After Helene: And the Leaf Still Holds

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.

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Everybody Needs an Uncle Pat

I became an uncle six years ago, and Uncle Pat has always been my template for uncling. Because everyone needs an Uncle Pat. Someone to remember them on their birthdays, buy them Slurpees, ask about their lives, and drive them around on special journeys. If my nieces or future nephews ever have anything positive to say about their Uncle Tom, it will be because Uncle Pat showed me how to uncle well.

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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.

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Older Than Jesus

Growing up, Jesus always seemed so much older than me. Not like eighty or ninety or a hundred “old,” but when you’re only eight or nine, thirty years old feels a hundred years away. But now to have lived the ages of 30 to 33, I have a new perspective on the life of Jesus. Turns out he was way younger – and way stronger – than I’d thought. I’ve had a tumultuous three years; perhaps the most shaping three years of my life. Again, as a storyteller, I can’t help drawing parallels with Jesus’ thirties.

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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.”

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A Time to Step Out and Speak Out

As a conflict-avoidant person, I’ve always had this general rule of thumb: stay away from politics when talking with other humans – online or offline. Just stay away. But something’s changed in the last year. A tension not previously felt now rages in me, building over the span of Trump’s presidency. I’ve often been left wondering: at what point do I step out and speak out . . . and at what point do I just throw up my hands and take a deep breath and let it be, and pray, and pray? It’s hard to sit down for my weekly blog and ignore last week’s events at the Capitol. The insanity that erupted and has been swirling in America, within Christianity since Donald Trump descended down that escalator six years ago. It’s all I’ve been thinking about this week, and again I feel the tension. Bubbling tension that must be released.

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Prodigal Father

The plot twist of the book is Nouwen’s charge that we aren’t merely to identify with the lost younger son or the lost older son. But we are to identify with the founding father. Becoming more like him as we walk this road. We are to be ones who create home for other people. Ones who keep them safe and warm. Ones who always welcome them in. Even – especially – after they leave.

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A Time to Refrain from Embracing

Looking down at my precious niece in my arms, I realized it’s really something, how we need physical touch to survive. Need to be swaddled. Need to be held. Need to feel the warmth of another human emanating against us, if only to affirm to one another we are not alone in this desert. To embrace for my soul or not to embrace for my body? Life with an autoimmune disease during the pandemic of the century: one calculated risk after another.

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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.

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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.

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Broken Belonging

Looking 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?

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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.

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Anything Mentionable is Manageable

I saw the new Mr. Rogers movie, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” It’s unlike any other movie I’ve seen. A unique story structure, beautiful set design, and phenomenal acting. “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” is a movie that will stick with me for a while. I was teary-eyed the entire way – both from the sheer beauty of this story and its haunting connections to my own.

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God’s Love is Still Reckless

When “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.

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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.

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Leave Me Alone

I’m grieving more than just the loss of my grandfather — a hero, a giant, an embodiment of God’s love. I’m grieving all relational brokenness. I’m grieving human death for the first time, yes, but I’m also grieving everything else that separates humanity. Divorce, war, disagreement, misunderstanding, vitriol. Friends who aren’t friends anymore.

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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.

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A “Love, Simon” Pseudo-Review

On High School, Deep Dark Secrets, Coming Out, Asexuality, My First Kiss, Longing, Commitment, Separation, and the Eternal What-If? I tracked along with 95% of Love, Simon. The deep dark secrets. The longings for other boys. The conflict between self and persona. The thrill of realizing you’re not alone.

