I Can’t Believe I Came From Her

My grandmother died. These words rattle around my heart like pinballs that won’t settle, even a week beyond her funeral. And yet I wonder if the settling of these pinballs would be any better – the finality of their lodging into the belly of that machine, no longer kept alive by another flap of the paddles. Mayme Alice was the last of my grandparents to leave this earth, and undoubtedly the one with whom I grew closest.

2021: Wasted

I look back on this year and can’t help but feel the wince of apparent wasted time. The lethargy of a lingering pandemic, the apathy of my creative soul, and the heavy, sometimes brutal work of ministry. Of holding less and less tightly to relationships – even if it means letting some go. My 34 years of life feels increasingly like a bell curve. Isolation and worthlessness filling the lowly cracks of my adolescence; a rising wave of optimism for my twenties, filled with new friends and adventures aplenty; and a steady decline of ambition into my mid-thirties.

Our New Alivelihood

In one sense, how convenient for a pandemic to occur in the year 2020-21 and not 1920-21: for many of us to work remotely and stay “connected,” at least in some sense of the word. But I’ve felt the strain of not experiencing a dimension beyond screens on screens on screens. Experiencing the dimensions of humanity and creation interwoven again. Last week, I saw humans with hats and cameras and boots and smiles walking all around me from the blues of Lake Tahoe to the beige of Death Valley. Humans: exploring, basking. Like we were ever ago made to do, like we evermore shall do.

Do You See Me?

I did what You asked, I built what You told me to build, and it literally collapsed. So now what? Are You even there anymore? I feel the strain in Nathanael’s voice. The wavering. A desperate pleading to be seen.

Beyond the Rot of This River

I’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.

Another Dawn Closer

What a comfort. What an assurance. That no matter how much the last day or last four years have tested us, drained us, broken us . . . the sun rises anew. Gives us a new chance to absorb the light and also a new chance to shine it. Or as poet laureate, Amanda Gorman, perfectly put it at today’s inauguration: “For there is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.”

What Will I Have Done This Year?

Instead of saying, “What do I want to do this year?” try saying, “What will I have done this year?” It’s a productivity tip I learned from Donald Miller, and I’ve never been more eager to implement this subtle mental tweak for 2021.

Can You Feel the Fatigue Tonight?

I’m ready for the election to be over. I’m ready for 2020 to be over. I’m ready for the main stage of my disease to be over. I’m ready for my tiredness over it all to be over. I heard something described on a podcast as “fatigue-fatigue,” and boy do I feel that. Do you?

Coming Out to Myself – 14 Years Later

It’s LGBT+ History Month, and October 11th is National Coming Out Day. After pondering this video idea for a few years, now felt like the right time to relive my first coming out – by re-reading the journal entry I wrote at 19 on a raw, tragic night in 2006. I hadn’t looked at these words in 14 years. T’was the night I came out to myself and to God: a same-sex attracted or gay or queer Christian. Soon after this, I’d come out to my parents too.

The God Who Won’t Speak Back

Six months into a pandemic, three into an autoimmune disease, my outlook feels more than a little frantic right now. Constantly on my phone or laptop and craving some sense of connection or novelty. A momentary break in the loneliness, the stuckness, and the waiting. Sometimes the break comes. Often it doesn’t. Often I am greeted with silence. Thick, dark. Empty.

This Disease from Up Top

It’s unnerving not knowing where you are. Like I’m on the bottom level of a parking deck (garage) with no idea how long or far or deep or wide or harrowing this thing goes. Was this last month of infusions a definitive leap toward healing or a total wash? Do I move on to the next phase, or do I start over with something else?

Prisoner of Hope

Oh, 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.

I Have an Autoimmune Disease. How You Can Help.

After spending a week in the hospital last month, I got diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease: a form of vasculitis called granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA), formerly Wegener’s disease. Now begins the long journey toward remission.

‘Twas the Night Before Treatment

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I set out on a new quest. A new quest within an already new journey of the last couple months – this unforeseen journey with an autoimmune disease. Tomorrow begins this new quest for healing and recovery. Remission. Or so I hope.

Not So Wonderfully Made

I don’t feel wonderfully made right now. My autoimmune disease makes me feel newly flawed. Like my Designer forgot to quality-check my body before He sent me to the womb, apparently knit with this broken strand.

He is Still For You

May 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.

COVID-19: Is it Over Yet? What Does God Want From Us?

It’s been a maddening few weeks, friends. Through all the pandemic shutdowns, distancing, and death, I feel as if God is desiring two distinct things from us. As He always does.

Give Us Tomorrow’s Barabbas

Our entire lives we have wanted to be more present. And now that we’ve been given nothing but buckets upon buckets of the present, we are kicking away the pails and saying, “Give us back our precious longings.” The savior we have anticipated through countless yesterdays is finally here in our midst, and we cry for Barabbas.

Thank You for Being Brave

I’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.

