One of the few reasons that I still put up with Facebook is the Memories app, which will show me what I was posting on that day through the years. Usually it allows me to see pictures of when the two (wonderful) adolescents who live in our house were adorable tiny humans. What popped up this morning were pictures that I posted from a spiritual retreat I took to the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky three years ago. Along with the pictures was the caption reading “This place has been very good for my soul. I hope I get the chance to come back again.”

I haven’t been back yet though I still hope to. Trying to remind myself of those few days at Gethsemani, I tried to look for my journal from that weekend to no avail. But I did find myself looking back to a difficult blog that I wrote a couple of weeks afterwards that contained the memory that was creeping on the edges of my mind:

Let’s talk about the gold medal game in women’s ice hockey at the Olympics: United States vs. Canada, the two titans of the sport. The U.S. has been on an absolute tear through the tournament; throttling their opponents by a combined score of 31-1. That included a 5-0 victory over Canada. I had their semifinal game against Sweden on in the background a couple of days ago and there was a two and a half minute stretch where the U.S. scored three goals. It was like this team was playing the Olympics on Rookie mode.

So naturally this inevitable juggernaut was losing 1-0 to Canada with just over two minutes left in the gold medal game. With a stoppage of play, the United States made the move of pulling their goalie to allow for an additional player to help the offensive attack on the other end. The obvious flip side of that move is that it there is no one to protect the goal leaving the net wide open for Canada to put the game on ice (I will not apologize for puns whether intentional or unintentional).

The risk paid off as Hilary Knight deflected a shot from teammate Laila Edwards into the goal for the equalizing score. Then the United States went on to win the gold in overtime on Megan Keller’s beautiful goal that made me leap off the couch. The official slogan for the Winter Olympics should be “Making Ice Hockey the Most Important It Has Been to Me Since the Mighty Ducks Trilogy.”

There are two moments that matter. One is when you know that your one and only life is absolutely valuable and alive. The other is when you know your life, as presently lived, is entirely pointless and empty. You need both of them to keep going in the right direction. Lent is about both. The first such moment gives you energy and joy by connecting you with your ultimate Source and Ground. The second gives you limits and boundaries, and a proper humility, so you keep seeking the Source and Ground and not just your small self.
-Richard Rohr, Wondrous Encounters: Scripture for Lent, 9

Watching the Olympics is a big deal in our household. We spend the weeks leading up to it reminding our sons that the TV belongs solely to Mom and Dad. Whether it is curling, cross country skiing, ski jump chainsaw juggling, or snowboard cross, we will be watching the Olympics (ski jump chainsaw juggling is terribly dangerous and should not be tried by anyone). We also let them know that these weeks are the most patriotic they will see us. Pride for the United States of America will be on display in a way that seems out of sync with how we typically feel about our country, especially in 2026.

It’s a weird thing to feel deep pride and deep shame about your country at the same time. Yet those paradoxes are central to our human experiences. I am deeply proud to be from South Carolina and often quite embarrassed by my home state. I love Star Wars and really wish Star Wars fans would chill the heck out and stop policing what others enjoy. The Christian faith is something that I hold near and dear to my heart even as experiences have made me profoundly wary of most every church that crosses my path. I am aware of both the great good and heinous harm of which I am capable. To be human is to live with these seeming contradictions.

Lent! It is a time for spiritual reflection, fasting, and taking on practices as we look towards Easter. It is usually not a time for exclamation marks, but it is not yet Wednesday. I have decided to try something this Lent. I really miss writing. It is a way for me to get my thoughts and try to make sense of the world (which is a quagmire of a task presently). So in addition to fasting (no Coca-Cola, french fries, or playing Disney Solitaire this year), I am going to attempt blogging five days a week during this season. Yes, I know it is not 2007 and people these days just make reels or whatever they do on TikTok, but blogging is my lane.

I have been trying to find work for about half a year now and my days are a bit lonely. I feel somewhat like a ghost while the rest of my family is at school. So writing, even crappy first drafts a la Anne Lamott, is my attempt to de-apparition myself during this season. I hope to rediscover my voice. I am not totally sure what I am going to write. I will be going through both Wondrous Encounters: Scripture for Lent by Richard Rohr and In the Low: Honest Prayers for Dark Seasons by Justin McRoberts & Scott Erickson so I will reflect on those some. Likely it will be a little bit of everything.

I’m posting this to hold myself accountable to this plan. We’ll see how it goes; it could be a terrible idea. My hope is that it will provide something nourishing for me at the very least.

Two and a half years ago, my family went to Disney World two weeks after I walked away from a church job that I loved but wasn’t a healthy situation. That week was a salve for the four of us; a chance to be exhausted by fun and whimsy instead of hurt. Fast forward to last week and we were back in the Most Magical Place on Earth. I had been through an incredibly healing hospital chaplain residency and was in the interview process for a church job about which I was hopefully excited. We were there with my parents, brother, sister, and their families. There was a hope that I dared not speak that perhaps this trip would be a full circle moment.

And then the first day we were in the parks I found out through other channels that the church was going in another direction. My wife and I were gutted. Also an aside to those on church search committees: Please don’t ghost people if you tell them you are going to get back to them. I know it can be awkward to tell people no, but that awkwardness is far preferable to the alternative of someone feeling like they weren’t even worth an email to let them know what was happening.

Hope is a tricky thing because you do not want to assume that good things will happen and thus get crushed when they do not. Yet hope is kind of a necessary thing to wade through all the crap that we experience in life. So I am left with this feeling that is common in life and appropriate for Advent which started yesterday: What do you do when your hopes are sitting in a pile labeled “Not yet”?