bracelet for the entire summer — a reminder to pray for fellow staff in our own city and the 2 others in our area. But while the original intent of […]
Read More When Faith, Hope, and Love CollideA couple months ago my church started advertising a need for bloggers to help tell the story of our church; I was immediately intrigued and eventually met with someone about participating. Fast-forward to today, and I have the honor of having written a blog on my church’s website. It’s a recap of this past Sunday’s […]
Read More RememberI’ve been on a bit of soul-searching journey since relocating from Georgia to southern California over a year ago. Within that soul-searching journey resides countless sub-journeys, including a church-searching one. I’ve not felt truly at home in a church since 1999. So it’s been a while. You would think after twelve years I’d just give […]
Read More Tears from Ezra: “It’s Just Not the Same”