There is a moment — you know the one — where someone says something and the whole room shifts. Not dramatically. Nobody gasps. The conversation keeps moving. But something entered the air, and every person present felt it, and exactly nobody said anything. I find this genuinely baffling. Not that it happens. I understand why… Read More The Thing In The Air

I want to tell you something about how I move through the world, but I want to be honest upfront that I am not sure I can describe it accurately. This is, in itself, part of the description. I notice everything. Not selectively. Not on purpose. I notice the shift in the room when someone’s… Read More The Weirdest Combination of Self Awareness and Oblivion

There are two very different things that get called trust, and I have spent most of my adult life confusing them. The first is the kind that means: I believe you will reach the same conclusions I do. I believe you will endorse my decisions. I believe you will be on my side, which is… Read More I Trust You To Process This With Me

When I turned twenty, I was allowed to drink in Texas because I was given permission by my spouse, which was on the law books back then. My spouse was three years older. I found this hilarious. I called my friends in Utah partly because they couldn’t drink and I could, and partly because I… Read More The Drinking Laws of Texas and Other Things I Learned by Driving Away

My son’s friend fell recently while hiking in St. George. Broke a few bones, will be okay. It got us talking about hiking, about clumsiness — timely, because the cupboard door pull had just hooked my belt loop mid-conversation and jerked me forward. Jake’s question landed: if I’m that clumsy, how did we all survive… Read More Not Every Hike Has to be The Hike

My mom wanted to make sure I knew that Satan is a fallen angel. In case I didn’t know that part. I did know that part. His name, I told her, is Lucifer. Very devious, I’d heard. We were in the car. This is how theological education works in my family. Not in a church,… Read More God Is As Comically Inclined As I Had Suspected

For an idyllic couple weeks several years ago, my mom cooked the meals on weekdays. I cooked on the weekends. The kids get dinner faster. It is, as I described it at the time and stand by completely, like having a wife. I mean, when it worked and while it lasted.  This arrangement works. It… Read More Plan B Zucchini

There is a specific kind of satisfaction that pressure washing delivers that has nothing to do with clean. It is the satisfaction of visible, immediate, measurable progress. You can see every bit of dirt leaving the surface. You can see how much is left. You know exactly when you’re done This is not how most… Read More The Chart is the Dirty Rug

At the start of 2024, I bought the wrong year planner. I want to tell you this because I think it’s the most honest possible beginning to a piece about technology and intentionality: I bought the wrong year planner, and I had already replaced it before January was over, and I still needed to figure… Read More AI Blind Spots

I would have been horrified. I want to be clear about that before I say anything else. If my mother had a podcast — if she had a show, a platform, a presence, a whole thing — I would not have survived it. The second-hand embarrassment alone would have been a medical event. And yet.… Read More Generational Cringe