Posts

I Just Want To Leave This World
Some days I just want to leave this world. Living here much longer simply feels like an emotional impossibility lately. The cruelty is too prevalent, the atrocities too pervasive, the

While Decent People Were Sleeping, The Bigots Stole America
Wake up, white Liberals and Progressives and Moderates. It’s morning in America. A lot happened while we were sleeping. This is not the America we thought existed back in November

Stop Waiting for Saviors and Superheroes
Today I asked my social media followers what gives them hope right now. There was a myriad of reasonable answers: children, grandchildren, spouses, partners, meaningful work, laughter, music—and dogs (lots

The Super Bowl of MAGA Hypocrisy
They’re clutching their pearls in Red America. The Super Bowl Halftime Show got them all hot and bothered. Too sexual. Too disrespectful to women. Too much skin. Those outfits. The

The Horrible Groundhog Days of This Presidency
Photo: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment As I write this, today is Groundhog Day. I didn’t realize that when I woke up, but that makes sense if you’ve ever seen the

Save What You Can
Heroes show up in unexpected places—even funerals. A few days after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida I stood alongside a few hundred strangers in

We Need Christian Missionaries to MAGA Nation
The Bible records Jesus imploring his students and those willing to follow him in the ways of compassion and mercy and love and justice, to “go and make disciples of

When Our Heroes Are Mortal
Kobe Bryant was… Those words don’t feel right placed together yet. That’s the first thing that you feel in moments like these: the not-rightness of it all, the sting of

Dear LGBTQ Children, God Adores You
Today our daughter came home from school and told us about a classmate who wore a shirt from her church that said: God Adores You One of the students noticed

Don’t Forget to Be Happy
Welcome to another day. You probably didn’t give much thought to the fact that you’re here, that you woke up. You likely haven’t stopped to breathe in deeply and slowly,

A Letter to Dr. King from a Recovering White Moderate
Dear Dr. King, I wish I’d have written this sooner. Indeed I should have but doing so was simply not possible, as it’s taken me this long to realize that

The White Evangelical Church Has Failed America. It’s Also Failed Jesus.
Christians need to name something right now: the white Evangelical Church in America has failed us all—fully, grievously, irreparably. If not for them, the previous president’s vile video confession of

I’m Really Tired of Hatred
Yesterday while picking up lunch I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in a few months. After exchanging surprised greetings and a fierce hug—she stopped abruptly, looked genuinely concerned

Christians are Supposed to Care About People
I used to think I was a Christian. I was raised in a Christian home and went to a Christian school. After a few meandering spiritual wilderness years I attended

We Who Grieve Aren’t Strong, We’re Trying To Survive
We recently lost a dear family member to a lifelong illness at just twenty-three years old. As his devastated father and I were exchanging dozens of texts during those first

Grieving A Loved One’s Missing Christmas Presence
Baby, all I want for Christmas is you. When grief visits you, the holidays change. Your wish list becomes incredibly small. Your priorities crystalize down to the essential, elemental things.

Evangelicals, It Was A Sin Supporting Him
Dear Evangelicals, It’s time. It’s time to admit that this was all a horrible mistake; that whether you were misled by a pastor or deceived by a politician, or lied

America’s Un-Civil War
The heralds of disaster are hard at work right now. They are prowling social media with dire prophecies and wielding megaphones in ramped up rally crowds and forecasting doom in

Mr President, Judaism is Not a Nationality and America is Not a Religion
Mr President, We shouldn’t be here. It is both laughable and sickening that we find ourselves at this place, having this conversation, about something like this—but then again, such has

Opposing Hateful People Doesn’t Make Me Hateful
“You’re being hateful.” I hear that a lot. The accusation is lobbed violently from behind anonymous Twitter handles or lazily tossed into neighborhood social media sites or spoken in quiet,

Dying to Leave, Trying to Live: My Depression Journey
(Trigger warning: suicide, self-harm) “I’m done living.” It was a few days after Christmas and I was sitting in a car outside our Central New York hotel, with heavy snow

He is Morally Impeachable
The truth is vulnerable right now. Good people know this. We can see that justice in this particular iteration of America is susceptible to compromised politicians and fake news conspiracies,

The Epidemic Loneliness of Trump’s America
As I travel the country and interact online, people tell me their stories and I look for the pattern in those stories: the recurring themes and similar sentiments that begin

