Mar 31
Mar 31 Woke Us Up Again

It is that time of year to share one of my favorite quotes about Easter. This is from Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright:

Easter is about the wild delight of God’s creative power…we ought to shout Alleluias instead of murmuring them; we should light every candle in the building instead of only some; we should give every man, woman, child, cat, dog, and mouse in the place a candle to hold; we should have a real bonfire; and we should splash water about as we renew our baptismal vows. Every step back from that is a step toward an ethereal or esoteric Easter experience, and the thing about Easter is that it is neither ethereal nor esoteric. It’s about the real Jesus coming out of the real tomb and getting God’s real new creation under way….

Easter week itself ought not to be the time when all the clergy sigh with relief and go on holiday. It ought to be an eight-day festival, with champagne served after morning prayer or even before, with lots of alleluias and extra hymns and spectacular anthems. Is it any wonder people find it hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus if we don’t throw our hats in the air? Is it any wonder we find it hard to live the resurrection if we don’t do it exuberantly in our liturgies? Is it any wonder the world doesn’t take much notice if Easter is celebrated as simply the one-day happy ending tacked on to forty days of fasting and gloom?…..

Mar 28
Mar 28 Washed Feet and Holy Places

Chris Cox

One of my earliest memories is not so much a single moment as a ritual whose repetition is ingrained in my mind. My toddler brother and I are in the bath. The bathroom in our Midlands South Carolina home had brown carpet. The carpet has a slight shag to it; not 70s shag but more than you normally see these days. Sometime it is Dad bathing us and sometimes it is Mom. Sometimes they were both in there. They would kneel next to the tub.

They wash our hair with Johnson’s baby shampoo and rinse it off by pouring bathwater out of the old plastic cups that had been collected at Paladin Stadium over many falls. This was how our hair was rinsed off at my grandparents’ house too and I was probably six or seven years old before I realized that not every child in the Palmetto State was baptized in the reminder of Furman football’s 1980s dominance of the Southern Conference. We get out of the tub fingers pruny. Mom or Dad dry us off and my bare feet settled in to the tickle of slightly shaggy brown carpet.

It’s this consistent memory of our parents caring for us by washing us. Which is what you do for a child when they can’t wash themselves. It can be a sloppy process. There’s usually a lot of splashing. Clothes get wet. If the kid knows that bed comes after bath time, it becomes a high stakes game of aquatic chicken. For a parent, it can be fun or it can be a chore. But it’s something my parents did out of love and something EA and I tried to do out of love for our own boys.

Mar 19

Mar 19 To Liam on His 11th Birthday

Chris Cox

For a while you have been trying to master riding your bike. Considering that all you have to work with was a uneven alleyway behind our house, you had made pretty good progress. And then a couple of weeks ago while I was out of town, you decided that you were going to finally figure it out. And you did. Like in one afternoon. I left town holding on to your handrails and bike seat. And by the time you turned 11, you and I were riding nearly 4 miles together on the Greenway.

You have probably grown more in this past year than in any other since you were brand new. The growth hasn’t been so much in inches and pounds (though there has definitely been growth there), but in your capability in taking on the world around you. That growth has been staggeringly difficult at times this past year. Yet when I think back on where you were last March or at other points along this year, I am amazed at how far you’ve come. You’re not done of course, but none of us are.

One of the ways I have seen you mature in this past year is that you have grown into your big-heartedness. You have always had big feelings, but I have watched you hone those feelings into a desire to help the vulnerable. You want to take care of what is around you whether that is taking care of the earth on the Green Team at school or your humongous love for every animal you encounter or the concern for marginalized people when we talk about what you are learning.

Mar 14

Mar 14 Holy Nerdery

Chris Cox

One of the more difficult quests that I have faced as a father (and when I was a youth minister) is finding quality devotionals. There are questions of theology, age appropriateness, interest, etc. and it’s all kind of a crapshoot. It is one thing when you are trying to find that devotional for yourself. It is another thing entirely when you are trying to pass that devotional along to a young person about which you care and want to help foster some sort of spiritual practice.

