Mar 20

Mar 20 The Walking Dead (Mark 5:1-20)

The following is my sermon manuscript from my message The Bridge worship service at Woodmont Christian Church on March 19. This is not necessarily what I said, but it's kind of close.

Let me start off by just laying it out there. The title of this sermon is “The Walking Dead.” I do not like scary movies or TV shows. At all. “Well, Chris, that’s silly. Scary movies aren’t real.” I know that. I know that the odds of being chased by a chainsaw-wielding maniac are infinitesimally small. But that doesn't mean I want to sit down and willing submit myself to be scared by that scant probability. When The Walking Dead first premiered, people told me, “It’s so cool that it takes place in Atlanta. You recognize so many places.” I don’t want the image of terrifying things happening in familiar places. That seems like a horrible idea. Whenever I drive through Atlanta, I’m already convinced the apocalypse is about to break out. I don’t need to add zombies to the mix.

Mar 19

Mar 19 To Liam on his 4th Birthday

Chris Cox

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.

Mar 11

Mar 11 Crappy First Drafts

Chris Cox

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.

Mar 5

Mar 5 God, reorient me to Your Way

Chris Cox

Weekly Lectionary

God, reorient me to Your Way
May the things that tempt and entice me
Be goodness, justice, righteousness, and charity
May these forty days of Lent
Burn off my selfishness
Like the blistering desert sun
May I walk with Your Son
May I follow in his footsteps
May I listen to his voice
When the accuser's voice calls out
May I respond with Your nourishing words

Mar 1

Mar 1 Of Storms and Ash Wednesday Reminders

Chris Cox

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.

Feb 28

Feb 28 Stitched Together

Chris Cox

There is something sacred to me about good art. A film can be a homily. A stroll through a bookstore can be a prayer labyrinth. Walking the halls of an art gallery can be like flipping through a hymnal.

This last weekend, EA and I went down to Savannah so that she could attend QuiltCon (No, you do not cosplay as your favorite at QuiltCon. I thought about that too. Although my favorite quilter is my wife, so…let’s not venture any further down that train of thought’s track). I do not know exactly when I got the sense of sacred walking through the many quilts that were on display, but at some point I got the feeling that there was something good and beautiful.

Feb 22

Feb 22 Miserable But Eventually, Hopefully Free

Chris Cox

Have you ever read something that hit so close to home that it was unnerving? That's how I felt a week ago while reading about Enneagram personality types in a book called The Road Back to You. I got to the chapter type nine and I felt like someone had been reading my mail. It bordered on freaky because it was illuminating a lot that goes on inside my head and how I have interacted with people my entire life. After the initial weirdness, I became excited. This would help me grow as a person. Learning this information was awesome.

It has not been awesome. Not yet. After that initial burst of self-discovery, it has put me in a existential funk. I see the shadow side of this personality wherever I go. I see mistakes I have made in the past that became patterns. Type 9 puts a lot of effort in maintaining equilibrium between internal struggles and external circumstances; they don't want their internal calm to be disturbed. That perfectly describes me and, as the book says, that practice is exhausting. I am more aware of everything, but it's overwhelming. I think this knowledge is going to help, but it's obvious there is going to be this precarious adjustment period to the truth.

Feb 20

Feb 20 President's Day Pseudo Facts

Chris Cox

Every year (but more accurately every other year), I celebrate President's Day by posting Pseudo Facts about the individuals who have served in our nation's highest elected office. They are Pseudo Facts in that all these individuals did serve as President and some stuff around the edges of the facts may be true, but the heart of it is silly nonsense which I made up. Unfortunately in today's political climate alternative facts are a thing. So I have to add a disclaimer that I have never had to add before. Lying and peddling intentionally misleading information is wrong. It's immoral. These are fictional flights of fancy for fun (alliteration!). Below are all of my President's Day Pseudo Facts from today. Enjoy!

Feb 15

Feb 15 A Story About Lego Batman and My Younger Son

Chris Cox

Our boys have been looking forward to The Lego Batman Movie for months. They watched every trailer that came out over and over. Our oldest memorized the release date and each day asked how many more days until February 10. This is the most excited they have been about anything since Christmas. Finally on Monday, we picked them up from school, gave them matching Lego Batman shirts that EA had found, and went to see the movie.

They loved it. Our oldest asked as we left the theater when the DVD is coming out.

