Sep 15

Sep 15 Peacemakers

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
—Matthew 5:9

What does it mean for someone to be a peacemaker in the world today? For a long time, I thought that I knew. I am a textbook Enneagram 9 aka “The Peacemaker.” I crave peace in the deepest parts of my spirit. Yet for a long time, I confused peace with an absence of conflict. This approach can work in the short term, but it doesn’t often lead to any lasting peace. To make peace, to try to create some sort of place where there is flourishing for everyone involved requires more than being nice, sending good thoughts, or offering up prayers.

Niceness, thoughts, and prayers are good things. Yet to make peace out of strife requires something more from each of us. We have to be honest about where hurt lies and humble enough to listen to those who disagree with us. I have not figured this out, but this is my good faith albeit flawed effort.

No one should lose their life for what they believe or say in public. Full stop. It is a tragedy any time a person is a victim of gun violence. People lose their loved ones or, at best, watch them go through needless suffering. Lives that could go in all sorts of directions are cut short. What happened to Charlie Kirk, what happened to the students impacted by the shooting in Colorado, what happens all too often every day is a tragedy that we have gotten way too familiar with in this country.

Sep 10

Sep 10 Stuffed Animals and Everyday Apocalypses

Chris Cox

If you follow me on Instagram, you likely noticed a trend on Tuesday nights this past year. At some point I would post a photo of a stuffed animal somewhere in the vicinity of a hospital. When I began my chaplain residency at Vanderbilt, my youngest son was anxious about what I would face while working at a hospital. He was especially concerned about my weekly overnight shifts. So each Tuesday morning, my son would select a stuffed animal to be my Overnight Shift Companion to keep me company. And I would take a picture of that friend at the hospital to let Liam know all was well.

The truth of the matter was a little more complicated. All was well, but there were many nights when I would sit with the dead, dying, and grieving. These are moments that are sacred and a natural part of life yet they are still incredibly difficult. As the year went on, I became more comfortable sharing appropriate glimpses of these hard moments with my boys. And I still kept taking fun pictures of plush friends every Tuesday night. There was room for both.

Our residency cohort—which included a Black Baptist pastor, a Methodist, an Episcopalian from Massachusetts, a Muslim Imam, and a Catholic priest from India—witnessed a great deal of turmoil both inside and outside the hospital. We had many discussions about the various dumpster fires that were going on in our country. Not to be overdramatic, but there was sometimes a foreboding sense that the world was coming crashing down.

Jul 27

Jul 27 Hope and the New Punk Rock

Chris Cox

This post contains some spoilers for the movie Superman. If you haven’t seen it, what are you doing? Go see it. It’s good!

The tagline for the original Superman movie in 1978 was “You’ll believe a man can fly.” And, sure, since I was 9 years old, Superman has been cool to me because he could fly, move at superspeed, hoist a car, and shoot lasers from his eyes (technically heat vision). Yet it has long been true that the aspect of this strange visitor from another planet has been his goodness. Despite having abilities far beyond mortal men, Superman always sought to make the world a better place for every man, woman, child, and squirrel.

I’m less concerned with whether a man can be powerful. But to make me believe a powerful man can be kind? That is something extraordinary.

So let’s cut to the chase. Superman, written and directed by James Gunn, did just that. It is a fun and fantastic comic book come to life with bright colors, kaiju, pocket universes, and all sorts of superhero shenanigans. I had a goofy grin on my face for most of my two viewings of the movie in theaters. Yet even more than the fun, the film captured the essence of Superman and even made it work in a present day context.

May 22
May 22 The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything

Chris Cox

I am not sure that I have anything of value to write here, but when you turn 42 it is tough to turn down the chance to write something with the title above (it is a reference to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a book I haven’t read but did see the 2005 movie starring Martin Freeman and Zooey Deschanel). Spoiler alert: I have not acquired that cosmic answer.

I don’t feel like I have a lot of answers lately. Which is unfortunate because I spend a decent amount of my life right now sitting in hospital rooms being asked the question “What do I do?” I find myself saying things like “I don’t know” or “I wish I had some sort of magical answer to fix everything.” People figure out fairly quickly that I am not an answer man. I have suggestions, insight, and the occasional flash of wisdom, but I’m not going to be posting any social media content or writing books about what someone else needs to do.