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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 […]

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And to All a Good Riddance

As the grotesque mass of space garbage we call 2016 hurtles toward oblivion, people everywhere are cheering the prospect of a new year. Myself included. We’ve proclaimed this the worst year ever, what with a most bizarre election cycle, the deaths of numerous beloved celebrities, raging wildfires and natural disasters, and the opening of the […]

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A Heart That Can Always Come Home

I’m an angsty guy, I’m realizing — shocker of the century, I know you’re screaming. I’m rarely ever content, but I do experience contentment. However fleeting. Holidays help ground me. They remind me where I came from and they tell me I’m not alone — even though I try to convince myself otherwise the rest […]

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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 […]

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When I’m Getting a Dog

I’m dogsitting this weekend. Before I moved to Asheville, I never dog-sat or cat-sat or any-other-animal-sat a day in my life. Now, it seems I do it every other weekend. At last count, I think I’ve kept ten different animals alive since moving here. It started with one pet-sitting request at work, and it just […]

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And the Message is Fun

The last two days, I’ve taken our students to the River Arts District here in Asheville to visit with local artists in their studios and even do some painting on canvases and walls alike. It’s rare that I get to go out with the students, as I usually aid them with math or writing in […]

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My Brother Said He Loves Me

I’ve returned to the addicts group. It’s the first time in five shifts that I’ve reunited with a group, and it’s already made for a smoother integration. For this familiarity to occur with the oldest, previously most intimidating group full of mustaches and patchy beards is a welcome surprise. I’ve teamed back up with 18-year-old Matt, the “bad twin” who also has […]

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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 […]

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Love Will Find You

I’m sitting at Kudu Coffee in the heart of Charleston. The spacious, grassy Marion Square lies a block to my left. Another block down on Calhoun Street sits Mother Emanuel AME Church. I was here on #RunningTo just six months ago. Here at this coffee shop, there in the square, and even over there walking past […]

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Jurassic Brothers: A “Jurassic World” Recap that Has Nothing to Do with Dinosaurs

I saw Jurassic World on opening weekend alongside 4.6 billion others. Not quite opening night, because that level of commitment is reserved for more sacred stuff like Star Wars. (175 more days. But who’s counting?) Chris Pratt playing with raptors? Riding alongside them on a motorcycle? Some sort of big bad hybrid dino? Even though the trailers […]

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I Visited Westboro Baptist Church

DAY 114: For years they have intrigued me. I’ve watched their interviews and demonstrations on TV and YouTube. They travel the world, hailing from the innocuous center of Kansas and America. They call themselves Baptists — supposed believers of the same Jesus I follow. As I park my car in a Topekan residential area, I approach 12th Street with a distinct shudder. NO […]

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MILWAUKEE, Take 3

Three years ago, I first ventured to this Midwestern city. Called it home for an entire summer as I learned what it meant to receive love in community while simultaneously ministering to one. Two years ago, I returned to this city with a gut lined with lonely dread only to rediscover the Paradise it once was. On […]

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Make Life’s Moments Momentous

What is life? Philosophers and religious scholars and non-religious scholars and simpletons have been striving to answer this question for millennia. I’m no Plato, but the answer to that question seems quite simple to me: life is a string of moments, connected together by the passage of time. Most of life’s moments involve sitting in a lecture hall or […]

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I’ve Never Been a Groomsman

I’ve always hated weddings. I think my childhood proves this claim quite clearly. Comical childish outbursts aside, I was never one to get on board with this whole wedding business. Truthfully, weddings just weren’t enjoyable. How does one enjoy watching two people do something one assumes he’ll never do? Engaged and married couples have always felt so foreign and “advanced” to me. I’ve rarely […]

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Life as an Enneagram Type 4: What Unhealthy Tom Looks Like

I recently blogged about Enneagram — the personality model, not the board game. The Enneagram Institute splits humanity into nine definitive personality “types,” each interconnected with the other types. What follows is the second post in a brief introspective series about my life as a Type 4: “The Individualist.” Today, I examine the darker side of life as an unhealthy Type 4 […]

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What Makes You an Incredible Friend

You’re an incredible friend. You’ve loved me when I’ve often struggled to love myself. You’re an incredible friend. You’ve texted me and called me and otherwise checked on me when I’ve never asked you to do so. Especially when I’ve secretly needed your love but felt too ashamed or needy to ask for it. You’re […]

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What Makes Me a Horrible Friend