Compounding problems is that there are so many devotionals that adhere to an incredibly narrow views of gender. Try to find a devotional for girls that is not in princess-like pastels or a devotional for boys that is not steeped in sports metaphors. It’s difficult. And the Christian publishing industry skews more towards the more-conservative-than-our-family-is side of things. This is not to say that there aren’t good devotionals out there, but with our oldest, it finally got to the point where I decided, “Fine…I’ll do it myself” (Foreshadowing…genre foreshadowing, not action foreshadowing).

So I am writing a devotional for Jim based on our shared love for nerd culture—comics, Star Wars, video games, Pixar, the MCU, etc.—and calling it Holy Nerdery. I know, this is a huge shock given virtually everything that I have ever written on this blog. While I am getting my ideas together, I thought that I’d write here a little about why my nerdery and Christian faith actually go hand in hand.

First, I am really glad that my son is living in a world where being a nerd is a bit more socially acceptable. This was not always the case. I was embarrassed about my comic book collecting when I was his age. I would admit to being a nerd in a self-deprecating way but it wasn’t until my college girlfriend (now wife) started wearing an “I ❤️ Nerds” shirt that I took the title as a badge of honor. Now it is a bit more mainstream. Heck, I went to see Dune this past week and the theater was packed. Dune! Glad things are different for the kids today.

Mar 3

Mar 3 The Most Magical Places on Earth

Chris Cox

A few weeks ago, EA told me that I should go on an adventure at the end of the month. She would be heading to QuiltCon in Raleigh for about five days which would leave me solo parenting for a bit. She knew that I would need some sort of break and distraction. First I checked to see if there was any space at the Abbey of Gethsemani where I had such a profound spiritual experience last year. When I found out that they were full, I decided to fly off in a wildly different direction. I wanted to see if I could go to Disney World with my brother and sister.

(“Monastery or Disney World” is probably a succinct encapsulation of where my interests lie)

So I texted both my siblings and asked if I could kidnap them for a couple of days at the end of the month for a Sibling Adventure. We’d meet down in Orlando, share a hotel room, spend a day hopping around several Disney parks, and then hurry back home to our respective families. It was a ridiculous idea and I was pretty doubtful that it could come together in such a short time. Both Taylor and Shari excitedly agreed and (more importantly) all our spouses signed off on the idea. This ludicrous scheme was going to happen.

Feb 27
Feb 27 Live and Move and Have our Being

Chris Cox

Listen to your body.

That’s a fairly new phrase in my life. It popped up as something that we would remind our children when they were feeling disregulated. It is an invitation to try to stop and sense what is going on within yourself. There actually would have been a time when I would have firmly opposed such a phrase. In some very reductive Christian teachings, the body is depicted as weak and even deceptive. Why would you listen to it?

Yet there is no compartmentalizing our body, mind, heart, and soul. They are intertwined. They work in tandem to help a person live and experience the world. The body tells us when we are tired and when we are hungry. It tells us when we need affection. It, rather annoyingly, remembers the trauma that weighs down our souls.

Our bodies often remind us that we need to move. Running has been an important physical, mental, and spiritual aspect of my life (again, they are all intertwined) since I was in middle school. This past year has been the least I have run since I was thirteen. New job, parenting, depression, gaining weight, and other factors kept me out of my running shoes. Then whenever I tried to get back on the horse, running was so much more difficult than it had been for years which only made me more despondent. I once made the arrogant college-aged comment to someone that they should shoot me if I couldn’t run a 5K without stopping. I would like that person, whoever they are, to refrain from honoring that request.

Feb 20

Feb 20 The Long Trail of Love that Leads to Where We Are

Chris Cox

EA teaches high school and therefore usually leaves our house before the sun is up. Since she has to be awake at such an ungodly hour, every morning she goes to Chick-fil-A to get a large Coca-Cola. The employee that regularly brings out EA’s Coke is a woman by the name of Monica. Over the last several years, EA and Monica have become pretty good friends one drive-thru at a time. EA has made Monica birthday presents and has said that Monica’s kindness has helped her on many a difficult day.

EA is heading out of town after school for a few days. She woke up the boys a little earlier this morning to tell them goodbye before she left. Then I got them moving to get ready for school. Our youngest started strong with his routine, but the though of not seeing his mom until the end of the week began to take its toll. It was a struggle to get Liam into the car and even then he was scared that he wouldn’t be able to go to school.

