The Teaching Library

When You Show Up Anyway

There is a moment before the first step back into a room you left. What to do with that moment.

Not despite. Because.

The Wound Is the Credential

We keep looking for guides who have it together. Scripture keeps pointing us toward guides who survived.

What Brought You Back

I was holding the bulletin. Someone called my name. I set it down and walked to the front.

Who Holds the Building

Candy knew which outlet needed a different breaker. Evelyn knew the menu for the July meal before anyone asked her to start.

What the triskelion is trying to say

Three Spirals, One Center

There is a stone at Newgrange, carved before the pyramids. Three arms, a hollow center. I have been living under that shape for a long time without a name for it.

When the Wilderness Goes Dark

I have been in the wilderness. I am not going to tell you it was instructive. I am going to tell you what I found there.

The Algorithm Is the New King

The Hebrew Bible from Genesis through Judges is one long argument against concentrated power. Then Israel asked for a king anyway.

What the Commute Taught Me

I went to seminary because I wanted to be formed. I was formed in the parking lot of Lombard United Methodist Church, in the cold, at 11pm.

The Grotesque Is the Gospel

Flannery O'Connor said the South has a literature of the grotesque because it still has a belief in the devil. I think she was paying us a compliment.

What the Phone Does to the Body

I was in a Facebook thread that turned into a dogpile. Then Wade called. I pulled over and answered.

Going Back

I drove to Annual Conference for the first time in seven years. Sunday I preached for the first time in twelve months. I had not arrived anywhere. I was just going.

The Shape Underneath Everything

I grew up behind a Walmart. One world ran on six crops. The other ran on ten thousand. It took me thirty years to find the through-line.