The SPU board doubled down on its anti-queer policies, so I wrote about my favorite scenes of gay love in the Bible. … More To the Board of Trustees at Seattle Pacific University

For many years, the closet was a safe place to hide. It’s time to tear it down. … More Leaving the Closet

“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” –Mary Oliver On January 17, for just a few hours, part of our collective online life seemed to take on a different tone. The usual frenzy was jarred by news of Mary Oliver’s death, and as word spread it set the Internet afire … More Mary Oliver and the Poetry of Love

Like everybody else I know in the Northwest, I was captivated by the story of Tahlequah, or J-35, the orca whale who carried her deceased calf for more than 1,000 miles—what became known internationally as a “tour of grief.” The calf had lived for as little as half an hour, and Tahlequah refused to let go … More The Dynamic Grief of Tahlequah

I expected much of how Won’t You Be My Neighbor moved me. I watched in tears as Morgan Neville’s beautiful film showed Fred Rogers’ seemingly endless capacity for empathy and compassion, and I choked up at the all-too-rare gift of an adult who remembers what it’s like to be a kid. I was inspired by his defense … More Mr. Rogers and the Magic of Fiction

A reflection delivered at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology’s 2017 Commencement ceremony: Near the beginning of every great journey, there is a call. A call to leave home, to leave the known and the familiar, and to step toward something big and wild and scary. For me, that home was on the banks … More Come and See: The Water Is Good

I’ve been thinking lately about the one and only white Christmas I have ever experienced: 1997, Winter Park, Colorado, during a season of record-breaking snowfall. For this Florida boy, Colorado at Christmas was a strange, exciting new world: skiing, snowmobiling, hot chocolate in front of the fire, snowball fights with my siblings, watching a thermometer … More An Unexpected Story

When I started my application to The Seattle School in the summer of 2014, I was holed up in a hotel room somewhere near the Maryland/Pennsylvania state line. I was tired, I could barely walk, and I had just come to terms with the idea of pressing pause on my childhood dream of hiking the … More A Different Kind of Journey