Category: Personal Essays
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Show Up. Stay. Risk It All.
Three ice waters. Fifteen minutes. A shaken server on the verge of tears. A nine-top that wasn’t ours. A middle table where everyone could see us. New on Five Minute Observations — a quiet essay about showing up, staying, and the risk of being kind first.
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Do You Remember When?
One flavor of Doritos. Three sizes of drinks. A show inside a show inside a memory. Yesterday’s break room conversation turned into something bigger.
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Why I’d Be a Terrible Counselor
Speed limits. Advice that almost got me beat up. And a counselor’s chair. Three things that have nothing in common. But they do.
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Invisible
I found a slide from my 8th-grade graduation. My classmates were smiling. I wasn’t. I didn’t ask why. Nobody else did either.
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Winter Protocol
My essay, “Winter Protocol” is live today at bioStories. It’s an essay about ordinary people doing quiet work. In the cold. Go read it. bioStories.com
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Embers
I smacked Ray’s arm out of the way, waiting for him to swing back. He didn’t. His older brother held me back. Fifty minutes later I was kneeling in front of the wood stove, still burning. And the fire wasn’t mine.
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His Older Brother
A California kid lands in rural Idaho. Snow, gravel roads, and a school bus full of kids he doesn’t know. One of them is Ray. Big. Farm bred. And looking for a fight. This is about one person who stepped between them, and why, more than thirty years later, he still can’t remember his name.
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Acceptance
You either accept or quit. I had to accept I might never love again. Then I stopped fighting. This is the result.
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What If They Say Yes
Most people won’t admit they’re afraid of good news. Or that time passing terrifies them more than failure does. I’ll go first. Two overlooked fears. An ancient promise. And one question: what if they say yes?
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Between The Buildings
pass through the breezeway at Gibson without thinking about it. Most days I hurry through, dodging conversations. This time someone called my name. I almost didn’t stop. I’m glad I did.
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What You Missed
Wave after wave. Three deaths. One pandemic. And a marriage ending without a conversation. I yelled, screamed, and cried to God. But somehow, on the other side of it all, I found real gratitude and what it feels like.
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It’s Acceptable
His sermon was and is true. Until it became inconvenient for him. New essay on anger, integrity, and practicing what you preach.
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NORM! (And Why Churches Need More of This Energy)
I wrote this thinking about Cheers and how it would feel if church worked the same. It’s crazy. Jesus had the same idea! Read this and let me know if your church has a NORM moment.
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Be Nice
GeVonee said two words that stopped me cold. I laughed. Then I thought about it all day. Read more about it at Five Minute Observations.
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Leave It Alone
Paying attention is hard. But what do you do when you see something you can’t unsee? Pass on something you should have? In that moment do you see anyone else in power asking the same questions you are?
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Noticing
The armadillo stopped you. He didn’t. You tell yourself you’ll pay attention when it matters. Then you pass a man outside the DQ and order a Blizzard. You were noticing. Just not him.
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Counting Pennies
Wrote this several months ago about Rebecca. I think about her every time I open an empty pantry. She had exactly $127.43 worth of problems. Find out what happened when three strangers showed up at 6:47 PM.
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