Aug 4

Aug 4 Grace for Catastrophes Big and Small

This is what happens virtually any time we are watching diving, gymnastics, or any Olympic sport scored by judges. The athlete will twist or flip or turn or do any combination of things that I could never have done at any time during my life.

Me: That was pretty impressive.
Commentator: Argh! Just a devastating mistake!

Usually the catastrophe is a toe not quite pointed the right way. A little bobble. A bit too big of a splash. It is often not anything blatantly obvious, but the judges’ scoring indicates that, yes, it was a devastating mistake. It is one of the reasons why the Olympics make for such riveting television (and why my heart goes out to almost every person competing): years of training come down to a moment when the difference between success and failure teeters on a razor’s edge.

What does that do to a person? Look, if you had one shot or one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment, would you capture it or just let it slip? (I did that solely because I have made some of you reading this think “mom’s spaghetti”) Seriously though, I wonder what happens to the person who messes up and lets that moment slip away. I would hope that they have people who comfort them and let them know they are more than that one moment. I hope that they can forgive themselves.

Aug 1

Aug 1 Getting Props from Paul Bunyan

Chris Cox

Western Sketches

On our way through northern California, we stopped in a random CVS in Crescent City. I don’t remember why. We probably needed a charger for an iPad or something because that was ongoing issue throughout our trip. Regardless, thank goodness we did because of a super helpful cashier that I want to say was named Linda and so I will. Linda not only helped us find what we needed to in CVS, she more importantly pointed us to an excellent local joint that served seafood (Fisherman’s Restaurant) and randomly asked EA this tantalizing question: “So are you going to the Trees of Mystery?”

Trees of Mystery. What was it? We didn’t know. It was not on our agenda or even on our radar. But, come on, the place was called Trees of Mystery. What were the Trees of Mystery? Would we find Narnia? A haunted wood once investigated by Scooby-Doo? I don’t know if a place has been better named to pique my curiosity. After EA and I did some research, we decided this fantastical forest would be our first stop in the morning.

When you go on a long road trip, you are going to visit all types of places. There are state and national parks that are brimming with pristine beauty. Then there are the more kitschy tourist trap kinds of places that also contain beauty with a healthy dose of quirk. When you pull into the parking lot, you immediately know that Trees of Mystery is in the latter category.

Right out front, you are greeted by a giant Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. And I mean literally greeted as Paul Bunyan bellows out “WELCOME TO TREEEEEEEES OF MYSTERYYYYYYYY!” and lots of other stuff. There was obviously a guy somewhere who was watching people and talking to us through Paul via a loudspeaker because it sure seemed like he was interacting with the guests. We’ll get back to that.

Jul 28

Jul 28 A Mountain-Sized Table

Chris Cox

Weekly Lectionary

I have heard the story of Jesus Feeding the 5,000 if not five thousand times, then maybe five hundred. What can I say? It is a Children’s Sunday School Greatest Hit; a straightforward story with a built-in snack object lesson (goldfish crackers). Yet it is kind of funny how we can hear the most familiar stories in different ways, which is exactly what happened this morning in church.

If you have been on the internet at all the last few days then you are probably have read something about a scene during the Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Paris. There was a scene on a bridge with a bunch of folks in drag in a pose that looked somewhat reminiscent of da Vinci’s The Last Supper. It was also fairly reminiscent of a painting featuring a bacchanal thrown by the Greek god Dionysus, which given the origins of the Olympics, makes a lot more sense. Thankfully, people on the internet and cable television took the time to understand what was going on and a productive dialogue took place.

Just kidding. That would have been encouraging in this day and age, wouldn’t it? In reality, people got angry. Some thought the Olympics were making an intentional mockery of the Christian faith. The word satanic was bandied about here and there. It was something that the internet algorithms could seize on and amplify to turn an event that is ostensibly supposed to bring the world together into just another rage war.

And y’all, I am sick and tired of rage wars. They are often pointless and provoke people of faith in behaving in some most un-Christlike ways. Reading the responses from some corners of the religious community made me wonder why anyone would want to share a table with a Christian much less go into a church (there were also many Christians and people of faith who responded thoughtfully, alas angry usually gets more traction than thoughtful).

Jul 25

Jul 25 Dune

Chris Cox

Western Sketches

There are still parts of this country that I am just now learning about. These are places that are so fantastical that it seems like they feel like sprung up from the pages of science fiction. That is the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area: 40 miles of otherworldly sand dunes on the Oregon coast that served as partial inspiration for Frank Herbert’s foundational sci-fi series Dune.

Formed by wind and water and tens of thousands years old, these dunes are huge (some can be up to 500 feet tall) and constantly changing (more on that in a bit). I caught my first glimpse of the dunes traveling up Highway 101 and gasped to the point that everyone else in the car thought something was very wrong. Nothing was wrong. It was just a mountain of sand that I had only seen accompanied by the acting of Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet; except this dune was looming behind a Dollar General.