But I hope that they also figure out that I am going to sit with them through the questions and all the emotions that come with them. At this point in my life, I guess that is what I am trying to do. Not just with people that I meet in the hospital but with whomever I find myself. I am just trying to be present with the people who are in the room. I am trying to leave the space for them to be who they are and I am trying to authentically be who I am; even when I am experiencing emotions like hurt, anger, disappointment, or other things from which I would shy to theoretically protect myself and others.

May 18

May 18 To Jim on His 15th Birthday

Chris Cox

Last night—the night before you turned 15—I spent way too much time trying to figure out what we needed to do for you to get your Learner’s Permit. Besides the fact that the State of Tennessee unsurprisingly has woefully inefficient websites, I was struck by the fact that sometime in the next few weeks I will be sitting next to you as you drive a car.

Now I completely trust you. Although you did recently say something to the effect of “How hard could driving be? I do it in Mario Kart all the time.” That terrified me slightly. Then we had one of our conversations where I came at you with logic, you doubled down with stubbornness, I pivoted into absurdity, and that finally made you crack a smile. We have a lot of conversations like that and I enjoy them. But I digress. Once you learn the basics of driving, I have no doubt that you are going to be a safe and responsible young man behind the wheel. I’m just having more trouble with the fact that you are going to be a young man behind the wheel.

Fifteen. As that number has approached, you have dangled this upcoming age out there in some sort of attempt to make mine and your mom’s head explode. Every kid probably does that when they sense they are getting to an age that once seemed impossible to their parents. Your mom has usually responded by denying that it was going to happen. I usually look you square in the eye and stoically assert that I know how the math works. But the truth is it is kind of hard to believe you are fifteen. It is here that I am starting to hear the clock tick on you one day going off to college.

May 13
May 13 Of Voids and Thunderbolts*

Chris Cox

This brief reflection contains spoilers from the latest MCU movie Thunderbolts*

I keep going to movies and taking my boys with me because I love stories. And there is always a chance with a story that there might be something onto which I can grab that helps me make sense of my world. Or perhaps it will put into moving pictures that for which I have struggled to find words. These cinematic epiphanies don’t happen all the time, but you’d be surprised how often they do appear. But even I don’t think I was prepared to have one of these moments when we went to see the newest MCU installment Thunderbolts* (and, yes, the asterisk is part of the title).

Usually these superhero movies conclude with a third act CGI slugfest. Although these special effects extravaganzas can be done well, there is an element of diminishing returns when it happens in nearly every single blockbuster movie. Thunderbolts* feints in the direction of a supervillain wreaking havoc upon a city, but then it zigs where you think it is going to zag.

Apr 20
Apr 20 What Happens Here Does Not Have the Final Word

Chris Cox

I have been struggling with a question these last few weeks: What does Easter look like inside a hospital? How does talk of hope and resurrection sound within a place where so many people die? (Parenthetically, this thought is somewhat unfair as hospitals are just as much places of life and healing as they are of death; people just don’t generally call chaplains for the celebratory stuff). Those abstract musings became more concrete this past week as a patient whom I have been following for several months suddenly and unexpectedly died.

Over the past seven months at the hospital, I have bore witness to a fair amount of death. I do not write that with any particular pride; it is simply an unavoidable part of where I work right now. All of the losses have touched me in different ways, but the one from this past week cut deeply. I spent many hours in this patient’s room talking with him or his wife. I met their children. I witnessed recovery, setbacks, recovery, and then ultimately loss. I care deeply for this family and I wish to God that this all could have turned out differently.

So what is resurrection in the face of grieving widows, crying daughters, and hopes cut down? All I have been able to grasp is admittedly not that original, but it is this: what happens in the hospital does not have the final word. This death, this heartache, this loss is not the end. That is the hope to which I cling. The empty tomb and love defeating death can sometimes be my only hope.

