This was originally published in 14 parts over Holy Week last year. I am re-publishing in a single post this re-imagining of the Stations of the Cross along a modern subway line for Good Friday.

I was speeding on the subway
Through the Stations of the Cross
Every eye looking every other way
Counting down 'til the pain would stop
-"Moment of Surrender" by U2

Station 1
The train pulls into the subway station with a prolonged hiss. Businessmen, hipster couples, young families, and tourists rise up and make their way to exit the car. The doors slide open and people burst forth into collision. As one mass jostles to get out, another fights the tide to get in. Every eye is focused, steeled to push through to some goal past the throng...

I sit here on Maundy Thursday and I think about Peter. I wonder if he had any clue that afternoon that his world would be turned upside down. He certainly didn't know that someone would be thinking about him on this day nearly two thousand years later; that his cowardice would be written down in a book and read by millions over the years. Was he excited about Passover? Did the foreboding words of Jesus predicting his death haunt him in the daylight?

I see him panicked in that courtyard. The walls closing in on him. No, he doesn't know Jesus. No, he has never met the man. For God's sake, he doesn't know the man! Then the rooster crows and the shame floods over him as he remembers the words. He remembers his words: his boasts and promises. He remembers the words of his teacher: three times he will deny their relationship. How could he not break down and cry?

When you're a parent, you're exposed to a lot of cartoons. Most of them you tolerate. Some annoy the fool out of you. Some have a seemingly innocent premise that becomes sinister once you start thinking about it (I'm looking at you, Thomas the Tank Engine). And then there are a few that you enjoy just as much as your kids. That cartoon right now is Phineas and Ferb.

Phineas and Ferb is about two brothers who come up with wildly imaginative ideas to pass their summer vacation. They build rollercoasters, set out to become a one hit wonder, play a game of volleyball with jet packs, fix a time machine, and so on. All the while, their pet platypus Perry is a secret agent waging a never-ending skirmish with the evil Dr. Doofenschmirtz and their sister Candace tries to bust them for their outlandish adventures. It is full of optimism, imagination, and is whip-smart funny in a way that adults appreciate. It delights me so much, you guys.

Liam,
This morning I got alert on a social network of a picture that I took four years ago today. It was you, newly born with a hospital blanket wrapped around you and a cap on your head. Your eyes peered out of your adorably pudgy face. It was like you were still trying to take in this strange new world into which you had been born.

It's hard to believe that was you at one time. Especially considering what happened just now. I am sitting in you and your brother's room as you guys try to go to sleep. The word "try" is our sticking point. It's been a busy day. Your grandparents, my mom and dad, came into town from South Carolina. We had church this morning and then a birthday party this afternoon. I think you both are still a bit wired from the day's activities.

Crappy first drafts. Anne Lamott phrases it slightly more colorfully, but that's the gist. Can't write? Don't wait for the Almighty to hand you a perfectly formed manuscript from the sky. Put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and just write. Will what you write fall somewhere beneath the quality of a poop emoji? Often yes. But you're trying and that is a heck of a lot better than not.

And maybe, just maybe in that crappy first draft is the seed for a slightly better second draft. Maybe that buds into a not terrible third draft and--if you cultivate, water, and care for the words--maybe it blooms into something beautiful. Maybe. But you have to start writing before any of that is remotely possible.

I was buttoning my shirt in our darkened bedroom when I heard the first tornado siren. Rain poured down and a fierce wind pushed around the branches outside. There were flashes of lightning and cracks of thunder. And then there was that siren and its foreboding wail. 

All of this felt substantive, maybe even a little ominous, on Ash Wednesday. It was like creation was sounding some sort of warning alarm at the dawn of Lent. Remember that the storm could come for you at any moment, o mortal. You can rage at a tornado all you want, but it will consume you. You are dust and to dust you will return. This is me and my overactive imagination, but that's all I could think about as the siren blared through the middle Tennessee morning.