My earliest memories of church begin when my family and I moved to Spokane, WA when I was two. Our new church had a gigantic gymnasium in its basement – for a young child, it was heaven; it was the place in the church where things happened. Yes, there was something or other that happened on Sundays up in the sanctuary, but for the most part, I was never concerned with that. I was there for the gym. On... Read more
(UPDATE NOVEMBER 1, 2022: My book, Unmasking the Inner Critic: Lessons for Living an Unconstricted Life has now been released! You can check it out here.) Last week, I wrote about the importance of finding wisdom teachers who can guide us and challenge us in our life journey. After I finished writing, I realized it might be fun to put together the teachers who have had the largest impact on my evolving spirituality. So, here it is! I’ve organized them... Read more
As a high school teacher, I have the immense responsibility and privilege to mentor young people and support their emotional and academic growth and development. Every day is a new beginning – a new opportunity to model any number of things, including healthy behavior, characteristics of engaged adulting, and conflict resolution. (Oh, and to teach content!) Working with young people is an opportunity to provide a healthy adult they can rely on, someone outside their family with whom they... Read more
Many years ago I was on a retreat with a group of men here in the Pacific Northwest. It wasn’t a religious retreat, but we all had a sense of spiritual connection, whatever that meant for each of us individually. In the midst of this retreat, one of the group leaders offered to lead us in a “body practice” – something I had little to no experience with. I immediately thought of yoga or some form of meditative stretching. Both... Read more
Every once in a while, I stumble upon an organization or collective that opens me up and gives me hope for the world. It happened when I found the Center for Action and Contemplation. And then when I found the Mystic Soul Project and the Hive. A few months ago, I was navigating the terrain of Instagram when I found myself paused and looking at a page I hadn’t seen before: enfleshed. All over it were spiritual quotes: deeply body-positive,... Read more
At the beginning of 2020, I had the immense honor of speaking at the UMC LEAD Conference, mere months before our lives were upended by the COVID-19 Pandemic. I spoke on the impact of small group settings and communities with no idea that I would soon be unable to meet in those kinds of spaces for more than a year. During the event, I also had the chance to listen to my friend Jenny Smith present on embodying a “palms... Read more
A few weeks ago, I began to explore my evolving sense that an embodied spirituality is one in which we develop the capacity to become faithful questioners and social poets. And for the past week or so, we have really focused on the social poet aspect of this: how do we engage the world around us as social poets? Today, I’d like to explore the final sphere of influence – the social or societal sphere – and how we can... Read more
I recently wrote about spheres of influence here. It will give more context for this post! For many of us, the most obvious spheres of influence we operate within are our community spheres: our faith communities, workplaces, volunteer organizations, etc. Generally speaking, if we’re not alone or in our personal spheres of influence, we’re probably in our community ones. These are the areas of our life where we can make the largest impact and work toward justice daily,... Read more
This is part one of a three-part series. You can find part two here and part three here. For me, talking about politics and religion is a bit of a family tradition. Whenever we get together, it rarely takes more than 30 minutes before the conversation begins to weave together the political activities of the day and my dad’s latest religious and spiritual quandary. Ah, the sounds of home. I love that my family is so thoughtful and willing to... Read more
In 2014, I joined a political campaign as a volunteer and committed to spending my weeknights and weekends to doorknocking, asking for money, and placing yard signs all over the central district of Seattle. It was awesome. There was so much energy throughout the campaign, a hodgepodge of young 20-40 year olds running around with a sense of righteous purpose. Everything we did had an air of intensity because we all believed this one election could change everything. (And for... Read more
Becoming Faithful Questioners and Social Poets
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