I’m a horrible friend. I only want your friendship for your kind words so that I can feel affirmed. I only want your friendship for your favors so that I can do less work or spend less money. I only want your friendship for those one-sided conversations that make me feel less lonely as I completely […]

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The Story of Ahh: My Grandfather

I love my grandfather. I grew up a mile down the road from my grandparents, and I often walked to their house for adventures only grandparents and their grandchildren can appreciate. In turn, my grandfather would often take early morning walks to our house, tweed cap, leather jacket, and sweet hickory pipe in tow. My […]

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On Interrupting Someone’s Meal

“Excuse me, can I just say something?” I turned from the vulnerable conversation I was having with a new friend and looked up at a middle-aged woman’s face. She’d been sitting two tables beside us, eating dinner with her teenage son. Upon rising from her completed meal of Panda Express goodness, she stepped over and […]

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Westboro Baptist Church Freedom

Westboro Baptist Church fascinates me. Though not a perfect metaphor, I liken this fascination to that with colorful characters on Survivor. And by colorful, I basically mean despicable. I’m looking at you, RUSSELL HANTZ. For those unfamiliar, Westboro Baptist Church lies at the geographic center of America: Nowheresville, Kansas. The church was started by Fred […]

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Valentine’s Day Scavenger Hunts

Happy Valentine’s Day! Or Single Awareness Day for the pessimistic cynics out there. Go team. I’ve never spent a single Valentine’s Day in love, so admittedly, I don’t really grasp the lovey-dovey magnitude of this day like so many do. For me, Valentine’s Day seems like a great chance to waste money on chocolates or […]

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A Most Incredible Devastation

My third session at camp now resides in the books, and it’s with legitimate sadness that I type this recap, because this session – these precious kids – rocked my world. And now it’s over. Now they’re gone. My role as “camp counselor” took on elevated meaning and purpose as nine incredible Tennesseeans flooded my […]

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A Birthday Baptism by Buccaneer Bay

I 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 […]

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Easter is Nonsense

Easter is the epitome of the illogical turn of events. People don’t just roll away massive unmovable boulders. People don’t escape from inescapable tombs. People don’t cheat death. And yet one person did. A person unlike any other. A person who claimed to be 100% man, yet 100% God — math that makes no sense. […]

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God Doesn’t Love You

We’ve all heard those cliché lines where some rugged dude tells his wife that he loves her more today than the day they got married. How sweet like a cherry dipped in chocolate drenched in syrup surrounded by kittens wearing sailor hats. Maybe you married folk have said something similar to your significant other. God’s […]

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My Valentine is Forever

I dislike Valentine’s Day. I almost used “hate” there, but eh, Valentine’s Day isn’t worth my hate. The Yankees, on the other hand… Maybe Valentine’s Day would give me the heart-throbs and the dizzies if I was ever romantically involved with another on this sorta made-up holiday. Maybe someday I’ll devolve into that pathetic state. […]

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On Religion vs. Relationship

By now it’s an almost certainty that you’ve seen this controversial “religion vs. relationship” video. But on the off-chance that you’ve been fasting from the Internet (then how are you reading this?) or have stubbornly refused to update to the newest version of Flash these last 7 years, here it is for your viewing pleasure. […]

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November Angst

Today is hard. Five years ago today I lost one of my best friends who just so happened to have four legs and an excitable little tail. And just last year, almost to the day, I lost a friend who I’d never even met in person, and yet profoundly impacted — indeed, continually impacts — […]

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Unleashing Your (Toy) Story

As a semi-seclusive writer paradoxically desperate for community, I jumped on the opportunity to attend an “art of storytelling” gathering with fellow creatives at my church. And it was there I became convinced that Toy Story 3 is one of the greatest stories of all time. But don’t just take my word for it. Donald […]

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My YouthWorks Summer: Week 5

This is the sixth of ten blogging installments from my life-changing summer in Milwaukee. In this recap I review my fifth week of programming, which aligned with the special week of July 4th. Be sure to check out my postscript thoughts at the end! A logical place for such thoughts. If you’ve missed any of […]

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