Ash Wednesday

February 23, 2023.Reading time 9 minutes.

A year ago Ash Wednesday… It is about this time of night(1) I have not come home from church, but instead I am sitting alone in Roberts Forest at KPUMC. The fire pit is dying down. (This is an actual picture….) I’m praying a lot. I’m playing guitar. And I’m doing some pretty intense crying. […]

Jimmy Carter Christianity

February 20, 2023.Reading time 24 minutes.

Whether or not you are a Christian, if you’re looking for the kind of human I believe best exemplifies my Christian faith, look no further than Jimmy Carter. If you are increasingly convinced there is no such this as a “good and decent” form of Christianity, I would simply invite you to consider Jimmy Carter’s […]

Cody McMahan

January 30, 2023.Reading time 7 minutes.

Cody McMahan died Saturday. I had the privilege of knowing Cody for perhaps 15-20 years….I believe I’ve lost count. I believe I first met him when Cody was still a member of Greenland Hills UMC. He later joined Northaven, and still later started dating and eventually married Mike House. One of the high honors of […]

Remembering Buechner

August 16, 2022.Reading time 3 minutes.

Stopping for a moment to read these words. This old, yellowed quote from Frederick Buechner has been on the wall of every office study I’ve had for 30+ years. What’s YOUR favorite Buechner quote? (Copy/paste it in the comments…) I can’t even begin to calculate the numbers of times I’ve quoted Buechner in sermons, Sunday […]

Pass It On

November 13, 2018.Reading time 14 minutes.

“It only takes a spark To get a fire going And soon all those around Can warm up in its glowing That’s how it is with God’s love Once you’ve experienced it You spread His love to ev’ryone You want to pass it on” — Kurt Kaiser The early history of me and the guitar […]

“A Red Letter Day”

September 21, 2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

I got a birthday present for all y’all today. Yes, today is my birthday. Yes, it’s the most awesome birthday on the calendar. September 21st is shared with amazing people like Bill Murray, HG Wells, and Leonard Cohen. It’s also the International Day of Peace, often the Fall Equinox, and the basis of the bitchin’ […]

Thom Elliott

June 21, 2018.Reading time 11 minutes.

What a rich, emotional day. Did and “down and back” trip to Georgetown today, for the memorial service of Thom Elliott.  As I wrote a few weeks ago when Thom died, he was my supervising pastor for my Perkins Internship, and one of *the* most formative ministers in my life. And, in a deeply personal […]

My Father’s Workbench

November 20, 2017.Reading time 16 minutes.

My Mother is moving. It’s a good thing. Downsizing. Big estate/garage sale on the day after Thanksgiving. Our own family-led “Black Friday.” Pray for us… But it means we are disassembling the home where she and Dad lived for 40 years. Closet-by-closet, room-by-room, we are pulling out all the lovingly stored items. “We,” by the […]

Bishop John Wesley Hardt

June 18, 2017.Reading time 14 minutes.

Bishop John Wesley Hardt has died. I just heard the news. It happened a few hours earlier today. This makes me incredibly sad, as I know it does generations of Methodists here in Texas. If you are a Methodist in Texas, it’s likely you have a John Wesley Hardt story. I also have one. And […]

Adam West

June 10, 2017.Reading time 5 minutes.

When I was a kid, I never grasped that Adam West’s TV “Batman” was kitschy, ironic, and sarcastic. I just though it was cool. Like Pixar movies today, that TV show worked on several levels. Adults reveled in the cool 60s references, and sexual innuendo. I was five. All that went over my head. To […]