Apr 13

Apr 13 Palm Sunday

Chris Cox

One of the major theological shifts in my life occurred when I learned that the triumphal entry—this great parade of palms and hosannas—was a protest. Jesus rode a humble donkey instead of a war horse. He processed into town down the main way like a conquering general and yet it was the conqueror who would be conquered. Like all of his ministry, Palm Sunday was a challenge to how those around Jesus perceived the world; it is still an upside down contrast to how we assume things are presently.

You think that victory, freedom, and justice are delivered by political power or sword? I am going to show you another way.

Lots of people didn’t get it. Lots of Christians still don’t get it. Honestly, there are many days when I don’t get it.

U.S. History has always been one of my favorite subjects. Growing up in South Carolina, I had the privilege to go on field trips to important sites of the American Revolution like Kings Mountain, Cowpens, and Fort Moultrie. There was something about walking in the footsteps of freedom fighters that ignited my imagination. I realized early on that I could learn much from the past: both the events that fill our hearts with pride and those that cause us great shame. The latter is important too. I am, after all, a son of the American South.

Mar 19

Mar 19 To Liam on His Twelfth Birthday

Chris Cox

As I think about this last year, the first place my mind travels is out west. I envision you climbing rocks everywhere we went: the Oregon coast, Yosemite, Joshua Tree. If there was something to be explored, you were out there chasing after adventure. It was like your spirit was going to bust out wherever you went. As a parent, it was sometimes frightening. You have this knack for charging off without a sufficient amount of forethought. Yet there is this spark in that fearlessness that I hope ignites something amazing in you.

This has been a year of uncharted territory for you. You started middle school. You performed in your first school play. You hit bumps of anxiety. You continue to run deeper into adolescence. All of these treks have been exciting, scary, difficult, annoying, and life-giving for you. I can see the tug-of-war going on in you everyday between wanting to still be our little boy and wanting to be more independent. Even as you continue to pursue the latter, you will always be the former. Your mom and I will never stop caring for you or loving you.

Is it ridiculous that this is your last year before you’re a teenager? Of course it is. As I have told you and your brother many times when you try to bait me into an existential crisis by pointing out how old you are, I know how time works. Yet I can still close my eyes and see you as a baby or as a fedora-wearing toddler or this mischievous kid. There is a voice recording that has been on my phone for over nine years in which a three year old you tells a wonderful meandering story. I know how you got from there to here, but I would be lying to say that there is not a small pang that make me miss all that you have been.

Mar 5
Mar 5 Dust

Chris Cox

Ash Wednesday hits different in a hospital. “Remember you are dust and to dust you will return” seems painfully obvious in a place where so many people die. I half imagined a doctor or a nurse responding, “Yeah, I’m well aware.” This is a place where it would be hard to forget that we are dust.

I found myself wondering how different this remembrance would be in a church if the imposition of ashes was done not by pastors in robes and suits, but nurses in scrubs, doctors in lab coats, or children in hospital gowns. Would that be too over the top? At the very least it would be more difficult to shake the reality of our finitude and fragility.

For some of us, the fragility of life is not that far from our minds. Every news cycle can seem like another chaos monster careening out of control. And I realize not everyone feels that way. It’s getting a bit harder for me to understand why, but it is the reality whether I know why or not. Yet in the midst of this chaos, I take some solace in the fact that we are all dust.

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.

March 24, 2026

Blooming Broken Branches

In front of our house there is a branch that is barely hanging on to its tree. The limb is a casualty of the ice storm that tore Nashville earlier this year. As we cleaned up the debris afterwards, we tried to tear it off the tree as we did with a few other broken branches out front. But this branch was more stubborn than the others. So even though it is hanging on by a thread and nearly perpendicular with the ground, it remains as a reminder of a storm.

Now that branch is in bloom. Still hanging on by a thread, still touching the ground but now with flowers and the buds of leaves. It was a surprise at first. We did not really expect that branch to still be alive as it was barely connected to its source. But it is very much alive and now a symbol of beautiful tenacity. Even though it looks askew, I cannot imagine trying to rip that branch from its tree and I don’t think my sons would let me if I wanted to.