I want to write something about Alton Sterling. About injustice. About how black lives matter.

I care. I really do.

If reading about Alton Sterling in the New York Times and writing a post about it counts as caring.

What does reading about Alton Sterling in the New York Times and writing a post about it do for Alton Sterling? What does it do for the next Alton Sterling? What does it do for all of the other Alton Sterlings out there who will not get shot by a cop, but will get shot by someone? What does it do for all the other Alton Sterlings out there who end up chronically unemployed? Or in prison?

Or successful by all counts except that they’re a stereotype in a blog post like this?

Do I even know what the hell I’m talking about?

I’m a 40-year old white guy from Ashland, Ohio. Sure, I dabbled in the race issue when I did a couple of summers in Mississippi. I lived in inner...

The number don’t lie.

This blog platform tracks “kudos” and subscribers. The social media on which I post also track “likes,” “retweets,” and “shares.”

And what do these quantifying/reporting/tracks tools reveal?

Nobody reads my blog.

And that’s OK with me.

Like multiplying monkeys drumming, we humans are finding more things to quantify and more ways to quantify them. What was once the work of a clerk counting inventory in a widget factory is now the daily norm for someone counting their “friends” online.

What happens when counting “friends” online becomes the norm?

We begin to conflate math with meaning, quantity with quality, totals with totality. Does the fact that I have 1,162 Facebook “friends” total say anything about the totality of those friendships? What does that number say about the friendships themselves? What does that number say about any one of those people? About...

Creativity (and the joy of it) may be the outcome of a plan, but it can never be the plan itself.

Following a plan is not creativity.

Creativity is going in a direction. You’re going north. That’s a direction. Creativity is how you respond to what you encounter along the way. It’s all the little detours and long cuts and side roads you take.

Following a plan caps the number of people along for the ride. It confines the route to the shortest point between A and B. It may allow for a fuel stop or restroom break at a stopping point we identify in advance, but we’re on a strict schedule so no time to explore.

You may arrive at your destination ahead of schedule or right on time. Recognize, however, that when it comes to creativity your destination is the end of life itself. The creative act reaches its end.

So if you truly want to be a creative person living a creative life, it has...

The pressure has never been greater to act smart, be funny, look good, and waltz through life with a never-ending stream of Facebook moments.

Even our messes, mistakes, and moments of misery get the “social media treatment.” You used to have to have a publicist for that kind of thing. Now everyone can spin. Now burning the morning coffee warrants its own news alert and press conference.

I wonder if social media is making it easier or harder for us to know and be known.

Social media makes it easy to count our “friends” in real-time. It makes it easy to keep up with what Rachelle from Mrs. McGee’s fourth grade class is eating for dinner. It makes it easy to share as much about myself as I care to share via GIF, photo, text, or video.

Do I know more about the lives of more people than I did before social media? Yes.

Do more people know more about my life than they did before social...

All of us live in a state of blessedness or a state of cursedness.

The state in which you live is up to you.

Faith is the difference. People who live under a curse are not aware that the curse is optional, that the power to be free is entirely in their possession.

A person of faith is aware that blessedness and cursedness are a choice.

A person of faith chooses to live in blessedness, no matter how much her circumstances seem like a curse.

Some people are aware that they can choose blessedness, but they’re afraid. At least when you’re cursed, you don’t have much to lose. Cursedness is predictable. Cursedness is oh-so-easy to manipulate into pity. Pity is food for the cursed soul.

A person of faith is a person of courage. She has the courage to lean into her blessedness. She has more to lose, yes, and the accepts that risk because it is a vital sign of life.

People who...

I grew up and have grown old believing that I am cursed.

Some people believe in sports curses and I am one of them. I was born in Akron, Ohio, on December 26, 1975. I lived the first 18 years of my life within a one-hour drive from Cleveland, Ohio.

Sports cast a spell on me and I recall the exact moment when it happened. It was January 11, 1987. The AFC Championship game between the odds-on favorite Cleveland Browns (playing at home) and the Denver Broncos. The winner would go to the Super Bowl. Cleveland led by seven points and looked to win with 5:32 remaining in the game. Denver got the ball on its own 2-year line. Cleveland’s defense–one of the best in the NFL that season–was reason enough to believe the game was over.

But then, The Drive. John Elway–whose name to this day strikes a minor chord–led Denver 98 years to a game-tying touchdown. The Broncos scored a game-winning...

Last night was Friday night. At our house, that means Takeout Friday. Tracy brought home fish and chips. We ate it at the table out on our deck. It was 82 degrees kissed by a demure breeze. Our neighbors’ daughter and her friends were having a pool party next door and we could hear them laughing and splashing and having the time of their ten-year old lives.

When the light turned nostalgic, we walked down the street to the park. Daniel–almost age 4–met a stunning 2-year old (you should have seen her eyes!) named Allie and they hit it off right away. Tracy ran into friends–other mothers who were at the park with their kids. Allie’s grandmother and I watched the two kids play like birds who just figured out how to fly. Arms-back, chest-out, chin-up running-jump joy.

When the orangish light began to turn indigo at the edges, we walked home. While Tracy read Daniel his bedtime stories, I...

The Christ says: “Peace! Be still!”

It’s an imperative statement. Meaning it is a command to be obeyed immediately and without compromise or question.

Peace as the Christ puts it is neither advice, nor self-help, nor a suggestion.

More like: Peace…or die.

Isn’t that about right?

Because these days, we’re dying for peace, aren’t we? Dying, but never arriving at peace. It’s almost as if we as a society have a death wish. As if we feel guilty if peace doesn’t come at a high cost to ourselves or others. As if the only kind of peace we’ll accept is peace on our own terms. And the peace we keep on our terms is most often peace we keep by threatening death, destruction, and violence.

In other words, the peace we keep is not peace at all.

Does peace come with a price?

Yes. A price humanity proves itself to be incapable of paying.

Christians believe that the Christ paid the price...

It’s about us. We the People. What matters to you and me and what can we do it about?

And I mean what can WE do about it?

I don’t mean the cliche about how real change happens with us–not on the campaign trail or in Washington, D.C.

As an American, I can get away with that. As long as I obey the law and vote to elect my representatives, I’m going pretty good as a citizen.

But this also gives me a convenient and VALID excuse to not do anything myself. AND it gives me someone to blame–either an incompetent representative or an opponent–when things don’t go the way I think they should. This is a “good enough” way to be an American citizen. Always been that way. Always will be that way.

But for a Christian who is a citizen of the United States, it is not enough.

For example, if my conscience hurts and my heart breaks and my indignation burns because of the violence in this land...

Do you recall the first time you ever wrote a to-do list?

I began making goals and to-do lists early in high school. I recall filling one side of a sheet of notebook paper with goals and to-dos for each week. That habit is still with me (though in a different form) 26 years later.

I kept some of those lists from different periods of my life: College, early career, seminary, early marriage. Looking back at some of them now, I think: “I must have been crazy to believe I could get all of that stuff done!”

At one point during grad school, my weekly goals list was two and a half pages long! My daily to-do lists could fill an entire sheet of notebook paper. It’s no wonder I burned out and dropped out of seminary. When you spend an hour a day just writing out all of the things you have to do that day, you’re in for some therapy.

And, indeed, I ended up in therapy during seminary. Go...