I (Still) Love You, Camp Ridgecrest

I’m only twenty miles away from Camp Ridgecrest, but it might as well be twenty dimensions. A bunch of foggy memories along with a million unformed, never-to-be ones. It’s a fog I can’t shake, follows my footsteps within and beyond the Blue Ridge. Am I crazy? Obsessed? Why does a camp have such a grip on me after all these years? It was one summer. One effing brutal beautiful summer. Why do I feel so much? Why do I hurt with a longing for what was and what wasn’t? And why do a bunch of entitled white southern Gen X Christian moms rake me to the core?

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I Am Not in Control

I have control issues. I have known this about myself for a little while now. Counseling has helped me see it more clearly, though I feel I’ve known this for many years prior. I don’t like being at the mercy of my circumstances. Especially the mercy of another human.

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Oops, My Readers Are My Friends Now

It’s been a wonderful thing, and it’s been a debilitating thing, all these Internet friends. On the one hand, the Internet has filtered out “real life,” so to speak, connecting me with the people I deeply want to connect with. People with common interests, common sexualities, common faiths, common cross-sections of all these things. And on the other hand, the Internet has totally spoiled “real life.” Real life relationships — or the hapless pursuit of them.

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Jesus Loves Me. This I Know?

Yes, Jesus loves me. For the Bible tells me so. But does he like me? Does he find me enjoyable? Why? Does he only “have” to love and like me because he’s Jesus? Furthermore, does his Church love me? Do they like me? Because so often I feel that they do not. That they just don’t have time for me. For my struggles and emotions.

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A Man of God I Am Not

Upstream, of course. I’ve always been swimming upstream. Against the current. The current of sexuality. The current of introversion. The current of inferiority. The current of separation. The current of brokenness and deficiency. The current of not being quite enough of a man, if even at all. Let alone a man of God.

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And to All a Good Riddance

As the grotesque mass of space garbage we call 2016 hurtles toward oblivion, people everywhere are cheering the prospect of a new year. Myself included. We’ve proclaimed this the worst year ever, what with a most bizarre election cycle, the deaths of numerous beloved celebrities, raging wildfires and natural disasters, and the opening of the […]

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North Carolina Never Disappoints

North Carolina has always been good to me. Well, I mean, there was that whole Ridgecrest debacle — but that only lasted a couple weeks. The rest of that 2012 summer quite literally changed the rest of my life. Then there was another North Carolinian summer in 2007 — that time me and my siblings took our first […]

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Road to Ridgecrest

Before hitting the road, I knew I’d be adding some vibrant new colors to my traveling palette. The Grand Canyon. Mount Rushmore. Vancouver. Before hitting the road, I knew I’d also be reuniting with some old familiar colors. Sweet Seattle. Old Milwaukee. A Pennsylvanian Eden. Among all the colorful locales on my #RunningTo itinerary, however, there probably wasn’t one as […]

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I’m Not at Camp this Summer

It didn’t fully hit me until two nights ago: I’m not at camp this summer. I remember feeling the weight of this strange reality early into last summer’s decision not to return to Camp Ridgecrest. Later in the summer, however, I remedied the restlessness of the situation by working and volunteering at not one, but two local camps. This summer is […]

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TMZ Reviews: “Camp”

“For the whole week, I couldn’t wait to go back to my real life, you know? Now I feel like my real life is fake and camp is real.” Last summer, I did not — much to my lingering chagrin — return to Camp Ridgecrest. Ridgecrest was that magical (though often daunting) land from the […]

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10 Struggles I’m Thankful For

In this warm season of friends and family and frozen foul that take days to thaw, it’s difficult, often harrowing, to acknowledge life’s less-than-stellar moments and espouse even a somewhat thankful spirit. And yet impossible though the task may seem, finding the song amid the chaos has produced such release and redemption in my life. […]

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“Struggle Central” Excerpt #4: Camp Ridgecrest Reignites the Struggle