I had told the boys the night before that we would get Chick-fil-A breakfast as a treat since Mom was going out of town. In the drive-thru line, Liam looked like he was about to jump out of the car and run home. We pulled up to the window and who was there but Monica. She smiled warmly at Liam and reached through to him a five. A minute later, she came back out and brought a cookie for both Liam and his brother before going back inside.

Feb 11

Feb 11 Everything Will Change (But in the Meantime...)

Chris Cox

Weekly Lectionary

One of the helpful aspects of scripture is how it is multifaceted. You can hear a story over and over again and then the 40th time you here it, it hits you a different way. The Transfiguration is a great story that I have heard many times. I have written blogs and monologues and I think even a skit about it. Yet it wasn’t until today that it struck me how this experience was both such an unbelievable blessing and crushing curse for Peter, James, and John. And perhaps there is something in that two-sided coin for those of us who are trying to do this faith thing.

These three disciples got to witness something that no one else in their group got to witness. They saw their teacher transformed before their eyes. They saw his clothes shine brighter than a flame. Moses and Elijah appeared and spoke with Jesus. Finally they heard the voice from the heavens tell them that this man they were following was the Beloved, God’s own Son. It was simultaneously amazing and terrifying; a spiritual experience like no other and a brain-melting “What the sheol is happening?” moment. And they were the only ones who knew. Jesus told them not to tell anyone else until after all was said and done.

On one hand, that is an amazing gift. They got a peak behind the curtain. Even though they didn’t stay on that mountain like Peter wanted, this trio knew there profound divinity coursing through every moment down in the valley. Each healing, each word had deeper resonance. Perhaps when things went sideways for Jesus, that experience on the mountain was a source of hope. A flashpoint of conviction that despite the present horror that everything would change.

Jan 20

Jan 20 God of the Long Game

Chris Cox

It is likely out of necessity, but I believe in the God of the Long Game. This is a God who is antithetical to how immediate and automatic most life is today. It is not the God of the Bullet Points nor the God of the Five Steps to Become a Better Blahblahblah. This is a God who takes time. That taking of time can be frustrating because honestly there is a lot in our world both big and small that we would like to be better now. And for whatever reason, God really seems to want us to be a part of that process of creating a tomorrow that was slightly better than the day before.

Of course, if we are going to be part of this then we need a God who takes time because we take time. Jesus spent three years teaching and molding his disciples. He was with them seemingly every day, hours on end. And the disciples didn’t get it and they didn’t get it and then they would have moments of breakthrough and then they wouldn’t get it again. These people were at ground zero of God With Us for tens of thousands of hours and it took them more than a minute to grasp on to what their teacher was teaching. The Way of Christ had to seep into them. It took lots and lots of time but, by God, it eventually took.

So this is where I am going to stake out my hope: God is with us for the long haul. Becoming the people that God desires us to be will take time. There will be moments of two steps forward, one step back, leaps of faith, and falling on our faces. Yet God is with me. God is with us. God is not here to give us our Best Life Now™️ or snap Their fingers to make everything perfect. God is with me to help me grow organically into who God wants me to be.

Jan 6

Jan 6 Star of Wonder

Chris Cox

Weekly Lectionary

There are times when I find myself wishing that the Gospel writers gave us a little more detail. Actually there are many times when I find myself wishing for that. I know that their aim was not to flesh out the stories of all the “side” characters, but it doesn’t stop me from wondering what all these people were thinking when all this weird Jesus stuff was going on. The word gospel, of course, is ancient Greek for “weird Jesus stuff” (that was a joke; it most definitely is not).

Take the magi for example. They were scholars from the east who saw a great star and journeyed a great distance. Traveling a great distance was not something you did on a whim in those days. It looks some time. You would say goodbye to your friends and family and there was a reasonable chance that goodbye could be final. It was a long journey.

The magi finally arrive in Jerusalem after months or even years of travel. They come to the palace ready to pay homage. And this newborn ruler isn’t there. Not only is he not there, but the king has no earthly idea what they’re talking about and has to meet with his advisors to figure the whole thing out. This is the first thing I wonder: Was there a moment in which they thought they had come all that way for nothing? Were they frustrated? Angry? Did they snipe at each other as they waited for Herod’s scholars to figure things out?