This isn’t Christianity
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly

I Just Want To Leave This World
Some days I just want to leave this world. Living here much longer simply feels like an emotional impossibility lately. The cruelty is too prevalent, the atrocities too pervasive, the

While Decent People Were Sleeping, The Bigots Stole America
Wake up, white Liberals and Progressives and Moderates. It’s morning in America. A lot happened while we were sleeping. This is not the America we thought existed back in November

Stop Waiting for Saviors and Superheroes
Today I asked my social media followers what gives them hope right now. There was a myriad of reasonable answers: children, grandchildren, spouses, partners, meaningful work, laughter, music—and dogs (lots

The Super Bowl of MAGA Hypocrisy
They’re clutching their pearls in Red America. The Super Bowl Halftime Show got them all hot and bothered. Too sexual. Too disrespectful to women. Too much skin. Those outfits. The

The Horrible Groundhog Days of This Presidency
Photo: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment As I write this, today is Groundhog Day. I didn’t realize that when I woke up, but that makes sense if you’ve ever seen the

Save What You Can
Heroes show up in unexpected places—even funerals. A few days after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida I stood alongside a few hundred strangers in

We Need Christian Missionaries to MAGA Nation
The Bible records Jesus imploring his students and those willing to follow him in the ways of compassion and mercy and love and justice, to “go and make disciples of

When Our Heroes Are Mortal
Kobe Bryant was… Those words don’t feel right placed together yet. That’s the first thing that you feel in moments like these: the not-rightness of it all, the sting of

Dear LGBTQ Children, God Adores You
Today our daughter came home from school and told us about a classmate who wore a shirt from her church that said: God Adores You One of the students noticed

Don’t Forget to Be Happy
Welcome to another day. You probably didn’t give much thought to the fact that you’re here, that you woke up. You likely haven’t stopped to breathe in deeply and slowly,

A Letter to Dr. King from a Recovering White Moderate
Dear Dr. King, I wish I’d have written this sooner. Indeed I should have but doing so was simply not possible, as it’s taken me this long to realize that

The White Evangelical Church Has Failed America. It’s Also Failed Jesus.
Christians need to name something right now: the white Evangelical Church in America has failed us all—fully, grievously, irreparably. If not for them, the previous president’s vile video confession of

I’m Really Tired of Hatred
Yesterday while picking up lunch I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in a few months. After exchanging surprised greetings and a fierce hug—she stopped abruptly, looked genuinely concerned

Christians are Supposed to Care About People
I used to think I was a Christian. I was raised in a Christian home and went to a Christian school. After a few meandering spiritual wilderness years I attended

We Who Grieve Aren’t Strong, We’re Trying To Survive
We recently lost a dear family member to a lifelong illness at just twenty-three years old. As his devastated father and I were exchanging dozens of texts during those first

Grieving A Loved One’s Missing Christmas Presence
Baby, all I want for Christmas is you. When grief visits you, the holidays change. Your wish list becomes incredibly small. Your priorities crystalize down to the essential, elemental things.

Evangelicals, It Was A Sin Supporting Him
Dear Evangelicals, It’s time. It’s time to admit that this was all a horrible mistake; that whether you were misled by a pastor or deceived by a politician, or lied

America’s Un-Civil War
The heralds of disaster are hard at work right now. They are prowling social media with dire prophecies and wielding megaphones in ramped up rally crowds and forecasting doom in

Mr President, Judaism is Not a Nationality and America is Not a Religion
Mr President, We shouldn’t be here. It is both laughable and sickening that we find ourselves at this place, having this conversation, about something like this—but then again, such has

Opposing Hateful People Doesn’t Make Me Hateful
“You’re being hateful.” I hear that a lot. The accusation is lobbed violently from behind anonymous Twitter handles or lazily tossed into neighborhood social media sites or spoken in quiet,

Dying to Leave, Trying to Live: My Depression Journey
(Trigger warning: suicide, self-harm) “I’m done living.” It was a few days after Christmas and I was sitting in a car outside our Central New York hotel, with heavy snow

He is Morally Impeachable
The truth is vulnerable right now. Good people know this. We can see that justice in this particular iteration of America is susceptible to compromised politicians and fake news conspiracies,

The Epidemic Loneliness of Trump’s America
As I travel the country and interact online, people tell me their stories and I look for the pattern in those stories: the recurring themes and similar sentiments that begin

This isn’t Christianity
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly