Mount Si A cold blue hangs on the deck and drips off the flowers falling from the verandas. The sun is far from rising above the Cascades and the raccoons are far, miles miles miles, from the mess they made with the trash by the steep street earlier that night. The mug in his hand holds...

There’s a disruptive tear in the fabric of life when someone dies.  Tens of thousands of people die each day, but we live unaware of this fact until death comes close enough for us to touch.  Death becomes real during those moments as the fabric is torn, shaking us to our bones, opening up the...

This summer I heard about a book called “100 First Dates,” and I was interested in reading more about it because as it turns out I, too, am a first date connoisseur.  I went online and read the premise of the book: a single, twenty-something-year-old girl in New York named Laura Esteves dated every...

The most rewarding thing I did this week was toss a messy pile of roof shingles into a nasty dumpster. I suppose, as a pastor and writer, I should have something loftier to claim, a driving sermon, a thoughtful article. But not this week. The pile of shingles littered the back corner of my small lot...

A few months ago I posted about my training in mixed martial arts and how I reconciled it with my faith. I still don’t have a rationale worked out. But the NYT ran an article about mixed martial arts “ministries” and offered what I thought was a fair critique. The training we offer...

Long before I came to edit this site, I enlisted in the Army. When you enlist, there are a number of jobs you can choose from.  These are called MOS’s, or Military Occupational Specialties, because the US military never says anything simply.  I didn’t want to be a truck driver or an infantryman,...

“Peninnah had children, but Hannah had none.” – I Samuel 1:2 My friend just turned 28.  When we went out to celebrate her birthday, she informed me that her biological clock is now ticking, and all she can think about is having a baby.  So she’s been making plans to get more serious with...

Rescue crews hadn’t even begun to unload supplies before Pat Robertson began to upbraid Haitians for their “pact with the devil.” Robertson said Haitians joined forces with Satan’s Army:  “They said, ‘We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.’ True story. And so the...

Imagine that the dome of the White House had fallen in on itself. Or a disaster hit of such magnitude that nearly everyone west of the Mississippi was affected. This is what happened in Haiti last night.  The presidential building collapsed in on itself when a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit the island....

My wife falls asleep immediately, head to the pillow, but I like to read myself into the dream world. I climb into bed and pull my headlamp over my curly hair. I aim the light at the pages and read the words working my way through the ink, a story bleeding from the author’s heart and honed by his mind....