Yet for me the most memorable moment came towards the end of the movie. I'll try my best to avoid spoilers because the third act of the movie is an express shuttle to Crazytown that you wouldn't anticipate from the commercials. But the basic breakdown is this: Batman finds himself in a prison while scores of bad guys are wreaking havoc on Gotham. In order to be able to go save the day, Batman promises to return to prison after he has captured all the villains.

Feb 11

Feb 11 Love Rescue Us

Chris Cox

Someone I follow on Twitter mentioned that they were reading All-Star Superman to their children and shared a few of their favorite pages. All-Star Superman is probably the best 21st Century story featuring the Man of Steel. Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely perfectly capture what makes the character so wonderful in a way that feels both timeless and fresh. It's the first Superman story that I recommend to others.

One of the favorite pages tweeted this guy tweeted is one of the most famous in the series. Seeing it again struck a deep chord within me. In the context of the story, Superman finds out that he has only one year to live and spends the series trying to do as much good as possible. There is one issue that covers him saving people around Metropolis on one of his last days. Superman stops disasters, he comes up with a Kryptonian treatment for cancer and takes it to a children's hospital, he saves lives.

In the midst of all this superheroing, there's a panel showing a young girl standing on top of a skyscraper.

October 30, 2026

What's My Name? What's My Station?

I have a new office in our home and one of the things I am enjoying is decorating the space. I have placed books, Lego sets, and Funko Pops on the shelves. My wall has photos of family, places that I have traveled, artwork my siblings have given me, diplomas, etc. Across from my desk on the wall, hangs a cross that we got from a church in Reykjavik and a small colorfully-painted tile depicting Assisi. On the floor beneath them is the one item in here that I haven’t yet put up: my certificate of ordination.

I was ordained as a minister ten years ago today. It was a step with which I struggled for awhile. My Baptist roots fostered in me a firm belief in the priesthood of all believers. If you say that you are a follower of Jesus, then you are a minister. So the hierarchy implied by being called “Reverend” made me feel a little uncomfortable. I did not use the title for myself often unless I was writing my Congressperson. Despite these qualms, I did ultimately pursue ordination. I am glad that I did. I am just not totally sure what to make of it now.

I don’t serve as a vocational minister anymore; not in a church, not as a chaplain, not in some sort of parachurch organization. I am an Administrative Assistant in a hospital Spiritual Care department. In fact, I haven’t even attended a church service in maybe a year and a half save an Ash Wednesday service that I snuck off to at the beginning of Lent. I did officiate a wedding in a church over the summer; an experience that I loved and was very meaningful for me. But I don’t really know what to do about that ordination certificate. Or church.

June 15, 2026

Dangerous Memories and Unfinished Futures

“’Do this in remembrance of me.’ Jesus invites you to commemorate his betrayal, death, and resurrection. His invitation makes space for ‘dangerous memory,’ a memory that, as post-Holocaust Catholic theologian Johann Baptist Metz tells us, ‘puts pressure on and questions our present because in it we remember an unfinished future.’ Memory can unsettle the unreconciled present and open up a future for the hopeless and the forgotten, the failed and the oppressed….Remembering keeps the ghosts alive so that they may warn and comfort, haunt and inspire the living: dangerous memories that rush toward an unfinished future. Making the absent present allows for processing grief, strengthening commitments, and opening up vision. Such remembrance commits you to work for a future for those who have been forgotten, erased, and left behind.”
-Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This, 88, 89

I believe that most of us experience an internal tug-of-war between the past and the future. In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis’ titular demon supervisor advises his underling Wormwood that one of best ways to keep a human from doing good is to keep them ping-ponging between those two times that are not the present. One keeps trying to recapture or reach towards moments that are mist. It can keep a person from doing something.

The quote above resonates with me because it harnesses the past and unfinished future into a catalyst that animates our present. We remember the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus because it means something today and compels us to presently work for the Good that is already here, but also not yet. We remember the hope and pain of the past to do something that help us take some sort of step each and every day. We realize that the hope which exists within the gospel story is not yet fully realized. Many people are still being left behind and forgotten. The realization, as the theologian Metz states, puts pressure and questions on the present.

June 1, 2026

First Day of Pride

Being a parent forces you to take a close look at yourself. Of course, you don’t have to be a parent to self-examine, but there is something about the reality that another living human is under your care and protection for the foreseeable future that makes you take stock of your strengths, weaknesses, and beliefs. For example, I used to think I was a far more patient person before I had kids; like superhumanly patient. And then a crying toddler shows you the folly of that belief. On the flip side, time has moved on and having two teenagers affirms that, yes, I am ridiculously patient and that has been a strength as a parent.

