Saying yes

Sunrise from the beach in San Felipe For much of my life, I’ve been working toward something , striving to achieve a particular outcome, aspiring to climb the metaphorical ladder to the next level of my life, career, etc. Granted, my white, middle class background shaped this journey and imagery, offering a rough road map to follow about how to successfully scale upward. There was the educational path I followed: from homeschool to highschool to college to graduate school, where I pursued my Masters of Divinity. There was the relational path: date different people in highschool and college, then eventually get serious with one person, propose ( well, not quite that simple, but for brevity’s sake we’ll go with that ), get married (best decision ever!), and have children. Career wise, I moved from youth and young adult ministry, to serving as a full time minister (even though I wasn’t yet ordained), to a year long internship, to going into a national search process and being called as th...

I’m generally an optimist, but I often find that in moments where everything is FINE, if not GREAT, my mind finds worries to perseverate on.  Are my kids going to be okay? (usually at the top of the list), Do we have anything healthy for dinner (or any dinner at all) ,  Is it possible the tickle in my throat is Covid?  Isn’t it wrong to feel happy when people are suffering?  Some neuropsychologists call this the negativity bias.  It’s a way the mind trains itself to pay attention to what might go wrong as a means of protection from those possibilities.     This week we made it to the Baja Peninsula in Mexico.  Being at the beach is one of the most pleasurable experiences in my world.  The beach we are at exceeded my expectations- the vibrant aqua colors of the Sea of Cortez, the satisfyingly course yet smooth texture of the sand, the proximity of our RV to the beach,  the permeating warmth of the sun accompanied by pleasing breeze...

Our six year old is furiously shoveling sand to create a barrier between his slender, strong body and the small waves rolling in from the Sea of Cortez. We are in Baja Mexico and he’s borrowed a shovel from a friend and has built a foot high wall of sand that he is now sitting behind, looking quite comfortable and relaxed, as he awaits the waves. My wife and I have been observing him for a good chunk of the morning, but on the beach, time is irrelevant to him. He simply is. The beach is. The ocean is. And in this moment, he is the master of his domain, fully in control, sand piled high against the ocean. His confident posture indicates that the wall will hold, that he will triumph against the approaching waves. And he does triumph for a while, but then a portion of the wall collapses, as waves begin to lap against it. He adds reinforcements, trying to rebuild his supreme structure, his flawless design, his edifice worthy of appreciation, but the tide is unrelenting, the ocean ready to ...

Last spring, when we started looking for R.V.s for our “get free road trip” (as it would come to be known as), Juliana was armed with months of research on options, and she knew a good deal when she saw one. And we had found a good deal on a rig in Granite Falls, MN. We decided to check it out. There were other people interested in the rig as well, but because we had called first, they said they’d hold it for two days for us if we were serious. “We’re serious,” we said. (Seriously crazy, I thought to myself.) “Yes, we are interested in this home of metal, fiberglass, and yet to be fulfilled dreams. Yes. We’ll be back in two days with an R.V. inspector.” It was the end of April, and in a little under a month and a half,  I would be leaving my position at First Universalist Church, ready to drive into an unknown future living full time in an R.V. Yes to all of that! It turns out I love the “yes” that takes me/us to the edge of what we know, or think we know, or believe we have the ca...

  Here’s some numbers that tell (the partial) tale of our time on the road: 165 : Number of days we’ve been on the road. When we first launched, every morning we’d update the whiteboard on our fridge with the following info: Days on the Road, Destination, and Word of the Day. Now, we just do this on travel days.  $525 : The dollar amount of the ticket I received for a speeding in Tillamook County, Oregon, back in September. Some of you may know bits and pieces of this story. We were making our way down the Oregon Coast, when I was pulled over for doing 42 miles per hour in a school zone. The posted speed limit was 45, but the officer insisted the School Zone Light was flashing, as I was passing through. I never saw a flashing light and told the officer as much. Obviously, I couldn’t attend a physical trial, but via letter, I pleaded “Not Guilty.” Working with my entire legal team (my loving wife and child that was born a litigator), I mounted a solid defense, doing some detect...

  Very little water. Scorching sun. Summer temperatures well over 100 degrees. The truth is that Joshua Tree National Park, where the Mojave and the Colorado Deserts meet, is a oven for much of the year. And at first glance, the desert does looks barren, dry, dusty, dead - overheated and desiccated. But in reality, the desert is alive and it is asking something of those who venture into its moonscapes, washes, and badlands. The desert insists that you slow down, pay attention, and notice all of the ways that plants and animals have adapted, adjusted, and even learned to thrive in the desert. The desert is no lush rainforest. There aren’t bubbling brooks and moss covered trees. But the desert is remarkably alive, in still, quiet ways.   As we spent a day exploring Joshua Tree National Park, I thought about the “desert fathers and mothers,” religious people (hermits, monks, ascetics) who left the hustle and bustle of cities and lived in the Egyptian desert. There, they slow...