Exploring the intersection of sacred and secular. I grew up in construction in the South, which offered so many opportunities to hear an abundance of colorful aphorisms. As a language nerd, I loved quips like, “even a blind squirrel gets a nut once in a while.” In Part 1: Giving COVID a Finger, I…

Exploring the intersection of sacred and secular. There are some life lessons that would serve us well to learn early, and when we learn them later – mostly because of multiple mistakes that we can only make and learn from later, it becomes mighty painful. Never Whittle Toward Yourself My COVID Finger is not…

Exploring the intersection of sacred and secular. I’m at the (interminable) stage of writing The Myth of a Dying Church that’s editing, narrowing the scope, and filling in gaps. The current chapter ponders human nature, how we think we’ve changed, and whether or not the idea that we have changed is true at all.…

Exploring the intersection of sacred and secular. The action-adventure video game No Man’s Sky was released in 2016 after a massive media push making incredible claims about the player experience — for the first time, a nearly unlimited space-based sandbox, where the main story arc was only the beginning. As it turns out, those claims…

Exploring the intersection of sacred and secular. I discovered something kind of wonderful, my daughter likes some of my music — at least the songs she doesn’t call “old and tired” — she’s seven, y’all. Country Road During this end-of-summer lull between camp and school, our membership to Davis Farmland has been pretty…

Exploring the intersection of sacred and secular. It’s not about you! If you’d just get your head out of your ass and worry about others, you could do some great things.  This is not only one of the most helpful pieces of pastoral advice I ever received, but it’s probably the most important piece…

Exploring the intersection of sacred and secular. Last week, I wrote about a type of powerful healing that — despite being accessible to us all, feels all-too-rare — the healing that comes from loving ourselves and others. In writing that, I also wrote a segment that didn’t make the edit, but it’s been on my…

Exploring the intersection of sacred and secular. Growing up, I dreamed of being powerful — not the political power, or even power over others, but powerful in my own right. Of course Superman’s power was alluring, but what I needed was healing. Hello, Fellow Humans For those of you madly looking for a…

Exploring the intersection of sacred and secular. Reflecting on human nature is kind of my thing, and it always has been. This is part of what drew me to study the Bible — it’s a massive anthology of humanity at its best and hot-messiest. It’s also what made me mildly obsessed with the Enlightenment. …

Exploring the intersection of sacred and secular. Retired theologian and UMC bishop, William Willomon, wrote a book by this title that I read around the time I went to seminary. I can’t remember much of it after all these years other than this: we must answer our calling with the entirety of self.  …