Burn Up Your Psalms

I’ve participated sporadically in Lent over the last decade. Some years I think nothing of it; others, I’ve fasted from food or masturbation. I recalled this notion of psalm-writing. Of putting away my Bible and penning my own. As a writer, I feel it hold such an allure; as a human, too. I’d been wanting to connect with my Creator like this for many months. Why hadn’t I? What’s been holding me back?

Debt-Free

Before I knew it, YOB was no longer a hobby. It could no longer be treated that way – that is, if I wanted it to grow further. And I did. I knew I could pay off my Juke and be debt-free if I simply kept working at the boarding school through 2017 and maybe a little into 2018. Paying off a 4-year loan in a little over a year was absolutely doable. But that inner beckoning grew louder and stronger.

Mortality

It’s there in my consciousness, a shadow sitting in the corner, unmoving. My mortality. Just . . . there. I will die one day, and this is how it’s always been ordained. This is nothing new. Why has it taken me 30+ years to realize this – really realize this? More than ever, I want to make every moment matter. I want to live every day I’ve been given to live. It’s such a crime for anyone to stay settled and never venture out. I cannot bear the thought for myself.

My Name on a Stone

I traveled to Pennsylvania for Christmas, my first trip there since Ahh died this summer. My grandfather’s gravestone wasn’t chiseled until just recently, so this was my first time visiting it. Seeing it. It was the first time I’d ever seen my name on a stone.

Ponder Anew

It 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?

Plot Twisting

My life has featured a lot of plot twists I never saw coming. Especially these last two years. It’s been brutal. It’s also been necessary for the furthering of my story, I now realize. A story that wasn’t going anywhere. Stuck in a sleepy, apathetic comfort.

Playing With My Parents’ New Lakehouse Toy

My #RunningOut road trip is taking longer than anticipated to run out. But in the meantime, I will be productive and listen. And kayak. Day 107 and counting — by land and now by sea.

The Part Where I Get to Have Faith

These last couple years, I’ve fielded more doubts than ever before, not due to any personal tragedy or spiritual apathy, but largely due to public figures and friends alike walking away from Jesus. This same Jesus I follow.

Itch

I’m itching for home. God, I’m itching for regularity again. I’m itching for therapy and CrossFit and training for a marathon and the same coffee shops and writing my third book and building local friendships and taking Your Other Brothers to bold, new frontiers. I’m itching for this road trip to end.

A World Without Ahh

“I hope you have a lot of friends one day, Tom.” My grandfather spoke these words to me when I was 15. We were in the car as I joined him on his usual run of errands: the bank, pharmacy, post office. It’s strange referring to him as “my grandfather” — he was always just “Ahh” to me. Even stranger now to think of him in the past tense. My grandfather, Ahh, died this week.

I’m Tired.

I 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.

Joy Terrifies Me

It’s so clear now — something I’ve always known to be true about me and yet see anew. I’m terrified of joy. Joy just terrifies me. For how fleeting it is.

When Jesus Slides Into the Shadows

Before you even know it, Jesus slid into the shadows long ago. You thought he was still there. Like he’s always been. Like he always will be…right? But if we don’t intentionally keep Jesus atop our bookshelf…I think the Father is willing to let us turn other pages. To let us wander without for a bit.

Go to Hell

Maybe instant healing and freedom do happen like that in other contexts, in other humans. I don’t know. I don’t know what that’s like. Maybe for the rest of us, though, the fight never ends. Maybe the enemy comes back, over and over.

I’m Writing Fiction Again

I’m writing fiction again. Or at least dabbling. I don’t know why or for how long or what my goal even is, but the change of scenery is sure nice. I’ve missed this realm.

I’ve Never Not Wanted to be Gay. Until Now.

I watched Boy Erased the other night, and it messed me up more than any other movie has. Unlike countless others I’ve encountered over the years, I never attempted ‘praying the gay away’ as a kid and have largely experienced more struggles with my masculinity than my sexuality. Until now.

I Will Stay in This Rubble

I don’t know. I’m in a season of not knowing. Which means I’m doing a lot of listening these days. But I hear the whispers. I’ve been unintentionally heeding them these last 8 months as I’ve turned over stone after stone. I will rummage through this rubble until there are no more boulders or pebbles left to turn.

Do Not Calm This Storm

Jesus won’t calm the storm with a single word. His way is a way of work. Of picking up crosses daily. Of lugging said crosses up mountains. Of taking the narrower way of all the broader ways available to my wanderlust.

End of Year Emo Blizzard

As 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.

Death and Death and the Coming Tide of Death

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.