Among many other reorienting moments that came with parenthood was full acceptance of our LGBTQ+ siblings. That process began many years earlier. As someone who studied religion, I knew that the biblical case against these individuals was not nearly as airtight as I was previously led to believe. Science and stories from people gave strong indication that this life was not a choice. And I had met gay and lesbian folks who were good people. The old axiom that you will know a tree by its fruit applies here.

But the tipping point was holding a tiny infant who I loved more than I thought possible and knowing that I never wanted him to be ashamed of who he is. I did not want a potential future in which one of my children came out as something other than heterosexual with the fear that we would not love them. Not accepting my child was not even conceivably on the table. So we raised our kids to know that LGBTQ+ were beloved members of God’s creation.

May 24, 2026

Not a Defeat If You Can Find a Way to Laugh About It

There is this typical ice breaker question that is some variation of “If you could have dinner with anyone famous living or dead, who would it be?” And one of my steadfast answers for almost twenty years has been Stephen Colbert. Through both The Colbert Report and The Late Show, he has given hours upon hours of laughter and more than enough on which to ponder. I feel like we’d have a lot to talk about since we are both unabashed nerds, products of the Palmetto State, and he just seems like a good hang.

Beyond all of that, I appreciate how honestly and humbly Colbert approaches his faith. There have been numerous times over the years when his comedy and conversations take a turn into the spiritual that is challenging and convicting. I remember an episode of The Colbert Report where one minute he was making a joke about Ben Franklin’s predilection for French prostitutes and then organically made his way to the following quote:

If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.

Then there are the interviews that he has conducted on The Late Show. Colbert has said that he sort of found the heart of his show when he had a conversation with then-Vice President Biden about grief. Indeed the loss of his father and brothers at a young age has led him to create an empathetic space to explore loss in the midst of celebrities promoting their most recent projects (my mind immediately comes to a conversation that he had with Andrew Garfield about the loss of the actor’s mother).

May 21, 2026

While I Breathe, I Hope

On the way to school, the youngest burrowed his head into my arm. “I don’t like that you’re getting older.”

“Why is that?”

“Because you’re one year closer to death.”

“There it is.” That’s my kid. Very sweet. Very sensitive. Brutally, bordering on inappropriately blunt. “Well, it’s better than the alternative.”

“Getting younger?” He thinks for a second. “Oh…dying.”

“Yeah, you can’t get younger.” I scratch him on the head. “And hopefully I have a ways to go. Ideally, I’ll still be kicking around when you turn 43.”

“You’ll be 73. So that’s reasonable”

“Yeah.”

“Granddad will be 103.”

“Less likely. But maybe. I hope he is as long as he’s happy.”

“And healthy. Happy, healthy, and alive.” Then he goes into a bit from an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine which makes me laugh.

Birthdays, as my oldest posited this morning, are kind of weird when you get older. Or at least they morph into something different from the second Christmas-esque excitement when you’re a kid. Because there does get to be that point where it creeps into your mind that you are a year closer to death. And that forces you take stock of your life which is a hit-or-miss affair due to being human’s volatility.

May 18, 2026

To Jim on his 16th Birthday

One day last week, I picked you up from school after took one of your AP exams and then I moved over to the passenger seat so you could practice driving. In the midst of being hyper vigilant about your speed, how quickly you stopped, how close you were to the side of the road, and what every single other car on the road was doing, I had a distinct moment of looking over at you and realizing that so much is changing. And we’re only at the start.

Today you turn 16. You are about to wrap up your sophomore year of high school. You’ll take a driver’s license test in just a few weeks. We have three more summers before you go off to college. There are times it seems like yesterday when you were sitting in the living room watching cartoons with a couple of dozen superhero toys. There are times it seems like last week when you were a newborn sleeping in my arms.

The feeling of you being 16 is kind of like being the passenger in the car while you are driving. I have a ton of confidence in you and trust you. And I worry about your lack of experience in a big, sometimes frightening world and whether I have taught you well enough. I am wary of everyone else on the road. I wonder if you are going too fast even though you are going an appropriate speed and I am the one who encouraged you not to go as slow in the first place. It is all very exciting, humbling, frightening, and new.