Once again, it’s time for a sneak peak at my soon-to-be-published book, Struggle Central: Quarter-Life Confessions of a Messed Up Christian. If you’ve missed any of my other excerpts, check out my struggles on shame in high school, loneliness at church, and my first harrowing steps into my current church community in California. Today’s Struggle Sunday excerpt takes […]

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Goodbye, Camp Ridgecrest

Dear Camp Ridgecrest: For seven months, the surface of my laptop has worn a sticker of your name; coffee shop sojourners 2,500 miles west of your borders see it everyday. For seven months of routine mornings, I slipped on a blue bracelet etched with the Indian name you gave me. A name nobody but you […]

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When Words Won’t Come

I haven’t posted in two weeks. An empty blogless stretch unmatched on this site since…never. It’s never happened; I always have something to say. Something to write. I write about my life. My faith. I write about struggle. I write about my favorite music or my latest quirky observation of the world. I write about […]

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Eastward Ho! The Grand Finale

I’ve been eastward ho-ing on this blog for ages, it seems. A nice parallel to my ever-winding trip itself. I truly can’t put into words (or video) the impact this road trip had and still affects on my life. From Vegas to Chicago to Pennsylvania and everything in between, my appetite for new and nostalgic […]

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The End is the End

I was preparing to leave. Been salivating over the blissful thought the entire fourth session. Would I be sad to leave this magical place? Had I experienced countless blessed moments? Certainly. But I was exhausted. Wearily spun into emotionally seasick circles. Then a funny thing happened on the way to the life boat. I describe […]

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The End is the Beginning

This “final” session at camp was a doozy. I utilize quotation marks for reasons to be revealed later. Probably at the end. It was certainly the most exhausting session of the summer, and at times the most defeating. Coming off a near-perfect session, it was inevitable that this session just wouldn’t compare. Simply wouldn’t stack […]

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A Most Incredible Devastation

My third session at camp now resides in the books, and it’s with legitimate sadness that I type this recap, because this session – these precious kids – rocked my world. And now it’s over. Now they’re gone. My role as “camp counselor” took on elevated meaning and purpose as nine incredible Tennesseeans flooded my […]

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When Boys Become Men

My goal going into the summer was to post a blog every single week about my life at camp. I quickly realized that a new post every single week was simply going to be impossible. Since my camp runs in two-week sessions, I figured a post every other week would be more feasible. I succeeded […]

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Repetitive Rains and New Names

I’ve been at camp for two weeks, and the first group of boys have returned home. Time to tell the tale of session one… The Arrival Waking up on Opening Day, I was incredibly anxious. I’d just endured two emotionally draining weeks of training, and this was what it was actually all about: the kids. […]

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Jesus Hit Me

I’M AT CAMP. And finally, I’ve got a chance to report what’s been going on these last couple weeks. Excited to share my experience with y’all this summer! During camp training, it was engrained within all the counselors that we, under no circumstances, were to ever hit a child. They said nothing about Jesus hitting […]

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Struggle Sunday: I’m Not Worthy

I recently spoke in church. Like…big-people church. Not children’s church or Sunday School or the nursery. It’s about as insane a claim as my slam-dunking over Shaq. At the start of the year I’d have given greater odds to becoming LeBron Tom than Pastor Tom. But God’s been challenging me this year. Calling me out […]

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A Week for the Ages

Remember that Full House episode when our beloved Uncle Joey strikes it big by getting free cable, winning a radio contest, and ultimately landing the heralded “Ranger Joe” TV gig? In his excitement he sent a “hug-o-gram” to the retiring Ranger Roy, only to uncover afterward that the exiting ranger had a physical condition that […]

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Names on the Horizon

I have a thing for names. That novel I’ve written but haven’t published yet? All about names. Names are huge. People were named in the Bible and it meant something. Something far more significant than what you write at the top of tests. Your name was your identity, encapsulating everything about you. Nowadays most people […]

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