I’ll confess, I only bought the album because I was curious and because I wanted one song; Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails. Cash had just died and I wanted to feel like I understood why people were mourning. I bought the cd, listened to it maybe a couple times and then put it away. Last week, when we were in Nashville, we decided to spend the morning before we hit the road at the Johnny Cash…

“The world will be saved by beauty.” It’s a quote from Dostoyevsky that I discovered through the work of Dorothy Day. As I was writing yesterday about anger it popped into my head and I can’t seem to let it go. I wrote this in my journal the other morning: I’m so tired of being angry and hurt and exhausted. We need something new. We need a new world and it needs to be beautiful. And filled with art. And…

Everything gets under my skin these days. The dude who cuts me off, the other dude who can’t seem to figure out how to merge, the person who doesn’t read the email I sent and then gets frustrated because they think they didn’t get the information from me, the lack of finances, the lack of time, the hot weather, the car windows that won’t roll down. I could go on and on (and on and on). But then I step…

It’s the toxicity that’s hardest to recover from. Both in my evangelical upbringing and also in my now ended marriage. It’s the little things; the way they make you doubt yourself. It’s the way they make you question whether your feelings are real or made up. It’s the way they make you feel like you are doing something wrong for simply existing. For wanting what you want. For wanting pleasure. It’s the way they make you rethink talking about pleasure…

I’m sitting in an Applebees trying to get my head together. It’s been a mindfuck of a day. I needed a break from people and expectations and everything else so after lunch I drove to a bookstore and browsed for a bit and then came here. As I’m sitting at the bar texting with friends and writing down some initial thoughts the music that is playing permeates my brain. The sound system is playing all music from the 90’s. Which…

The other week someone asked me, “How do you manage to get everything done?” Yes, it’s true I have a lot going on in my life: I work 30 hours a week as a Faith Formation director at a church, I co-run QueerTheology.com, I run Uprising Theatre Company, I try to write regularly for this site and continue writing plays. I have a girlfriend and friends and try to see them regularly. It’s a lot, for sure. At the moment…

Lately I’ve been finding myself in conversations with lots of new people and the question always rolls around, “So what brought you to Minneapolis?” I answer the same way every time, “A whim.” 
I expand a bit, of course: I had just finished graduate school and didn’t want to stay in New Jersey where I was living. I emailed everyone I knew out here and within in one day I had a place to stay and a temp job so…

Many of the comments I get from transgender folks who have come to see one of the shows I’ve written for Uprising boil down to this, “No one dies at the end.” They’re not being pithy or silly, this statement is one of deep relief. Of surprise. Of rejoicing. They have come to see a show, seen themselves on stage, and at the end they are still alive. It shouldn’t be an anomaly, but it is. I cannot tell you…

The silence of my hometown is like nowhere else I’ve ever been. In Minneapolis, where I live now, even on the quietest days there is still a pretty consistent level of noise. Neighbors calling out to one another, kids shrieking and laughing, the occasional sound of police sirens or ambulances, the ambient noise of traffic down the street. In my hometown when there is nothing going on it is silent. The kind of silence that has its own weight. 

I…

Cooking is one of my favorite forms of self care. I love to cook for myself, for my friends, for people I love. It’s a way of doing something with my hands and providing something comforting and nourishing for myself and others. But I am not, exactly, a clean cook. I mean I use clean cookware and utensils and I wash the veggies and my hands. But I also splatter sauce when I am stirring and sometimes pots boil over….