Challenge. Something that really made you grow this year. That made you go to your edge and then some. What made it the best challenge of the year for you?

Without a doubt the biggest challenge was walking with the Tiny Church family through the illness and then death of their 8 year old son… with […]

Just read about a blog challenge in which people reflect on the best of 2009—a different topic each day of December. Can’t say I’ll be any more regular about this than I was about National Blog Posting Month, but here goes.

December 1: My Best Trip of 2009
There were some good ones this year—family trip to […]

R asked last night, “So how many parts of the story are there?” I think there’s just one more piece I want to share, as I reflect upon how this transition has come to pass. Call it the end of the beginning.
Before I get to the substance of the post, I did want to record […]

So there’s all the head stuff when discerning a call—matching up pastoral gifts with the church’s needs, analyzing, vetting, and so forth. The head stuff is connected to intuitive stuff, too—whether something just feels right. It’s nice when head and gut are on the same page.
The heart stuff is a whole other thing.
I submitted my […]

A few days after my “thanks but no thanks” letter to Presbyterian Mecca Church, it came to my attention that Tiny Church’s profile was up in the denomination’s database. (Think Match.com for clergy and churches.)
I knew a little bit about this congregation. Their previous pastor had retired a couple of years back after almost […]

As I’ve talked to people at Suburban Pres. about this new call, I have told them that in six years of ministry I have never pursued a new pastoral position. Some churches’ search committees have contacted me over the years, asking me to give them a look, but I’ve never been interested.
And that is all […]

This is our twelve-year-old car. It looks sparkling from this angle, but it’s got quite the dents and dings on it. Still runs great though.
Last Thursday we finally “joined the Prius cult,” as R put it, so we’ve been fixing up the black car in preparation to get rid of it. We were a bit […]

So Upperclassman Guy, the semi-stalker from this post, just sent me a friend request on Facebook.
So you understand the dilemma:
Do I just hit “Ignore,” or do I send him a message explaining why I am so NOT friending his sorry ass?
Discuss.

I recently read a poem (which for the life of me I can’t find; I really need Google-for-real-life) in which the speaker talked about how much he hated it when adults laughed at him for stuff he did as a kid. You know what I’m talking about? I’m not talking about laughing when kids are […]

Tell us about five people, places, or things that have brought surprising, healing joy into your life.

Both of my children bring unexpected joy, but I remember M’s ultrasound as a particular joyful surprise. We’d always planned to have two children and I somehow figured I’d get one of each. So when the technician said, “Ah! […]

It is reported that when William Stafford was asked how he was able to write a poem every day, he said, “I lowered my standards.”
And in that spirit…
for the CGs
we had often giggled over dinner,
doodled the names of our future children on butcher paper,
ripped into hot bread, too hungry to wait,
passed it one to […]

today is the twenty-seventh of October.
Twenty-seven Octobers ago, I was in first grade. (I’ve skipped a lot of years, eh? The memory gets fuzzy.)
I don’t remember much about October of that year. I don’t even remember my Halloween costume, but I do remember the big Halloween carnival that took place in the front courtyard of […]

Today is October eighteenth.
Eighteen Octobers ago, I was in high school, I lived in Dallas,
and we went to the fair every year.
the texas state fair in 90 seconds
big tex
fletcher’s corn dogs
funnel cake that burns your fingers but you can’t wait
the texas star ferris wheel against a faded denim sky
family
the music hall
the cotton bowl, texas/oklahoma […]

Today is the 14th of October.
Fourteen Octobers ago, I was a sophomore in college.
Put simply, fall of sophomore year was a warm steaming barrel of shit. Honestly. It was just a big pile of manure.
I spent the second half of freshman year, and the summer following, basically between a rock and a hard place. The […]

Today is the eleventh of October.
Eleven Octobers ago, it was 1994.
That month, R and I got married.
I wrote something for our tenth anniversary last year, but didn’t say anything about the actual event. Here are a few quick memories about our wedding…
How it all began
In January of 1994, R and I were seniors at Rice […]

Today is the fifth of October.
Five Octobers ago, it was 2000…
I remember a particularly wonderful fall day with R in north Georgia, at Amicalola Falls State Park, a pumpkin farm, and even a little shopping at an outlet mall. Hey, I am not too granola (there’s that word again) to say that the Williams Sonoma […]

As I said, I’ve always loved the month of October. There have been some memorable Octobers and some mundane ones over my 33 years. So I had this strange idea for a blogging discipline this month—take the day, count back that number of years, and write something about October of that year. For example, on […]

Katrina was tough, but Rita is tougher for me on a personal level.
Mainly because we’ve all been shown in the last few weeks how bad it can be.
But also because it’s hard to see the people of Houston, still my hometown in so many ways, who have come together to support and minister to Katrina […]

night
awake from a dream,
I squint at three dispassionate numbers,
stare them down like it’s high noon
(but it’s 3:45).
then I sigh and flutter closed,
sink down, burrow deep,
but it’s too late:
behind my eyes
the dream is a poem now, scarcely even born,
yet she wants me to
come get up,
come play,
come feed me
now!
she’s yanked the covers back,
knotted them at my knees
so […]