April 21, 2026

What Nintendo Can Teach the Church

Christmas 1988. My brother Taylor and I receive the Nintendo Entertainment System packaged with Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt and we have been fans ever since. We have grown up with the Japanese company’s gaming systems; the adventures of Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Link, Zelda, Donkey and Diddy Kong, and more have been a consistent presence in our lives. Even though we are in three different states now as adults, Taylor, my sister Shari, myself, and our kids will get together every so often and play Mario Kart online. We love Nintendo, which is a weird thing to say about a corporation that makes a billion dollars but it is what it is.

With all that said, I loved the Keza MacDonald’s book Super Nintendo: The Game-Changing Company That Unlocked the Power of Play. Not only is it an engaging journey through video game history through the lens of Nintendo’s iconic (and less iconic) franchises, but the book also has a great deal to say about creativity, community, and culture. In fact, it is that last idea that got me thinking about how this video game company can teach the church (or any other organization) even as I am a bit of an outsider to that world presently.

Here is one of two quotes that jumped out at me from the chapter “Splatoon” which looks at how Nintendo continues innovate and create over 40 years into its video game endeavors:

April 12, 2026

Easter Orphans, A Lost Cat, and A Tightrope Called Hope

“Happy Easter?”

That is the first thing EA said to me as I woke up on Easter morning. I stretched and rubbed my eyes.

“I still believe in Jesus. It’s just the church that I’m not sure about.”

Some context: This was the first Easter in our 20+ years of marriage (and likely in either of our lives) in which we did not have a church to attend. It’s been about a year since we’ve gone to church as a family. Honestly, the church that we attended after I stepped down from working in a congregation had a tall order to tend to our hurting family. It was a good group of people, but the services and community never really clicked with our boys. Then early last year, I got moved to a Sunday morning shift. EA tried for a bit to go by herself but it wasn’t what she needed. In the end, I was gone for about eight months before anyone in the church really noticed and we decided to take a break.

I acknowledge my uncertainty about the church is a bit over-dramatic. Of course, there are great churches out there. There are wonderful people in congregations where my family and I have experienced the most pain. It’s akin to writing off burritos for life because you got violent food poisoning from one (This is based on a true story; I have not written off burritos just that particular Chipotle location). But the church hurt is real. As is the MAGA-fication of the denomination in which I grew up that feels so antithetical to the teachings of Jesus. So we don’t have a place to call home and it’s weird and sad and understandable.

April 1, 2026

Lent Fail

Absurdist Note: I really want to add “Woo-ooh!” after the title. If you know, you know.

I have not pulled off this year’s Lenten disciplines the way that I set out to. When this 40 day period began, I set out to take on this fasts/spiritual practices:

Stop drinking Coca-Cola
Stop eating French fries
Stop playing Disney Solitaire on my phone
Do a daily devotional from Richard Rohr’s Wondrous Encounters
Write a blog five days a week

When the war in Iran began and threw another log on the fire that is the world, it pained me both spiritually and physically. One of the ways that played out was headaches and since headaches were already part of removing the caffeine of Coca-Cola from my life, I decided I probably shouldn’t compound a problem and began drinking Coke again. I have had French fries a few times; not many, mind you, but enough to break up the fast. There have been several multiple day stretches where I did not do my devotional. And my efforts to blog five times a week quickly fell by the wayside. I have managed to keep from playing Disney Solitaire, but that still puts my Lenten average in Mendoza Line territory.

March 29, 2026

An Awkward Parade (Revisited)

Several hundred, some may say several thousand, years worth of anticipation hung thick in the air. Like summer humidity that sticks to your shirt the second you step outside, you couldn’t avoid it if you wanted to. Especially not during Passover week.

There was a guy making his way into Jerusalem; a guy claiming to be the Messiah. This was nothing new. He would not be the first that people claimed would save us. There had been tons of guys going around saying that they were the One; saying that they were going to show Rome what’s what. So a would-be messiah making his way to Jerusalem was about as common as a singer-songwriter making their way to Nashville.

But this felt different. He seemed different. Now there was a fair amount of debate whether he was the right or wrong kind of different. For starters, word got out that he had tried to keep a lot of the messiah talk and even tales of his miracles under wraps. But it is difficult to keep those kind of stories quiet: dead men walking, the blind seeing, demons plunging a herd of pigs over a cliff, and thousands fed from a lunch meant for a single kid. You can tell people to keep that hush-hush all you want, but it’s not going to happen.