Back Before the Darkness Found Me

A year ago, I was blogging every day of the month as part of my #MakeNovemberTolerable campaign. I’ve long despised November for all the negative things that seem to converge upon this month, and last year’s effort was to see the beautiful things among memories of my dog dying, my Internet friend dying, and the […]

Love is Not the Greatest

I’ve watched approximately seven Boy Meets World episodes in their entirety, though plenty of passing clips. I’ve blogged about this show in the past, including its spinoff, because my younger sister would watch it after school, and the strong friendship between Corey and Shawn always kept my eyes craning. Lately, life circumstances have again caused me to […]

Snow That Traps and Beckons

I still remember sitting in that YMCA conference room last March, my third day of training for this new job and just my fourth day living in Asheville. I stared out the giant bay windows, mesmerized by flaky snow drifting downward from a vast gray expanse. This city I’d only ever known for summer camps and […]

Another disaster of a year begins . . .

I hate new years. I hate resolutions. I hate the assumption that just because the calendar changes from one month and one year to the next, the past is wiped clean and anything is possible — well, for about two and a half weeks. And then it’s back to tubs of ice cream and pornography. […]

Shackles and Freedom and the Space In-Between

Your bike chain breaks. The rains pour down. But still you soldier forward into the crosswalk and down the sidewalk. Because inside your wallet is a coffee shop punchcard with 16 holes, the magic number, the promised land, and you’re power-walking toward the place wiping raindrops from your brow. You step inside and reveal the punchcard with […]

Don’t Ruin the Future

Last weekend, I returned to one of those pivotal places of the past. The city: Gatlinburg, Tennessee. My last official #RunningTo stop before retreating to a cabin in the woods for 36 solitary hours to figure out whether I’d move to Milwaukee or Gettysburg or Charlotte to round out my 9 months on the road. […]

When I Hate the Cross

I’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 […]

Will the Words Still Come?

Today I’m halfway through my 30-day blogging challenge. It was fun and novel at first, blogging every day. Like I’d put on skinny jeans or a trendy scarf for the first time or decided to “go vegan.” 15 days later, it’s still fun. It’s become automatic that after work every day I come to a […]

All We Like Butterflies…

We’ve been raising monarch caterpillars at work for the last month. A woman we affectionately dubbed “The Butterfly Lady” came in with an aquarium full of milkweed and caterpillars the length of your pinky nail — dozens of them. You’d have never noticed them from afar. Most of those poor things died. It wasn’t our fault. Apparently […]

I’ve Never Been More Hopeful and Terrified

Last 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 […]

I’m Worthless. I’m Pointless. I’m Hopeless. I’m Pathetic.

What a strange and comforting thing last week to find myself awakening in the same tufted mountains that changed my life three years ago. The differences between that Christian camp of yesteryear and my current youth wilderness therapy program are many, but the pristine setting was the same. We hiked the second tallest mountain in Georgia one sunrise, and I cried […]

And This Christmas Tolls With Treacherous Hope

It hurts to hope. I suppose I have always known this, but it is a lesson more thoroughly learned after six long months on the road. A hardened realization that has hit me with the thrust of a 75 mile-per-hour collision. It hurts to hope for work in wintry seasons of joblessness. Hurts to hope in plates and people spread round an otherwise […]

I’m Afraid to Stop Running

I recently launched my first Kickstarter. It’s geared toward funding the completion of my #RunningTo road trip and the book that will follow. I’m currently 44% funded, and I’m so grateful. We’ve come a long way, but there’s still 56% more to go in just 16 days. Everyone who gives (and already has given) will get something […]

We Are a Fairy Tale and We Have a Happy Ending

Once Upon a Time is one of my favorite shows. It’s a show about fairy tale characters come to life, but it is also a show about more than this. Every episode is just so rich, so deep. Themes of good versus evil, and hope versus despair. The classic fairy tale characters we all know have intricate […]

I Have a Son

I don’t usually remember my dreams. I awake often remembering general emotions, but details are either fuzzy or completely forgotten. When I do remember my dreams, I tend to analyze them. Perhaps too much. As an unabashed “story guy,” I love reading significant things into the seemingly insignificant. I went to bed the night of […]

Hope That Fades

Sometimes, somewhere along the way, you unknowingly develop nonsensical habits. You pop a mint every time you enter your vehicle, you tie and re-tie your shoes before walking out the door, you floss after every meal and snack and bowl of pudding. For me, among myriad other bizarre ways to operate in this life, I […]

Election Day: When Everything Changes But Probably Not

After the longest nastiest most expensive campaign in history, it’s finally Election Day. I know, right? It’s like hitting LOST finale day after six arduous years of mind-bending mysteries. Forget the tropical polar bears; soon, this ultimate political mystery will be revealed. I long debated writing anything special for this occasion. I liken my non-discussion […]

My Letter to Me: From YouthWorks to Now

Last week I received one of the more unique letters the U.S. postal service will ever deliver to me. Yes, even more random than the birthday cards from my first grade teacher, received 15+ years after I presented my last show-and-tell. Last week I received a letter from none other than me, dated from August […]

When Faith, Hope, and Love Collide

During 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 […]

“Are You Lost?”

You know the drill. You’ve had a really long day only to remember you’re out of milk, which we all know is the life-force of our refrigerators. You divert your course from home to Walmart and quickly become amazed that this many people actually go to Walmart at night. The only free parking spot is […]