Aug 29

Aug 29 A Very Late, Likely Inadequate Response to the Bullhorn Guy Who Said We Were Heading to Hell for Going to Disneyland

As we joined a throng of people walking from various Anaheim hotels to Disneyland, there was a guy with a sign and a bullhorn. He was…not preaching, but pontificating at every passerby; telling them that they did not need fairies, princesses, and heroes, they needed Jesus. By going to this land of imagination we were being an affront to God. And he informed us that we—hundreds of people he’d never met—were going to hell for partaking in what the Mouse had to offer that day. A few people snapped back at him and he snapped back.

Despite having a litany of reasons for why he was wrong, I didn’t say anything because I am a conflict-averse person and I can’t imagine a worse start for your kids’ day at Disneyland than their dad getting into a theological argument with a stranger when the park is just a few hundred feet away. I reminded our sons that his yelling and condemnation was not what our faith in Jesus was about. Then we went on to have a lovely day at the Happiest Place on Earth.

Yet over a month later, I wonder what I would have said to him had I stopped. Granted, the best means of communication would be a two-way dialogue although people who have a bullhorn are typically not interested in a conversation (which is a pity, because it is actually quite fun to have conversations with people while you are using a bullhorn).

Aug 20

Aug 20 Note to Self for the Next Time You Feel Low and Get "Anti-Hero" Stuck in Your Head

Chris Cox

My head was not in a good place this morning. It’s been a long couple of weeks with plenty of fires to put out. I am still a few weeks from beginning a chaplain residency and so I am by myself for large swaths of the day. Plus the start of the school year brings up a lot of emotions concerning what I used to do for a job. So I knew that I needed to go for a walk this morning.

You know what else doesn’t help? Taylor Swift. Not her specifically, but her song “Anti-Hero.” When you are feeling down and lonely, the last thing that you need stuck in your head is a catchy chorus that repeats, “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.” It’s not great for someone who is very quick to get down on himself. Really, I need Taylor Swift to write a world-conquering pop song where the chorus goes, “This is just a season and I’m trying the best that I can.” That would be helpful.

For about half a mile, this walk is not helping at all. I’ve got this three second loop of a song stuck in my head and I’m marinating in this stew of self-loathing. Somewhere around Bicentennial Park, I said, “God, I could really use some friggin’ help right now” (and, yes, I did say “friggin’” because I am the human embodiment of a movie edited for TBS).

Aug 18

Aug 18 Wise Donkey

Chris Cox

Weekly Lectionary

God, as the Divine appears in this passage with Solomon, definitely has a genie/riddle-giving wizard vibe. Obviously whomever wrote Kings did not intend it that way, but that is how I read it. God appears to Solomon in a dream and asks what the king wants.

The TL;DR version (though you ought to read it) has Solomon asking for the wisdom to govern and the ability to discern between good and evil. God responds that since the king asked for this instead of long life, wealth, or the deaths of his enemies that Solomon would be granted wisdom plus the riches and glory. And if Solomon actually utilizes that wisdom then God will grant him long life.

So I have been mulling on wisdom today, which is a super pretentious thing to write. And I kind of hesitate even writing about wisdom because claiming to have wisdom is usually a surefire way to show how lacking one is in that department. So disclaimer: I am sometimes an idiot but these are my thoughts.

Aug 11

Aug 11 Be Angry (But Do Not Sin)

Chris Cox

Weekly Lectionary

My mind works in strange ways sometimes. I have been to seminary, have an M. Div., am ordained, etc. There are times when I read scripture and I think about the layers of context behind the words. Of civilizations long past and centuries of theological wrestling with the text.

And there are times when I think about a cartoon character. We’ll get to that in a moment.

I have never really been comfortable with the emotion of anger. I don’t know if I internalized the teaching from the Sermon on the Mount that being angry with someone is akin to murder. Or maybe it’s because I am a fairly even-tempered person who was raised to treat others with kindness. All I know is that it has always felt wrong to be angry.

Yet anger is a natural emotion. You cannot avoid it. And honestly if you don’t get angry about certain injustices in the world, then you might come across as uncaring. For example, if a follower of Christ was not angry when a person was dehumanized or treated like crap then what are they even doing? Even Jesus, who preached that line about anger and murder got angry at times so there is obviously more nuance to this whole anger thing.

Aug 8

Aug 8 Peace in the Valley

Chris Cox

Western Sketches

“I hope I see a bear!” This is what our youngest exclaimed as we wound our way down into the valley on our first evening at Yosemite National Park. His wish was granted ridiculously fast; like so fast that we would have tried to get him to wish for something even more grand using his heretofore unknown power of conjuring.

Before we even parked the car, we noticed that the two cars in front of us had stopped in the middle of the road. EA noticed one of the passengers was pointing at something in the tall grass to the left. I threw the car in park and the car practically tilted as we all looked left. Sure enough, there was a bear about 15 or 20 feet away. He appeared to be a little guy with his head just poking above the grass.

Yosemite Valley is wild. It is like no place that I have ever been before. There are bears and waterfalls throughout. Trees reach to the sky only to be dwarfed by massive rock formations like El Capitan. Words do not do Yosemite any justice. Pictures succeed better, but only by a little. You need to be a speck in the midst of that creation to truly grasp it.

Aug 6

Aug 6 11,096,000,000 Miles

Chris Cox

In a single year, the earth makes a 584 million mile journey around the sun. That number staggers the imagination and also provides some perspective. For the person who feels like they never go anywhere, the reality is that they travel over half a billion miles per year. It also let me come up with a fun number to celebrate the incredible woman to whom I have been married for now 19 years.

We have traveled 11 billion 96 million miles around the sun together. You have heard of “I love you to the moon and back”? That’s a 477,800 mile trip, so we are talking about to the moon and back 23,223 times. I’m throwing out these ridiculous numbers because it difficult to convey how much I love and appreciate E. A. Cox.

We have known each other since we were college kids. If you count our time dating, we have been with each other over half of our lives. Surprisingly she is not tired of me (I ask periodically just to make sure) and I have only grown more enamored with her.

Aug 5

Aug 5 Overlooks and Giants

Chris Cox

Western Sketches

I don’t know about you, but most of the time when I am trying to get from Point A to Point B, I want to get there as quickly and efficiently as I can. I want to take the fastest route. I want everyone to utilize bathroom stops so that we don’t need to needlessly take another one. That’s how I operate even when I walk. My then-girlfriend/now-wife kept encouraging me to slow down by adorably saying “Don’t be Point A to Point B. Be Point EA.”

All of which is why we made an official statement of travel to our boys at the beginning of our roadtrip: We will not let our ultimate destination dictate the day but will allow ourselves the freedom to stop and chase whatever we come across. If there is a beautiful sunset then we are going to pull on the side of the road and enjoy it. If there is an intriguing billboard advertising a destination, we might go see what it’s about. If there is a scenic route, we’ll likely opt for that over the quicker interstate.

This strategy naturally flies in the face of the question that natural law demands every child to ask of their parents: How long until we get there? There was an ETA, but we were holding that ETA loosely.

Aug 4

Aug 4 Grace for Catastrophes Big and Small

Chris Cox

Weekly Lectionary

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).

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.