God’s great inside joke

a sermon i offered recently for the community at first presbyterian church of berkeley, based on luke 6:27–36: “but I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. if anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the […]

all who hunger: rest

i recently shared these words with our university ministry community in berkeley, for a series titled, “all who hunger.” if you haven’t been with us, welcome. we’ve been having some conversations this fall in a series we’re calling, “all who hunger,” where we’ve been asking, what are our deepest hungers? what are those hungers driving us? […]

all who hunger: (life-giving) community

i recently shared these words with our university ministry community in berkeley, for a series titled, “all who hunger.” we’re starting a new fall series where we’ve been asking, what are we most hungry for, in this season? and, are we living in a way that’s leading us toward satisfying those hungers? how can we help one […]

all who hunger: the God of physical hunger

i shared the following reflection with our university ministry community in berkeley, for a series titled, “all who hunger.” “centuries of secularism have failed to transform eating into something strictly utilitarian. food is still treated with reverence. to eat something is still more than to maintain bodily functions. people may not understand what that […]

when we say goodbye | in love with my own ruin

to love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise. –fyodor dostoyevksy i’ve been thinking about and working on a book idea since finishing called: my journey to c. s. lewis’s house and back again. death and grief and the long process of saying goodbye is, unfortunately, part of our story. and in the […]

God’s (costly) new normal

the following is a sermon i recently offered on ephesians 3:7–13 at first presbyterian church of berkeley. I. “of this gospel i have become a servant according to the gift of God’s grace that was given me by the working of his power” (ephesians 3:7). three weeks ago berkeley was overflowing with graduation celebrations: students […]

thresholds: the (im)permeability of our homes & our hearts

“When you look at the rules of traditional masculinity, it’s all about creating an inhuman: someone who is all surfaces and has no innards, no interiority and doesn’t require community, doesn’t require intimacy, doesn’t require family. We’ve been dealing with the fallout of that utter nonsense for centuries and the terrible damage it does to […]

a semblance of home

“maybe at the heart of all our traveling is the dream of someday, somehow, getting Home.” –frederick buechner and then, late one saturday morning in may, the person you love most in the world is reduced to a pile of boxes—old books, papers, clothes, tools—all strewn across the hot pavement outside a storage unit. […]

late-night coincidences: don’t ever think that you’ve been forgotten

it’s saturday night and the kids have been down for at least an hour already, maybe more. the house is especially quiet. jen is tidying up downstairs somewhere, while i pour the basket of laundry onto our bed and make myself useful. the monotony of towels folded end-over-end and socks turned in on themselves, after […]

walking with c. s. lewis: remembering professor tony ash

for those of us from the cool, damp pacific northwest, there’s not much reason to get excited about traveling to west texas. but i arrived deeply excited. after flying into san antonio late march, i drove the four hours north to meet professor tony ash. a publisher introduced me to tony several years ago, shortly […]