So what does one do when they are in such a place? Of course, you marvel at its beauty and meditate on the stunning array of creation on this planet.

You also get someone to hurtle you around the dunes at 65 mph in a buggy with a roll cage.

Jul 24

Jul 24 Detour Revisited

Chris Cox

Western Sketches

Places speak to us. Whether we are in our childhood home, a beloved camp, the beach, or wherever else, there is something about being in a special place that makes the past burst forth into life. In scripture, people were always erecting altars to remind them of the places in which they felt close to God. They could return to that place and remember. Or they could point to those stones and gift the story of those holy encounters to younger generations. If we’re fortunate, we get to go back to those places.

About a decade ago, EA spoke at a conference that gave us the opportunity to travel to Portland, Oregon. That trip began my ongoing love affair with the Pacific Northwest and introduced me to the glorious wonder that is Powell’s City of Books. It was also an interesting time in my life because I was at a personal crossroads. I had made the difficult decision to leave a vocation that I loved and was uncertain of what was next. This simmering existential anxiety came to a head and a holy place on that trip during a solo hike to the top of Multnomah Falls.

Our boys were little—one and three—when we made that first trip so we left them home with my parents. So it was really surreal when we pulled into the parking lot at Multnomah for the second time ever and so much looked familiar except there was an 11 year-old and 14 year-old piling out of the backseat. I would like to document that in the moment I thought, “Ah, yes, now the time has come to gift the story of this place to our children” but I was probably making sure that our sons had water bottles and hats.

Jun 24

Jun 24 Mixing Up Messages of the Cross

Chris Cox

I have been thinking about the cross a fair amount this weekend. We are in South Carolina to celebrate 50 years of my Dad doing chalk drawings as part of his ministry (it should go without saying that what I write here represents my thoughts, so any beef should be directed at me). The drawing that he has done more than any other—and that he did this weekend—is a scene of three crosses on the hill of Calvary. The drawing is one of the indelible images in my mind.

Yet the cross is an inescapable image in the American South. It adorns churches on seemingly every block. One can find the cross on billboards and bumper stickers on virtually every interstate and highway across the region.

It was a bumper sticker that began to haunt me these last couple of days. And it was one I had already seen everywhere from Nashville to New York state. There is a decent chance you have seen a variation of it too. It is a series of pictograms that typically leads off with a cross, a gun, and a heart with the message “Pro God, Pro Gun, Pro Life” underneath.

Jun 21

Jun 21 Yes, and...

Chris Cox

It is January 2001. I am 17 years old and standing in the pulpit of a Baptist church in Southeast Kentucky. Our senior class in youth group was visiting the area—where our youth group would visit for a week in summers—for the weekend. I don’t remember what my purpose in that pulpit was. Maybe I was giving a sermon, maybe I was just sharing some thoughts.

What I do remember is that I started talking about Whose Line Is It Anyway? I’d like to think I was the first person in that pulpit to reference the improv variety show, but maybe not. I was talking about how life is like an improv, how you have to make things up as you go along. Whereas on Whose Line “everything is made up and the points don’t matter,” in our lives everything is made up and everything matters. Seventeen year old me thought that was a killer line oozing with profundity. It feels a little heavy handed to me now, but the kid’s heart was in the right place.

I should clarify that I have never done improv comedy before. Yet the format has long interested me and, though I am not the first, I do think it has much to teach us about living. One of the basic ideas in improvisational comedy is “Yes, and…” which is basically this: you accept what another scene partner has stated (“yes”) and then build your actions off of that scenario (“and”). You can disagree with the direction that your partner(s) take the scene in, but you can’t just blow up the premise because you don’t like it. You have to work together and work with what you have.

May 18

May 18 To Jim on His 14th Birthday

Chris Cox

One of my favorite things happens maybe once a month if we are really on our game. It is those school mornings where both you and your brother get out of bed at the first call, each of you does an efficient job of getting ready, and we do not get ensnarled in some ungodly traffic quagmire on the way to school. Because if all those things happen and the weather is nice, you and I will get to your school and you’ll ask if we can go for a walk before you head into study hall.

We talk sometimes about school, more often about Star Wars or the latest minutiae you have absorbed about DC Comics. Even more precious is when those conversations turn to your worries, your hopes, your friends, and your questions about the world. I am typically a fast walker and have to consciously remind myself to go at the pace of the person who I am with (your mom will attest to this quirk of mine), but I don’t seem to have that issue on these morning walks with you. I like the slower pace. It is on those mornings in which we get to walk one or two laps around the field at your school that things don’t feel like they are flying by so quickly.

You are turning 14 years old today and then three days from now you will have your 8th grade graduation. It is hard to remember life without you and in my mind’s eye, you have always been a kid. Now though you are barreling towards high school and are a year off from learning how to drive and your voice is deep and you occasionally shave. Do not misunderstand me, you are still very much a kid and will always be our kid. Yet it is getting more and more difficult to deny that adulthood is creeping closer.

Mar 31
Mar 31 Woke Us Up Again

Chris Cox

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.